With the outbreak of World War I Holme joined her partner Evelina Haverfield in the Women's Volunteer Reserve.

They were arrested and held as prisoners of war for several months, but after they were released, they returned to work in SWH units in Romania and Russia.

Having continued correspondence for many years with her colleagues from the SWH, her papers give evidence of and insight into lesbian lives in the interwar period in both Britain and Serbia.

[4]: 10  Actresses in the Victorian Age had been strictly confined to roles reinforcing binary gender presentations to uphold moral norms.

[4]: 4  Holme joined the league in 1908[1] and began singing with suffragettes outside Holloway Prison to support women who had been arrested and locked up for suffrage protests.

In 1909, she rode as a mounted officer at the Hyde Park demonstration and appeared in the Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton as Hannah Snell, a woman who had disguised her gender to become a soldier.

[4]: 11  An article in the Perthshire Advertiser in 1938, entitled "Notable Lochearnhead Lady", recognised both her regional theatre work and friendship with Craig.

[9] Holme, who Sylvia Pankhurst described as "a noisy, explosive young person, frequently rebuked by her elders for lack of dignity" became involved in the militant suffrage campaigning group the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

She waited there overnight with Elsie Howie with the objective of shouting "Votes for Women" at a political address by a Liberal Party MP the next day.

[1][2]: 126  Their actions were commemorated in a poem, "An Organ Record", written by Holme and published in that month's issue of Votes for Women.

[1][16] In 1910, Holme and Haverfield, along with scientist Alice Laura Embleton, known as Alick, and her partner Celia Wray,[17]: 46  set up the private Foosack League between themselves.

The membership was restricted to women and suffragists; the internal evidence suggests the Foosack League was a lesbian secret society.

[1][4]: 12  Since 1909, Linley and Mary Blathwayt had invited suffragettes, who had been imprisoned on behalf of the cause, to plant trees in the arboretum adjoining Eagle House, their home in Batheaston.

[21] When the Central Powers invaded Serbia at the end of the year, most of the SWH personnel were evacuated, but Holme and Haverfield refused to leave their wounded patients.

[2]: 131 Holme and Haverfield were captured in November 1915 and held as prisoners of war in Austria until February 1916,[1][7]: 54  when the American Red Cross successfully negotiated their release.

[2]: 131  In 1917 Holme was sent back to England to carry a personal message from Dr Elsie Inglis to Lord Derby, the Secretary of State for War.

[2]: 131  In 1918, in recognition of her work with the SWH, Holme was awarded the Samaritan Cross by the King of Serbia, and a medal for Meritorious Service by Russia.

[25][9] Holme was a frequent speaker and lecturer for the Women's Rural Institutes, which she, Greenlees and Ker all supported from its creation around 1923.

[9] In the 1930s, Holme performed in Cecily Hamilton and Chris St John's play How the Vote Was Won, as the feminist character Georgina.

[24]: 290  Her correspondence with Rojc and the women of the SWH, which took place over decades, provides tangible proof of queer history in both Serbia and Britain and has offered scholars clues to historic terminology and codes used by lesbians in their relationships.

[7]: 50  Scholars Catherine Baker and Olga Dimitrijević said that analyzing the letters also has the potential to change what is known about British lesbians and their circles in the interwar period.