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MUJERES Y EJÉRCITO EN TIEMPOS DE NAPOLEÓN 55
The present article, limited exclusively to the Napoleonic period, will
firstly analyze the role of women who, in a more or less institutionalized
way, followed the armies, providing some kind of service to the troops:
seamstresses, laundresses and bartenders . It was thanks to their work that
the proper functioning of military camps was made possible on a daily basis.
They were in charge of mending and washing clothes and belongings, selling
alcoholic beverages, preparing meals... And they played a very important
role as moral support for the soldiers, to whom they acted as companions
and confidants, constituting a source of “permanent encouragement”, sharing
with them both their fates and the deprivations of life during campaigns.
The role of women in armies was not limited to the above-mentioned.
Occasionally, some women pretended to be men, and hid under male garments
keeping themselves invisible and away from prying eyes; and so they
served under flags, fought and made soldiering their profession and life calling,
sometimes even achieving recognition and honors.
The role of wives and concubines will also be addressed in this article.
It was customary for women to remain in charge of the house and the
children while their husbands or partners went off to war. A sad, but heroic
fate for these women who stayed behind and alone, in charge of houses and
farms, in order to preserve and protect their families and homes. Despite
being far from the battlefields, their lives were, with few exceptions, very
tough as well as full of loneliness and misery.
But there were also wives and concubines who did not stay behind
guarding their homes and who, when faced with the departure of their
husbands or partners, chose to pack up, take their children, and their few
belongings and follow their footsteps and the armies. This decision made
them travel across the whole Europe, crossing countries and borders, wherever
luck would take them. Even under difficult times, when the drums announced
battle or they were imprisoned and led to Prisoners’ depots, women
were there, always at the side of the soldiers. Spanish, French, English,
Portuguese women... Women of all countries and nationalities. But always
extraordinary women, exceptional creatures who were part of a race of singular
women, of outstanding courage and infinite bravery.
KEY WORDS: Army, women, Napoleón, marquis de La Romana,
seamstresses, laundresses, bartenders, wives, concubines, soldiers.
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Revista de Historia Militar, 129 (2021), pp. 55-102. ISSN: 0482-5748