CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| [I] | My Childhood of Toil | [1] |
| [II] | Marriage at Fifteen | [13] |
| [III] | A Little Happiness | [25] |
| [IV] | The Road to Exile | [43] |
| [V] | Escape from Exile | [57] |
| [VI] | I Enlist by the Grace of the Tsar | [69] |
| [VII] | My First Experience of No Man’s Land | [84] |
| [VIII] | Wounded and Paralysed | [101] |
| [IX] | Eight Hours in German Hands | [121] |
| [X] | The Revolution at the Front | [135] |
| [XI] | I Organize the Battalion of Death | [151] |
| [XII] | My Fight against Committee Rule | [169] |
| [XIII] | The Battalion at the Front | [181] |
| [XIV] | Errand from Kerensky to Kornilov | [206] |
| [XV] | The Army becomes a Savage Mob | [227] |
| [XVI] | The Triumph of Bolshevism | [247] |
| [XVII] | Facing Lenin and Trotzky | [260] |
| [XVIII] | Caught in a Bolshevik Death-Trap | [279] |
| [XIX] | Saved by a Miracle | [297] |
| [XX] | I set out on a Mission | [312] |
INTRODUCTION
In the early summer of 1917 the world was thrilled by a news item from Petrograd announcing the formation by one Maria Botchkareva of a women’s fighting unit under the name of “The Battalion of Death.” With this announcement an obscure Russian peasant girl made her début in the international hall of fame. From the depths of dark Russia Maria Botchkareva suddenly emerged into the limelight of modern publicity. Foreign correspondents sought her, photographers followed her, distinguished visitors paid their respects to her. All tried to interpret this arresting personality. The result was a riot of misinformation and misunderstanding.
Of the numerous published tales about and interviews with Botchkareva that have come under my observation, there is hardly one which does not contain some false or misleading statement. This is partly due to the deplorable fact that the foreign journalists who interpreted Russian men and affairs to the world during the momentous year of 1917 were, with very few exceptions, ignorant of the Russian language; and partly to Botchkareva’s reluctance to take every adventurous stranger into her confidence. It was her cherished dream to have a complete record of her life incorporated in a book some day. This work is the realization of that dream.
To a very considerable extent, therefore, the narrative here unfolded is of the nature of a confession. When in the United States in the summer of 1918, Botchkareva determined to prepare her autobiography. Had she been educated enough to be able to write a letter fluently, she would probably have written her own life-story in Russian and then had it translated into English. Being semi-illiterate, she found it necessary to secure the services of a writer commanding a knowledge of her native language, which is the only tongue she speaks. The procedure followed in the writing of this book was this: Botchkareva recited to me in Russian the story of her life, and I recorded it in English in longhand, making every effort to set down her narrative verbatim. Not infrequently I would interrupt her with a question intended to draw out some forgotten experiences. However, one of Botchkareva’s natural gifts is an extraordinary memory. It took nearly a hundred hours, distributed over a period of three weeks, for her to tell me every detail of her romantic life.
At our first session Botchkareva made it clear that what she was going to tell me would be very different from the stories about her related in the press. She would reveal her innermost self and break open for the first time the sealed book of her past. This she did, and in doing so completely discredited several widely circulated tales about her. Perhaps the chief of these is the statement that Botchkareva had enlisted as a soldier and gone to war to avenge her fallen husband. Whether this invention was the product of her own mind or was attributed to her originally by some prolific correspondent, I do not know. In any event it was a convenient answer to the eternal question of importunate journalists how she came to be a soldier. Unable to explain to the conventional world that profound impulse which really drove her to her remarkable destiny, she adopted this excuse until she had an opportunity to record the full story of her courageous life.
This book will also remove that distrustful attitude based on misunderstanding that has been manifested toward Botchkareva in radical circles. When she arrived in the United States, she was immediately hailed as a “counter-revolutionary,” royalist and sinister intriguer by the extremists. That was a grave injustice to her. She is ignorant of politics, contemptuous of intrigue, and spiritually far and above party strife. Her mission in life was to free Russia from the German yoke.
Being placed virtually in the position of a father confessor, it was my privilege to commune with the spirit of this remarkable peasant-woman, a privilege I shall ever esteem as priceless. She not only laid bare before me every detail of her amazing life that memory could resurrect, but also allowed me to explore the nooks and corners of her heart to a degree that no friend of hers ever did. Maintaining a critical attitude from the beginning of our association, I was gradually overwhelmed by the largeness of her soul.
Wherein does the greatness of Botchkareva lie? Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst called her the greatest woman of the century. “The woman that saved France was Joan of Arc—a peasant girl,” wrote a correspondent in July, 1917, “Maria Botchkareva is her modern parallel.” Indeed, in the annals of history since the days of the Maid of Orleans we encounter no feminine figure equal to Botchkareva. Like Joan of Arc, this Russian peasant girl dedicated her life to her country’s cause. If Botchkareva failed—and this is yet problematical, for who will dare forecast the future of Russia—it would not lessen her greatness. Success in our materialistic age is no measure of true genius.