connection with the Whites, was scheduled to be executed. She was rescued, however, by a soldier who had served with her in the Imperial Army in 1915 and who convinced the Bolsheviks to stay her execution. She was granted an external passport and allowed to leave the country. Bochkareva then made her way to Vladivostok, where she left for the United States by the steamship Sheridan in April 1918. United States and Britain Sponsored by socialite Florence Harriman, Bochkareva arrived in San Francisco and made her way to New York City and Washington, D.C. She was granted a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson on July 10, 1918, during which she begged the president to intervene in Russia. Wilson was apparently so moved by her emotional appeal that he responded with tears in his eyes and promised to do what he could. While in New York, Bochkareva dictated her memoirs, Yashka: My Life As Peasant, Exile, and Soldier, to a Russian emigre journalist named Isaac Don Levine. After leaving the United States, she traveled to Great Britain where she was granted an audience with King George V. The British War Office gave her 500 rubles of funding to return to Russia. Return to Russia and execution Bochkareva arrived in Arkhangelsk in August 1918 and attempted to organise another unit, but failed. In April 1919, she returned to Tomsk and attempted to form a women's medical detachment under White Army Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, but before she could complete this task she was recaptured by the Bolsheviks. She was sent to Krasnoyarsk where she was interrogated for four months. Ultimately, she was sentenced to death and executed as an "enemy of the working class". She was shot by the Cheka on May 16, 1920. Legacy Maria Bochkareva is one of the heroines of the Russian film Battalion directed by Dmitriy Meshiev and released to cinemas in February 2015. In 2018 the New York Times published a belated obituary for her. See also Flora Sandes Milunka Savić Ecaterina Teodoroiu Leslie Joy Whitehead Women in the military Bibliography Maria Botchkareva. Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Exile, and Soldier. As told to Isaac Don Levine (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1919. online (Archive.org)) References External links 1889 births 1920 deaths People from Kirillovsky District People from Kirillovsky Uyezd Memoirists from the Russian Empire Feminists from the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of World War I Russian