Charles George Gordon, British General

b. 28 January 1833
d. 26 January 1885

Major-General Charles George Gordon, CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British army officer, of the Corps of Royal Engineers and administrator. He is remembered for his campaigns in China and northern Africa.

In 1852 he entered the engineer corps and took part in the Cri­mean War and then in the war against China. After peace was concluded he trav­eled in China and in 1863 entered Chinese service to suppress the Taiping rebellion. In February 1874 the Viceroy of Egypt summoned him to continue the campaign to subdue the upper Nile as far as the equatorial lakes. After his success, in 1877 he was named Pasha and Governor Gen­eral of the Sudan. Resigning this post in 1879, he was for a brief time Military Secretary of the Viceroy of India and then adviser to the Chinese government. In January 1884 he was dispatched to Khar­toum by the British government to assert Egyptian rule in the Sudan against the Mahdi. Furnished as he was with insuffi­cient means, he took up a military posi­tion in the city and w«ts vigorous in pursu­ing his assignment; but as the Mahdi's supporters grew in number, while the Gladstone cabinet failed to send relief forces, after a ten-month siege Khartoum was captured and Gordon himself was transfixed by a spear (January 26,1885). He was immediately recognized and honored as a national hero whose legend remains to this day.

The homosexual aspect of Gordon's personality remains obscure, and disputed. From his early twenties, when he left to fight in the Crimean War, he was possessed by a longing for martyrdom, and his actions fully confirmed the desire which he repeatedly expressed in words to those closest to him. On Russian soil and in the savage hand-to-hand fighting against the Taiping rebels in China, he iuvited death at every step, exposing himself to wholly needless risks and unarmed except for a rattan cane. Again in the Sudan, whether tracking down slavers or suppressing a tribal rebellion, he would delight in out­pacing his military escort in order to arrive alone in the enemy's lair. And in the final year of his life, in complete disregard of official instructions, he courted and met death at the hands of the Mahdi's warriors. Gordon never married and his relation­ships with women seem all to have been platonic. While living at Gravesend in the mid-1860s, he took a remarkable interest in the ragged urchins of the neighborhood, "scuttlers" or "kings," as he called them. He fed them and taught them, and when they were filthy, he would wash them himself in the horse trough. He preached to them, though not very well, gave them talks of current affairs, and most impor­tant, he found them jobs - in the army, in barges and warehouses, and at sea.

It seems probable that coming from a strict military family he was tor­mented with guilt over his homosexual impulses, and that repressing his urges was so painful to him that he sought death as a release from unbearable inner an­guish. In his personality he was both con­formist and rebel, one who could never reconcile his inner nature with the obligations that tradition and discipline imposed upon him. His life was one continuous conflict, and he resolved it only by service to the point of self-sacrifice and a hero's death at Khartoum.

Source:
Warren Johansson, in "Encyclopedia of Homosexuality" (Wayne R. Dynes, ed)

Alexander I (Russia), Tsar

b. December 23, 1777
d. December 1, 1825

Alexander I, emperor of Russia from 1801 - 1825, was born in St. Petersburg. He was raised by his grandmother, Catherine the Great, and came to the throne following the assassination of his father, Paul I. He was indirectly involved in the plot to kill his father, and suffered from guilt for the rest of his life.

 Alexander was crowned on september 15, 1801 in the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin., and rumors of his homosexuality began circulating shortly thereafter. During the early part of his rule, he relied on the "Unofficial Committee," composed of four of his young companions, for political guidance and support. The results were disappointing, and Alexander's mental state deteriorated.

He spent the first part of his reign fighting Napoleon. Defeated by Napoleon and forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, he came back in 1812, defeating the French and liberating Europe. Alexander became a hero across the continent.

 After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, he turned to religious mysticism. He hoped Through the Holy Alliance with Austria and Prussia to establish a new Christian order in Europe.

He ended his reign as a recluse.

Napoleon said about Alexander I,

"He was the slyest and handsomest of all the Greeks!"

(in that period what was called a "Greek" was what we now call a "gay"...)

http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bioa1/alexan02.html

Louis II of Bourbon, Royal Prince , Master General

b. Sep 8, 1621
d. Nov 11, 1686

Called "The Great Condé", Louis de Condé was a prince of royal blood, the son of Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, and cousin to the king. At the age of twenty-two Condé was victorious during the Thirty Years' War at the Battle of Rocroi (Ardennes, 1643), and later at Lens (1648), which prevented France from being invaded by the Spanish armies in the north.

He rebelled in 1651 taking the side of the Fronde, which on occasions served the enemy, and entered the Spanish service. Pardoned in 1660, he commanded Louis XIV's armies against the Spaniards and the Dutch.

It is on his military character that the Grand Condé’s fame rests. Unlike his great rival, Turenne, Condé was equally brilliant in his first battle and in his last. The one failure of his generalship was in the Spanish Fronde, and, in this, everything united to thwart his genius; only on the battlefield itself was his personal leadership as conspicuous as ever.

That he was capable of waging a methodical war of positions may be assumed from his campaigns against Turenne and Montecucculi, the greatest generals opposing him. But it was in his eagerness for battle, his quick decision in action, and the stern will which sent his regiments to face the heaviest losses, that Condé is exalted above all the generals of his time. Upon the Grand Condé’s death, Louis XIV pronounced that he had lost "the greatest man in my kingdom."

In 1643 his success at the Battle of Rocroi, in which he led the French army to an unexpected and decisive victory over the Spanish, established him as a great general and popular hero in France. Together with the Marshal de Turenne he led the French to victory in the Thirty Years' War.

During the Fronde, he was courted by both sides, initially supporting Mazarin; he later became a leader of the princely opposition. After the defeat of the Fronde he entered Spanish service and led their armies against France. He returned to France only after the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, but soon received military commands again.

Condé conquered the Franche-Comté during the War of Devolution and led the French armies in the Franco-Dutch War together with Turenne. His last campaign was in 1675, taking command after Turenne had been killed, repelling an invasion of an imperial army.

He is regarded as one of the premier generals in world history, whose masterpiece, the Battle of Rocro is still studied by students of military history.

Condé was a proud, imperious man whose personal gain came before the general interest. Despite being of a violent disposition and a bisexual libertine (he was married and had several affairs with his soldiers), he was also a cultured man, including in his circle many men of genius such as Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Nicole, Bourdaloue and Bossuet.

Matt & Andrej Koymasky - Famous GLTB