WOMEN AND WAR
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
have carefully read Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier's War book and various public criticisms of those parts of it referring to immorality and venereal disease. For nearly three years I was engaged in the medical prevention of venereal disease among the Overseas British troops on active service abroad ; and I have no hesitation whatever in endorsing General Crozier's fundamental proposition that sexual depravity is inevitable in war. If decent women don't want wholesale immorality and widespread sexual disease, let them have no more wars. The following extracts from London newspapers prove that General Crozier has erred on the side of under- statement :—
( I) Re New Zealand soldiers : In the London Times of Decem- ber 20th, 1917, the High Commissioner for New Zealand made the following statement : " Every day we hear that men are required to maintain the strength of the Army, yet this country allows conditions to prevail which render thousands of soldiers unfit for war service and a source of danger to future generations."
(2) On November 25th, 1917, the Weekly Dispatch published a leading article, from which I quote the following : "Let us take a walk down the Strand. Any day will do. Wet or fine, rain or shine, we shall see the same disgraceful condition of the pavements. From whence do they come— these dirty sluts of fifteen to eighteen years of age ? Why should the busiest thoroughfare in London be obstructed from midday to midnight with gangs of young female ruffians and thieves . . . these are the English girls we permit Colonial soldiers to meet on our pavements. . . . This scandal, both in the Strand and Waterloo Road, has been going on for two years." (3) Re Canadian soldiers :—In September, 1918, the following Canadian view was published by the Daily Express : "It is hard to forgive the British Government for letting things reach such a pass. The evil should have been checked long ago. . . " And Prebendary Carlile, head of the Church Army, wrote congratulating the Daily Express on "the magnificent stand it has taken." (4) Re Australian soldiers :—In the Daily Express of Sep- tember 24th, 1918, Australian officers expressed the view that the British authorities must accept the blame for "The Scandal of the Streets" "If they know there are bad girls on the streets— and only those who do not wish to see could be blind to their presence—then it js their first duty to deal firmly with the situation. They have no right to allow a danger to exist to the detriment of the sailors and soldiers, or even civilians, without taking the fullest measures to repress it." (5) Re American soldiers :—In September, 1918, in the Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and elsewhere, various protests were published by American editors visiting England and Europe. Mr. Edward Bok said : "I have never seen a more disgraceful condition that is witnessed in the London streets every evening. . . I say it with care and thought that, if the American woman knew what was going on here in the streets of London, there would be an outcry that. . . might prove to be a serious factor in an agitation to check the flow of American troops."
As to the results of this inevitable sexual depravity expressed in venereal disease statistics, the figures supplied by the War Office to the Overseas British military authorities in 1917 were that the British Army maintained on the average between 40,000 and 50,000 soldiers out of action continuously owing to venereal infection ; the average loss of time per case was between five and six weeks ; thus the Army had approxi-
mately 500,000 venereal cases per annum. Counting in concealments, camp cases, casualties, &c., it is safe to say that the number of venereal cases per annum was approximately 25 to 30 per cent. of the number of troops during the early and middle part of the War. On the average about two-thirds of these cases were wiped out by efficient prophylaxis ; in many units the reduction was much greater. Failures were due to drunkenness, wilful infection (to avoid service), carelessness, and shortage of supplies.
The women of the English-speaking world are indebted to General Crozier for proving so clearly, first, that sexual depravity is the inevitable result of war and, second, that venereal disease is (in the absence of medical prevention) the inevitable result of sexual depravity.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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