(See Cover) Only a fraction of British man power—less than 1,000,000 men—is in uniform.
Full-time "war work" for British women therefore means little more than that if one cares to volunteer one can play at more or less romantic war activities in a jaunty uniform.
In France it has been a different story.
Five million Frenchmen are now in uniform. Although Germany has some 6,000,000 men under arms, the Reich is almost twice as populous as France, has nothing like the same man power shortage on the home front. Thus there has been for millions of Frenchwomen no question of seeking war work. It has been inescapably bequeathed them by their men.
The women of France have sweated before to save la Patrie. During War I Marshal Joffre declared he would be defeated "if all the women now at work in France were to stop for even 20 minutes.'' They are sweating again at three kinds of jobs: 1) in agriculture; 2) in industry, chiefly armaments; 3) with considerably less actual perspiration but with plenty of fatigue, in the social services that make life a little more worth living at home and at the front.
On the Farm. The French farm woman, with her tucked up black skirts, her sabots and her head cloth, has always worked hard at home and in her husband's fields. With husbands, sons, uncles, brothers called up. she now works ever harder. Paradoxically, the measure of her ardor has been the extent of her failure.
To get in the harvest last autumn uncounted thousands of women, children and old men marched into French fields. They worked as never before, but an early frost made speed imperative and lack of experienced man power was acutely felt. In many cases, partially gathered crops froze before they could be binned and much of the vintage was completely lost. Piles of rotted beets still lie along the roads of France. In Paris last week the cry "Man power on the farms in February and March for the spring sowing is as important as man power on the Maginot Line!" was raised by Parliamentary bigwigs including Senator Maurice Dormann, who demanded immediate granting of leaves to peasant soldiers "in order that they may save the French agricultural situation and our agricultural class."
In the Factory. Unlike the streets of London, the streets of Paris are not filled with women in war-workers' uniforms. Even the more chic French women's organizations wear no distinctive dress. But, unseen on the streets, thousands of Frenchwomen are in uniform.
There are those in navy blue with cowls on their heads. They hurry about in the dim blue light of great factories filled with the sickly smell of chemicals. They carry yard after yard of what looks like pastry. On the walls are signs: ONE MISTAKE CAN BRING DISASTER. The pastry is gunpowder in the making and if the women did not wear their cowls they would go home at night with inflammable hair. "I like the work," says one. "My husband is mobilized. I must do some thing to keep the family going. Oh no, we never think about the danger of it. I feel just as much at home here as in my own kitchen."