European Women at War (1914-1918)

Abstract

Working in agriculture and industry, as nurses with the Red Cross, or helping as auxiliaries in the Army, women are to many the unknown and unpraysed he- roes of the First World War. Their contribution to the war effort, sufferings and trauma have been ignored by governments at the time, and covered by the Great Deeds of politicians and generals, and the deafening noise of the great, heroic battles. From this perspective, the Romanian case is a paradigmatic one. Using the models developed by Gill Thomas and Maria Bucur, the present study investigates the participation of Western and Romanian women at war as reflected in documents, media, diaries. Following this, asymetric compari- son will help underline the similarities and differences between the ”home front” in England, France and Germany on one hand, and Romania on the other hand. Women emancipation, pacifism, socialism, feminism, war, trauma, and memory; are but a few issues introduced with this study. My intention was not to write a ”herstory”, defending women, and providing heroines, but to open a new, unexplored area of research that is too often considered unimpor- tant or un-accessible. The main purpose was to analyse the impact of interven- tionist state policies on women life, and to reveal some European, and national outcomes of it. In this sense, the Great War represented an excellent case.