THE WOMEN OF SERBIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1528, 28 March 1916, Page 4

THE WOMEN OF SERBIA.

Much has been written about the possibility of women in this war, states an Australian exchange. |

It is now certain that on the Balkan and Russian fronts, at least, women are taking part in the war in considerable numbers and in terrible earnest.

Nowhere are women taking a greater part in the war than in Serbia. They are apparently prepared to be killed to the last woman in defence of their country. At Kragujevatz, one of the towns which became a centre of defence after the Serbians had been driven back from the vicinity of Belgrade, the women and girls were organised under the leadership of a woman of 60. She had already four sons and nine grandsons in the Serbian army, of whom seven have been killed. When she was asked by a correspondent if she thought it was necessary to fight, she answered: “Of what value is my lile when all my young people are being killed ? I do not care how soon I die.” The Serbians are a primitive people of peasants and shepherds, and, as is common among such people, the women are much more comparable to men in physical strength than among more highly civilised communities. The women are commonly broadshouldered, muscular, hard fisted, and. capable of great exertions. Moreover they retain their vigour to a very advanced age, so that it is not surprising that a woman of 60 should be fighting. It was the vigorous old age enjoyed by the

people of Serbia and Bulgaria that led Professor Metchnikoff to develop his peculiar theories of combatiug premature old age among civilised people. A prominent Serbian in America, John R. Paiandech, has declared that 250,000 Serbian women would take the field against the Germans and Austrians. In the two preceding Balkan wars an organisation of Serbian women, called the Region of Death, did valiant service in the field. As the present danger of Serbia is incomparably greater than it was then, it is only natural that the women should be fighting more desperately.