TO THE FRONT WITH BOTCHKAREVA
Women of all ranks rushed to enlist in the Botchkareva battalion.
There were many peasant women, factory workers, servants and also a
number of women of education and social prominence. Six Red Cross
nurses were among the number, one doctor, a lawyer, several clerks and
stenographers and a few like Marie Skridlova who had never done any
except war work. If the working women predominated I believe it was
because they were the stronger physically. Botchkareva would accept
only the sturdiest, and her soldiers, even when they were slight of
figure, were all fine physical specimens. The women were outfitted and
equipped exactly like the men soldiers. They wore the same kind of
khaki trousers, loose-belted blouse and high peaked cap. They wore the
same high boots, carried the same arms and the same camp equipment,
including gas masks, trench spades and other paraphernalia. In spite of
their tightly shaved heads they presented a very attractive appearance,
like nice, clean, upstanding boys. They were very strictly drilled and
disciplined and there was no omission of saluting officers in that
regiment.
The battalion left Petrograd for an unknown destination on July 6
in our calendar. In the afternoon the women marched to the Kazan
Cathedral, where a touching ceremony of farewell and blessing took
place. A cold, fine rain was falling, but the great half circle before
the cathedral, as well as the long curved colonnades, were filled with
people. Thousands of women were there carrying flowers, and nurses
moved through the crowds collecting money for the regiment.
I passed a very uneasy day that July 6. I was afraid of what might
happen to some of the women through the malignancy of the Bolsheviki,
and I was mortally afraid that I was not going to be allowed to get
on their troop train. I had made the usual application to the War
Ministry to be allowed to visit the front, but I did not follow up the
application with a personal visit, and therefore when I dropped in for
a morning call I was dismayed to find the barrack in a turmoil, and to
hear the exultant announcement, “We’re going this evening at eight.”
It was an unseasonal day of rain, and I spent reckless sums in droshky
hire, rushing hither and yon in a fruitless effort to wring emergency
permits from elusive officials who never in their lives had been called
upon to do anything in a hurry, or even to keep conventional office
hours. Needless to say I found nobody at all on duty where he should
have been that day. Even at the American Embassy, where, empty-handed
and discouraged, I wound up late in the afternoon, I found the entire
staff absent in attendance on a visiting commission from home. The one
helpful person who happened to be at the Embassy was Arno Dosch-Fleurot
of the New York _World_. “If I were you,” he said, “I wouldn’t worry
about a permit. I’d just get on the train--if I could _get_ on--and
I’d stay until they put me off, or until I got where I wanted to go.
Of course they may arrest you for a spy. In any other country they’d
be pretty sure to. But in Russia you never can tell. Shepherd, of the
United Press, once went all over the front with nothing to show but
some worthless mining stock. Why not try it?”
I said I would, and before eight that evening I was at the Warsaw
Station, unwillingly participating in what might be called the
regiment’s first hostile engagement. For at least two thirds of the
mob that filled the station were members of the Lenine faction of
Bolsheviki, sent there to break up the orderly march of the women,
and even if possible to prevent them from entraining at all. From the
first these spy-led emissaries of the German Kaiser had sworn enmity to
Botchkareva’s battalion. Well knowing the moral effect of women taking
the places of deserting soldiers in the trenches, the Lenineites had
exhausted every effort to breed dissension in the ranks, and at the
last moment they had stormed the station in the hope of creating an
intolerable situation. In the absence of anything like a police force
they did succeed in making things painful and even a little dangerous
for the soldiers and for the tearful mothers and sisters who had
gathered to bid them good-by. But the women kept perfect discipline
through it all, and slowly fought their way through the mob to the
train platform.
As for me, a mixture of indignation, healthy muscle and rare good luck
carried me through and landed me in a somewhat battered condition next
to Adjutant Skridlova. “You got your permit,” she exclaimed on seeing
me. “I am so pleased. Stay close to me and I’ll see you safely on.”
Mendaciously perhaps, I answered nothing at all, but stayed, and
every time a perspiring train official grabbed me by the arm and told
me to stand back Skridlova rescued me and informed the man that I
had permission to go. At the very last I had a bad moment, for one
especially inquisitive official asked to see the permission. This time
it was the Nachalnik, Botchkareva herself, who came to the rescue.
Characteristically she wasted no words, but merely pushed the man
aside, thrust me into her own compartment and ordered me to lock the
door. Within a few minutes she joined me, the train began to move and
we were off. That was the end of my troubles, for no one afterwards
questioned my right to be there. At the Adjutant’s suggestion I parted
with my New York hat and early in the journey substituted the white
linen coif of a Red Cross nurse. Thus attired I was accepted by all
concerned as a part of the camp equipment.
The troop train consisted of one second class and five fourth class
carriages, the first one, except for one compartment reserved for
officers, being practically filled with camp and hospital supplies.
In the other carriages, primitive affairs furnished with three tiers
of wooden bunks, the rank and file of the regiment traveled. I had a
place in the second class compartment with the Nachalnik, the Adjutant
and the standard bearer, a big, silent peasant girl called Orlova. Our
luxury consisted of cushioned shelves without bedding or blankets,
which served as seats by day and beds by night. We had, of course, a
little more privacy than the others, but that was all. As for food,
we all fared alike, and we fared well, friends of the regiment having
loaded the train with bread, butter, fruit, canned things, cakes,
chocolate and other delicacies. Tea-making materials we had also, and
plenty of sugar. So filled was our compartment with food, flowers,
banners, guns, tea kettles and miscellaneous stuff that we moved about
with difficulty and were forever apologizing for walking on each
other’s feet.
For two nights and the better part of two days we traveled southward
through fields of wheat, barley and potatoes, where women in bright red
and blue smocks toiled among the ripening harvests. News of the train
had gone down the line, and the first stage of our journey, through
the white night, was one continued ovation. At every station crowds
had gathered to cheer the women and to demand a sight of Botchkareva.
It was largely a masculine crowd, soldiers mostly, goodnatured and
laughing, but many women were there too, nurses, working girls,
peasants. Occasionally one saw ladies in dinner gowns escorted by
officer friends.
The farther we traveled from Petrograd, the point of contact in Russia
with western civilization, the more apparent it grew that things were
terribly wrong with the empire. More and more the changed character
of the station crowds reminded us of the widespread disruption of the
army. The men who met the train wore soldiers’ uniforms but they had
lost all of their upright, soldierly bearing. They slouched like
convicts, they were dirty and unkempt, and their eyes were full of
vacuous insolence. Absence of discipline and all restraint had robbed
them of whatever manhood they had once possessed. The news of the
women’s battalion had drawn these men like a swarm of bees. They thrust
their unshaven faces into the car windows, bawling the parrot phrases
taught them by their German spy leaders. “Who fights for the damned
capitalists? Who fights for English bloodsuckers? We don’t fight.”
And the women, scorn flashing from their eyes, flung back: “That is the
reason why we do. Go home, you cowards, and let women fight for Russia.”
Their last, flimsy thread of “peace” propaganda exhausted the men
usually fell back on personal insults, but to these the women,
following strict orders, made no reply. When the language became too
coarse the women simply closed the windows. No actual violence was
ever offered them. When they left the train for hot water or for tea,
for more food or to buy newspapers, they walked so fearlessly into the
crowds that the men withdrew, sneering and growling, but standing aside.
There was something indescribably strange about going on a journey
to a destination absolutely unknown, except to the one in command of
the expedition. Above all it was strange to feel that you were seeing
women voluntarily giving up the last shred of protection and security
supposed to be due them. They were going to meet death, death in battle
against a foreign foe, the first women in the world to volunteer for
such an end. Yet every one was happy, and the only fear expressed was
lest the battalion should not be sent at once to the trenches.
As for me, when we arrived at our destination, some two miles from the
barracks prepared for us, I had a moment of longing for the comparative
safety of the trenches. For what looked to me like the whole Russian
army had come out to meet the women’s battalion, and was solidly massed
on both sides of the railroad track as far as I could see.
I looked at the Nachalnik calmly buckling on her sword and revolver.
She had a confident little smile on her lips. “You may have to fight
those men out there before you fight the Germans,” I said.
“We are ready to begin fighting any time,” she replied.
She was the first one out of the train, and the others rapidly followed
her.