Tribute to Florence Nightingale by the Countess of Lovelace—Outbreak of the Crimean War—Distressing Condition of the Sick and Wounded—Mr. W. H. Russell’s Letters to The Times—Call for Women Nurses—Mr. Sidney Herbert’s Letter to Miss Nightingale—She offers her Services.
Before the more heroic elements in Florence Nightingale’s character had been evoked by the events of the Crimean War, her intimate friends had begun to regard her as a woman for whom the future held some great destiny. This was strikingly shown in a poem by Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the daughter of Byron, who described the future heroine of the Crimea in a poem entitled A Portrait from Life. She draws the picture of her slender form, her “grave but large and lucid eye,” her “peaceful, placid loveliness,” refers to her love of books, her “soft, silvery voice” and delight in singing sacred songs—
and in a concluding verse Lady Lovelace makes the following remarkable prophecy:—
The “war’s dread strife” which, in fulfilment of the poet’s intuition, was to lift Florence Nightingale into “undying fame,” began in the early spring of 1854. An outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Russia had been impending for some months. Russia made no reply to the ultimatum sent by Great Britain, and on March 27th, 1854, the Queen’s Message to Parliament announced that the negotiations were broken off with Russia and she felt bound to give aid to the Sultan of Turkey. The following day, March 28th, Her Majesty’s formal declaration of war was read amid scenes of excitement and enthusiasm from the steps of the Royal Exchange.
France was England’s ally for the protection of Turkey against Russian aggression, and vigorous preparations for the campaign proceeded on either side of the Channel.
A few days after the declaration of war, the English fleet, under the command of the gallant Sir Charles Napier, sailed for the Baltic, speeded on its way by thousands of cheering spectators and by the Queen and Prince Consort, who came in their yacht, the Fairy, to take leave of the officers and men. The eyes of elderly people still beam and brighten if one mentions this memorable sailing of the fleet for the Baltic. It was then forty years since Wellington had returned victorious from Waterloo, and the blood of the nation was up for another fight. Time had deadened the memory of the horrors and suffering which war entails: only a thirst for glory and conquest remained. The whole nation echoed the words of Napier to his men: “Lads, war is declared. We are to meet a bold and numerous enemy. Should they offer us battle, you know how to dispose of them. Should they remain in port, we must try to get at them. Success depends upon the quickness and decision of your fire. Lads, sharpen your cutlasses, and the day is ours.”
SIDNEY, LORD HERBERT OF LEA.
[To face p. 96.
In due time tidings came of the victory of Alma. But alas for the brave “lads,” for the news came too of the wounded lying uncared for, the sick untended, the dying unconsoled. In the midst of the nation’s rejoicings at victory a cry of indignation arose on behalf of her soldiers.
There had been gross neglect in the war administration, and the commissariat had broken down. Food, clothing, and comforts had been stowed in the hold of vessels beneath ammunition and could not be got at when required, while other stores rotted on the shores of the Bosphorus while awaiting delivery. Not only were food and clothing lamentably scarce, but the surgeons were often without even lint and bandages, to say nothing of other requisites for ambulance and hospital work. “The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting,” wrote The Times war correspondent, William Howard Russell, “there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness, the stench is appalling; ... and for all I can observe, the men die without the least effort to save them. There they lie just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor fellows, the comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them.”
The staff of army doctors was insufficient to deal with the wounded, which after the battles of Alma and Inkerman accumulated in appalling numbers, and there were no nurses except the untrained male orderlies, many of whom were only a little less sick than those whom they were supposed to tend. There was no woman’s hand to soothe the fevered brow, administer nourishment, perform the various little offices for the sick, and console the dying.
The untended and uncared-for state of our own soldiers was rendered more conspicuous by the humane system which prevailed amongst our French allies. In camp and hospital sisters of mercy glided from stretcher to stretcher, and from bed to bed, administering food and help to the wounded. In their convent homes all over France they had been trained in the work of sick nursing, and their holy vocations did not prevent them from going forth to the scene of battle.
Soon came the appeal which roused Englishwomen and their country to a sense of duty, and the honour of uttering it belongs to Mr. (later Sir) William Howard Russell, the veteran war correspondent, then representing The Times at the seat of war. After describing the suffering which he had witnessed amongst the sick and wounded soldiers, he raised the clarion note:—
“Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals at Scutari? Are none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy?... France has sent forth her sisters of mercy unsparingly, and they are even now by the bedsides of the wounded and the dying, giving what woman’s hand alone can give of comfort and relief.... Must we fall so far below the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness, in a work which Christ so signally blesses as done unto Himself? ‘I was sick and ye visited Me.’”
The wives of officers at the seat of war sent home harrowing accounts of the distress amongst the wounded and the futility of their own efforts to cope with it. “Could you see the scenes that we are daily witnessing,” wrote one lady to her friends, “you would indeed be distressed. I am still in barracks, but the sick are now lying in the passages, within a few yards of my room. Every corner is filled up with the sick and wounded. However, I am enabled to do some little good, and I hope I shall not be obliged to leave just yet. My time is occupied in cooking for the wounded. Three doors from me there is an officer’s wife who devotes herself to cooking for the sick. There are no female nurses here, which decidedly there ought to be. The French have sent fifty sisters of mercy, who, we need hardly say, are devoted to the work. We are glad to hear that some efforts are being made at home.”
The reason why female nurses had not been sent out at the beginning of the war was explained by the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for War, when he gave evidence before Mr. Roebuck’s Commission, which sat in 1855 to inquire into the conduct of the campaign, and it is of interest to quote the evidence as it so exactly explains the train of circumstances which led to Miss Nightingale’s appointment. Asked “When did you first determine on sending nurses to Scutari?” the Duke replied:—
“The employment of nurses in the hospital at Scutari was mooted in this country, at an early stage before the army left this country, but it was not liked by the military authorities. It had been tried on former occasions. The class of women employed as nurses had been very much addicted to drinking, and they were found even more callous to the sufferings of soldiers in hospitals than men would have been. Subsequently, in consequence of letters in the public press, and of recommendations made by gentlemen who had returned to this country from Scutari, we began to consider the subject of employing nurses. The difficulty was to get a lady to take in hand the charge of superintending and directing a body of nurses. After having seen one or two I almost despaired of the practicability of the matter until Mr. Sidney Herbert suggested Miss Nightingale, with whom he had been previously acquainted, for the work, and that lady eventually undertook it.”
Here we have the difficulty of the situation revealed. The nurses hitherto employed in military hospitals had been of a coarse, low character. They had neither education, training, nor sympathy for their work. To compare them to “Sairey Gamp” would be an insult to that immortal lady’s memory, for she had her good points and a certain professional knowledge and respectability to maintain, while the average soldiers’ nurse was little more than a mere camp follower. On the other hand were the good, kindly ladies who felt that they had a vocation for nursing, but, alas! were absolutely devoid of training and incapable of organising and controlling subordinates. Between these two impossible classes the war authorities had come to the conclusion that the army in the Crimea would be better without female nurses.
The rousing appeal to the women of the country from Mr. Russell, The Times correspondent, already quoted, had the effect of inundating the authorities with applications from women of all classes who, moved by the harrowing accounts of the suffering soldiers, were anxious to go out as nurses. The offers of help were bewilderingly numerous, but there was no organisation and no leader.
Mr. Sidney Herbert was at the head of the War Department, and, in the midst of the excitement and general futility of things, his thoughts naturally turned to his honoured friend, Florence Nightingale. In his opinion she was the “one woman” in England who was fitted by position, knowledge, training, and character to organise a nursing staff and take them out to the aid of the suffering soldiers. He had, as we have already seen, an intimate personal knowledge of Miss Nightingale, was aware of the thorough and systematic study which she had for some years been giving to hospital nursing at home and abroad, and he knew also of the organising skill which she had been recently displaying in the management of the Harley Street Home for Sick Governesses. Mrs. Herbert, a lady of great insight and knowledge, felt with her husband that if Miss Nightingale could be induced to undertake the hazardous task of organising a band of military nurses, the success of the scheme would be ensured.
But Mr. and Mrs. Herbert had a natural hesitation in making such a suggestion. It was tantamount to asking their dear friend to go out with her life in her hands, as well as to brave the adverse criticism of a large number of short-sighted but well-meaning people, who would lift up their hands in protest at the idea of a lady of birth and breeding going out to nurse the common soldier. Poor “Tommy” had a worse character then than now.
It was clear to Mr. Herbert that if Miss Nightingale were to be asked to undertake this work, she must be placed in an undisputed position of authority and supported by the Government. Everything depended on having a recognised head. To allow bands of lady nurses to start for the seat of war, each carrying out their pet and immature notions on hospital work, would have been futile and useless. To send them to Scutari and place them under the control of the authorities then in charge of the hospital, would have defeated the chief object of the plan, which was to reform and amend the existing order of nursing prevailing at the hospital. Neither was it likely that so shrewd and capable a woman as Miss Nightingale would consent to organise a new nursing system—for it practically amounted to that—unless she was guaranteed a position of undisputed authority. How necessary that was to the success of the enterprise after events fully proved.
Fortunately, Sidney Herbert was a statesman in a position to influence his colleagues in the Government, and his recommendation of Miss Nightingale as a lady fully qualified to perform the task of Superintendent of Nurses for the Crimea was received with approval, and indeed with a sense of relief. Here was the woman whom distraught Ministers had been vainly looking for amidst the motley throng of the unfit. When things were so far arranged, Sidney Herbert addressed the following letter to his friend:—
“October 15th, 1854.
“Dear Miss Nightingale,—
“You will have seen in the papers that there is a great deficiency of nurses at the hospital of Scutari. The other alleged deficiencies—namely, of medical men, lint, sheets, etc.—must, if they ever existed, have been remedied ere this, as the number of medical officers with the army amounted to one to every ninety-five men in the whole force, being nearly double what we have ever had before; and thirty more surgeons went out there three weeks ago, and must by this time, therefore, be at Constantinople. A further supply went on Monday, and a fresh batch sail next week. As to medical stores, they have been sent out in profusion, by the ton weight—fifteen thousand pairs of sheets, medicine, wine, arrowroot in the same proportion; and the only way of accounting for the deficiency at Scutari, if it exists, is that the mass of the stores went to Varna, and had not been sent back when the army left for the Crimea, but four days would have remedied that.
“In the meanwhile, stores are arriving, but the deficiency of female nurses is undoubted; none but male nurses have ever been admitted to military hospitals. It would be impossible to carry about a large staff of female nurses with an army in the field. But at Scutari, having now a fixed hospital, no military reason exists against the introduction, and I am confident they might be introduced with great benefit, for hospital orderlies must be very rough hands, and most of them, on such an occasion as this, very inexperienced ones. I receive numbers of offers from ladies to go out, but they are ladies who have no conception of what a hospital is, nor of the nature of its duties; and they would, when the time came, either recoil from the work or be entirely useless, and consequently, what is worse, entirely in the way; nor would those ladies probably even understand the necessity, especially in a military hospital, of strict obedience to rule....”
Mr. Sidney Herbert then proceeds to name certain people who were anxious to organise and send out nurses, but about whose capability for the work he is in doubt. The letter then continues:—
“There is but one person in England that I know of who would be capable of organising and superintending such a scheme, and I have been several times on the point of asking you hypothetically if, supposing the attempt were made, you would undertake to direct it. The selection of the rank and file of nurses would be difficult—no one knows that better than yourself. The difficulty of finding women equal to a task after all full of horror, and requiring, besides knowledge and goodwill, great knowledge and great courage, will be great; the task of ruling them and introducing system among them great, and not the least will be the difficulty of making the whole work smoothly with the medical and military authorities out there. This it is which makes it so important that the experiment should be carried out by one with administrative capacity and experience.
“A number of sentimental enthusiastic ladies turned loose in the hospital at Scutari would probably, after a few days, be mises à la porte by those whose business they would interrupt, and whose authority they would dispute. My question simply is, Would you listen to the request to go out and supervise the whole thing? You would, of course, have plenary authority over all the nurses, and I think I could secure you the fullest assistance and co-operation from the medical staff, and you would also have an unlimited power of drawing on the Government for whatever you think requisite for the success of your mission....
“I do not say one word to press you,” continues Mr. Sidney Herbert, and then proceeds to pay a tribute to Miss Nightingale’s capabilities for filling a public post at an hour of crisis such as no responsible Minister of a Government had ever paid to a woman before, or indeed since.
“I must not conceal from you,” he continues, “that upon your decision will depend the ultimate success or failure of the plan. Your own personal qualities, your knowledge, and your power of administration, and, among greater things, your rank and position in society, give you advantages in such a work which no other person possesses. If this succeeds, an enormous amount of good will be done now, and to persons deserving everything at our hands; and which will multiply the good to all time.
“I hardly like to be sanguine as to your answer. If it were yes, I am certain the Bracebridges would go with you, and give you all the comforts you would require, and which her [Mrs. Bracebridge’s] society and sympathy only could give you. I have written very long, for the subject is very near my heart. Liz [Mrs. Sidney Herbert] is writing to our mutual friend Mrs. Bracebridge, to tell her what I am doing. I go back to town to-morrow morning. Shall I come to you between three and five? Will you let me have a line at the War Office, to let me know?
“There is one point which I have hardly a right to touch upon, but I trust you will pardon me. If you were inclined to undertake the great work, would Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale consent? The work would be so national, and the request made to you proceeding from the Government, your position would ensure the respect and consideration of every one, especially in a service where official rank carries so much weight. This would secure you any attention or comfort on your way out there, together with a complete submission to your orders. I know these things are a matter of indifference to you, except as far as they may further the great object you may have in view, but they are of importance in themselves, and of every importance to those who have a right to take an interest in your personal position and comfort. I know you will come to a right and wise decision. God grant it may be one in accordance with my hopes.
“Believe me, dear Miss Nightingale,
“Ever yours,
“Sidney Herbert.”
Meantime the “one woman in all England” deemed worthy of this high trust was in the quietude of her country home pondering over the stirring words of Mr. Russell, The Times correspondent: “Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers in the hospitals of Scutari?” Each morning the newspapers revealed fresh sufferings and privations amongst the stricken soldiers, and the cries for help grew more importunate. Florence Nightingale was not the woman to listen in vain, and ere the sun had faded away behind the beech-trees on that memorable 15th of October, she had written to Mr. Sidney Herbert offering her services in the hospitals at Scutari.
Her letter crossed that of Mr. Herbert, of which she was in complete ignorance. The unique circumstance gives a rounded completeness to the call of Florence Nightingale which came as the voice of God speaking through her tender woman’s heart.