Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1915 — WOMAN IS COLONEL IN RUSSIAN ARMY [ARTICLE]

WOMAN IS COLONEL IN RUSSIAN ARMY

Wounded Twice While Leading Coosacks, She Has Received Cross of St George. LONDON.—Militant feminism of a genuinely heroic sort Is exemplified In the person and exploits of a woman who is a colonel in the Russian army. She is Col. Alexandra Koudasheva, In command of the Sixth Ural Cossaek Regiment. Before distinguishing herself in daring raids against the Germans In East Prussia, Mme. Kudasheva was known throughout the empire for having completed what is reported to have been the longest horseback ride ever undertaken by a woman. She rode from Harbin through Manchuria, Siberia and the forests of European Russia to Petrograd, covering in all 8,000 miles. In her diary of this trip Mme. Koudasheva tells of her long ride and the trials endured by her and her sturdy Cossack pony Mongolik. This horse was caught wild on the Siberian steppes and tamed by the rider. The adventure was free from dramatic Incident, the main difficulties being fatigue, desert heat, the horror of the gloom and solitude of trackless forests, and dangerous looking men encountered in places where no protection was possible beyond what she could give herself. “I have felt just as safe in the uninhabited deserts of Siberia as I do on the streets of Moscow or Petrograd,” writes Mme. Koudasheva, “simply because I have absolute confidence in my ability to command men, whether I meet them in fashionable society or the Cross of St. George, the V. C. of When a woman discovers her feminine powers she can conquer any man.” On arriving in Petrograd Mme. Koudasheva dined with the Czar’s family. She presented her pony Mongolik to the Emperor and received in return one of his Majesty’s favorite riding horses.

At the outbreak of the war Mme. Koudasheva joined the Cossack regiment In which her husband had served years ago. She was wounded twice in encounters In East Prussia, received as highway robbers in wild forests Russia, for bravery, became a Lieutenant and finally a Colonel. She has also been promised the military pension which her husband, who died several years ago, failed to receive. Acounts of Col. Koudasheva’s exploits, printed in Russian newspapers, show her to be a woman of refinement, a lover of sports and possessed of a talent for music. Her letters and diary indicate that she has no mean ability with her pen. While still a Lieutenant, Col. Koudasheva wrote thus of a sortie at night, made to learn the strength of the enemy: "It was a spectral moonlight night of the fall. A cutting wind whistled and moaned around the ruins of the village In which there had been so much human joy before and so much misery after the battle. I was riding with a company of 25. In the dead and solemn bowl of hill that rose before us mysterious lights, like magic signals, flashed here and there. Each Indicated a hidden battery. “As we galloped on we could see the road strewn with broken boxes, knapsacks, household Implements, dead men and horses which the enemy had left behind In their hurried retreat. •Excellency,’ whispered my orderly, 'I see there beyond the hills a moving dot. It may be the head of a ‘dady,’ as we called the Germans. We could now see the first line of the enemy’s trenches in the moonlight. “I leveled my rifle, aimed, fired. The dot became a black figure which rose, staggered and fell. He was 50 paces away. We rode on and beheld a gray ribbon of trenches stretched in both directions before us, a ribbon that bqjh fascinated and terrified us. It was the home of death. More black dots moving toward the spot where the first had disappeared were visible. “A few figures evolved from the gloom and ran towards us. My boys and girls prepared for a salvo. They aimed. I whispered the command to fire and the figures either fell or ran back behind the ribbon. A dazzling light flashed at top a hill and the battery of the enemy opened fire on us. Their machine guns crashed through the silence with their trip-hammer song of death. •Nu-ka, Misha, tickle the dadies, quick!* remarked one of the soldiers near me. We began firing. We must haya wounded or killed a hundred or more; whereupon we turned and i*ode back to headquarters. We so sheltered ourselves that/none of our party was lost” ( Mme. Koudasheva gives in a letter what may be the first description by a woman of her experiences under fire. She writes: “A new life of feeling and thinking begins for a woman on the battlefield. When she feels the invisible fingers of fate close upon her throat, the problems that Interested her before and the feelings that occupied her in peaceful feminine activity vanish. It Is not the thrill of sport, nor the horror of being killed that takes hold of her mind on the firing line. It Is rather a queer, dramatic hypnosis such as an actor feels before opening a play. •War Is a huge cosmic play, a stern panorama of life. Her whole human Toganfatm works against the laws of nature She stays in the cold and rain day and night and yet contracts none of the ailments that are such distressing accompaaflments of everyday life.”