This is not a history of the First World War. It is the story of the women of the resistance in Belgium and Occupied northern France during that conflict.
Stroud uses six main characters as a lens to describe the work of an extraordinarily brave group of women. In 1914, before the Germans invaded, they were ordinary people - some were poor, some were rich, some were low born and others from the top echelons of society - they were drawn together by war and they show what the individual can do when faced with apparently overwhelming odds.
Their work was not glamorous, but it was essential and has often been overlooked; it was also dangerous and the penalties severe: death or life imprisonment. Three of the women he writes about faced the firing squad, including Louise Derache (the first woman to die in front of a firing squad in WWI), British nurse Edith Cavell, and Gabrielle Petit, the Beligian national hero whose response to her imminent execution gives this book its title: I am not afraid of staring into the Rifles.
This is a devastating story, beautifully told; it will introduce you to an entirely new version of the war.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE), set up by Winston Churchill in 1941, saw its role in France as helping the Resistance by recruiting and training guerrilla fighters. 39 female agents were trained alongside the men, learning how to disappear into the background and how to kill a man with their bare hands. Once trained they were infiltrated behind the lines. Some of the women went on to lead thousands of Resistance fighters, while others were arrested, brutally interrogated and sent to concentration camps.
