I was watching the Netflix show The Defeated about Post WWII Berlin and an untrained police force in the American sector(pretty graphic show, but really good and for fans of Friday Night Lights it stars Taylor Kitsch aka Tim Riggins) and the captain of the new police station is a woman. The depiction of her breaking barriers made me interested in how many women were involved in this kind of work during the first World War. In both our readings and the special missions, we have seen how women served as nurses, VAD’s, on the homefront, and even as soldiers, but I found some interesting information on female spies in the war to expand on what Bella talks about in the Darling Lili movie review. I read a transcript of an interview of Tammy Proctor, author of Female Intelligence: Women in Espionage in the First World War. In the interview, Proctor discusses Mata Hari, Edith Cavell, “The Lady Doctor,” and Girl Guides’ role in the war. Hari was not an overly successful spy as she did not pass a great deal of information and did not have clear loyalties, playing France and Germany off against one another, but the myths surrounding her are fascinating. After the French government executed her for espionage, rumors like her surviving execution and being responsible for the death of 50,000 men spread across Europe. Hari’s model for spies was followed by Edith Cavell, who was also executed for being a spy even though she was not really a spy. Cavell ran a nurse training school which turned into an escape network for allied soldiers and while some people in this network she created were involved in intelligence gathering, Cavell herself was never engaging in that side. Proctor notes these two women were used to contrast one another, with Cavell as the revered martyr in propaganda and Hari as the treacherous seductress. “The Lady Doctor” seems to have had more success than Hari and Cavell as her identity was never uncovered, at least by the allied soldiers. This mysterious figure is known for her German spy training camp and Proctor explains she represents a slightly different persona than either Cavell or Hair because she is known for being the sadistic and seductive spy.
The part of this interview I found the most interesting was Proctor’s discussion on Girl Guides and their role in British intelligence. The War Office initially hired Boy Scouts to deliver messages, but they were soon replaced by Girl Guides because the young boys were “too difficult to manage.” Girls in this role ranged from ages 14-18, so the war office had children running messages and patrolling to gather intelligence for the M15. These girls, along with the thousands of other women who served in British intelligence during the war, were turned away after the war’s conclusion and prohibited from serving there. Interestingly, the war office purposely hired young women because they hoped they would not ask for permanent positions because they would be getting married and staying at home with their families. Overall, this was a really interesting article to dive into this unique role women played in World War I especially when thinking of it in the context of how their role expanded and grew in World War II.
Works Cited
Smith, Amanda. “Women Spies of WW1…” Radio National, New York University Press, 4 Nov. 2011.
