Not only Jeanne d'Arc: the knight-maiden, the gayduchka, the Russian admiral and other heroine warriors of the past

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

When they remember the warriors of the past, they usually mention two names - Zhanna d'Arc and Nadezhda Durova. However, many other female names have entered European military history. Some of them belong to national heroines, others - to the curiosities of their time. The former are, of course, more interesting.

Severe mountain women

One of the favorite characters of the Scots in their native history is Black Agnes, Countess of Dunbar. In the war to liberate Scotland from the British, Agnes's husband sided with Scotland. It is clear that he did not sit at home, but ran through the mountains with the army and fought. Agnes at this time remained in the castle with servants and a small number of guards. When a large English army approached the castle and the Countess was offered to surrender, it would be logical to expect humility. But Agnes said, "I will keep my house as long as it keeps me," and took over the defense.

The British fired catapults at the castle. When the shelling ended, Agnes and her maids, as if nothing had happened, went to the castle walls. Loudly mocking the English pigs, they defiantly brushed dust and stone chips from the walls with rags. Meanwhile, the men were picking up cannon balls and pieces of stones in the courtyard. Having admired Agnes enough, the commander of the British ordered the siege tower to be brought into battle. But the defenders threw the collected stones and cannonballs onto the tower, breaking it into chips.

The last hope of the British was a siege. They thought hunger would force the inhabitants to surrender. But either the bins at the castle were very full, or somewhere there was a secret passage - the Scots did not give up. After five months, the British left with nothing. The siege of Dunbar Castle tore off several thousand English soldiers from the battle for almost six months and cost the British treasury 6,000 pounds.

Unsurprisingly, the Scots perked up so much when archaeologists said they may have found the remains of Agnes. In fact, they found a woman killed in battle who lived in the time of Agnes. The woman had developed muscles and, apparently, fought regularly. But it is not really known if Agnes died in battle. During the war, of which she was the heroine, several more women commanded the soldiers and fought personally, for example, opponents Agnes Christian and Mary Bruce and Countess Isobel Buchanskaya - Scottish women who sided with the British.

Greek Amazons

The Greeks dedicated many songs and erected monuments to the national heroines of the Greek uprising against the rule of the Turks, which took place in the nineteenth century. These are Admiral Laskarina Boubulina, General Manto Mavrogenus and Captain Domna Visvisi.

Domna was born into a wealthy family in 1784, at the age of nineteen she married the ship owner Visvisis and by the beginning of the Greek Revolution - the uprising against the Greeks - was already the mother of five children. Visvisis immediately joined the rebels. They armed their largest ship, the Kalomira. However, the centers of the uprising were quickly suppressed, and the Visvisis, having loaded children and property on the ship, began to lead a wandering lifestyle, plowing the waves of the sea and attacking Turkish ships. The home ship took part in many battles. Domna's husband died in one of them. Blast furnace took part in hostilities as a captain for almost two more years. Then the money ran out and Domna handed the ship over to the Greek authorities. The monument to Domna stands in Alexandroupolis, a city on the border with Turkey.

Manto Mavrogenus was born into a wealthy merchant family. She was born in Trieste, but as a teenager moved with her family to the Greek island of Paros. With the beginning of the liberation war, she immediately joined the rebels. She had enough money to equip a small fleet that she could lead, but the latter was waved by the weight of Manto - she was a very plump woman. Equipping two ships and handing them over to the rebel army, Mavrogenus went on a diet. In just a year, her weight has decreased threefold. After that, she armed several more ships and led her personal flotilla.

With her help, the island of Mykonos was liberated. When the personal funds with which she bought supplies and equipment ran out, Manteau went to Paris. There she persuaded French women to donate money to the Greek troops. After the end of the war she was promoted to lieutenant general. Monuments to her stand in Athens and Chora, and for some time Manto's portrait adorned a two-drachma coin.

Laskarina was born in a Turkish prison, the son of a Greek rebel. After the death of their father, the Turks released them with their mother. Laskarina married Dimitrios Bouboulis and after his death in a battle with Algerian pirates, she received a large inheritance. With this money, she equipped the fleet, maintained a whole army of protesters, and bought weapons and equipment for the underground.

In 1821, Laskarina led the storming of the Palamidi citadel. She probably led some other operations at sea. For military merit, the Russian Emperor Alexander I conferred on her the rank of admiral of the Russian fleet and presented her with the Mongol sword. It turns out that she was the first Russian female admiral! In Greece, her portrait was decorated with a 1 drachma coin several times.

It is known, however, that as early as 1787, Potemkin, in a conversation with Catherine II, praised the courage of Greek women who fought the Turks side by side with their husbands. True, the Amazon company, which he showed to the queen in the Crimea, consisted of the local wives of Greek officers who did not participate in the battles.

Desperate Riders

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, you can find a number of names of women who took part in hostilities, posing as men. But only two of them - apart from Durova, of course - are considered national heroines.

Eleanor Prochazka grew up in a children's military shelter. The father gave her there after the death of her mother. After becoming a girl, Eleanor worked as a servant in the same orphanage. During the war of liberation against Napoleon, Eleanor, under the name of August Renza, volunteered for the Freedom Corps. These troops operated in the rear of the French.

Starting with service in the orchestra, Eleanor soon achieved a transfer to the cavalry. As a man, she served for several months, until in one of the battles, trying to pull out a wounded comrade, she herself was wounded. Front-line healers uncovered her floor. Prokhazka was sent to the hospital, and three weeks later she died there. For the Prussians, Eleanor was a symbol of both the struggle for freedom and real military comradeship.

Since childhood, a Bulgarian named Sirma helped the partisans in the fight against the Turks, knew how to ride and shoot. After her village was burned to the ground, she disguised herself as a young man and secretly from her family went to a local gathering of hayduks. She was accepted into the detachment and was chosen as the commander, as the youngest and, therefore, not tied to anyone fighter.

The sirma led the squad for over twenty years, until its floor opened. After that, the Gaiduks left her, and she herself married one of her longtime associates. Despite the neglect during her lifetime, now the Bulgarians remember her only as Sirmu Voevoda.

But Emilia Plater did not have to hide her gender. And, unlike Eleanor and Sirma, war was not included in the circle of her interests since childhood. True, the biographies of the warriors fascinated her herself. She learned horseback riding and shooting with great pleasure. But first of all, Emilia was a folklorist, she enthusiastically collected Belarusian folk songs, learned them and wrote poetry stylized for them. When Emilia learned about the beginning of the uprising in Warsaw against the Russian government, she began to call on relatives and friends to join him and even presented them with a personally developed plan to seize the local fortress.

The girl's energy inspired the local nobles. According to the old custom, they accepted her into the knight-maidens. Emilia has assembled an armed detachment. Under her command, the detachment successfully participated in several battles. After the defeat of the Polish troops, she fell ill from grief, as well as fatigue and long sleeplessness, and after a month of torment she died. At the time of her death, she rose to the rank of captain. Now she is considered a national heroine by three countries at once: Belarus, Lithuania and Poland.

Asia also has its own heroines. For example, the sultan girl Razia became the first and only woman to ascend the throne of the Delhi Sultanate, and, moreover, she herself led her troops in battles.