FEMALE FIGHTERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 334, 4 March 1915, Page 4

FEMALE FIGHTERS.

It is now established beyond dispute that a number of women are fighting on both sides in the campaign in Rus- ! sian Poland. Some interesting instances of Russian amazons have already been recounted in '"The Age," and further cases have been brought forward by the British official war correspondent, who has been allowed by the Russian | commander-in-chief to accompany the Russian troops to the front. Several of 'the Russian newspapers have lately given details of the discovery of German women fighting in the German ranks as volunteers. Among the women at present being treated in a Russian hospital there are seven women who were captured while fighting in German uniform. They were placed together in a special ward. They are fine specimens of Teutonic womanhood, and the Russian nurses admire their finelydeveloped muscles, which seem to indicate that they have belonged for years to German gymnastic societies. They display to their captors tho' same haughty and contemptuous indifference which characterises Prussian officers. One of the nurses offered one of them a Russian newspaper printed in German, but the patient indignantly tossed the paper aside, declaring that she wouldn't believe anything that appeared in a Russian newspaper, even if it were printed in German. Although these women refuse *to disclose anything about themselves or how they came to be in the fighting line, it is judged by those who know the German people that they come from the upper middle class. It is believed that they belong to some German suffragette movement, and are seeking to prove the German woman's claims to political suffrage by fighting on the field of battle. One of them died from her wounds shortly after her admission to the hospital.