Russia
Maria Bochkareva
1889–1920 Founder of the Women's Battalion of Death
Born into a peasant family and married at 15 to a violent husband, Bochkareva begged the Tsar for permission to join the army in 1914, served in the infantry and won decorations for bravery; she was wounded several times. After the February Revolution she proposed to the Provisional Government that an all-female unit be formed to shame men into fighting. With Kerensky's backing, the battalion was blessed in Petrograd in June 1917 and went to the front, where Bochkareva was wounded. After the October Revolution she left Russia by way of Siberia for the United States and Britain, returned in 1919 to support the Whites, and was executed by the Bolsheviks at Krasnoyarsk on 16 May 1920.