She fought at the front for the Tsar and commanded the “Women’s Battalions of Death” in World War I. US President Wilson and Great Britain’s King George V valued her, women’s rights activists courted her. Maria Bochkareva was already a legend during her lifetime. Until fate turned against her.
Thomas Roebke
For a short time, Maria Bochkareva was a star on the international stage and on the front pages of the press. Politicians and journalists were interested in her, women’s rights activists celebrated her as a role model. In her meeting with US President Woodrow Wilson in July 1918, she is said to have been so persuasive that, with tears in his eyes, he promised her that he would support her cause to persuade Russia to rejoin the world war.