, 1892-07-02

AL tnobo uAyE O4 OalVatlOu army mAEVs
chales" and captains it need excite no very
great establishment to learn that the Hunga-
rian newspapers report the death, at the age
OF sixty-two, of Frau Marie Hoche, who had
been an "Ober-lieutenant in the 'Honved"
Army and gained the medal for bravery on the
held VI battle. In the tumultuous year Of
wars and revolutions, 1848, Marie Hoche was
eighteen, and enrolled herself in a corps of
volunteers at Vienna without the slightest
suspicion arising as to her sex. She served
IN the Hugarian campaign with a regiment of
Jagers and for her courage on the field Of
battle, whore she was badly hurt in one foot
she was rewarded by a Lieutenant's commits
sion and decorated with a medal. Subsequently
she was transferred to the regiment of hussars,
IN which she was promoted to the rank of
First Lieutenant. She might have gone fur
Their still, but 1t happened that by a mere
chance the secret Of her sex was discovered.
and a major who had long had a liking for the
pluckieSt young fellow in his regiment u, arried
her, the nuptial ceremony being performed by q
regimental chaplain. After the death of the
major his widow married Lieutenant Hoohe.
whom she was also destined to survive. Dur
ing the last years of her life the brave old lady
became very poor, but she attracted the notice
OF Maurus Jokai, the we'll known Magyar poet,
who pleaded her cause with such effect that a
fund was raised to sOoth her declining years.
Altogether the career of the late Frau Ober.
lieutenant Hoche presents some curious points
of resemblance to the adventures of the re-
nowned English Amazon, Mary Ann Talbot.
whose strange life is said to have suggested
the welI-known popular ballad of "Billee
Taylor"
Even a more remarkable precursor of Frau
Ober-ieutenant Hoche was the Irish Amazon.
Christian Davies, who was born in Dublin in
1877. She married early, and had two sons.
When her husband was crimped for q soldier
and sent to Flanders Christian placed her
children with a nurse, dressed herself in a
suit of her husbands clothes, found out q re.
cruiting capt in, and enlisted with him under
the name of Christopher Welsh. She fought
bravely at the battle Of Landen, and received
a musket-ball in the ankle. In 1884 she waS
taken prisoner by the French while on a forag-
ing excursion, but was soon exchanged. When
III quarters at Gourcum, to CRAFTY some mad
Gap within she made love to a daughter of a
burgher of the town, and challenged, fought,
and dangerously wounded a sergeant in her
own regiment who was her rival in the af-
fections Of the burgher's daughter. After the
peace of Ryswick, in 1897, Christian Da-
vies returned to Ireland, where she found
means to see her mother and her children
without beng made known to them. OncS
more, at the outbreak of the war of the Spanish
succession, did Christian enlist in Lord John
Hays regiment of cavalry, and she was pre-
sent at most Of the engagements in MARI
borough's campaigns. At the battle of Do
nauwerth she was wounded by a ball in the
hip, but at the battle of Blenheim, although
she was in the hottest fire throughout the DAY
she sustained no injury. Soon afterwards she
casually discovered her husband, who, with
the prcverbial Inconsistency of his sex, hay
transferred his affections to a Dutch lads
Christian took his ~infdelity very philosophi.
cally, and agreed to pass as her husband'd
brother. At the battle of Families a she'll
struck the back part of her head and fractured
her skull. She was, however. successfully tre-
panned. While in hospital her sex was. ACCT
dentally discovered and she was dismissed from
the service; but the officers good naturally
subscribed to furnish her with a femininu
wardrobe, and she remained in the army in
the capacity of a sutler. Her husband was
killed at the battle of Tainieres, and eleven
weeks after his decease she married one Jones,
p grenadier, but she was left a widow a second
time, Jones having received a mortal wound
at the Siege of St. Venant. At the con-
clusion of the war she returned to England.
where by the advice of the Duke Of Argyll.
she presented a petition to Queen Anne re-
capitulating her military services and recciv-
al q considerable pratuitv Than che p