Women's Battalion - 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death

1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death

At the end of May, the Minister of War of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, authorized the formation of the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death in Petrograd. He placed Maria Bochkareva, a peasant woman who had served in the Russian army since November 1914 and had risen to the rank of non-commissioned officer, in command of the unit. This first all-female combat unit initially attracted over 2,000 enlistees between the ages of eighteen and forty, but Bochkareva's strict discipline soon drove out all but about 300 dedicated volunteers.

Called into action against the Germans during the Kerensky Offensive, they were assigned to the 525th Kiuruk-Darinski Regiment and occupied an abandoned trench near Smorgon. The battalion pushed past three trenches into German territory, where the trailing Russian army discovered a hidden stash of vodka and became dangerously drunk. The newly-promoted Lieutenant Bochkareva ordered that any further stashes be destroyed. Outnumbered and unsupported, the battalion met stiff resistance from the Germans and were repelled. In honour to those women volunteers, it was recorded that they did go into the attack; they did go "over the top". But not all of them. Some remained in the trenches, fainting and hysterical; others ran or crawled back to the rear.