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.