Sisters in Arms: Female warriors from antiquity to the new millennium

Women who have dressed as men and joined the army or the navy to embark on a grand adventure, to search for a lost husband or simply to escape the dull confines of domestic life, have enjoyed a long and popular tradition in Western culture. In this fascinating book, Julie Wheelwright recreates and explains the fascination of the female warrior which captivated young women and even inspired some to undertake similar exploits. Drawing on memoirs, letters, diaries and historical archives, and illustrating her examples with rare sketches and photographs, she traces the career of dozens of women who lived and fought as men. Christian Davies, Ireland’s most famous eighteenth-century soldier, received poems from adoring women who claimed that ‘the Amazonian race begins again’. Emma Edmonds, left her fiance and native Canada to fight in the American Civil War; Hannah Snell, a sailor in the Royal Navy; Maria Bockkareva, a private in the Tsar’s Army; and Captain Flora Sandes, hero of the Serbian Army who toured Australia, thrilling her audiences with tales of bravery and patriotism, are some of the intriguing and rebellious women of history that Military Women brings to light.

The book follows the evolution of the woman in breeches from the height of her popularity in the 1700s to her re-emergence as the nation’s pride and joy during the First World War. The later chapters of the book explore the formalisation of the role of women in military roles and whether true equality is ever possible in a military set-up.