The Alaska daily empire., 1918-01-29
DETAILS ARE GIVEN ABOUT
 GIRL SOLDIERS Member of the "Batta|ion of Death" Says No More Soldering
 For Her MEN PRIMEvAL BRUTES The Worst Foes to the Women Were Their
 Own Comrades
 in Arms
MEN PRIMEvAL BRUTES
BY JACK JuNGEMEYER.

BY JACK JUNGEMEYER.
 SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22.--Here is the plain, unvarnished truth about the Russian Women's Battalion o1 Death, told in America for the frs time:
 Russian women soldiers were at tackled and defeated not by the Ger mans, but by their own male com rades in arms.
 Details of that attack are un tellable and the scenes are unde scribable.
 Shocking Truth.
 And this bedrock truth about the fate of the worlds last sensational example of female soldiery was given to me by those who know-Miss Eva Zaionz and Miss Sylvia Kopkin, who have just arrived in the United Stat es from Russia.
 Both girls are members of the Battalion of Death. But both, for. tunately, belonged to the unit which had not yet been mustered into ser. vice, and therefore they were not stationed at the barracks. where they last scene in the tragedy of the wom. en soldiers was staged,
 An interview with Miss Zaiona causes one to abandon all conceal ment of the fact that the big ques- tion in the mind of every reader of the achievements of the Russian Amazons, and the big question in every mind at every suggestion of active fighting by women has been:
 Will not the sex element inter fere?
 And Miss Zaionz answers frankly that the sex barrier is insuperable.
 There are two big, primal human impulses" she said. summing up the significance of her experiences, "self preservation and the continuance of the species. They are the fundamen. tai laws of existence.
 first because race must be perpet. uated before it can either be pre- served or destroyed.
 "The race is continued by the sex impulse: the self-defense urge, of which war is an expressian, merely preserving the race.
 Therefore, as the narrowing Rus sian tragedies which went forward under my very eyes prove, the sex barrier is stronger than the bar ricades against the foe. And man. kind. in the chaos which war implies will not permit women to fight.
 Can't Be Soldiers.
 Many patriotic Russian girls were thus prevented from joining the Battalion of Death.
 '"The women who did join, if they had been sent to the assembly bar racks in Petrograd, or had gone into the trenches. had to defend those barracks and trenches against their own male soldiers.
 Women will never play an i'm. portant part as active soldiers in any war. There's no sense In cl0aking this fact. The world might as well admit the truth and quit talking nonsense.
 "Rusia's battalion of fighting women was wiped out not by the enemy, but by the Russian men"
 Miss Zaionz described the scenes when rioting Russ soldiers. stream ing back from the demoralized front, stormed the inadequately defended shelters of the second Battalion of Death.
 ''It was the shame of Russia's man. hood and the outrage of its women hood" she said.
 We tried desperately to help our beloved country. but the men would not permit it.
 Broke Into 6arraeks.
 With their officers shot or desert ed. and discipline cast aside. many of the soldiers reached Petrogard just as Kerensky was being overthrown. They broke into the barracks where women were quartered. The ensuing scenes were revolting beyond words.
 Tt was a tragic disillusionment to the brave girls of Russia. thousands of whom were ready to join that in. trepid band that forgot homo and comfort and the handicaps of sex to save our country from disaster.
 "I am afraid their offorts were en- tirely in vain. I have como to Am. erica to forget. a many others from thA natta lsnn s,R nnath vval1 00mn~