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Show I : WOMEN IN II WAR t VVIIhcImina, Queen of the Netherlands ? -,UoSJ00k back t0 the 31st o August, Au-gust, 18S0. The clav is fair, with a genial sun flashing in through the windows win-dows of the little Dutch homes. -Through every city and village in Holland an inordinate bustle and Hum-Is Hum-Is worrying among the scrupulously Heat Dutch bourgeoisie. Wives and mothers are busy cleaning cliubbv little lit-tle Dutch lads and lassies till faces shine and wide blue eyes wonder what holiday is being put on the calendar. Merchants are casting Dutch colors to the winds and the Dutch fleets ar,d m iuts aiQ bcinnins to firc ncayy sa- jfl As the people anxiouslv count the I WM guns of the salutes a child is horn to jmH the queen. It is her first, and the peo- ,S Pjo are going into ecstacies for the .Ml chd will be heir to the Netherlands Is It a boy? The nation will convulse Wm prlnc Vith rejolclng over tho littlc Is it a girl? A discordant note will JH manifest itself in the merrvmaking and j tho guns will fire only 51 rounds in- WM stead of the 105 which will welcome qHI So the people count the guns, Hj Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty- Hi one anu iney wait for the next round. WM aiJii13? suspense- w111 the guns fire '.i As the seconds pass and the guns re- jml main silent, the Dutch realize that a girl has been born to the queen. It ;V ""fas a girl who was heir to the Dutch mm throne then "only a girl." Queen Wilhelnilna's subjects now .V look back on their disappointment with a smile. "If we had only known." they mm say. "We understand now that our S feelings were at all 'Juist.'" They a "would not oxchange their sovereign Ppr for a king on any account, for the jSa . Queen Wilhelmina has proved a mon- lj arch entirely to theDufch taste. H At the beginning of hostilities in the fl great war the Netherlands were imme- ,Sj diately placed in a delicate position. JB The least favor, humanitarian or other- fljjj wise, shown to one of the warring, SH Powers, promptly brought demands for! flu reciprocal concessions of favor from, 9 tho opposing nations. I Wk The queen recommended to her cab- MM Jnet that all the defenses of the nation be mobilized. The cabinet, always act-ing act-ing in conjunction with their monarch, Sffl called all the defensive forces to the WKl colors. Tho country was Isolated from the warring nations by a Dutch ring S of steel. The forts were manned and WJ an electrified ring of barbed wire ;wb stretched practically around the king-dom. king-dom. The Netherlands troops were 'JK completely mobilized and prepared for St all eventualities before the armies of the powers were brought up .to war :K The queen has refrained from all WL ceremonial functions since the month Wjl of August, 1014 All her officers and 'Pk advisers are met under informal cendi- 5fey, tions. Consonant with her position ?he confines her mode of living to the "Utmost "Ut-most plainness. The queen's consort, Prince Henry, is seldom heard from. His personality is completely subordinated to the overwhelming ov-erwhelming power of the queen. Not only does she keep up the right spirit in her armies by appearing among the troops on overy possible occasion, oc-casion, now here, then there, at parades, par-ades, at military sport meetings, at mimic warfare in camps and all along the frontiers, even to the most distant outposts, but she also finds time to encourage by inspection of factories and workshops in all the industrial districts, dis-tricts, by visiting the shops in The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. At the outbreak of the war she developed de-veloped a marvelous secret service to trail English and German spio;? She is honorary commander-in-chief of the Netherlands army, and is in the sad die for hours at a stretch. Sho wears an officer's uniform and rides astride. When the United States entered the .war the queen of tho Netherlands took a firm grasp of the relief work in the occupied portions of Belgium and directed di-rected a number of Dutch students to prepare to fill relief committee positions. posi-tions. Before this the Netherlands ber of 800.000. At the Dutch naval maneuvers in September, 191G, she reviewed her fleets from a submarine and twice went down for several hours. French women shrug their shoulders in despair when they contrast the frocks and hats a queen might wear with those actually worn by the Dutch queen. Her garments are all designed for comfort in preference to effect- She is reported to have stated at vhei conclusion of the late army maneuvers' maneuv-ers' "I intend to carry always in my heart the words of my beloved father that the House of Orange can never, never do enough for Holland." oo |