A Credit to her gender.

The Duchess and her Ambulance Brigade.

(The extraordinary exploits of the Dowager, Duchess of Sutherland and her band of nurses.)

In 1914, within days of the outbreak of the First World War, Millicent the Duchess of Sutherland, had formed her own Ambulance brigade, recruited 30 young nurses, and set off to tend the wounded soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, in Belgium.
Soon after their arrival, however, these gentle English ladies found themselves behind enemy lines, the Germans had moved much quicker than anyone had predicted.

This small technicality was no obstacle to the Duchess.
She drove her 20 ambulances to German Military Headquarters in occupied Belgium and demanded to see the commanding General, who, it transpired, she'd entertained before the war.
She left that extraordinary meeting in the General's chauffeur driven car, having secured unimpeded travel throughout German occupied Belgium and France, for her and her ambulance brigade.

After several months of exceptional service and sacrifice behind enemy lines, tending the wounded from both sides, they were finally evicted from occupied Belgium.
Her account of that amazing few months, with her team of nurses, taken straight from middle class Edwardian England, is breathtaking.
Nothing in their wildest dreams could have prepared them for horrors that awaited them.

Almost overnight these fragile young English flowers became seasoned, compassionate nurses, tending thousands of horribly wounded soldiers.

Within a month of her eviction, this formidable English Lady was back in France where she established one of the First World War's busiest hospitals.

Every year the people of Belgium and France celebrate their extraordinary exploits. The grateful inhabitants of this part of Europe have bestowed their highest honours upon this unlikely aristocrat and her brave young nurses.

These remarkable English Women have become an important part of Flemish folklore.

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