GENERAL WAR NEWS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 30, 11 January 1916, Page 6

GENERAL WAR NEWS

United Press Association

Petrograd, January 9

There are several well-authenticated stories of women serving in the Rus- ( sian army, and the most extraordinary is that of twelve Moscow school- ( girfs. At the beginning of the war] the girls purchased uniforms and ; boarded a troop train. They reached! Lemberg, where the soldiers, welcomed them as comrades. They ~ concealed their identity, hut officers heard of the story, and ordered them to be sent back, but they pleaded to be. allowed to remain, offering to get*-their hair cut. The regiment passed into the Carpathians, the girls sharing all the horrors of warfare. They admit that sometimes they blubbered 'when Geiman shells fell, hut they add that even the men were afraid. One girl, aged 15, was killed by a shell and others were wounded. .One girl was made a corporal and decorated with the Cross of St. George. The girls were' finally persuaded to leave the firing-line and go as nurses in the hospitals. London. January 10. The Times correspondent at Russian headquarters states that hist New Year the whole of th e Russian army were reduced to one shot per gun daily, and the present contrast is a matter for the heartiest congratulations. ' / , Early in October only thirteen German and two Austrian divisions, assembled on the Serbian frontier, and a fortnight ago missing divisions b©-| gan to reappear. There fire, now. 245 battalions between Kovel and Lemberg, under Archduke Joseph 1 erdinad and'2so battalions and seventyfive squadrons under General Mackensen, in addition to the divisions returning from the Danube. They expect the severest blow from the Russian left flank, and are endeavouring to counter it by striking at our centre and left. Ibe slight frost has hardened the soil, without preventing entrenching, and the Russians are capturing line afteij line" of- the enemy’s trenches.