Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1914 — BARS WOMEN IN FRENCH ARMY [ARTICLE]

BARS WOMEN IN FRENCH ARMY

Minister of War Cuts Cantinieres From the Active Service, Declaring Them a Detriment.

Paris, France. —The picturesque cantinieres, or women who take charge of the French regimental canteens, and who have played many heroic parts in French military history, are no longer to share the dangers of active service with the troops, according to the minister of war. The women, one of whom is commissioned to each battalion of Infantry, regiment of cavalry or battery of artillery, are in future to be retained simply in times of peace.

Formerly the women, wearing the uniform of their branch of the service, marched into battle with the troops, serving often as nurses or carrying soothing drinks to the wounded. They were the wives of noncommissioned officers or musicians. The minister of war has decided that the women are a tax on the food supply of the army and Interfere with the rapid movement of troops marching to the front after mobilization. He says, too, they are a source of distraction to the soldiers.

Napoleon I paid a high tribute to the cantinleres for their service during his many campaigns. Several of them were made chevalieres of the Legion of Honor by him, one of them, Josephine Tiequart, for saving the life of her colonel by killing a Cossack who bad attacked him during a retreat from Moscow.