“ Women, your country needs you,” Millicent Fawcett, the campaigner for women’s suffrage, proclaimed when war was declared in August 1914. One enthusiastic respondent to the call was Helena Gleichen, a rich aristocrat and a cousin of George V who had dined with Queen Victoria, danced at debutante balls and spent much of her life riding or painting animals.

But when the war started, she renounced her Germanic family titles and committed herself to war work. More than 100 years after the armistice was signed, Gleichen has become a forgotten hero of the First World War – despite her brave contributions having saved thousands of lives on the Italian front.

Although the British Army scornfully refused offers from women willing to travel overseas, that failed to stop many brave volunteers from getting involved. Although now forgotten, Gleichen was Britain’s war-time Marie Curie – the Polish scientist who invented mobile X-ray units that she took to the French front. While Curie was saving French lives, this English landscape artist was rescuing Italian soldiers.

Medical radiography was still in its infancy. The German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen had discovered X-rays in 1895, and the following year created the first X-ray photograph, memorably revealing the bones of his wife’s hand. Two decades later, suitable machines were available in major hospitals, but they were located too far away to help soldiers injured on the battlefield.

Gleichen converted a French chateau into a military hospital in 1915 (IWM)

Curie won two Nobel Prizes for her pioneering research into radioactivity, but during the war, she abandoned her laboratory to support her adopted country. Her Curie cars brought radiography equipment – including miniature dark rooms for developing prints – right to the scene of battle so that soldiers could be examined and treated immediately.

In 1915, Gleichen and her friend Nina Hollings converted a French chateau into a military hospital before travelling to Paris and training with X-rays. But the War Office informed them with unassailable illogic that because no women were radiographers it was impossible to employ them. Undeterred, they came back to London and organised their own relief operation.

To get advice, Gleichen contacted the distinguished Scottish pioneer of medical radiography, James Mackenzie Davidson. She raised enough money from her wealthy family to buy one of the new portable machines he was developing, as well as a specially adapted Austin car to drive it in.

Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Male and female members of the women's suffrage movement on a protest march through London in 1900 F J Mortimer/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who led the movement to win the vote for women in Great Britain . Getty Images / Topical Press Agency / Stringer Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Suffragettes Annie Kenney and Mary Gawthorne painting a pavement with a slogan, 'Votes For Women', during the Hexham by-election in 1907 Hulton Archive/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Crowds lining the streets as they watch suffragettes (left to right) Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Jane Clark (Emmeline's sister), the driver, Charlotte Marsh and Jessie Kelly pass by following their release from Holloway Prison on 1 February, 1908. PA Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures Flora Drummond (left) giving instructions to suffragettes dressed as prisoners in 1908. PA Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Imprisoned suffragettes waving through the barred windows of Holloway Prison, London, 1909. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst being jeered by a crowd in New York, circa 1911. GETTY Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes A male suffrage supporter is led over the bridge at St. James' Park, after being arrested for involvement in the attack on Buckingham Palace in 1912. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Suffragette Lady Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, treasurer of the WSPU, celebrates her release from prison in 1912. HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Emily Davison, who was killed trying to stop King George V’s horse Anmer in the 1913 Derby. Getty Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Emily Davison (1872 - 1913) is fatally injured as she tries to stop the King's horse 'Amner' on Derby Day, to draw attention to the Women's Suffragette movement. Getty Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Fellow campaigners guard Emily Davison’s coffin at her funeral. Getty Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Suffragettes in the funeral procession of Emily Davison on 14th June 1913. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Crowds line the street as the funeral procession Emily Davison on 14 June 1913. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Labour MP and suffragette Barbara Ayrton-Gould. Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested while trying to present a petition to the King at Buckingham Palace on 21 May 1914. Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures The suffragettes Suffragettes holding white sunshades advertising their newspaper 'Suffragette' in 1914. Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures A policeman restrains a demonstrator as suffragettes gathered outside Buckingham Palace on 21 May, 1914. PA Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures British Emmeline Pankhurst being jeered by a crowd in New York. Getty Images Votes for Women - the suffragette movement: in pictures Suffragettes during a mass meeting in the Royal Albert Hall. The Representation of the People Act, passed on February 6 1918, gave certain women over the age of 30 a vote and the right to stand for Parliament. PA

Gleichen and Hollings set off for Italy, where they settled just behind the frontline in a country villa near the border town of Gorizia. Their home became a busy X-ray department, its machinery powered by a cable snaking along the hallway from the car parked outside. Alone in the middle of a battle zone, the pair learnt how to service their electrical equipment and fix their car. On one occasion, Gleichen enterprisingly melted two large altar candles to replace some cracked insulation.

Although photos show two demure women in heavy uniform, hats firmly in place even when working inside, Gleichen recounts adventures as hair-raising as those of any frontline soldier. Often at risk from enemy bullets, they took many thousands of X-rays, eventually damaging their hands and their eyes.

Notes taken by Gleichen (IWM)

In a letter to Davidson, Gleichen explained that they needed to work quickly. With more and more wounded soldiers arriving daily, many of them already close to death, there was often no time for the luxury of standard procedures. Weighing down their unanaesthetised patients with sandbags, they explored precisely yet rapidly to locate bullets lodged in a soldier’s body by a rough-and-ready technique of aiming along two perpendicular lines to see where they intersected.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Gleichen was particularly jubilant about managing to pinpoint a bullet deep inside a soldier’s skull. She sent Davidson a small sketch, telling him that she was “cocka hoopy”.

Despite this experimental success, she faced up to wartime realities: “Anyway it has been deeply interesting + I expect they will kill him by operating + equally kill him by leaving it. I am sorry as he was such a nice boy in tremendous spirits + health.”

Gleichen was forced to leave rapidly when Gorizia fell in 1916, but after the war, she was awarded medals by both Britain and Italy for her distinguished contributions. In her memoir, she wrote: “And after the War? What then? As with many other people, we were incapable of sitting still, or of resuming a normal existence.”

Gleichen was one of the few women who were able to experience the freedom and independence that are normally reserved for men. Although she later returned to her apparently contented rural life as an artist, she had – like so many other women – become a different person.