Alone of all her sex? The Dutch Jeanne Merkus and the hitherto hidden other viragos in the Balkans during the great eastern crisis (1875-1878)

This paper deals with the question as to whether the well-reported Dutch volunteer warrior Jeanne Merkus was indeed the sole female fighter at the time of the anti-Ottoman rebellions and the wars in the Balkan Peninsula from 1875 to 1878, when the Great Eastern Crisis raged. While this rich outlandish lady - who has only recently earned her official biography - attracted much attention from the contemporary press, and later often surfaced in memoirs of sorts as well, her few female colleagues, mainly home-grown and of modest background, went mostly unnoticed by the general public. This first a... Mehr ...