SHOT BY BOLSHEVISTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20222, 7 October 1927, Page 12

SHOT BY BOLSHEVISTS.

MODERN JOAN OF ARC. ROMANCE OF THE WAR. The shooting of Lieutenant Sschartchentso by the Bolshevists has brought to light a remarkable romance of the war The dashing young Czarist officer was none other than Miss Elizabeth Ivanowna Schultz, the ' daughter of a Russian general. When war broke out Elizabeth was 20 years old, and became a Red Cross nurse. Oi*e day she disappeared. Toward the end of the war a young lieutenant of Hussars was seriously wounded in the breast. In the hospital the surgeons discovered to their amazement that the “ lieutenant ” was a girl. After the bullet had been taken from her chest the young Joan of Arc admitted her identity. “ Yes, I am Elizabeth Ivanowna Schultz,” the girl said. “My father, the general, refused to let me fight with the rest of the boys, so I took the papers of a peasant, and enlisted under his name. No one knew my secret. I lived and fought with the men through 50 battles. Yes, I won my lieutenancy in the front ranks Please don’t betray me.” The surgeons, with tears in their eyes, promised to guard' her secret. Soon the war was elided, but Elizabeth refused to lay down her sword. Anti-Bolshevist to the heart she fought in the White Guard of General Wrangel, in the Crimea, and then with the last heroes under UngernSternberg in Central Asia. Then came her flight through Communistic Russia toward Poland and then to Pari*. In the French capital Elizabeth might have found a calm retreat. Someone offered her a position in the “movies;” an American packing-house millionaire even offered her a nice home near the Chicago stockyards; but the little Joan of Arc was looking for something more exciting. Again Elizabeth disappeared from view. For years no one saw her, cither .in London or Paris or Vienna or Berlin, .but, in all of these capitals, occasionally the name of Sachartcbentso was murmured by mysterious men. And always that name was connected with a small uprising against Communism or the killing of a Soviet Commissar by some infuriated peasants at Moscow or Leningrad But not one refugee, not one friend wherever she was known, ever uttered the name of Elizabeth Ivanowna. A few weeks ago, for the first time in years, that name was whispered again in Paris. One of her companions, arriving from Russia, brought the news: “ Lieutenant Sachartcbentso has been shot.”