Bessie Davidson spent World War I in Australia with her family, where she met her future companion Marguerite Leroy.
Davidson travelled to Australia to visit family in 1914 and was there when World War I began. She returned to France immediately, where she joined the French Red Cross and served in various military hospitals. During the war, she met the woman who would be her companion for the next two decades, Marguerite Leroy (d. 1938), whose nickname was "Dauphine". 
