WOMEN AND WAR

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 105, 6 January 1915, Page 2

WOMEN AND WAR

A BRAVE AMAZON. A wounded Russian officer relate* that one of the soldiers in his regiment performed an act of great bravery in rescuing a wounded comrade, going cut and bringing the man back on horseback under the enemy’s tire. After the retirement of tbe Russians from that spot the “soldier” was discovered by the commander to be a young woman, who had joined as a volunteer. She was afterwards wounded and sent to hospital at Kiev. WOMEN TELEGRAPHISTS. A large number of former women telegraphists at the post office who have left the department in recent years to get married are resuming their old work in London, in order to fill the gap left by the many men who have gone to the front, either as combatants or on special service. When the girls bade farewell to the sounder and tape they were asked as a matte 1 of form whether they would return to work in a national emergency, and ; the authorities are now communicating with those who replied ; n tin affirmative. A very satisfactory response is understood to have been received. FEMALE WARRIORS. There has been scarcely a war in history in which mernbe ,- s of the fait sex have not played a part in the fighting line. During the Balkan War women of all classes in Servia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, who can handle a rifle as. well as they can a saucepan, fought for their respective countries. A notable case was that of Miss Sophie Yovanovitch, a young Servian girl, who obtained permission from King Peter to fight like an ordinary soldier, and dressed in military uniform, accounted for several Turks. A Belgrade schoolgirl,- Milena Manditch. was also found among the volunteer forces raised by the Servian Committee for National Defence. She was only seventeen years of age, and went from the high school at Belgrade tc take her place in the fighting lit:' 5 -, wearing an ordinary soldiers’ uniform. MOTHERS AND THEIR SOLDIER SONS. It has over been the fate of woman to suffer most for others. From the birth of their children to their starting forth in the world there is tragedy. Every day has its anxieties, every tomorrow i 1 s fears. There is nothing on earth so strong, so enduring, so faith--1 ful ,as mother-love. A boy conies into •he world. The mother guides and protects him through babyhood, through childhood, through young manhood,ancl brings him to the age when she looks for his larger work and his greater happiness in the opportunities of life. There is a call to arms. He enlists for war. The long separation begins, and every minute to her becomes a time of priycr and apprehension. Waking or sleeping she is with him in thought and soul. She sees a thousand battles which he never knows; she walks through hospital tents and fields . rewn with dead and dying, while he my he laughing and playing with his mmrades. Through hourly deaths she lives, and her spirit is the miracle.

MOTHERS’ HA TP TASKS. OKI soldiers will tell you that Hie hardest thing is to stand and bo fired at without being allowed t; fire back. 'Woman's task is harder. She is ia ttio light without being present, and all the tensions and horrors and torments are hers without the stimulus of satisfaction of return. Wars are fought mostly by young men who are scarcely more than boys. Keep that .fact in mind. Then you see what we moan when we say that it has been the fate of women to suiter for others and through others. It needs no words of ours to tell the mother heart that war strikes woman in her dearest and tenderest passion—her boy. And yet what do we find? In past wars and in our present war the supreme tiling has been the sublime courage of our women. Here is patriotism with no play soldier in it. Here is the miracle of the spirit that makes a nation smile at death and fight for what it believes to be right. When Hie boy goes the mother goes—you cannot separate them. WOMEN IN THE BRITISH ARMY. The British Army has had its women soldiers, and two of them are buried in Hie cemetery of Chelsea Hospital. One of these dames —Hannah Snell, a trucu-lent-looking person, whose portrait is preserved in the Great Hall of the Hospital, served in the siege of Pondicherry, and was badly wounded, her sex being discovered when she was removed to hospital. She became a pensioner and wo;e, on occasions, the three-cornered hat and unit irra cc&t or Chelsea, and was, at her own request, buried in the graveyard of ;,h j hosp>tab Christina Davis was the othet female soldier buried in this cemetery. She is described as a “fat ‘Jolly woman/ When site acknowledged her sex she resumed some of its privileges, for she married, in succession, throe husbands, the third being a Chelsea pensioner. Another Englishwoman who successfully posed as a man and enlisted as >\ soldier was Phoebe Hessel,- who nas a private in the sth Foot Regiment- and fought at Fontenoy in 1745, under the Duke of Cumberland, being severely wounded. Ultimately she died at Brighton in IS2I at the age of 108. The most famous Englishwoman “soldier/' however, was “Dr. James Barry,” who joined the Medical Corps in 1813, and served at Waterloo and in the Crimea, In 1858, after many promotions, she became Inspector-General, and it was not until many years later that Hie fact that she as a woman was discovered. THE SOLDIER’S WIFE. She's every inch a lady, Though she wears no costly furs; A patriotic mother — The title truly hers. Few strive for Britain’s glory More worthy of applause—■ | A brave and fond heart bleeding In freedom’s holy cause. Chorus Still raise your cap when passing her, ’Mongst noble creatures classing her, 'Think of the cares harassing her — Think of the anxious life. We’ve patriots on every hand, Who love the dear old Motherland, But foremost of the noble band 1 rank the soldier’s wife. When hushed the world and weary, When rapt hi silent sleep, Her nights are long and wakeful, ’Tis hers to watch and weep, Or soothe the dreaming baby, That murmurs daddy’s name, Or kiss the soldier’s image, And God's protection claim. Oh. there are deeds heroic, When Britons bravely go, With splendid dash and daring To front the ruthless foe. They strike for home and beauty, No laggards in the fray. While those they leave behind them Their parts with courage play.