Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 35

Nor did the problem end with the construction of these marvel-roads. It was necessary to transport very heavy war material across stretches where the building of any roads whatever was a sheer impossibility.

Often it was necessary to take heavy guns as far as might be upon sleighs and then drag them for considerable distances by hand; quite as often it was imperative that across chasms great cables should be rigged on which the guns might be swung, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of feet above the valleys beneath, from one height to another.

The "wireways" by which much of this unique transportation was accomplished are of Italian invention, as were other notable and essential engineering devices of this great war of mountain transportation.

Such contrivances, known as "teleferrica," were introduced for the first time during the winter of 1916, and by summer there were about 200 along the mountainous front. They not only supplied very advanced positions with armament, ammunition and food, but transported men back and forth between them and lower points.

SYSTEM ONE OF TACKLES.

The system was one of tackles (where guns and other heavy freight were to be moved) or cars (like cradles, where men were to be moved), operated by motor-pulleys directly connected up with great electric power. One of the most astonis.h.i.+ng and picturesque uses to which these aerial wireways were put was the movement downward of men wounded at the advanced posts with which the teleferrica communicate.

To see wounded men going down these wireways, mere dots, each representing a suspended stretcher upon which a suffering human being is strapped securely, was described as one of the most amazing spectacles of the whole war. The experience, to some wounded men, swinging sickeningly, dizzyingly alone in midair, was probably more terrifying than actual fighting, although there were few, if any, accidents connected with the wireways.

Not infrequently these wireways were within direct range of the enemy fire, and that complicated matters. So far as is known, there has been no instance of a cable cut by gunfire, but in several districts it was necessary that the men, going to their duty and the wounded going backward, having done theirs, must needs be protected in armored baskets, somewhat like those which often are swung beneath observation balloons on the various fronts.

PROBLEMS OF TRANSPORTATION.

The problems of transportation, great as they are, are by no means the only unique difficulties presented to these brave mountain fighters. In this extraordinary warfare mining by means of high explosives was carried on upon a hitherto unequaled scale. Such work with high explosives was not only continually necessary in the construction of roads and fortifications in a region of solid rock, but sometimes proved the only effective means of attack upon the enemy.

The mine was used as an offensive weapon by both sides, and often with very terrible results.

Perhaps the most extraordinary of the campaign was the mine laid by the Italians after infinitely difficult and very extensive tunneling in solid rock at the Cima del Col di Lana.

This immense effort with explosives blew off the whole top of a mountain--and that mountaintop was thickly occupied by Austrians at the time of the explosion of the mine. None on the Italian side knows exactly what the Austrian casualties were, but it is certain that through this one explosion more than an entire company--that is, more than 400--of the enemy's soldiers were destroyed.

An interesting detail of this operation is the fact that while the Italians were tunneling for this great mine they were perfectly aware that the Austrians also were at work upon a similar effort. It amounted to a race with death, and the Italians won it.

Correspondents agree that the thing which most impresses the visitor to the mountain fronts of the Italian army is the immense patience which it has shown in the face of the difficult tasks of this astonis.h.i.+ng campaign. Italians usually are regarded as temperamental creatures, but "dogged" has been the word which has meant most in this campaign.

Some of the movements of troops across exposed snow-covered s.p.a.ces have been marvels of incredible patience. To escape observation the soldiers have been clad in white clothing, but in addition to this it has been necessary for them to lie flat upon their faces in the snow, moving very, very slowly, accomplis.h.i.+ng their transfers from point to point literally at snail speed.

With regard to such work, as with regard to the Italian wounded, one thing is remarked by all the officers and those who have been privileged even for a short time to share the hards.h.i.+ps of the Italian "common soldier." He never complains. Healthy or hurt, weary or fresh, he takes war with a smile full of flas.h.i.+ng teeth and with eyes glittering with interest and good nature.

CHAPTER XVI.

WOMAN AND THE WAR.

SHE HAS WON "HER PLACE IN THE SUN"--RICH AND POOR IN THE MUNITIONS FACTORIES--NURSE AND AMBULANCE DRIVER--KHAKI AND TROUSERS--ORGANIZER AND FARMER--HEROES IN THE STRESS OF CIRc.u.mSTANCES--DOING MEN'S WORK FOR MEN--EVEN A "BOBBIE."

If it were ever really necessary for woman to "win a place in the sun"

she has done so by her activities with relation to the war. We have regarded woman with a high degree of sentimentality, and to her pleas for recognition in world affairs have shrugged our shoulders and intimated that she was fit to bear children, nurse the sick, do household ch.o.r.es and cook, cook, cook; but physically, mentally and by training she was unfit to perform the greater world duties.

But the world war has proved that all the tasks which men claimed women were unfitted to perform can as well be done by what we have been pleased to term the "weaker s.e.x."

The war has proved a truism that old saying, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," and also that the burden of war falls upon women. It is they who give up their sons to their country and send their husbands and boys to the front to serve as fodder for the cannon.

In England the work of women in the war secured for them a degree of recognition in Parliament which all of their agitation and militant tactics failed to produce.

National extremity was woman's opportunity; frank invitation to new lines of work was followed by hearty appreciation on the part of the men; and a proposition to extend suffrage to 6,000,000 English women was based avowedly upon the general grat.i.tude felt for their loyal and effective service in the war. And it is war service, for modern warfare has greatly enlarged the content of that term. In the modern conception those who make munitions or in other ways release others for the front are doing war service as truly as those who bear arms.

Instead of yielding to fame a few isolated Mollie Pitchers, the war brought a largely neglected half of the nation's military strength into practical service. Indeed, though woman dreads war more than man does, if it comes to actual defense of land and home and young, we find, with Kipling, that "the female of the species is more deadly than the male."

THE WORK OF WOMEN.

The work of the women in the munitions factories in England has deservedly attracted large attention, and, doubtless, British historians will for centuries tell how, when England found herself utterly at a loss before her enemies because of a lack of effective ammunition, the women responded "as one man" to meet the need and save the Union Jack from being forced to the sh.o.r.e. It was a repet.i.tion, multiplied 10,000 times, of the Presbyterian parson at Springfield, N.J., supplying Was.h.i.+ngton's army with Watts hymn books when it was retreating to serve as paper wadding for the rifles.

The innovation of the task, the large scale on which it was carried out and the striking success of it make it a major event of the war, even to be compared with the battle of the Marne. And shall not American historians ascribe to the scores of young girls who lost their lives in an explosion at Eddystone, Pa., making munitions, the honor of being the first martyrs of the German-American War?

It was not alone the working girls of England who tired their arms and calloused their hands on the heavy sh.e.l.ls. When the work was at its full capacity, a proposition was sent to the women of leisure to undergo three weeks of training in a munitions factory and then take up the work at the week-ends to relieve the regular workers, the women sh.e.l.l machinists, whose strength and skill could best be maintained by saving them from Sat.u.r.day and Sunday overtime.

There was a strange incongruity in paying them less than the men for the same work. They worked in eight-hour s.h.i.+fts and were required to stand, except during a single half-hour interval. The prospectus of instruction suggested short skirts, thick gloves and boots with low heels, adding that evening dress would not be necessary.

Hotel accommodations were attempted for these "lady" workers, but this proved inadequate, and part of them went to the lodgings with the regular workers. Short skirts were only the first step that promptly led to overalls, and when these English ladies, whom the girls called "Miaows," got well grimed with dust and grease, utterly tired out with handling 12-pound sh.e.l.ls and hungry enough to prefer coa.r.s.e food, they understood the workgirls as never before, and the men, too, and they had a new birth of patriotism. One lady said she found great relief and enthusiasm by thinking of the sh.e.l.ls as so many dead Boches or live Tommies.

VARIED OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN.

Making ammunition and hospital supplies, handling luggage and trunks in baggage rooms, driving motors, conducting trolley cars, carpentry work on wooden houses for the front, are but a few of the occupations in which European women engaged in war service. They have served as lift attendants, ticket sellers, post office sorters, mail carriers, gardeners, dairy la.s.sies, grocery clerks, drivers of delivery wagons and vans, commissionaires. More than a million were added to the industrial workers in England during the first two years of war.

America coming later into the war, its women naturally followed the lead of the English and French along many lines tried and proved to be worth while, but our matrons and maids, famed for their independence and initiative, developed also new lines of patriotic effort. As soon as it was evident that German ambitions included designs upon America, the strong feminine instinct for preservation began to a.s.sert itself.

Pacifism had no special appeal to the gentler s.e.x at such a time. She got behind the recruiting as if it were her own job, and much of the success of it was due to her efforts.

The Woman's Section of the Navy League may well be described by quoting from its own statement of motive and purpose. "Every mother with sons, every wife with husband, every sister with a brother, feels her heart stand still with the horror of what war may bring to her."

WOMAN'S MANY SERVICES.

These women spread information to arouse interest in the condition of the United States naval forces, aided recruiting for the Naval Reserve, a.s.sisted in procuring enrollments for the Naval Coast Reserve, and drawing on their resources provided many needed articles of clothing, equipment and comfort not furnished by the Government. A knitting committee makes sleeveless jackets, helmets, wristlets and m.u.f.flers.

Comfort kits, games, blankets, underwear, rubber hats, coats and boots are made or bought by the Comfort and Supplies Committee.

The two poles of patriotic service are the production of food and fighting at the front; a world of activity bulges between them. European women are accustomed to farm labor. Millions of peasant women, serfs, all but in name, under the late Russian regime; Balkan women, German and French wives and girls, and, to some extent, the mothers and daughters of the English poor, would have understood Markham's poem better if he had called it, "The Woman With the Hoe."

In the war food crisis the women of America matched the women of the enemy and vied with those of their own allies in persuading mother earth to yield her bounty. In heavy shoes, trousers of jean, rolled-up sleeves and a straw hat, the girls of America here and there turned to the land and took hold of the tasks of the farm.

So far we have mentioned only the work at home that women took up for the war, but this is only a part; the other pole finds them near. The invaluable service of Red Cross nurses, their zeal and sacrifice and sometimes martyrdom, from Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale to Edith Cavell, have been women's glory for more than half a century. This war multiplied the need many times and veritable regiments of them responded. Their emblem became the symbol universal of mercy, charity and good will.

In addition to the 50 trained nurses for a base hospital, there are 25 hospital aids, who serve without pay. America has 8000 registered Red Cross nurses and scores of thousands are in training for aids.

The effective and helpful work of women in all lines of endeavor, aside from home and family life, has never before been shown so impressively as now. Their energy, willingness, faithfulness and capability in every activity are unsurpa.s.sed.

WOMAN BENT ON DOING HER UTMOST.