Women as Veterans in Britain and France after the First World War Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare Series

This is the story of how women in France and Britain between 1915 and 1933 appropriated the cultural identity of female war veteran in order to have greater access to public life and a voice in a political climate in which women were rarely heard on the public stage. The 'veterans' covered by this history include former nurses, charity workers, secret service agents and members of resistance networks in occupied territory, as well as members of the British auxiliary corps. What unites these women is how they attempted to present themselves as 'female veterans' in order to gain social advantages and give themselves the right to speak about the war and its legacies. Alison S. Fell also considers the limits of the identity of war veteran for women, considering as an example the wartime and post-war experiences of the female industrial workers who led episodes of industrial action.

Introduction: back to the front: women as veterans; 1. Women as veterans in the commemorative landscapes of interwar Britain and France; 2. The afterlives of First World War heroines; 3. 'That glorious comradeship': female veteran groups in the 1920s; 4. Writing as a veteran: women's war memoirs; 5. Women's wartime industrial action and the limits of female veteran identity; Conclusion.

Alison S. Fell is Professor of French Cultural History at the University of Leeds and Director of the Leeds Humanities Research Centre. She is Co-Investigator of the Gateways to the First World War AHRC First World Public Engagement Centre. She regularly acts as a historical consultant and interviewee for television and radio, including the Woman's Hour drama The Camel Hospital and the BBC's The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire.