New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-29
Russian Girl
Soldiers Upset
Every Convention
tBy United Pressl


Petrograd, July 2S.-Drillng daily
through rain and mud. quartered no
whit better than the lowliest peasant
private, asking no favors but to fight
on equal terms against the enemy.
Drawing at first the sneers and ieers
Of the male fighters, Russian women
in the Legion Of Death have proved
in the supreme test there is a place
for women in the fighting line.
This is the opinion of Rheta Childe
Dorr, American suffragist and writer
She returned TO Petrograd to-day,
after having gone to the front and
spent two weeks with the first women
fighters who ever were attached to q
modern army.
"When left they had been demand
ing for many DAYS that they be taken
to the fighting zone" Miss Dorr said.
az spent Two weeks with these girls
peasants, intellectuals, doctors, ste
nograp pliers, telephone operators and
plain girls" she continued, land l am
convinced there is a place for women
on the fighting line as result OF
that experience.
Ridiculed on Way to Front
Leaving Petrograd we travelled in
wooden hunks on regular trains. All
along our journey station platform
crowds greeted us with ridicule.
"'WhY are you going to fight? they
would jeer.
because you men are cowards!'
the girls would shout back.
Eve had a forty-hour trip to head
quarters near Wilma. There we were
conducted to long wooden huts half
buried in the earth, with shelves for
beds.
Thousands Of soldiers gathered TO
gree. us, and their shouts reminded
me of New Workers watching a suf-
frage parade in the early days, when
suffra gists were TAINTED and ridiculed.
"On our very FIRST night at the
front we heard a great pounding on
the door to the building A Jewess
sentry challenged instantly.
"'Arent there girls here? demanded
a voice without.
"'Not girls-but soldiers, the Jew
ess sternly returned. and If you don't
leave we will shoot
"The disturber or disturbers went,
too.
Guarded While Bathing
"The next day the girls bathed in
the river. Girl sentinels were sta
toned in wide circle about the
banks. while a number of officers-all
eentlemen-assisted in keeping away
intruders.
at rained every day, but the girls
drilled just the same. They lived
Just as the men did-except that Nine.
Botchkoreya, the commander, was more
strict than the mems commanders.
The girls called her Mr.. Commander
81 asked why.
ooh she replied, all military terms
are masculine, and it is much too use
less a work to 60 through the list
feminizing the nomenclature OF war
at was natural that many men
thought the girls were Of evil inten-
ton. But their minds were very soon
disabused.
"Many soldiers told the girls they
would never be allowed to get to the
front because the Bolshevfkis would
kill the girl fighters.
"Thc Legion of Death did receive
refusal of their request for front SER
vice from a meeting Of Bolshevikis.
the explanation being that superior
officers felt the women had not been
sufficiently trained.
when word finally did come that
the legion was to be sent nearer the
front, the girls cheers and hurrahs
lasted many minutes.
"The women's Legion Of Death has
overthrown every convention. The
girls in il have forgotten everything
they were ever taught as women-and
you've no idea how nice women can be
when they are absolutely natural and
unselfsh. =,
"The girls did their job in dead
earnest. There was no nonsense.
When there was skylarking Mr.. Com
mandcr Botchkoreva used to shout:
Don't be silly! You may be dead IN
FIVE days.
81 never before thought women
ought to 20 to war. But ! am con-
WINGED that in any country, under SUCH
conditions IS those now facing Russia,