1st Petrograd Women's Battalion
The creation of the first all-female combat unit under Bochkareva inspired a number of other women in Russia to appeal to the government for inclusion in the armed forces. The Ministry of War was flooded with letters and petitions from individuals and groups of women seeking to serve their nation at the front. In June Kerensky approved the organization of an additional women's combat unit in Petrograd, the 1st Petrograd Women's Battalion with a complement of between 1,100 and 1,400 women and two communications detachments of 100 women volunteers each.
A subdivision of 2nd company (137 soldiers) participated in the defense of the Winter Palace during the Bolshevik Revolution on October 25, 1917, having been called to the palace square for a review before being sent to the front, but when they arrived the commander of the Petrograd Military District ordered the women soldiers to defend the Provisional Government. Despite their resistance, they were overwhelmed by the numerically superior pro-Bolshevik forces and defeated and captured. Some of these women suffered verbal, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of Red Guards and soldiers. The members of the women's battalion were arrested but released shortly thereafter. The British military attaché in Petrograd, General Alfred Knox, credited their release to his own intervention. The women of the unit returned to their encampment outside of the city.
The 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death, commanded by Bochkareva, was still at the front after the revolution, but disbanded shortly after as a result of increasing hostility from male troops.
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