Pingyang (598-623) was a rebel general and later princess who helped found the Tang Dynasty in China.
During the early 7th Century, China was ruled by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, who was extremely unpopular thanks to starting numerous wars and ordering construction projects to expand the Great WallandGrand Canal which worked 6 million people to death. Pingyang’s father, Li Yuan, was one of Yang’s most successful generals. However in 617 the Emperor became paranoid about Li Yuan’s popularity and ordered for him to be executed. In response Li Yuan rose up in open rebellion against Yang’s rule.
At this time Pingyang was living in the capital, Chang’an, where her husband Cai Shao was head of the palace guard. With the news of Li Yuan’s rebellion the pair were forced to flee the city, separating to improve their chance of escape. Pingyang returned to her family estate to find the region was suffering from severe drought. She opened up the estate’s food stores to feed the local people and in doing so was able to recruit many of them to form her own army to fight against the Emperor, dubbed ‘The Army of the Lady’.
Selling everything her family owned to fund her rebellion, Pingyang added to her forces by assimilating the armies of local warlords, either through bribery or by defeating them on the battlefield and recruiting the surviving soldiers. She ultimately became commander of a force of over 70,000 rebels. She forbade her troops from looting, pillaging, or raping, instead insisting that after conquering an area that food should be distributed to the locals. Unsurprisingly this gained her immense popular support, increased even further by her repeated victories against the Emperor’s armies.
Joining up with the armies of her father and her husband, Pingyang’s forces captured the capital within a year. Yang fled the city and was later killed by his own men. Li Yuan became Emperor Gaozu of the newly founded Tang Dynasty, while Pingyang officially became a princess in addition to being awarded the rank of Marshall and the honorific title zhou, meaning ‘wise’. However she only lived a few years in this role, dying aged only 23 of unknown causes. On her death, her father broke with tradition and insisted that Pingyang was given a military funeral in honour of her achievements.
Klavdiya Kalugina was one of the youngest Soviet snipers who fought during World War 2.
Born in 1926, Kalugina was aged 15 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, at which time she was working in a munitions factory. Shortly after the invasion she joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) and in 1943 she was accepted into a Komsomol sniper school. Although she initially struggled with the training, Kalugina credited her graduation from the school to the patience of her squad commander.
Kalugina was sent to the front lines in March 1944 where she joined the 3rd Belorussian Front. Aged 17, she operated in a sniper/spotter team with a girl who she had trained with, Marusia Chikhvintseva. Her usual weapon was a Mosin-Nagant rifle with a PU scope, with which she engaged enemies at distances from as close as 200 metres to as far as 1200. She described her objective as eliminating key targets such as enemy commanders and machine gun emplacements, making one shot per day from a heavily camouflaged position and then returning to base at night.
Kalugina survived the war, although her partner, Chikhvintseva, did not. There is no account of her life following the end of the war.
An interview with Kalugina describing her experiences of her wartime experiences in detail can be read here.
Mai Bhago, also known as Mata Bhag Kaur, was a Sikh woman who fought against the Mughal Empire in the early 18th century.
Mai Bhago was born in the village of Jhabal Kalan in the Punjab region of northern India, were in addition to being taught Sikh traditions she was trained by her father in horse riding and martial arts. She was a young woman during the period when oppression of Sikhs by the Mughal Empire was at its height. During 1704-05, the expansionist Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, invaded Sikh territory with an army of 16,000 troops and laid siege to the Sikh capital of Anandpur Sahib.
During the siege the Sikh leader, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, was abandoned by 40 of his elite warriors. Many of these men came from the region that Mai Bhago lived in and according to some accounts one of the deserters was her own husband. Outraged by this betrayal, Mai Bhago took her own horse, armour, and weapons and left home to track down the deserters. She went to their homes and persuaded their wives not to give their husbands shelter. Some of the women even armed themselves and joined Mai Bhago, pledging to fight for the Guru if their husbands would not. Shamed by this, the 40 deserters agreed to return to service with Mai Bhago.
During this time the Guru had escaped from the siege of Anandpur and was in retreat with his army. On 29th December 1705, Mai Bhago’s small force helped to cover the Guru’s retreat at the Battle of Muktsar. Knowing that the pursuing Mughals would need water she set up camp at the Khidrana reservoir, erecting numerous empty tents and clothes lines to make it appear as if a larger army was encamped there. When the Mughal army attacked the empty tents Mai Bhago’s force ambushed them and in spite of being heavily outnumbered managed to push the Mughals back after intense fighting. Although victorious, Mai Bhago was the only Sikh survivor of the battle.
After the battle Mai Bhago joined up with the Guru’s army and became his bodyguard. After the Guru’s death in 1708 she retired to Jinvara, where she lived to an old age. Today she is remembered as a Sikh heroine whose actions served to ensure the survival of her faith.
Susan Sonnheim is an American veteran formerly of the Wisconsin National Guard who served in the Iraq War. While on duty Sonnheim was the victim of a roadside bomb in Baghdad which left her body filled with shrapnel, blinding her in one eye as well as causing injuries to her spine and limbs. She only survived the attack because the bullet that penetrated her Kevlar vest and would have killed her was stopped by a tobacco tin in her pocket. Following her injuries, Sonnheim became the first woman in the National Guard to receive the Purple Heart medal awarded to wounded soldiers.
Since returning home to the US, Sonnheim has described a lack of acceptance of her veteran status because she is a woman and says there is gender bias in the care that American soldiers returning from war receive. She is quoted in The Guardiansaying“There is no reason for women not to be in combat. It’s a buddy system – you look after the person next to you whether they are male or female. Once you are a soldier, that’s the way it is, a soldier is a soldier.”
Photo credit: Tom Sperduto, sourced from TIME magazine.
Queen Nzinga Mbande (1583-1663), sometimes referred to as Anna Nzinga, was ruler of the NdongoandMatamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in what is now Angola.
As the favoured daughter of King Kiluanji of the Ndongo, Nzinga Mbande was brought up witnessing her father’s governance of the kingdom first-hand. He even took her with him when he went to war. Kiluanji made deals with the Portuguese who were expanding their slave trading operations in South West Africa, and this relationship was maintained when her brother Ngola Hari became king. However in 1617 the Portuguese Governor Correia de Sousa launched attacks against the Ndongo kingdom that captured thousands of Mbundu people.
In 1621 when the Portuguese invited the Ndongo king to take part in peace talks, he sent his sister Nzinga Mbande in his place. At her famous first meeting with De Sousa chairs were only provided for the Portuguese, and Mbande was expected to sit on the floor. Instead she commanded one of her servants to go down on all fours and act as her chair. During the negotiations Mbande walked a fine line between preventing the Portuguese from controlling the kingdom as they had done in Kongo, while keeping options open to trade for firearms to strengthen her armies. In this she was successful, although as a condition of the agreement she had to convert to Christianity and was baptised as Anna de Sousa, with the Governor becoming her Godfather.
In 1626 Mbande became Queen of the Ndongo following the death of her brother. Her reign began in peril as the Portuguese went back on their deal with her and declared war, as did other neighbouring tribes. Forced into retreat from her own lands, Mbande led her people south to the kingdom of Matamba, which she attacked, capturing Matamba’s Queen and routing her army. Mbande then installed herself as the new ruler of Matamba, from where she launched a prolonged campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese which would last for the next 30 years.
Mbande developed a legendary reputation as a warrior, although claims that that she took part in human sacrifice are likely the result of European propaganda and gossip. Accounts that she maintained a personal harem of more than 50 men are also unproven. What is known is that Mbande assembling a diverse army to oppose the Portuguese that included runaway slaves, defecting soldiers, and women. Exploiting European rivalries she made an alliance with the Dutch, which included acquiring her own personal bodyguard of 60 Dutch elite soldiers armed with rifles. Working with the Dutch, Mbande successfully defeated Portuguese armies in 1644, 1646, and 1647. However the Dutch were eventually pushed out of the region in 1648 and Mbanda was forced to carry on the fight alone. While she was never able to completely defeat them, she successfully resisted Portuguese invasion for decades.
Mbande continued personally leading her troops into battle until she was in her sixties, but the long war eventually wore both sides down. In 1657 she finally signed a peace treaty with Portugal. She then spent the rest of her life focused on rebuilding a nation which had been devastated by conflict and over-farming. She died of natural causes in 1663, aged 81. Today Nzinga Mbande is a symbol of Angolan independence, memorialised by numerous statues.
It’s Women’s History Month and the Female Soldier website is adopting a new Featured Soldier!Milunka Savić was the most decorated woman in the history of war. In addition to her native Serbia, this heroine received medals from France, Russia, and Britain for her bravery in World War I.
Rudrama Devi (1245-1289) was a Warrior Queen of the Kakatiya dynasty in the Deccan Plateau of Southern India.
Rudrama Devi rose to power in 1259 during her early teens when she was appointed co-regent to jointly rule alongside her father, King Ganapati. While Ganapati had no sons, he gave her the male name of Rudra Deva and formally declared her to be his male heir, an image which she did nothing to deter as she dressed in male clothes. She married Veerabadra, a prince of Nidadavolu, with whom she had two female children, but he suffered an early death.
The first few years of Rudrama’s conjoined rule with her father were marred by a Pandya invasion led by Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan I. While the invasion was eventually repelled, the Kakatiyas suffered a number of significant defeats and the kingdom was left in a weakened state. As a result of these failings her father withdrew from public life while passing control to Rudrama, and on his death in 1269 she was officially crowned as Rani (Queen). A number of noblemen, possibly including her own step-brothers, refused to submit to a woman’s authority and rose up in rebellion against her. However Rudrama rallied an army with those nobles and chiefs still loyal to her and successfully crushed the rebellion.
Having secured her kingdom Rudrama spent the rest of her rule defending it from external threats. The Kakatiya were one of four major powers in Southern India who were frequently at war with each other. The Yadava king Maha Deva launched a sustained invasion on the Kakatiya from 1268 to 1270, culminating in a siege of the Kakatiya capital of Orugallu (now Warangal). After 15 days of fighting, an attack led by Rudrama routed the Yadavas and she pursued them in a long retreat back to their own territory during which many Yadavas were captured. Soundly defeated, Maha Deva was forced to pay an enormous ransom for the release of his soldiers. A later invasion by the Odias was also defeated by Rudrama’s generals.
While adept at warfare, Rudrama was also known to have been an effective administrator and when Orugallu was visited by Marco Polo he described her as a lady of discretion who ruled with justice and equity. She also completed work on the Orugallu Fort, adding a second wall and a moat to the structure, which protected the city against numerous future sieges.
In 1280 Rudrama passed the mantle of leadership on to her grandson, Prataprudra, as she was growing old and had no male children of her own. However in 1285 a new threat arose in the form of the Kayastha Chief, Amba Deva, who had allied with the Pandyas and Yadavas to destroy the Kakatiya empire. Though elderly, Rudrama led an army to meet this three-pronged attack head-on, but was killed in the ensuing battle. The Katakiya empire would crumble over the following years, however Rudrama Devi’s legacy is still well remembered in Southern India.
Amage was a Sarmatian warrior queen who lived toward the end of the 2nd Century BCE.
Amage was queen of the Sarmatians, an Iranian people who lived in the western region ofScythia on the coast of the Black Sea. According to the Greek strategist Polyaenus, while Amage’s husband, Medosaccus, was officially the Samartian king, Amage deemed him to be an unworthy ruler who abused his power for personal luxury. She took control of the Sarmatian government and military, using her power to build defensive garrisons which she used to defend her lands on multiple occasions.
Her success as a leader made her famous throughout Scythia and led to the neighbouring Chersonesians to ask for her help when they were being threatened by the Crimean Scythians. Amage agreed to the alliance, sending a message to the Scythian king demanding that he leave the Chersonesians in peace. When the king refused she gathered a force of 120 seasoned warriors, equipping them with 3 horses each so they could cover ground quicky. Marching toward the Scythian palace they covered a distance of more than a 100 stades (180 kilometres) in a single night and a day. The swiftness of the attack caught the Scythian forces off guard and they were easily defeated. Personally leading the assault on the palace, Amage broke into the Scythian king’s quarters and killed him along with his entire family save for one of his sons. She installed the boy as the new Scythian ruler, on the condition that Chersonesus would remain free and that the Scythians would never again attack their neighbours.
While little else is recorded of Amage’s rule, Sarmatian women became known for having a prominent role in war and are recorded by Herodotus as fighting in the same clothing as men. Some believe that the exploits of Amage and similar Sarmatian women served as the inspiration for the Greek myth of the Amazons.
A member of the Blackfoot tribe, Spotted Wolf spent her childhood working on her father’s ranch in Heart Butte, Montana, where she cut fence posts, drove trucks and broke horses. She first expressed an interest in joining the army when she was aged 18, shortly after the US entered into World War 2 at the end of 1941. However she was initially discouraged by a recruitment officer who told her that the war was ‘not for women’.
Spotted Wolf was eventually accepted into the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve in July 1943, making her the first Native American female Marine. She almost did not accept the post as her father was dying from a horse riding accident, however her mother and sister strongly encouraged her to pursue her ambitions. She underwent rigorous boot camp training at Camp Lejeune, during which she gained 15 pounds of weight from the diet and rigorous exercise. She later described the training as “hard, but not too hard” given her background on the ranch.
On completion of her training Spotted Wolf went on to serve 4 years in the Marines in California and Hawaii. She drove trucks loaded with heavy equipment, a job normally reserved for men, and also sometimes worked as a jeep driver for visiting generals. Spotted Wolf’s career quickly gathered media attention and she was featured in numerous news stories, and even her own comic book, to promote the war effort.
Following her discharge in 1947, Spotted Wolf returned to Montana where she married a farmer named Robert England with whom she had four children. She attended college to qualify as a teacher and spent the next 29 years teaching in reservation schools. She died in 1988 aged 65 and was buried in her military uniform.
A 106-year-old woman guards her home in Degh village, near Goris in southern Armenia, 1990. The Nagarno-Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Fighting bravely among the Spanish soldiers was a woman: María la Bailadora (”the dancer”). María had wanted to follow her lover and had thus joined the soldiers dressed as man. A report of the battle tells that she was particularly skilled with an arquebus. Encountering an enemy at close quarters, she stabbed and killed him.
As a reward for her bravery, her name was inscribed in the official register of the soldiers, thus allowing her to earn a pay.
María’s story reminds of another Spanish woman, AnaMaría de Soto (fl.1793-1798) who enlisted in the marine infantry in 1793. She fought in naval battles, served for several years, was promoted to sergeant, but was discharged when her sex was revealed after a medical examination.
Bibliography:
Claramunt Soto Alex (ed.), Lepanto. La mar roja de sangre
Fields Nic, Lepanto 1571: Christian and Muslim Fleets Battle for Control of the Mediterranean
Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak (1921-1943) was fittingly born on August 18, the Soviet Air Fleet Day or Aviation Day. She made her first solo flight at 15 and was training as a flight instructor by the age of 17.
In 1937, her father was accused of having committed crimes against the Communist Party and arrested. She never saw him again. Unlike her brother, Lydia refused to change her name.
When World War II began, Lidya had already trained 45 pilots at the Kirov Flying Club in Moscow. The USSR’s Airplanemagazinepraised her for having carried out a record number of training flights in a single day (over 8 hours in flight). Lydia wanted to join the war effort, but her appeal was rejected.
However, things changed when Marina Raskova was allowed to create female aviation regiments. Lydia joined her recruits. She was friendly and curious toward the others. She first refused to have her hair cut, but had to give up due to Marina’s insistence. Lydia was full of enthusiasm, she wrote her mother that she was “thirsting for battle”.
In September 1942, she and some of her female comrades were moved to an entirely male regiment. They stood their ground and quickly adapted. It was during this month that Lydia was deployed in battle for the first time. She shot down two enemy planes during the fight and thus became the first woman in the world to shoot down an enemy combat aircraft on her own.
Story has it that a renowned German ace she had shot down was captured, and asked to meet the person who defeated him. When he saw Lydia, he couldn’t believe it was first. Lydia, however, used hand movements to reconstruct their duel and he was forced to admit the truth. Impressed, he offered her his wristwatch, but she refused.
Nicknamed the “White rose of Stalingrad”, Lydia flew with a bouquet of flowers stuck on her dashboard. A white lily was painted on her plane. To become an ace, a pilot had to shoot down five aircrafts. Lydia shot down 11 enemy planes by herself within a year and added a “shared kill” to her performance. She was granted the status of “free hunter”, meaning that she could go searching for enemy aircraft or ground forces on her own initiative.
On March 22, 1943, she found herself outnumbered by the enemy two to one. She shot down a German plane, but was wounded in the leg. Lydia then found herself surrounded by six enemy planes. She flew straight in the middle of the German aircrafts and shot one of them. She managed to escape and to land, before fainting. This exploit turned her into a celebrity.
In July, she and six or five of her comrades found themselves fighting thirty six enemy planes. She shot a German bomber and a fighter, but was wounded in the shoulder and the leg and had to crash-land her plane. She refused to be hospitalized. The death of her best friend in battle didn’t stop her. A week later, she returned to combat.
She was flying her fourth mission on August 1, 1943, when she was ambushed by a superior number of enemies. One of her comrades saw her dive into the clouds to escape. This was the last time she was seen. Nobody could find her body or plane. Since she was declared “missing”, she couldn’t be granted to rank of “Hero of the Soviet Union”.
After the war, search for her body and plane were conducted and it was discovered that she had possibly been found and buried in the village of Dmitrievka in Ukraine. On May 5,1990 Mikhail Gorbachev finally made her a hero of the Soviet Union.
Lydia’s last letter to her mother said:
“I am completely absorbed in combat life. I can’t seem to think of anything but the fighting. I long … for a happy and peaceful life, after I’ve returned to you and told you about everything I had lived through and felt during the time when we were apart. Well, good-bye for now. Your Lily.”
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Bibliography:
Sakaida Henry, Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-1945
Wayne Elizabeth, A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II
Simeona Punsalan Tapang, was the last living Huk Kumander and a proud Kapampangan, who died at the age of 92 on June 30, 2015.
Fondly also known as Lola Mameng, she was a hero and was one of the last remaining legacies of the guerrilla group, Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap or Huk) or The Nation’s Army Against the Japanese in English.
The Huks were a group formed primarily by farmers who fought against the tyranny of the Japanese military occupation of the Philippines and their villages and homes during World War II. They were the protectors of our people against the Japanese who invaded and were the resistance against them, fighting fiercely to protect our people. Eventually they fought against the Philippine government after the government was ordered to disarm and arrest the Huks under the orders of the U.S. for being labeled as Communists.
Many of our renowned Pilipina warriors were a part of the Huks, often joining the ranks and becoming a kumander. Lola Mameng was one of those brave and fierce Pilipina warriors who was once described by Huk Chief Kumander, Luis Taruc, as a big bodied woman with a man’s strength, fond of wearing men’s clothes and adept at handling an automatic rifle. Lola Mameng was also known and hailed for her ability of commanding her troops on the firing line.
She started out as an officer of Squadron no. 104 with the rank of Captain in 1942. In 1944 she was then promoted to Major under the 1st Regiment, Second Battalion Staff of Regional Command No. 7. Lola Mameng then joined and participated in the Battle of Mandili in Candaba, Pampanga and commanded several encounters against Japanese forces in Arayat. Her Husband, Pablo Tapang, was also a member of the Huk, but he was killed in the Candaba operations on 1948.
In 2014, the year before she died, she was awarded and recognized by the Provincial Government of Pampanga during the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards night for her bravery and risking her life and family for the freedom and liberation from the Japanese.
