- 'Women Soldiers and Female Battalions'
- by Magnus Hirschfeld, sex researcher
A Less Than Glamorous Post-War View
Russian female soldiers in the field
Women Soldiers in Battle — True Stories of Female Soldiers — Russian Female Soldiers — Yellow Martha — Schoolgirls on the Battlefront — Other Strange Cases — Women Battalions of Kerensky — The Charge of the Female Battalions — Rout of Male Soldiers — Serbian Women — The League of Death — Disguised French Women — Arrests of French Women Disguised as Male Soldiers — Female Aviatrices — Mounted Female Guard of London — English Amazons — War Propaganda of Women — Unusual Cases of Disguise — Man or Woman, Which? — Examples of Female Heroism — Attempts of German Women to Smuggle Themselves into Army — Ukranian Battalion — Women in Polish Legion — The Grave of the Unknown Woman Soldier
a review of the female soldiers of the Russian Women's Battalion
Even during the war the question of the participation of female soldiers aroused considerable interest. From the known data on this subject, it appeared that in practically every army certain women participated as actual soldiers, partly with the knowledge and consent of the military authorities and partly unknown to the latter, in which case, disguised, they made their way into the army. In the latter case it appears likely that we are dealing with a sexual-pathological satisfaction of impulse. At the very outbreak of the war, Dr. Burchard called our attention to the fact that many female transvestites were eagerly joining the army and participating in all the bloody functions of war.
We certainly shall not be wrong in assuming that in a great number of these cases of female soldiers we are dealing with trans-vestitical and homosexual impulses.
Women who feel an unconquerable urge and compulsion to put on masculine clothes and to practice a masculine calling, and all other members of the weaker sex whose whole psychic attitude is masculine, obviously will have a particular predilection for the soldier's life which has always been regarded as the masculine occupation par excellence. It is understandable then that such women, when the opportunity is offered, will seize it gladly and eagerly devote themselves to active warfare. We must not, to be sure, overlook the suspicion that in certain cases the predominant motive was a sadistic one.
Inasmuch as statistics concerning the number of female soldiers in the various armies during the World War were not published, we have to rely upon conjecture. It would appear as though they were most numerous and active in the Russian army. Even at the beginning of the World War, the Cossack regiments had a number of Cossack girls in their ranks. This is to be explained by the fact that in Russia, in the country districts at least, women have always performed a masculine role in a way that is unfamiliar to the rest of Europe; this had been true for centuries, particularly in the Mir communities. In the middle of 1915 the London Graphic had the following report concerning the Cossack and certain female military chieftains:
"In Russia four hundred women are bearing arms. Most of them are part of the Siberian regiment. Until now fifty have been killed or wounded. The number of these warring women is noteworthy, especially when one takes into consideration the numerous difficulties which stand in the way of such activities, for in no land were women drawn into military service. The sixth regiment of Ural Cossacks had a female captain by the name of Kokovtseva. This woman was twice wounded and received the St. George Cross with guarantee of a military pension. It appeared that for many years her husband had belonged to a certain Cossack regiment and when the war broke out she arranged matters in such a way that she got into the same regiment. The Don Cossacks also had a woman officer in the person of Alexandra Ephimowna Lagareva. Another woman, Olga Jehlweiser, could look back upon a very interesting and distinguished war record. She served in the Manchurian War under General Rennenkampf and participated in numerous important battles in Manchuria. Recently she has been very active in the battles around Grodno. Another Russian woman fighter who participated in three battles was known as the Yellow Martha because of her blonde locks."
In addition there is data concerning the heroic deeds accomplished by Russian women who were disguised in men's clothing and of the subsequent military honors that came to these heroines. Thus the Toronto Globe for February 4, 1915, reported that among the wounded who had returned to Moscow from the front, there was a nineteen-year-old girl by the name of Olga Krasilnikoff. After she had participated in nineteen battles in Poland she sustained a leg-wound. This girl had enlisted under a masculine name and the deception had escaped notice until this time. She was awarded the St. George Cross of the fourth class. Then the New Orleans Call for February 10, 1915, reported that Natalie Tychmini, a co-ed from Kiev, had received the St. George order for distinguished service. In a battle with the Austrians at Opatow she brought munitions to the trenches under very heavy fire and then stayed on to take care of the wounded. This girl had also come to the front in man's clothing. After she was wounded she remained on the battlefield and was found by the Austrian Red Cross who took her under their care. When the Russians recaptured Opatow she was discovered in the hospital and sent back to Kiev.
In February, 1916, the Russian military headquarters reported that in the vicinity of Bojan a certain corporal, Glustschenko, had performed a deed of indubitable heroism. This person was really a young girl named Tscherniawska who had begged for this particular assignment, an extremely difficult and dangerous task, which entailed crawling into the enemy's barbed wire. Despite the fact that she sustained a grave leg-wound with a fractured joint, she performed her task and then crawled back to her own trenches.
That this participation of Russian women in the war was not confined to the lower ranks of society, appears from the following two reports, the first, derived from English newspapers, is given here just as it appeared in the Secolo:
"We are dealing here with the war adventures of young girls who took part in the Russian defensive in Galicia and in the Carpathians. Without informing anyone of their plans, twelve of these girls left school in Moscow, made their voyage to Lemberg where they dressed as soldiers and succeeded in joining the army without having their sex detected. One of the young adventuresses, Zoya Smirnow, has described the fate of this unmounted corps of Amazons. The first time that bombs burst upon their division, the two youngest, Schura and Lydia, each only fourteen, began to cry; soon all the others began to weep. Their first victim fell in a battle in the Carpathians, torn to pieces by a bomb which fell at her feet. Her friends buried her and set up a cross with a tiny inscription. Subsequently, the fourteen-year-old Nadya Zhana and Schura were wounded. Finally the narratress herself was injured and when, as a consequence of a second wound, she was sent to the hospital, her sex was finally discovered."
The second case was reported to the Temps from St. Petersberg:
"In a military hospital at Charkov there was recently brought a woman soldier who turned out to be the famous Princess Wolon-sky who had participated in the offensive in Wolhynia as an ordinary soldier. The princess was twenty-two years old, tall and athletic. Her husband had fallen at the beginning of the war and a little later her father and brother also. To avenge the death of her loved ones, the princess joined an infantry regiment which stood on the Russian southwest front. When her sex was discovered, she was brought to Kiev. But she managed to escape and joined another regiment, in all the battles of which on the Wolhynian front, she actually participated without being recognized. The princess expressed her desire and intention of returning to the front."
The creation of several women's battalions after the first Russian revolution aroused the greatest enthusiasm. The initiative in this enterprise is attributed to Kerensky himself. As early as July, 1917, the news of the first of these battalions was brought to the north front. The first Russian women's battalion, under the leadership of Marie Baktscharow, who had been advanced to the rank of lieutenant, finally arrived at the northern front. This first battalion comprised 250 women, some of whom had already participated in battles and some of whom had belonged to the sanitary corps as nurses. There were also some eighteen-year-old students.
We might remark here that the famous English woman, Miss Pankhurst, who was touring Russia at this time, regarded the formation of this women's battalion as the greatest event in the world's history. According to Swiss reports, the first Russian women's division received its baptism of fire in the vicinity of Smorgon. The women fought so bravely that they heartened all the neighboring divisions. Concerning their method of warfare, the London Exchange has reported the following interesting infor- mation:
"A peasant girl related that she found herself right next to a German, ran him through with her bayonet and at the same time shot him and took his helmet for a memento.... Another girl related that before they went over the top they were all very much excited and scared. But when the order to charge came she forgot everything and leaped over the top with the mob of screaming and bellowing girls. All excitement had virtually disappeared when the time came for shooting. This despite the fact that bombs were bursting all around. The first dead man that she saw made her pause for a moment but she just had to go on and therefore passed right over his dead body, a thing to which she soon became quite accustomed. Another girl related how her battalion had surrounded a company of German soldiers who threw away their weapons, held up their hands and shouted in amazement, 'Good Lord! Women!'"
A certain Austrian officer whose regiment fought against a Russian women's battalion sent us the following communication:
"Especially in attack did they show themselves to be brave and not infrequently blood- thirsty soldiers. Naturally we were quite far from feeling any knightly sentiments towards these Penthesileas. Nevertheless these battles of men against women were thoroughly abominable to us because they contradicted our esthetic feeling, which God knows, the war had made hard enough, and so whenever possible we avoided fighting them and just tried to capture them. It is interesting to note that these female warriors did not wear trousers, but blue smocks. These were the first skirts we had ever seen that left the knees bare. It is quite remarkable that these Valkyries, who in attack proved themselves so extraordinarily brave, were quite different in artillery fire. (We also saw the same thing among the Bosnians who in attack were distinguished by a sort of bestial wildness, whereas under cannonade some of them grew so terrified that they actually committed suicide.) As far as we could learn, these female Russian soldiers were nearly always urban workers who had been unable to find employment at home (remarkably enough, many were of German descent), or working women whose husbands had either fallen in the war or been in military service for a long time."
The Serbian women also took an intensive part in the wars against the Austrian troops who were invading their land. Among this little heroic band of freedom-loving people there were battalions of women even before the war. These female volunteers who entered the army called themselves The League of Death; and at the head of this organization there stood a simple peasant woman, advanced in years, who was the daughter and widow of heroes who had distinguished themselves in the wars of inde- pendence against the Turks. Later on this enlisted corps grew so large that a whole regiment was formed and stationed at Kragujevac. The commander-in-chief of the army accepted most gratefully the services of these female troops. In a short time this little female army comprised 2400 fighters equipped with all the instruments of war and trained by officers. This contingent included peasants, urban workers and women of rank.
After the outbreak of the war, American sources reported the case of a young Serbian woman, named Sophie Jowanowitsch, who had received permission from King Peter to fight in the army wearing the uniform of a common soldier, and also of another seventeen-year-old co-ed of Belgrade, Milena Manditsch, who also took part in the war as a volunteer.
In France, women soldiers were not permitted in the army. Early in 1915 the press of the Central Powers reported that Parisian women had determined to form a regiment of women at the head of which there was to be a certain painter, Madame Arno. However, these reports were not confirmed. Still in January, 1916, the Eclair reported that certain women had volunteered their services to the army and been accepted. In addition French women participated in the war in certain cases disguised as men. We might mention two such instances. Among the wounded who were brought to Noisy-le-Sec, there was a young laundry girl dressed in the full uniform of a French soldier. Not until she got to the hospital was her sex discovered. The other case concerned three women, a young woman and two girls, aged twenty-two and twenty-six, of the town of Montrueil (Henriette Jary, Marie Rouault and Georgette Vincent). These enterprising ladies had cut their hair and put on the uniform of the Zouaves in which disguise they were accepted into a Zouave regiment at Fort Rosny where they had many friends. When the detachment had to leave for the front the sex of the women was discovered and they were arrested for illegitimate wearing of military uniforms and on suspicion of engaging in espionage activities.
Of much greater importance is the activity of female chauffeurs who were used for transporting troops during the first march of the Germans on Paris. Moreover, French female fliers came to the support of male aviators. The Petit Journal reported in October, 1915, that Madame Richter, the general secretary of the patriotic union of the French female fliers, and Mile. Provost-Damedos, the secretary of this organization, had sent in a most urgent request to military headquarters that their services and those of their colleagues be immediately requisitioned. The exploits of the French military flier, Helene Dutreux, became especially famous. She was known in the army as the Eagle and won the cross of the Legion of Honor. She was a Belgian by birth and was the first woman whom the French government permitted to become a military aviatrix in Paris.
There were also some English women who tried to get to the front as soldiers. It is well known that there was a women's auxiliary corps which was permitted to serve only at home. Then too, there was organized in London a mounted female guard which was prepared for action in the event of a German attack. In all these cases there is much more involved than merely playing at being soldier. The same is true also of the nurses who in England and the United States were organized in a thoroughly military fashion. The American writer, Hay den Church, has left us a description of the English Amazons, the so-called female recruits of Kitchener. This female army was composed of girls and women of all classes between the ages of eighteen and forty. In this army could be found famous titled women who, not quite a year ago, might have been found in the streets of London battling with police and after their arrest going on hunger-strikes until they were released.
Now all these girls and women were being taught to shoot and ride and were being systematically drilled by army officers just as were the recruits of Kitchener; they were drilled according to the same regulations as the soldiers of the army. Among them could be found many stenographers, teachers, saleswomen, etc., who were employed and who sacrificed all their leisure time in order to take part in these maneuvers. All classes of society were represented in this female army, from the highest nobility down to cooks. Many noble women had themselves transferred to other companies because they held it to be beneath their dignity to drill in the same group as their own domestics. The chiefs of this army were Lady Londonderry and her adjutant, a certain Mrs. Haverfield, the widow of an artillery officer and the real founder of this female army. It was the hope of the latter that her troops would actually get to the firing line. If that hope should turn out to be impossible Mrs. Haverfield felt that the drill would have been of definite advantage anyhow. She felt that her soldiers could at the very least be employed as messengers to and from various fields of battle. Their corps grew faster than it could be accommodated, and they had branches in practically every city. All their recruits were urged to practice shooting and it was their fond belief that if official authority were issued to them, they would be able to give the German invaders a very hot welcome indeed.
These English women who were carried away by their enthusiasm for war, exercised a most pernicious influence through their strong and noxious war propaganda, the importance of which was much greater in this land, where women played so large a part, than that of the female regiments. Thus in September, 1916, the Morning Post carried a letter signed Little Mother and bearing the title: A Message to Pacifists. This letter was then reprinted as a brochure and in one week some 75,000 copies were distributed. The writer expressed the profoundest regard for her sex and attributed the most important function in the world to them as the mother of the men who were fighting not only for the honor of the fatherland and their kingdom, but for the whole moral world. This woman, who was so filled with a keen sense of the tremendous importance of women in that crisis of world history, then went on to say the following: "Send us the pacifists and we will soon show them and the rest of the world that in our homes at least there is now no longer any calm sitting by the fire in the winter and no enervating attempts at cooling oneself during the heat of summer, but that for the women of the British race there is only one temperature, namely that of white heat."
An even more precious example of the war propaganda carried on by English women, is the letter of a sailor's wife to the recruiting office reprinted in the Daily Mail: "If there should be any need of men, do not forget to give women the chance of fighting for their King and land. I own a musket and munition and I know how to use them. There are many others like me. That is why I am holding myself ready in case you should call us or need us or at least give us the chance of putting an end to a few fat Germans."
Despite these brave words, participation of English women was confined at the most to certain technical services. Early in 1915 the Italian press reported that under the command of Countess Castlereagh there was formed in London a regiment of four hundred women who accompanied the English army to the continent and helped in telephone, commissary and munition services. The women of this regiment were for the most part suffragettes between the ages of twenty and forty. The formation of another regiment was even considered. These female troops had uniforms of their own and in place of hats, they had dark blue head coverings.
One also heard of a Women Signallers' Territorial Corps under the command of the sister of Lord Kitchener, Mrs. Parker. The members of this corps received a complete course in the art of signalling in all its branches including semaphore, nagging, whistling, heliograph, lamps, telegraphy and wireless.
In the quarterly reports of the Wissenschaftlich-humanitaren Komitee, edited by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, to whose rich collection we owe the most of our information on this subject, we find two cases of English women who were so drawn to the war that they tried to accompany the army to the battlefront disguised as men. The first was a young girl who accompanied a group of military fliers. The French gendarmes caught her at Dijon. She wore the military uniform of the flier and had short hair. They decided that the best thing to do for this twenty-six-year-old English woman was to send her back to her parents. The other case concerned an English woman, Flora Sanders, who issued a book under the title An English Woman Sergeant in the Serbian Army, participated in the whole Serbian offensive and finally was wounded at Monastir.
When America entered the war the American women did not wish to lag behind their English sisters and showed themselves to be just as enraptured about the war, even if their propaganda activity didn't assume the proportions of the British. They wanted to be of service in order to show that the men could not get along without them. In the great Preparedness Parade which took place, even before the war, on May 13, 1916, 20,000 women participated. Then, too, other preparations for war were made by women. Thus in Washington two hundred young girls and women, the majority of them wives of officers, attended a two weeks' training camp in order to learn the rudiments of military practice. After the declaration of war some American women, following the French example, entered the flying corps; and one woman was reported as being accepted in the coast artillery as a signaler.
In the German army, as in the French, the entrance of women was prohibited and yet there are historical examples that this prohibition was violated by certain women who dressed up as men. Cases of this sort, which became known during the World War, make us suspect very strongly that in practically every one we are dealing with what is called in modern sexology men-women (mannweiber) or female transvestites. In the press of the Allies there frequently appeared reports that in the German army women were participating as volunteers. Thus the Warsaw correspondent of the Petersburg Dijen reported that he had seen such Amazons in the very first months of the war. These women were captured and brought to the hospital at Ouyazdoff. They all wore regular uniforms and from their wounds it was possible to judge that they had participated, not only in trench defensive warfare, but in bayonet fights as well. One of them actually died from bayonet wounds.
Frequently the press reported unsuccessful attempts by women to smuggle themselves into the army in male disguise. Thus there is a case of a girl of nineteen, Clara B. of Insterburg, who, uprooted from her home as a result of the military campaign in East Prussia and unable to find employment, decided to join the army. She cut her hair, donned male clothing and joined a company of men. In some way or other she was able to evade preliminary examination. At any rate for a couple of weeks she went through all the drills and maneuvers. Finally, when it was impossible to defer the medical examination any longer, she went to the leader of the detachment and confessed everything. All her entreaties to the contrary notwithstanding, she was refused permission to remain in the army; and after she had been provided with women's clothing she was sent home to Danzig where she was able to train as a nurse.
We now come to the interesting question of the erroneous determination of sex of which an instance was reported in the Berliner Volkzeitung. On the basis of this report, we are inclined to think that the war lust of many women was very likely due to such erroneous determination of sex.
In one of the suburbs of Berlin there was a girl, Erna B., a domestic, who had several times applied to the military authorities with the most passionate and earnest request that she be permitted to join the army. Her first request was made immediately after the outbreak of the war when she was eighteen. Of course at that time she was refused and was informed that in the German army women were not wanted. When she came of age, she once again applied, both in writing and in person, for permission to join. She asserted that ever since her childhood she had always felt and acted like a boy, and that she had always been interested in masculine activities and professions. Because of these assertions the physician of the post where she was applying began to think that this girl might be a case of erroneous sexual determination, one of those remarkably interesting cases which in recent years have occupied the attention of scientists. For this reason she was turned over to the specialist, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, with the request that he ascertain whether Erna B. was a case of erroneous sex determination which would warrant legal alteration of her sexual status. As a matter of fact, the examination revealed that the masculine feeling of the young girl was due to her physique and her spiritual life, the masculine male sex characters being so predominant that she could be regarded as belonging to the male sex.
On the basis of these results, the Fraulein requested the court at Potsdam to permit her to change her name from Erna to Ernest and also to wear masculine clothing. Furthermore, she requested that her application for military service be given the earliest possible consideration now that the former obstacle had been removed. This case leads us to inquire whether a considerable number of those cases of former times, where women pressed forward to join the army, would not, on investigation, have turned out to be cases of erroneous sex determination, a concept which was unknown before our generation.
As far as the allies of Germany are concerned, E. K. Mygind had reported that Turkish women frequently accompanied their husbands to the battlefields and took part in the battles as, for example, in those on the Caucasian front. In the Austrian army the entry of women into active military service was not hindered by law and there were a number of instances to show that women did make use of this freedom. A very well-known case was that of Fraiilein Marie v. Fery-Bognar who fought in the Austro-Hungarian army as a volunteer, was promoted to the rank of corporal in 1916, and for her valorous deeds was presented by the Emperor Franz Josef with a brooch decorated with his name. The first and only woman who won the Order of Franz Josef in Austria-Hungary was the wife of the district commander of Lublin, Lieutenant v. Turnau. She was no soldier but through her personal bravery and her heroic deportment in the Carpathians stayed the flight of a receding division and heartened them anew to further combat. There were a considerable number of women in the Austrian army who served as volunteers in the Ukraine. Thus we read of a Fraiilein Jarema Kuz in the volunteer-Uhlan squadron of the Ukrainians, whose pale energetic little face reminded people of the early pictures of Napoleon.
Many reports appeared in the Austrian press concerning the Ukrainian volunteer battalion, a peculiarity of which was the presence in their ranks of women who did everything that the men did. According to international law, they were soldiers just like the men. The famous dramatist, Franz Molnar, once had a long conversation with one of these soldiers, Sophie Haletchko, a blonde, girlish and very pretty young student of twenty-four who wore on her breast a medal for bravery and who had already been promoted to the rank of sergeant-major of cavalry. She had been in the field ever since the beginning of the war and, all in all, had been in poor health only nine days. This young girl, who was a native of Lemberg, had studied German and Slavish philology at Graz, and, shortly after the outbreak of the war, had volunteered to serve in the Galician- Ukrainian division. She said she had been unable to remain at home and felt that now everyone would have to go out and do something; hence she had interrupted her studies for the doctorate and sneaked into the army of the Ukrainians where she won signal distinctions. Franz Molnar was especially impressed by the fact that the hands of the girl had remained fine and womanly, that her eyes still had something dreamy and spiritual, and that her glance, despite the fact that she had already been engaged in warfare for more than a year, had not changed like those of the majority of intelligent men who, after only one month of war experiences, get a totally new, peculiar and unrecognizable look.
Furthermore, women were also to be found in the Polish legion which in 1916 fought on the Austrian side. Such a legionnaire was Stanislawa Ordynska who, married very young, had declared that she would not consent to be separated from her husband and went to the battlefront with him. The Berliner Lokalanzeiger estimated that there were more than two hundred women serving in the Polish legion of the Austro-Hungarian army. In the Neuer Pester Journale, Vilma Balog described a visit to a Hungarian barrack hospital where she was attracted to a very young boy not yet sixteen, thin and very meager, whose face shone lovingly above his Hungarian uniform.... A few minutes after he entered the bathroom a young woman physician came by and announced in great surprise that this young soldier was a girl whose secret had been revealed in the bathroom. This young girl was the daughter of well-to-do parents and had been well educated in Budapest. After her mother's death things went badly for the family and her only joy was the company of her older brother. But when the war came, he was removed from her side and so great was her yearning for him that she decided to follow him. She provided herself with soldier's clothes and succeeded in boarding a military transport. An old and kindly colonel, who did not suspect the truth and admired the pluck of the youngster, helped her to get to the battalion of her brother which was on the firing line and had been exposed to a terrific assault. The poor girl found her brother dead but she remained in the field and took part in a number of battles. Her comrades reported that her bravery, heroism and self-sacrifice inspired and heartened soldiers and officers as well. But the poor youngster became so exhausted by the strain that she had to be brought to the hospital.
There are many similar instances where women sneaked into the army by one subterfuge or another and performed deeds of indubitable and almost incredible valor. About the middle of the war, the activity of women soldiers became a favorite theme for journalists and this theme was varied in innumerable ways. However, as people slowly but surely became tired of the war, not much was made of this theme and one heard less and less of female soldiers who had paid for their bravery or foolhardiness with their life. Not until the Russian revolution had to protect itself against enemies converging upon it from all sides, did the participation of women in man-murdering war become really serious. The women soldiers of the female battalion called into existence by Kerensky took their places in the field and fought for their newly achieved freedom in magnificent disregard of death.
In this historic conflict between two world views the sex of the female soldiers was in no way considered a factor; Russian girl soldiers who fell into the hands of Russian counter- revolutionaries or, after the peace of Brest-Litowsk, into the hands of Austrian or German units that were still camped on Austrian territory, were treated without any quarter at all just like their male colleagues of the Bolshevik ranks. Not long ago some one wrote a communication to the Vienna newspaper, Der Tag, revealing the fate of an unknown Austrian woman who, clothed as an officer, had fought and died near the Piave.
The communication follows: "On my return from Italy I met an Italian near Treviso (whose name and address are known to me). In the course of conversation he related the following incident with the request that I publicize it in the newspapers of Vienna. In this way he hoped that it might some day be possible to establish the identity of that unknown woman and to inform her relatives of her demise. The Italian went on to relate that this dead heroine was venerated in all that district and that her grave was always kept fresh and wreathed with flowers by the Italian women of the district.
On the cemetery of Falze di Piava in the province of Treviso there is to be found the grave of a woman who participated in the Italian defensive in November, 1918, and who died in the Italian hospital as a result of injuries sustained in this campaign. This woman wore the uniform of an Austrian officer and fought in the first ranks of the Austrians near the Piava. She participated in the conflict with the Arditi Italiani at Isola dei Morti. She was found in a dying condition by the Arditi. A number of the Austrian captive soldiers were brought before her but none of them could identify her. The dead heroine was buried in the cemetery of Falze di Piava and now her grave is marked by a stone which bears the inscription: 'An Unknown Woman who cannot be better identified than with the words, Clothed as an Austrian Officer: "
see also : Women Warriors of Death
from a French magazine - soldiers of the Russian 'Batalion of Death'
