Commemoration - 13th of March 2016

Parishioners and guests at Serbian Orthodox Church Saint Sava in London gathered to commemorate the life of more than a thousand of women who risked and sacrificed their lives in various medical missions in Serbia during the Great War.

Memorial service, led by Father Dragan Lazic and Father Luka Novakovic, honoured:

• Lady Leila Paget
• Mabel Stobart
• Flora Sandes
• Elizabeth Ross
• Elsie Inglis
• Katharine MacPhail
• Isabel Emslie Hutton
• Evelina Haverfield
• Olive King and other members of Scottish Women's Hospitals (more than thousand)

This list Roll of Honour is not complete and more names will be added as the research progresses. More importantly, the list combines women from various organizations.

From Scottish Women's Hospitals: Madge Neil Fraser (1915 Serbia - typhus), Louisa Jordan (1915 Serbia - typhus), Augusta Minshull (1915 Serbia - typhus), Bessie Sutherland, (1915 Serbia - typhus), Caroline Toughill (1915 on the retreat ), Mary Gray (1916 France), Mary Burt (1916 Greece - buried at Military Cemetery at Thessaloniki), Alice Guy (1916 Greece), Olive Smith (1916 Greece), Florence Caton (1917 Greece), Dr Elsie Inglis (1917 in Britain - one day after she returned with her last hospital from Russia), Matilda McDowell (1918 Macedonia), Teresa Fannin (1918 on route to Royaumont ship was torpedoed in the Irish sea), Elsie Underwood (1918 France), Agnes Earl (1918 Serbia), Evelina Haverfield (1920 Serbia - Bajina Basta), and from other organizations - Dr Elizabeth Ross (1915 Serbia - First Reserve Military Hospital, Kragujevac - typhus), Mabel Dearmer (1915 Serbia - Stobart Hospital, Kragujevac - typhus), Lorna Ferris (1915 Serbia - Stobart Hospital, Kragujevac - typhus), Katharine Harley (1917 Macedonia - formerly SWH, a nurse for the Serbian Army helping civilians in Monastir (Bitola) - buried at Military Cemetery at Thessaloniki ).

In his speech Father Dragan Lazic particularly remembered Lady Leila Paget, whereas Zvezdana Popovic gave more general talk about the British women in medical missions during the Great War in Serbia and how it happened that these women found themselves there.

When, in August 1914 Dr Elsie Inglis and NUWSS offered to the British army a hospital staffed completely with women, to follow them to the Western Front, and help the war effort in that way, they were refused.

These women believed that their bravery, medical knowledge, professionalism, determination and patriotism, would be rewarded after the war with the right to vote, at least. Undeterred by the War Office refusal, they offered help to France, Belgium and Serbia, and they all accepted it. Ten out of 14 Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service were in Serbia or on the related fronts. In the struggle for women's rights and prevented to prove themselves in their own country, these women established their full reputation in helping the Serbian people.

This is the answer to the question - why did they come to Serbia?

1915 brought typhus epidemic in Serbia. During the Great War 22 female members of British missions died in Serbia of typhus, in Valjevo, Nis and Kragujevac. Dr Elizabeth Ross, who took charge in military hospital for typhus patients in Kragujevac died on her 37th birthday - 14th February 1915. She became a symbol of this sacrifice. At the same time, we cannot forget Serbian doctors and nurses who died of typhus in 1915, like Nadezda Petrovic, so in this memorial service we remember them as well.

Several of our heroines, Lady Paget, Mabel Stobart, Katherine MacPhail, survived that horrific illness.

Apart from 17 British medical units in Serbia in the summer 1915, there were Russian, American, Canadian and French medical missions and numerous independent medical women and relief workers who came out of their own initiative and were attached to Serbian hospitals and relief organisations. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to talk more about these medical missions as well.

It would be wrong to remember only those who died in Serbia; only those whose graves are in Kragujevac, Valjevo, Bajina Basta or Nis. What about those who survived the perils of Serbia and died in Greece or France? What about those who lived long lives, like ambulance drivers Elsie Cameron Corbet and Australian Olive May King? For their bravery they were decorated in Serbia. We remember "old ladies from Dubrovnik" - Miss Maw and Miss Rankin, who established the orphanage in Nis after the Great War, stayed and after the Second World War moved to Dubrovnik. Finally, we cannot forget Flora Sandes and Serbian women soldiers - like Milunka Savic or Sofija Jovanovic.

Therefore, in the commemoration we are remembering all the women who risked and sacrificed their lives in Serbia and on the related fronts during the Great War, whilst also remembering those who continued to support the Serbs even after the war had ended, most significantly, Lady Paget.

Zvezdana Popovic