RUSSIAN AMAZONS IN BATTLE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14392, 3 September 1917, Page 7

RUSSIAN AMAZONS IN BATTLE.

AMERICAN SUFFRAGIST'S INTERVtBW/

SAN FRANCISCO, August 1. . Any new departure, in women's realm always attracts "-.wonderful attention in America, but nothing has equalled for many decades <the»< interest invested in the heroic behaviour' *o£ Russia's women fighters charging fearlessly over a shelltorn field when their men comrades had desei-ted them in battle. A. few hours prior to the closing of the mails in San Francisco for ' New; Zealand there arrived a special cablegram from Petrograd in the Calif ornian metropolis, j giving some illuminating details of the views of an American suffragist ..who had had the '-privilege of 'spending 'two weeks at the front with the. first women fighters who ev t er w.ere attached to a modern army. This' American 'suffragist was Rheta" Ch'ild6 Doi'r, ; the well-known newspaper woma^n, iwriter and advocate of femaje suffrage. Intervievyed in "Petrograd on her return froiri the battle lines, Miss Dorr said : '•Drilling daily the rain and mud, quartered, no.' whit better than the lowest peasant 'private, asking no • favors- but : -to fight> on equal terms against the. enem.y v . braving at, first the sneers" and 1 jeers of Hhe'maliV figliters, Russian ' women m" the 'Legi6n of Death' 'have, proved in the supreme test they have. a; place Jn the fighting line. When I left they 'had 1 beeti demanding for many days that they toe taken to the fighting zwe, and .^snatches have told of the' splendid heroism of the girl troops in their first action binder' fire '. I tfp.ent two, r we.eks with these girls — peasants', intellectuals, . ' doc.tors, stenographers, telephone operators/ and ; plain girls — and. I . am . convinced , there is a place" for 'women in' the fighting line, as a result of that experience. Leaving Petrograd, we travelled in woodenbunks on regular trains. All along our journey station platform crowds greeted us with ! ridicule. " •- •

ed us with ' ridicule. " , ; " 'Whv are you going to fight?' they would jeer.. . 'Because you men are cowards !' the • girls would shout back. We had a forty-hour £rip to Jieadnear v^ilha. There we were condudted' t6 long wooden huts, Half buried in earth and -with shelves '.lor beds. Thousands of soldiers' gathered to greet us, arid their shouts reminded me of -New Yorkers watching a suffrage paradte in tb6 early' day's, when suffragists were taunted and ridiculed. "On our very first night at the front we heard' a great pounding piV the door of the buildifjg.. A Jewess challenged instantly. ' ' „ "'Aren't there girls here?' demanded a voice, " 'Not girls, but soldiers,' the. Jewess sternly returned, 'and if you don't leave w& will shoot.' The disturber or disturbers went, too. "The next day the girls bathed in the river. Girl sentinels were stationed in a wide circle about .the baliks, while a number of ' officers-^all gentlemen — assisted in keeping away intruders. It rained every day, but the girls drilled just the same. They! lived just as the men did— except that, Mme. Botchkoreva, the oommander, ' was more strict than the men's commanders. The girls called her 'Mister Commander.'

"I asked one oi them why. 'Oh,' she replied, 'all military terms are masculine, and >it is much too useless a work to go through the list feminising the nomenclature of war.'

"It was natural many men thought the girls, were of evil intention. But their minds were very soon disabused. Many soldiers told the girls they would never be allowed to get to the front, because the Bolshevikis would kill the girl fighters. The Legion of Death did receive a refusal of -their request for service at the front from a meeting of Bolshevikis, the explanation being that superior officers felt the women had not been sufficiently trained. When word finally did come that the Legion was to be sent nearer the front the