WOMEN IN BATTLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12161, 27 March 1900, Page 2

WOMEN IN BATTLE.

— -0 (Tit-Piis.) The news that " Tante " Joubert has been at the front with her husband calls to memory the stories of many brave women who •have preferred the hardships and risks of warfare, shared with a beloved husband, to the comforts and security of a home without him. Few women, however, have a record of greater daring and devotion than this homely wife of the Boer Commander-ini-Chief, and whatever we may think of " our friends the enemy," wc cannot grudge a tribute of admiration to the loyalty of their wives. " Tante " Joubert, as i-ke is affectionately known in every Boer homestead, is as familiar with war and its horrors as. her husband,: for she has always insisted on accompanying him, whether in a raid against native tribes or in a campaign against a powerful nation.

Although she can carry a gun as bravely and fire it as accurately as almost any burgher, Mrs Joubert's place its the battlefield is that of wife and nurse. Her first object, is to see to ier husband's comfort, to keep his tent in cleanliness and order, to cook his meals, and generally to make him as comfortable as if he were'in his own house ; and there is no more familiar sight to the Boer soldier than that of the General's wife peeling potatoes or cooking a homely meal at the door of her husband's tent.

All the time she can spare from such wifely ministration she spends irn nursing and cheering the wounded; and many a burgher's dying moments have been solaced and soothed by her motherly attentions.

Mrs Joubert was at her hmband's side during the last war with England, and it is said that our reverse at Majuba was due to her counsel. It is needless to say that many a time this brave woman has •' carried her life in her hands;" but n>o thought of personal safety can keep her at home when " Piet" is on the warpath. . Another equally brave and.loyal wife, who has long survived her soldier hwsband, is the Princess Salm-Salm, whose career is, pehaps, more full of danger and romance than that of any icther living woman. When her husband, who was a younger son of the reigning House of Anhalt, volunteered for the American Civil War, her charm and beauty procured for him the command of a regiment, while Governor Yates, of Illinois, gave the Princess herself a captain's commisskn and pay. At this time she "was described by the " Times " war correspondent in these words: " Her complexion had a mellow olive tinge, and her hair was very black. She had a smooth rounded forehead, hneiy-pencilled, arched brows, and large, light-brown eyes, full of mischief and fun, fine straight nose, and a rather large mouth, with coral lips and a humorous expression." The Princess, with her husband, was always in the thick of the fighting, and when "the bullets whizzed around her head, grazing her hair and striking the ground at her horse's feet," her only impulse was " t'j rush upon the cowardi and send n:y whip about their long ears." She was with her husband through the Mexican War, and ■risked her life a dozen times to intercede for the ill-fated Maximilian ; and she was at her husband's side when he fell mortally wounded u>n the field of Gravelotte. Even after his untimely death the widowed Princess " went from battlefield to battlefield and from hospital to hospital, comforting the wounded and closing the eyes of the dying." The beautiful ex-Queen of Naples took the field more than once with" her husband, and, donning an lofficer's uniform, fought as bravely a* any of his soldiers. It is said of her that when bullets and shells were raining the heaviest around her she would calmly light a cigarette, and infuse new courage into her soldiers by her contempt for danger. When the fighting was most furious around Manila in tho recent- war between Spain and Amerca, there was none braver than the wife of Colonel Stotsenburg, who accompanied her husband through the campaign and survived to take his dead body back to America.

Mrs Stotsenburg voluntarily faced all the danger; of a common soldier. She'took'part in many engagements and ministered to the wounded under heavy fire. She spent many h.urs with the soldiers in the trenches, scorning even to seek shelter when the bullets were whistling past her head; and more than once she seized the rifle, of a dying soldier and did execution among the enemy.

Only a few months ago there died in Texas a woman who was decsribed in no idle words of flattery as the " bravest soldier in the American Civil War." Mig Seelye was from her earliest childhood for her daring. She could ride a horse, lire a gun, or wield an axe as skilfully as any man.

In the war she fought wth reckless bravery through scores of battles, spendiing her nights in nursing the wounded, and she was many times employed on scouting work, where her skill in disguises and her wonderful natural instinct made heir more serviceable than the bravest of men.