Revealed, incredible tale of the cook who became a WWI hero
Chance find in museum uncovers epic journey
IT was August 1916, the height of the First World War – and Mary Lee Milne was preparing to embark as a volunteer cook with the Scottish Women’s Hospital.
She had recently lost her husband, a Church of Scotland minister, and she wanted to bring hope and comfort to troops in a foreign land.
But Mrs Milne could never have imagined what lay ahead.
During her service, she became caught up in the Russian Revolution and was pushed to her physical and mental limits by the horrors she witnessed.
Now, almost 100 years later, the remarkable tale of her service in war-torn Europe has come to light thanks to her medals, which turned up in a tiny museum.
Curators researching memorabilia for the National Museum of Scotland’s touring exhibition on the Great War stumbled on the honours, which included Mrs Milne’s Scottish Women’s Hospital (SWH) lapel badge, at the Hawick Museum, Roxburghshire.
They also found a collection of fascinating photographs and a certificate of thanks given to Mrs Milne by the Serbian government. The widow was 43 when she sailed from Liverpool bound for southern Russia. Listed as the SWH unit’s head cook, she joined 75 women led by surgeon and renowned suffragist Dr Elsie Inglis, who had set up all-female staffed relief hospitals to help the Allied war effort.
For two years, Mrs Milne served as a cook and housekeeper with the SWH and kept a record of her adventures in Russia, Romania and France. She also took pictures using a camera she had smuggled in among her belongings.
Many of Mrs Milne’s writings appeared in publisher William Blackwood’s celebrated Edinburgh Magazine.
One entry, from October 1916, tells how she witnessed the entire population of Dobruja – a historic region today shared by Romania and Bulgaria – as they fled from the advancing enemy. She wrote: ‘I cannot bear to think of the things I saw. The retreating army was ruthless dashing through the terrified mob; the heartbroken screams of women, who saw their children being knocked down and we were powerless to help them.’
Referring to her hospital work, she wrote: ‘I was only the cook. I never visited the wards. I could not bear it. To be unable to speak to the poor suffering creatures was so terrible, and just to look at them as a spectacle was adding insult to injury.’
Another letter tells how, in April 1917, she was awarded a service medal by Prince Dolgorukov, one of Russian Emperor Nicholas II’s chief advisers. The Tsar was swept from power by the revolution soon after. As conditions deteriorated, Mrs Milne hurried to the port of Odessa where she boarded a ship in October 1917 and arrived in the UK the following month.
Following the Armistice in November 1918, she served with the SWH in France. Then, in April 1925, she was awarded the Serbian Cross of Mercy for her work in helping Serbs during the war.
In 1932 she moved to Bonchester Bridge, near Hawick, where she died in August 1948, aged 75.
Acentury on, our respect for the sacrifice and the heroism of the Great War generation is undimmed. Witness the queues for last year’s poppies at the tower of London, the dignity of this year’s remembrance ceremonies or the international events planned for next year’s centenary of the Battle of the Somme.
But now a fascinating new book reminds us that this was also a war which set new standards in terms of innovation, deception and downright eccentricity.
With access to the Imperial War Museum’s extensive archives, the author of Weird War One reveals the increasingly desperate quest — on both sides — for any bright idea which might offer the tiniest advantage over the enemy. they also show some of the bizarre scenes which passed for ordinary life behind the front line.
Some ideas were audacious and brilliant, not least the tank and a giant periscope. Others — such as a human observation kite or an early air-raid warning system involving a flock of parrots at the top of the eiffel tower — were duds from the start.
Some owed their inspiration to warriors of antiquity, such as the Brewster Body Shield, a latter-day suit of armour. Others were closer to 21st-century battle tactics, not least an early (and extremely unreliable) Sopwith aerial drone packed with explosives.
All, however, remain an endearing reminder that, when it comes to war, anything and everything is worth a try. Just don’t always expect it to work.
from Weird War one by Peter Taylor, published by Imperial War museum at £14.99. To order a copy (p&p free), visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0808 272 0808. for details about the museum, visit iwm.org.uk