WOMEN IN THE WAR

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1920, Page 3

WOMEN IN THE WAR

A RUSSIAN AMAZON

During the war we heard of women fighting in the Russian ranks, and of a woman’s “Battalion of Death” which sought by its example after the Revolution, to shame the men out of their demoralisation and induce them to defend their country against Germany At first these reports were received with some incredulity but they were confirmed from authentic sources, and in “Ynshka” is recorded the experiences of the most distinguished of these Russian Amazons. This is the remarkable story of a remarkable woman. Maria Botchkarevn, is a peasant whose family emigrated to Siberia when she was still a child. A drunken father, a drunken husband, the persecution of officials, years of the heaviest and most constant toil for a bare crust bounded her horizon. One would have thought that there was nothing in her life to inspire her with any love for her country ; but through it all the flame of patriotism burned steady and clear. “Holy Russia” was everything, and when the news of war came she hastened to offer herself as recruit. The local authorities refused her, but by special dispensation of the Czar she was allowed to enlist. She neither expected nor received any privileges on the score of her sex. She had no privacy; she was one with the men', who, after understanding her motives arid getting used to her presence, treated her with respect. She made a good soldier; the years of cement and asphalt work stood her in good stead. No march was too long for her; she shrank neither from receiving wounds. She was once captured bv the Germans and escaped; K he uas thrice decorated; everyone in the army knew of “Ynshka,” the ’nickname by which she went.

The came the revolution. Ynshka describes the enthusiasm with which it was first greefted, but which was soon followed by apathy and disorganisation. Tho average soldier was utterly weary of the war, nor is the reader of this hook wholly surprised. Again and again bo bad been snertfired to the inefficiency and even treachery of bis leaders. He listened eagerly to German propaganda; discipline decayed, and the whole front seemed in danger of collapsing. Tt was in these circumstances that Yashka. thought of raising her women’s battalion, and after some demur her offer was accepted ; two thousand women all classes of society, offered themselves. Tn the subsequent history of the- battalion there are elements of comedy as well as tragedy. Yashka was a. rigid disciplinarian, and some of the recruits found her iron rule irksome. Others, again, wished to form “committees” •in the ranks, and were cast out. Flirtation, was forbidden, and many u-ere. expelled for disobedience to this rule. Gradually the weaker vessels were discarded, until out of the original two thousand only three hundred were left. These remained loyal to the end. On their way to the front they were continually mobbed and lmrrassod by demoralised regiments of men, and bad to defend themselves by shooting. They went into actiop, apd lost half their number jn casualties, and had then to lie disbanded oil account of the hostility of the Beds. Hower, Yaska’s adventures were not vet over. She was associated with Jvoypilog in his ill-fated att'erppf was. proscribed by the Bolshviks, of whoso regime she gives an appalling picture, escaped from Russia ,and wont on a mission to enlist American sympathies on the side of the anti-Bolsheviks. While in America she dictated (being herself unable to read or write), the story of her life to Mr I. I), Levine, and an extraordinary chronicle it is.