Tales of the Great War bring stories of thousands of women fighting as soldiers in men's uniforms on all the battle-lines--in the trenches, in the artillery and cavalry, and going "over the top" in the bayonet charges. "The Legion of Death"--a battalion of Russian women, under command of Vera Butchkaroff, has fought many hard battles with the Russian Army. They are pledged to take their own lives rather than become prisoners of the Germans, who have ravished and attacked them. Each woman soldier carries a ration of cyanide of potassium to be swallowed in case of capture. Mme. Colonel Koudasheva commands the Sixth Ural Cossacks, of which one-fourth of the soldiers are women. The Serbian, German and Austrian women are in the ranks. Official dispatches mention them for orders of bravery. A few of these stories are told in these pages from the following sources: I--War Correspondent of _New York American_; II--William G. Shepherd, War Correspondent for _United Press_; III--War Correspondent for _Salt Lake Tribune_; IV--War Correspondent for _New York World_; V--War Correspondent for _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_; VI--_London Daily Telegraph_. (Many are the tales that will be told of these women soldiers in the "New Russia," but this is sufficient to prove that womanhood the world over always rises to the emergency, when home and country are in danger--EDITOR.) I--STORIES OF MADAM COLONEL KOUDASHEVA It did not seem possible that women could undergo the hardships, the complete reversal of all their habits and the primitive manners that necessarily accompany trench life. Incredulity has, however, given way before actual official reports of women decorated and promoted for bravery on the battlefields. It seems now that in Europe the women actually do put on the uniform of the men, fight not only in trenches, but in the cavalry, and in every way measure up to the standard of a soldier. Indeed, they are harder to conquer, it seems, than the men. A recent semi-official report from Petrograd mentioned that the Russians were surprised, when they captured a line of trenches along the Bzura River in Poland, to find a number of German women among their captives. These women were found in the very first line, with hot rifles still in their hands. "There was much more difficulty in making these women prisoners than the men," reported the officer in charge of the victors. "They would not surrender until after all their men comrades had thrown down their arms, and they taunted the men with cowardice. These women were not at all heavy, unsexed peasants. Some of them showed the marks of refinement. Inquiry developed that only a few had donned the uniform because some loved one was in their company. The majority had enlisted because of pure patriotism.