THE RUSSIAN AMAZONS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3188, 12 September 1917, Page 8

THE RUSSIAN AMAZONS

; ; by one who saw them. An Amerioan Miss Dorr, .who -.spout tvro weeks at the front with the ' ■ 'first women-fighters (tho Enssian Bat- ■ ' talion of Death) ever attached to a mod- : > v„ orn army, tlius describes what she saw "•of her work in a special article printed ■ - in the-Auckland "Star"■ "Drilling daily through the rain and ' mud, quartered no whit better than tho. .- lowest peasant private, asking no favours but to fight'on , equal terms against the onemy, braving at first, the sneers and leers of the male fighters, Russian women in the 'Legion of Death' have proved in tho supremo test they have ai iplaee in the fignting line. , ' "When I left they had been demand- : ing for many days that they be taken to the fighting zone, and dispatches Tiavo told of the heroism of the girl troops f *:;. -in their first action under'fire. '"I'-spont two weeks with these girte— 'peasants; intellectuals, : doctors,- steno-graphers,'-telephone operators, and iplain girls—and lam convinced . there: is a glace for women in the fighting'line, as a result of that experience.. Leaving . Petrogradj' we travelled in-wooden bunks - '6n regular trains. All along .our jour- '-' nev, station platform crowds greeted us .■.'"'with ridicule. ' . ;: ' ■ "Why are you going to fight? they ■ would jeer. . "Because ; you , men are •' cowards!" the girls, would shout back. We had a' forty-hour trip',to Keadquatera near Vilna. Thero we were conducted •:to long wooden, huts, half-buried in earth and with shelves - for beds. ■ Thousands of soldiers - gathered to greet us, and their shouts reminded me of New Yorki ere' watching a suffrage parado in tha ' -.carly.;-days/ wlion-6uffragists were taunt•i . cd afcd .ridiculed. "On our-very .first,.'"night at the front I "we'heard a great-pounding on the door ; . nf the building. A Jewess challenged ; instantly. . . ■ ■ , , , " '"'Aren'f there girls here? demanded ji voice. ' '' ; "'Not girls, but soldiers, tho Jewess sternly returned, 'and if you don't leave ! we will shoot.' The disturber or disturbers went, too. : "These girls lived just as the men <M except that Mme. Botchkoreva, the *' .- oommander, was .more . stribt tnan the i ► men's coijjman'dors. The girls. called w, her 'Mister Commander.' ! . "I asked one. of them why. Oh, she ! - replied, 'i>.U military terms are masculine, and it is much too useless a work : (» go thrgugh, the list feminising the "nomenclature-of war.' . "It was natural many men thought tie girls wero. of evil intontion. But " their minds were very won disabused. ' .' .Many soldiers told the girls they would ' : never be' allowed to got to the front, because the Bolshevikis would kill the •rirl fighters. ■ The Legion of Death did I receive a refusal of their request for ser- ; -vice at the front from a meeting of Bolslievikis, tlie explanation being that supe- ;■ Tior officers felt the women had not been ' . "sufficiently trainod. When word finally did come that the Legion was to be sent nearer the front the cheera and hurrahs lasted many minutes. "The women's Legion of Death lias overthrown every convention. The girls in it have forgotten everything they were ever taught as women-aiid idea how nice women can be when they : are absolutely natural and ' ° girls did tlieir job in dead earnest. Xhoie ... was do nonsense." >