We'll join in! Women beneath the flags of and in the uniforms of the Vierbund of Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Bulgaria, are willing to play their part in the war effort.
Wir machen mit!We'll join in!Reverse:Dated Augsburg, February 3, 1916
"The cars of the various Legations go buzzing around the French and Belgian and British cars. The streets are full of the troops of the three nations, while some twenty transports ride at anchor in the open roadstead. Fresh troops from England are arriving constantly, and march singing through the town to the camps outside, whence they are sent to the front. There are two British hospitals near this hotel — one of them the Casino — and wounded are everywhere. The place is astonishingly calm, but everybody knows there is a war. The French have their teeth set and are confident of the final outcome. Women are in the custom house, drive the trams, collect the fares and do a hundred other things that are usually out of their line."
Excerpt from the journal of Hugh Gibson, Secretary to the American Legation in Brussels for October 26, 1914. He had just returned from London, and was making his rounds in the last corner of Belgium not occupied by German forces. He recorded that at customs 'a woman marked my bag.' Women were just beginning to fill jobs that had been held by men who had gone to fight.
A Journal from our Legation in Belgium by Hugh Gibson, page 286, copyright © Copyright, 1917, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1917
1914, October, 1914-10-26, women, women at war
