Flora Sandes

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Flora Sandes
A half-length photo of a woman in military uniform standing with her hands behind her back. She wears a hat and a medal and faces to the left.
Flora Sandes convalescing in Salonika, Greece
Born 1876
Nether Poppleton, Yorkshire, England
Died 1955
Suffolk, England
Allegiance Serbia Kingdom of Serbia
Service/branch Standard of the Serbian Armed Forces (front).svg Serbian Army
Years of service 1914 - 1922
Rank Captain
Battles/wars

World War I
Awards Order of the Karađorđe's Star

Flora Sandes (22 January 1876–1955) was a British Red Cross volunteer who became the first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the Serbian army and the only British woman to officially enlist as a soldier in World War I.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Flora Sandes was born on 22 January 1876 in Nether Poppleton, Yorkshire, the youngest daughter of an Irish family who moved to Marlesford in Suffolk when Sandes was nine years old.[1][2][3] Her father was Samuel Dickson Sandes (1822–1914), the former rector of Whitchurch, County Cork and her mother was Sophia Julia (née Besnard).[3][4] As a child she was educated by a governess.[4] She enjoyed riding and shooting and said that she wished she had been born a boy.[5] She learned to drive, and drove an old French racing car.[5] She took a job as a secretary.[5] In her spare time Sandes trained with the Ladies' Nursing Yeomanry, learning first aid, and at the onset of the First World War was one of the first to volunteer to become a nurse.[6] She was rejected due to a lack of qualifications.

[edit] Military career

In 1914, Sandes joined a St. John Ambulance unit raised by American nurse Mabel Grouitch, and on 12 August 1914, she left England for Serbia with a group of 36 women to try and aid the humanitarian crises there.[3][5][7] They arrived at the town of Kragujevac which was the base for the Serbian forces fighting against the Austro-Hungarian offensive.[8] Sandes joined the Serbian Red Cross and worked in an ambulance for the Second Infantry Regiment of the Serbian Army.[3] During the retreat into Albania, Sandes was separated from her unit and joined a Serbian regiment for safety, becoming the first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the Serbian army and the only British woman to officially enrol as a soldier in World War I.[9][10] She quickly advanced to the rank of Corporal.[5] In 1916, during the Serbian advance on Bitola (Monastir), Sandes was seriously wounded by a grenade in hand to hand combat.[5] She subsequently received the highest decoration of the Serbian Military, the Order of the Karađorđe's Star.[10] At the same time, she was promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major.[7] Also in 1916, Sandes published her autobiography, An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army, based on her letters and diaries. She used this account to help her raise funds for the Serbian Army.[11] With Evelina Haverfield she founded the Hon. Evelina Haverfield's and Sert-Major Flora Sandes' Fund for Promoting Comforts for Serbian Soldiers and Prisoners.[12] Unable to continue fighting due to her injury, she spent the remainder of the war running a hospital.[13] She was in active service until 1922.[10]

[edit] Later life

In 1927, Sandes married Yurie Yudenich, a fellow officer and former White Army general.[1] During the Second World War, they were interned by the German Army.[10] After retiring from the army, Sandes lectured extensively on her wartime experiences in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada and the United States. She wore her military uniform while delivering her lectures.[14] Yudendich died in 1941 and Sandes returned to England.[1] As per R. Mitchell,[15] Sandes' ill husband was imprisoned by Germans, then removed to a hospital, where he died soon after. Sandes was put also in the main Gestapo prison in Belgrade (where she was allowed to see her husband before his death) from which she was released soon after the death of her husband. She spent the last years of her life in Suffolk and died in 1955.[10] Her autobiography was later novelised as The Lovely Sergeant (Flora Sandes) in 1963 by Alan Burgess.

"The officer in charge showed me how to fire off one of the guns when he gave the word, and let me take the place of the man who had been doing it as long as we stayed there."[16]

[edit] Bibliography

  • 1916: An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army
  • 1927: The Autobiography of a Woman Soldier: A Brief Record of Adventure with the Serbian Army 1916–1919

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Wheelwright, Julie (1989). Amazons and Military Maids. Pandora. ISBN 0044403569. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TngjHgAACAAJ&d. 
  2. ^ Twinch, Carol. The Little Book of Suffolk. Breedon Books. ISBN 1859835872. 
  3. ^ a b c d Taylor & Francis Group (2003). A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Routledge. pp. 383. ISBN 1857432282. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pDtEe4FKolUC. 
  4. ^ a b Wheelwright, Julie (2004). "Yudenitch, Flora Sandes (1876–1956)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49662. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49662. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f Hazen, Walter A. (2006). Everyday Life. Good Year Books. pp. 61. ISBN 1596470747. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1ib-zK8OEBQC. 
  6. ^ Allcock, John B.; Antonia Young (2000). Black Lambs & Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans. Berghahn Books. pp. 91. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0e1dOvQUgckC. 
  7. ^ a b Jones, David E. (2000). Women Warriors: A History. Brassey's. pp. 134. ISBN 1574882066. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dDqi1AIYunwC. 
  8. ^ Davies, Norman (1996). Europe: A History. Oxford University Press. pp. 908. ISBN 0198201710. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jrVW9W9eiYMC. 
  9. ^ Bourke, Joanna (3 January 2002). "Women and the Military during World War One". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/histor/british/britain_wwone/women_combatants_01.shtml. Retrieved 29 March 2008. 
  10. ^ a b c d e Condell, Diana; Jean Liddiard (1987). Working for Victory?: Images of Women in the First World War, 1914-18. Routledge. pp. 41. ISBN 0710209746. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=r5g9AAAAIAAJ. 
  11. ^ Smith, Angela K. (2000). The Second Battlefield: Women, Modernism and the First World War. Manchester University Press. pp. 52. ISBN 0719053013. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_JR368KHzHMC. 
  12. ^ Crawford, Elizabeth (1999). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. pp. 280. ISBN 0415239265. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eIzLissZmscC. 
  13. ^ "History — Fact Files — Flora Sandes". BBC. 28 January 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/home_front/women_at_war_fact_file.shtml. Retrieved 30 March 2008. 
  14. ^ Cromwell, Jason (1999). Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities. University of Illinois Press. pp. 65. ISBN 0252068254. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0G--BowVYg8C. 
  15. ^ The Serbs choose war by Ruth Mitchell, Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, N.Y. 1943 page 192
  16. ^ Sandes, Flora (1916). An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army. Hodder and Stoughton. 
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