I am not afraid of looking into the rifles : women secret agents of the First World War

Stroud, Rick2024

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Summary

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 Gabrielle Petit, the Beligian national hero whose response to her imminent execution gives this book its title.