I’m so appreciative of everyone’s positive responses and interest in my novel! Thank you!
Last week, when I posted my blog on November 11, it made me think about the 100th anniversary of some of the key battles of WW1 and of the Russian Revolution – two significant events that figured highly in Hélène Aubry’s life.
When the war started in 1914, Hélène had been living in Saint-Pétersbourg (now re-named Petrograd) for 5 years. As soon as Germany began hostilities against France, the Triple Entente brought Russia and the United Kingdom into the conflict. Everyone thought this was going to be a quick affair, but the war dragged on, and by 1917, as many as 2.5 million Russian soldiers had died on the front, and 5 million had been wounded. To contribute to the war effort, Hélène, like Tsarina Alexandra and 25,000 Russian women, trained to be a nurse; they were called the sisters of mercy of the Red Cross. 1917 proved to be a key turning point in Russian history, as starvation and the war casualties led to a series of debilitating strikes, Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication, and, ultimately, the Russian Revolution.
In the middle of this political and economic upheaval, in early 1917, Hélène met her future husband, Walter. He was the Chief Engineer on a ship, the S.S. Cicero, part of the Merchant Marine delivering wartime supplies from England and Finland to Russia. Walter arrived at the hospital in Petrograd with severe pneumonia, and Hélène nursed him back to health. By June, they were married, and Hélène was pregnant. She managed to flee Russia in September, just weeks before the final October Revolution when the Bolsheviks took control of the country. Sadly, they never saw each other again.
Meanwhile, in France, Hélène’s daughter Lili had been living with the Tellier family in Barisis, a small town in northeastern France. Working as a French governess to the children of a wealthy Russian family enabled Hélène to pay for Lili’s upkeep. However, as the German Army marched to Paris in 1914, they occupied the idyllic agricultural area around Barisis, and the Tellier family was trapped. The region became one of the key front lines, with battles waged around the Marne and Somme Rivers, and in Ypres and Verdun. Needless to say, communication was disrupted, and Hélène was frantic – not able to leave Russia and with no news of her daughter’s whereabouts or safety. The Tellier family and Lili managed to escape just before some of the decisive battles took place in the area in mid-1916. They walked 250 km to Montargis in central France, away from the battlegrounds, where Hélène’s mother and two sisters were now living.
My Aunt Lili lived to age 92, while her half-brother, Albert Walter (my Dad), conceived in Petrograd and born in England in 1918, lived to 90: two miracles that survived this turbulent time in world history.
The photo is of Hélène as a sister of mercy of the Red Cross, taken in Petrograd around 1915.
