217



Women War Workers
The first organized effort on a comprehensive
scale toward providing good music at the
Front was set on foot early in 1915 by the
Ladies' Auxiliary Committee of the Young
Men's Christian Association, a body which
throughout the war has shown itself marvel-
lously in touch with the needs of our men in
every possible direction. The meetings of the
Committee were held under the chairmanship
of Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, and
the business of providing ' Concerts at the
Front ' was placed under the control of Miss
Lena Ashwell, who acted as honorary organizer
and who worked in close conjunction with the
Committee. In February 1915 the inaugural
concert-party braved the dangers of mine
and submarine and started for " somewhere
in France," where they met with so unqualified
a success that Miss Ashwell's second party
went out in March, touring a different route
and finding the same whole-hearted response as
had been the portion of its predecessor. Since
that spring two concert-parties have been con-
tinually at work among the base camps, one
travelling the Rouen-Havre route, the other

218



The Comforteers

that of Dieppe-Boulogne. Each party gives
three concerts daily, one every afternoon and
two camp concerts in the evening. In this
way all the principal centres and base hospitals
enjoy one concert a month, a work which en-
tails upon the performers no little pluck and
endurance, for the camps are often situated
at long distances apart, and travelling from
one to another under war conditions may mean
hardship not usually associated with concert-
giving. The concert-parties remain abroad for
three or four weeks at a time, and are accorded
full recognition by the military authorities, the
Y.M.C.A. motor in which they make their
journeys penetrating even from tiAie to time
to advanced positions by the firing-line itself.
