"So many women as soldiers in the British Army" Topic

maybe more women in the Armies in the past than we think and others than the usual camp followers…

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It was not unknown however, for a woman who wished to fight as a soldier to disguise herself as a man and enlist. While this was still fairly uncommon, nonetheless there seems to have been a relatively large number of these cases in eighteenth-century armies; and this phenomenon helps demonstrate the strength of the gender identifications discussed above. One Englishman joked in 1762 that there were so many women serving in disguise as soldiers that they should have their own regiment

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Hannah Snell (1723-1792) provided a very was well known example of a "she-soldier." According to her account, after her husband deserted her, Hannah Snell enlisted in General Guise's Regiment of the British Army, deserting after she was flogged. She then joined the British Marines, and went to India with them. She fought in the Battle of Devicotta, and claims to have been wounded eleven times, including one wound in the groin. After returning to Britain, she then revealed her sex to the Duke of Cumberland, the commander-in-chief of the British Army, and appealed, successfully for a pension. Later in life she kept a pub (known as either The Female Warrior, or The Widow in Masquerade) and published a very popular account of her adventures in 1750 entitled The Female Soldier: The Adventures of a Female Soldier. She remarried twice, (her first husband had been executed for murder) bore two children, and died insane in Bedlam.
This relative abundance of women disguised as men and serving as soldiers in the eighteenth-century was a complex phenomenon, with many different causes, and many different implications. It seems clear however that this phenomenon was, at least in part, a tribute to the strength of eighteenth-century military gender roles. It argues that the role of soldier was so firmly gendered as male that any women who wished to be a soldier had therefore to make herself into a man. This strong gender-identification might explain the emphasis on the effectiveness of the women's disguise, and the physical strength and skill at arms described in the ballad quoted above.

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There does however, seem to be some evidence to suggest that the "she-soldier" was meeting with somewhat less acceptance as the century passed. Though there is not really enough information to safely generalize, it seems that towards the last quarter of the eighteenth-century there was a greater sense that "she-soldiers" were violating norms. While most published accounts of the time, and many historians since, have accepted the view that these women successfully disguised themselves as men: it seems hard to believe that women, living in close proximity with many men, in primitive conditions, could successfully maintain such a deception for long periods of time. (Leaving aside any other issue, how could it not be noted, in a time when men did not shave every day, that these soldiers did not show beard stubble? An argument that she-soldiers presented themselves as beardless youths does not seem convincing. Other suggested camouflages, such as the woman learning to urinate standing up, hiding their genital area while defecating, binding their breasts, and altering their uniform, seem equally unconvincing, and it is very hard to imagine that any of these could be successfully maintained as long tem deceptions. It seems far more likely to suggest that there was often a tacit acceptance of these "she-soldiers;" an unspoken agreement between the soldiers and woman who wished to join them that said, in effect, to the "she-soldier:" if you make a reasonable effort to pass yourself as a man, and if you don't flaunt your sex in our face, we will accept you as a "gendered man," and as a soldier, and leave you in peace.
If this argument is correct, and there was a tacit understanding of this sort, it leads to some intriguing questions: from a military perspective, (and leaving the wider question of why women would want to become soldiers to other historians) why were women soldiers accepted as men, and what happened towards the end of the eighteenth and the start of the nineteenth-century to end what seems to have been a long established custom? Any answers to these questions have to be speculative, but it is possible to make some informed guesses: The obvious answer to the first question is that most European armies were always short of recruits, and most recruiters had strong motives not to ask too many questions about any recruit who presented him- (or her-) self for enlistment. The answer to the other question might lie in the fact that the end of the eighteenth- and the first half of the nineteenth-century saw a general redefinition of woman's roles towards a more "private" and "middle-class" model, a style that would latter be described as "Victorian." Whether or not this gradual change would make women more or less likely to want to disguise themselves as men and "go for a soldier," it would certainly make male soldiers less likely to accept them. More generally, it seems likely that as European armies moved away from a more traditional "martial culture," and towards a more national and modern military, many old customs were likely to be less respected, and to gradually disappear. These traditions became less necessary, as armies developed new and, perhaps, more certain methods of turning civilians into soldiers; in contrast, the mid-eighteenth-century British Army was forced to rely upon the informal transmission of martial culture, and a gradual adoption of its values, to transform civilians into soldiers.

This was discovered also for the American Civil War. It is estimated that at least 500 women fought in the conflict disguised as men.

Have read of a few of these women who fought while being disguised in a few armies. Many had a long term doing this.

There are usually some disguised females anywhere soldiering is restricted to males, units are regiments and not tribes and physical exams are haphazzard. Last case I've run into was Spanish Civil War, by which time there were already women openly in uniform in a number of countries.

Beyond that, there are vast superstructures of "reasonable speculation" on very thin foundations of fact. Come back in 30 or 50 years, and very different speculations may seem reasonable. Or go to Arthurian studies, where it's every ten years or so.

Having spent a lot of time in the UK I think some people will do anything to avoid a British winter

Frederick – you've just explained the reason for the very existence of the British Empire. It was just an unintended consequence of over-enthusiastic tourists…!

I spent 2 years in England, turned out 1 was the summer it wasn't. We had a 3 foot snow storm about a month after I got there and next summer barely got any where past 70s. Some decades latter shocked me that at Wimbledon was having near 100 degrees

I have a few women figures with muskets in my armies. Now would be never noticeable to have one disguised. A canteen cart has one but one is in the ranks of a Russian Battalion

It's easy enough to add female soldiers to your army. You just take a male figure …

You just take a male figure …

Who identifies as female. Even in 28mm, that's not much of a problem.

Since the women were passing as men then any figure will do without any modification.

If you can tell it is a female then they would have failed in their impersonation.

Well – maybe exempt Berserkers, and other similarly unclothed warriors….

Just remove any beards and moustaches. Unless they are false ones.

Recent Napoleonic Wars podcast about women joining the ranks, mostly about the French Army
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