Vera Gedroits knew she was in a race against time. She had to escape. Overnight, gunfire from the battlefront had grown ever nearer and only now, at 02:00, was it beginning to die down. As the train’s wheels creaked and the vehicle lumbered tentatively into motion, it cut a shadowy silhouette across the nocturnal landscape. All lights had been put out to try and prevent the train from being spotted by enemy gunners.

As a mobile hospital, it shouldn’t have been a major target in any case. But now that it was in motion, shells nevertheless began to rain down in its direction.

Gedroits looked around at some of the patients on board. In all, there were about 900, many of them lying in terrible pain on stretchers fixed to the walls. There were some horrific battlefield injuries among them. Infections. Open wounds. Gedroits didn’t have a moment to lose. During the next few hours, she and her team performed operations and provided whatever treatment they could as the train rumbled away from the front. About 12 hours later, it finally reached a safe distance.

Two weeks later, on 10 March 1905, the battle ended with the Russian army defeated. Before long, the war itself was lost.

This was a turning point for Vera Ignatievna Gedroits – a descendant of Lithuanian royalty, a gifted surgeon, an odd-ball, a polymath. Princess Gedroits, as she may rightfully be called, was an extraordinary figure – and yet today she is largely unknown in the West. As a pioneer of battlefield medicine, Gedroits made contributions that some think could have saved thousands of lives during WWI had they been better understood at the time.

“When I first heard about the story, I still remember my comment at the time was, ‘Why hasn’t this been a movie?’,” says Melanie Stapleton at the University of Calgary.

It’s a good question. But who exactly was Vera Gedroits and why have we forgotten her?