#Jeanne Merkus

[city-of-ladies]

Jeanne Merkus - The “Joan of Arc of Serbia”

Jeanne Merkus (1839-1897) was a rich Dutch heiress. Her father had been Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). Orphaned at a young age, she was adopted by her father’s brother, a vicar, and became a devout Protestant. Jeanne was also shaped by her discovery of feminism and socialism. She thus started to distribute her fortune among the poor and the sick.

Jeanne’s first military experience was in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war. She was present during the Prussian siege of Paris as well as the ensuing insurrection of the Paris Commune in 1871. She was maybe one of these women who stood on the barricades and took care of the sick and the wounded. In 1872/3 she made a trip to Jerusalem.

By mid-december 1875, she had joined the anti-Ottoman rebellions in Herzegovina. Her motives were religious, she wrote in her memoirs:“I did not wish to nurse wounded soldiers, but to help liberate Christian people, and also Christ’s land, from the sovereignty of the Turks”. Her goal was thus to liberate the Balkans from Muslim rule and ultimately “recapturing” the Holy Land.

Jeanne carried bandages for the wounded and gave ample proof of her fighting abilities. She skillfully mined bridges, lured a pair of Turkish soldiers in an ambush, tried to blow-up a Turkish fortress on her own. Because of her boldness, the enemy nicknamed her “The red devil”. She was one of the bravest fighters during the battle at Ljubinje in 1876. She was, however, captured by Austrians on Turkish soil, but later liberated.

In March 1876, she headed for Belgrade in Serbia, a country who supported the insurrection in Herzegovina, even if it meant going to war with the Ottoman Empire. Dubbed the “amazon of Herzegovina” and the “Joan of Arc of Serbia” Jeanne was a major financial benefactor to the Serb war effort. She was thus able to refuse a traditional female role as a nurse and was allowed to fight in the ranks. She wore a uniform adapted from the local men’s dress, with a Montenegrin cap over her curly long hair and a man’s cape slung across her shoulder. Lieutenant-Colonal Gruka Miskovic, who was at the beginning skeptical of her presence, would later say that she was a “shining example” of courage in action. 

(Jeanne Merkus in uniform, unknown artist)

If Jeanne was unique as a foreign woman, she was certainly not the only woman to fight in this conflict. Stana Kovačević notably disguised herself as a man in 1876 to follow her husband. According to press reports, her husband was wounded and “it became apparent from her grief for her good comrade, that she was a woman”. She was awarded a silver medal for her bravery. Vukosava Nikolić and Draga Strainović also did the same. Posing as a young volunteer, Draga had almost been rejected from the army due to her youth and appearance, but would later prove herself “very energetic” in performing her duties. Anonymous women also managed to get accepted in the army, though there is no concrete proof if the thought or not.

In June 1876, Montenegro also declared war on the Ottoman Empire. According to Jelena Lazarević, a feminist from Serbia, Montenegrin women followed the men, clad in military uniforms. She notably mentions the siege of the Turkish fortified town of Onogošt (Nikšić), where they courageously pulled wounded men behind the firing lines. A notable female fighter was Andjelija (Andja) Miljanov who, in 1876, by the age of 17, started to fight dressed in male clothes. A Viennese newspaper of October 12, 1876, gives the following description of her:

“Vojvoda Marko had no sons, and therefore he is accompanied by his daughter, who graduated with distinction from the Girl’s School in Cetinje. She is tall, lithe and slender and accustomed to all the heavy fatigues of a mountain war and jumps in her opanci (traditional leather footwear) like a chamois from rock to rock. Yet, she is a heroine as well. On 14 August, she had, under the command of her father, at the battle of Fundina, distinguished herself so much that the Kuči honored her with a very beautiful “puška” (rifle) as a token of remembrance of that day. In this battle she was all the time standing in the first lines during the deadliest fire, and participated in the memorable charge by the Kuči men against the Turks wielding a shiny sabre.”

Jeanne’s presence in the ranks greatly impressed foreign newspapers, but also shamed local men. She also expressed her preference for a republican government and criticized the Serbian commander-in-chief. This led her to be dismissed from the army. Jeanne then headed for the Danubian principalities (Modern Romania) where Russia had declared war on the Ottoman Empire. She offered her military services, but was only accepted in the army as a nurse.

After the fight ceased, she tried to go back to Jerusalem, but was faced with hostility because of her involvement in the Balkans. She fell into poverty and her family managed to bring her back to the Netherlands, where she died at the age of 57 in a Protestant nursing house in Utrecht.

References:

Grémeaux René, “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)”

“Jeanne Merkus - the fatal muse of "Nevesinje gun"”

West Rebecca, Black lamb and grey falcon

Wheelwright Julie, Sisters in arms, female warrior from antiquity to the new millenium