Emilia Plater and other famous female soldiers

[Bonobo]

Amazons, Boadicea, Joan d`Arc - these female warriors became immortal in world`s history.

Poland also had her female warrior.

Emilie Plater-Zyberk[/b] was born in Wilno (now Vilnius) in Lithuania in 1806. To her mother's despair, the young Emilie became fascinated by history and military matters at a young age and shunned more 'female interests'. On frequent visits to Poland Emilie was inspired by the Polish nationalist cause and, in 1830, led a rabble of armed peasants against the Russian occupiers and took possession of the fort at Dünaberg. Although soon overwhelmed, Emilie escaped to join the rebel army under General Gulud. Her bravery in battle was rewarded with a promotion to Captain of the 1st regiment of Lithuania. Caught in a Russian ambush in 1831, Emilie was badly wounded and died on 23 December in a forest in Samogitie. Emilie's exploits have been immortalised in Hickiewicz's poem 'Death of a Colonel."
[/i]
www.emiliaplater.org/emilia/emiliave1.html



Plater conducting Polish scythemen against Russians


A skirmish with Russian Cossacks.


These monuments are in Lithuania.


commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/23705698.jpg

Streets, schools, institutions are named after her.


A female detachment of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union during WW2 bore her name too. Funny, because she fought against Russians after all.

[valpomike]

And I will bet she was HOT to. My grandmother would have kicked there ass also.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Women liberation ala Polonaise

Joanna Żubr (ca. 1770–1852) was a Polish soldier of the Napoleonic Wars, a veteran of the Polish–Austrian War, and the first woman to receive the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration.

After the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars and creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1808, Joanna Żubr with her husband, Michał, left Austrian-ruled Volhynia. Both joined the army of the new Duchy, with Joanna initially a camp-follower. Soon she enlisted in the 2nd Infantry Regiment (4th company, 2nd battalion) as a private, hiding that she was a woman from both her superiors and fellow soldiers.

In 1809, Joanna took part in the Galician Campaign, distinguishing herself in the Battle of Zamość on May 19 of that year. For her bravery, Prince Józef Poniatowski awarded her the medal of Virtuti Militari; Joanna was the first female soldier to be awarded the decoration and one of the first women in the world to receive a military award for bravery in battle.

After the campaign, she joined the 17th Infantry Regiment in Dąbrowski's Division, under Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. Her husband was an ensign in the same regiment and Joanna Żubr was promoted to sergeant, as the first woman in the Polish Army. Their division, renamed the Greater Polish Division, took part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his campaign in present-day Belarus.

During the battles and Napoleon's retreat, she was separated from her division, but she managed to escape from Russia on her own. In the summer of 1813, weeks after Prince Józef Poniatowski's forces had abandoned Kraków, she reached Polish units in Saxony and served with distinction until the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau and the end of the war.

Joanna and her husband returned to Poland. Because she could return to neither Austrian-occupied nor Russian-held parts of Poland, they settled at Wieluń. She died there during a cholera epidemic in 1852, at the age of about eighty.