[Nurses in the first times of World War one]

The First World War originated in new and huge problems for both military authorities and military health service. The modern war which begun in 1914 overflowed this Service reformed in 1912. Famous journalists and political men such as Barrès and Clémenceau took part against dramatic conditions encountered by wounded soldiers. The First World War saw the introduction of many new technologies to the art of killing one's enemy among them the machine gun and the heavy use of artillery. It resulted in massive amount of wounded and ill soldiers which overflowed the military health service and every evacuation mean to the rear front. From August 2nd, 1914 to December 31st, 1914, 798. 833 French wounded soldiers and 322.672 ill soldiers were treated by the French Army 7th direction, in charge of the military health service. In such circumstances, a voluntary, parallel and the efficient sanitary organisation took an importance unknown until yet. This organisation, the Red Cross, associated the Société française de secours aux blessés militaires (French society for help to the wounded soldiers), the Union des Femmes de France (French Women Union) and the Association des Dames françaises (French Ladies Association). These three organisations, associated to many religious ones, brought a real sanitary structure so necessary in the troubled period as the beginning of the First World War. Everywhere in France, health service structures such as the hôpital temporaire no. 103 (Temporary Hospital number 103) in Paris, model hospital from the Union des Femmes de France, associated volunteers civilian doctors and surgeons. To increase the professional value of the paramedical staffs, a very specific effort was done for the formation of nurses in number, as correctly and as quickly as possible. During the first year of the First World War, nurses will be estimated since they had been able by their action to balance the disorder of the very first time of the conflict.