23 - Women's Wartime Services Under the Cross

Summary

Mobilization for war in Germany in August 1914 involved civilians from the start. An extensive network of women's and men's associations under the Red Cross responded to the call to arms starting August 2, day one of the military's mobilization calendar. These civilians had a well-defined place in the overall plan for war - not as individuals, to be sure, but as certified members of state-directed organizations and corporations. The first week of August thus saw a flurry of activity that drew the home front into service for the military front - although these complex relationships were refined and redesigned as the war dragged on. This deepening interdependency is a key for understanding the limits of “total war” in Germany.

In Baden events moved extremely swiftly in those heady days of early August (and the Baden experience was duplicated, more or less fully, in the other states of the Kaiserreich). Baden residents awoke to the urgent public call of their state Red Cross organization (Landesverein), evoking the memory of 1870-1 that long had guided German thinking about war. The state organization announced that it was immediately sending to the front 140 Red Cross nurses and 500 medical orderlies already prepared to aid the Fourteenth Army Corps, the Baden contingent in the military command structure of the Reich. But it stressed that its main work was at home, providing necessary medical support in a range of contexts in the state itself, and it singled out Baden's Women's Association (Frauen- Verein) as central to this vital effort. “The women's association will justify the privileges given to them by their highest protectress [Luise, the duchess of Baden] in the glorious days of 1870—1,” and now work diligently to provide quality medical care at home.