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Woman's World

WOMAN'S POSITION. IN TIME OF WAR. What is woman's position in time of war? Hitherto it has been one the hideousncss of which is indescribable where the countries involved have been of semi-civilised order, and, even when the combatants have been classed as the most enlightened of mankind, horrible enough has been the fate of the captured. War to women .spells sorrow, want and misery. Even if no active harm comes to them—and it is yet to be recorded as an historical fact that ; the women of any beaten tribe escaped ' unscathed—their "part is one of hideous ; anxiety; and to sit and wait is not the least difficult part to play. ) MEXICAN' AMAZON'S. During the recent conflict in Mexico, a noted war correspondent, Mr N. C. Adossides (correspondent to the Mexican Field), found the women of the country filling an entirely new role. The Amazons of Mexico—the "solederas," as they are called —formed an important part of the army, so important, indeed,, that without them the iorces would have ■ fared badly. Yet they were neither re garded as the heroines which they undoubtedly were, nor were they given the i slightest care or consideration. Instead, cruelty, oppression, and dishonor were jthcir portion. It was the peasant woI man wlio formed the perambulating commissariat of the army—the only department of this kind that is possessed. They followed their men to the battle field, and shared with them the horrors thereon. In the battle of Escalon they were to be seen taking the places of the dead behind the batteries of artillery, and they fired the great St. Chajtmont guns hour after hour, and led the victorious Federal charges. They cooked, mended, nursed and carried, but in tne din of the actual engagement they dropped their cooking pans and rushed into the trenches. At night—those awful nights which followed days of battle, smoke and cm'broglio—they returned to their miserable portable homes to nurse forlorn babies and 'brew and mend for the mor row. That morrow, as like as not, brought a 30-mile march across the suffocating cactus desert, *nd alonjr weary, disheartening pilgrimage.with her little one upon her back in a shawl, went tlK' ''soladcra," encumbered with a bundle of blankets, the family cookine pots, and a tiny child, with sore, swollen feet, at her side, wailing to be curried too. Alas! poor woman. v AN INTREPID WOMAN. On one occasion this war correspondent tell* us that a sergeant came to headquarters to report that a wife of a private in M» company was about to become a mother.What was he to do? "Give her one pesto." he was told; "get her a room in the village, and tell her that she must join the army as soon as she can stand." These instructions were carried out, and three days later the intrepid woman returned to her place in the long line of marchers with her new born baby on her breast. Would one not think- that such heroism would have set the whole country on (lame? Yet, not only did it pass unnoted, saved by the writer with the column, but no re cord whatever was kept of the survival or the annihilation of those splendid' women. And it was not only the peasant women who fought in the ranks. As his need occurred, the commandant sent out press gangs, who culled in peasant and senora and senorita of high degree alike. The more fortunate found themselves doing the hard hospital work and the j duties of the camp base kitchens; the less fortunate were with the columns—and the soldier fresh from the fight is an ill companion for women. There was a banker's daughter who, disguised as an old peasant, found her way into the camp of the attacking Constitutionalist force, and counted its numbers and guns, and this act of bravery and resource was fittingly rewarded. But there were other and greater honors quite apart from the category of oppression, toil, and nerve-racking ad' venture which befel many of this commissariat department. There was no hope for the unfortunate soldadera when she was captured. Dishonor, violence, and often death came to her, and, when tilis last mercy was granted, her body swung from a telegraph pole, a prize for j the "vulture and the kite." J And this story of the Mexican woman jis by no means the only terrible experience of women in war." In Europe but I a few, a very few. months ago, unspeakable torture was the portion of the women of the Balkans. What is in store for tlic women of Europe now? The heart of every one of us goes out to them, hut, as yet, our part.is still of those who "only stand and wait."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19140820.2.28

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 20 August 1914, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
794

Woman's World Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 20 August 1914, Page 6

Woman's World Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 20 August 1914, Page 6

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