Soldiers & Sexuality: Part 1

Very occasionally war reveals some positive aspect of humanity. Feats of personal bravery and sacrifice are obvious examples of this but if you read the citations for the highest military awards what you mostly see are formal descriptions of berserker rage. Soldiers, rendered temporarily insane from seeing their friends shot or blown apart, suddenly get to their feet and charge a machine gun emplacement or throw themselves headlong into an enemy trench. 

Much less celebrated, but no less awe-inspiring, are the dozens of posthumous bravery awards given to soldiers for smothering grenades with their bodies in order to shield their comrades¹. It’s these split-second decisions – seemingly instinctive and performed in spite of certain death – that bring a powerful literalism to oft-quoted line from the Book of John that ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’. 

One of the many things that our current study of military history neglects is the full extent of this love. In Australia the ANZAC myth celebrates the powerful bonds of ‘mateship’ between soldiers while refusing to entertain the notion that any of these relationships might have been more than platonic. In order to provide a full account of war, its effects, and its appeal, we need to understand the influence of homosexuality on the military as an institution and on conflict in general. For better or for worse sexuality and gender identity are inseparable from the culture that gives rise to war and inseparable from Australia’s wartime history.

There are many reasons to study the sexuality of soldiers. One is simply to acknowledge the men who fought for Australia in spite of the fierce public stigma attached to homosexuality. If fighting for one’s country is inherently an honourable thing to do, then fighting for a country that doesn’t accept you is all the more impressive. More generally, by looking at the experience of gay soldiers we can better understand part of the appeal of the military as an institution – not just the obvious appeal than an overwhelmingly male organisation has to people who are attracted to men but also the opportunity afforded by military service to escape social expectations of marriage and traditional family life. 

In addition to correcting the historical record, examining the personal and romantic relationships between soldiers also provides an insight into the malleability of sexuality itself. The experience of soldiers in the military and other gender-segregated institutions reveals something essential about human behaviour. The army, in particular, is a good place to start because the way that our society has understood and litigated sexuality can be traced, in large part, to the military’s response to revelations of widespread homosexual behaviour amongst Australian troops. Thanks to an unusual set of circumstances during WWII, including a brief moral panic amongst our allies, the 2nd AIF became the proving ground for many of the legal and medical attempts to understand and ‘deal with’ questions of sexuality and gender identity in Australia. 

It should be noted at the outset that hostility towards homosexuality is not a recent phenomenon and this hostility is often linked to other, long standing, social taboos. At a very basic level homophobia appears to stem from deeper concerns over reproduction and social continuity. In eras where war and disease claimed the lives of many infants, early states and religions were fixated on maintaining high birth rates. To that end most ancient religious and philosophical traditions include demands that men fulfil their ‘marital duties’ and most ancient verdicts on homosexuality hinge on the extent to which same-sex relationships are thought to interfere with that duty. 

Accounts of same-sex relationships between warriors and soldiers extend as far back as the written word itself. Pre-dating Homer’s epic of the Trojan War by at least a thousand years the first story ever written – the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh – centres on what can only be described as a love affair between the mythic King Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu. In the story the two warriors take it upon themselves to raid a distant forest guarded by the monstrous giant Humbaba and it’s the strength of their relationship that gives them the courage to complete their mission and return as heroes.

Within the ‘western’ tradition the earliest in-depth discussions of soldiers and sexuality are found in texts from classical Greece and Rome. Unlike current received wisdom which assumes that sexual relationships between soldiers are a problem, ancient Greek writers often highlighted the benefits of homosexual relationships to what would now be called ‘unit cohesion’. In an era where battles often consisted of close-knit formations of spearmen facing off against one another, the majority of casualties were sustained during the ‘rout’ – when one side broke formation and attempted to flee. Therefore anything that bolstered group loyalty and reduced the chances of a disorderly retreat was seized upon as a tactical advantage. To that end, homosexual relationships were often considered a crucial part of group loyalty and morale. 

That being said, it’s important to recognise that Classical Greek notions of homosexuality do not map neatly onto our modern understanding of the term. In Ancient Greece, homosexual relationships were deemed socially acceptable only as long as they adhered to a particular form of pederasty between an older male ‘lover’ (erastes) and a younger male ‘beloved’ (eromenos). In his famous Symposium the Athenian philosopher Plato discussed the potential value of military units made up of such pairings:

“…if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.”

Other Greek states appear to have been more sceptical of these relationships. According to one of Plato’s contemporaries – the Athenian general Xenophon – the Spartans insisted that warriors should be selected solely based on their skill at arms rather than any relationship they happened to have with their superiors. Xenophon’s Symposium suggests that the Spartans took it as a point of pride that they didn’t need to be standing shoulder to shoulder with their lovers in order to conduct themselves bravely on the battlefield.

Nonetheless, at least one Greek city state appears to have followed through with Plato’s hypothetical. In the 4th century BC the central Greek city of Thebes raised an elite unit of 150 pairs of lovers. These hoplites formed the vanguard of the Theban army and were instrumental in several victories against Sparta and its allies – notably at Tegyra in 375 BC and again, four years later, at the battle of Leuctra. This lesser-known 300 were referred to as the ‘Sacred Band’ – a reference to Plato’s opinion that such relationships of mutual devotion were ‘inspired of God.’ Their victories seemed to confirm Plato’s wisdom and their eventual defeat also provided a grim testament to their esprit de corps. At the Battle of Chaeronea  in 338 BC the Theban army faced off against a much larger force led by Phillip II of Macedon and his son Alexander. When the Theban army and its allies broke ranks and fled the field the Sacred Band held their ground and fought to the last man. When Phillip was shown their bodies in the aftermath he was said to have wept, declaring ‘Perish miserably they who think that these men did or suffered anything disgraceful.’

Alexander’s Macedonian armies would go on to conquer Greece and most of the world known to Greek civilisation at the time but Alexander’s relationship with his companion Hephaestion represented a continuation of the erastes-eromenos martial tradition. Initially a member of Alexander’s bodyguard, Hephaestion went on to command the elite Macedonian cavalry before being promoted to Alexander’s 2nd in Command. At one point in Alexander’s campaign the two men consciously invited comparisons between their relationship and that of the legendary Achilles and Patroclus by placing tribute at their respective tombs outside Troy. Modern commentators have a tendency to equivocate on the exact nature of both of these relationships but even writers at the time of Alexander understood that Homer’s epic contained subtext. Describing the ideal forms of love the 4th Century BC, writer and statesman Aeschines wrote:

“Although [Homer] speaks in many places of Patroclus and Achilles, he hides their love and avoids giving a name to their friendship, thinking that the exceeding greatness of their affection is manifest to such of his hearers as are educated men.”

The Ancient Romans held similar attitudes to their Greek predecessors but were, by many accounts, scandalised by the sexual mores of the barbarian tribes on their frontiers. Their Germanic neighbours to the north were said to sacrifice men who slept with other men while Celtish warriors on the western frontier were reported to maintain sexual relationships amongst peers and without consideration for who played the passive and who played the active role. The Greek novelist Lucian recorded that warriors belonging to the nomadic Scythian tribes consecrated same-sex relationships by cutting their hands and drinking their combined blood from a chalice – a somewhat more literal version of the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist. 

Amongst Rome’s political leaders the most conspicuous example of an erastes-eromenos couple was that of the 2nd century Emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous. To characterise Hadrian’s affections as obsessive would be selling it short. When Antinous died just before his 20th birthday Hadrian posthumously declared him a God and founded a cult in his honour that spanned the Empire and persisted for decades after Hadrian’s death.

Contrary to what might be assumed, the spread of Roman Christianity in Western Europe – and the split that gave rise to the Orthodox Church in the Eastern Mediterranean – did not not immediately result in the wholesale suppression of homosexuality. Graeco-Roman and other pagan cultural traditions persisted, in one form or another, for several centuries while Christianity proved to be somewhat flexible when it came to adapting to local customs – accommodating the violent honour culture of Germanic and Nordic societies and assimilating some of the Greek and Roman Philosophical traditions in the Mediterranean East. Unfortunately historical sources are sparse when it comes to the sex lives of everyday people but we can glean some insight into prevailing attitudes from the biographies of prominent political and religious figures. Once again, however, the primary sources demand that we read between the lines. 

For instance – in the Byzantine Empire men could enter into a marriage-like arrangement with one another known as ‘spiritual brotherhood’. These unions would be blessed by a priest and, once the rites were completed, the men would be considered family – expected to remain faithful and hold property in common with one another. How common these unions were is unclear but even the most prominent members of Byzantine society occasionally took advantage of them. The man who would ascend to the throne as Emperor Basil I appears to have got his start in Byzantine high-society by ‘marrying’ the son of a wealthy widow. In the opening chapter to his book on these early same-sex unions historian John Boswell reminds his readers that our current understanding of sexuality is not all that useful when it comes to examining attitudes of Christian society in the early Middle Ages:

“The question that will immediately leap to the mind of a resident of the modern West about the same-sex liturgical … is “were they homosexual?” The apparently urgent, morally paramount distinction suggested by this question—between all heterosexual acts and relationships and all homosexual acts and relationships—was largely unknown to the societies in which the unions first took place, making the question anachronistic and to some extent unanswerable (if not beside the point), and even where the difference was noticed and commented on, it was much less important to premodern Europeans than many other moral and practical distinctions regarding human couplings. It was adultery that troubled most medieval Christians (particularly in the Mediterranean), not the gender of the party with whom it was committed. “

One of many examples of this relative tolerance of homosexuality is found in the hagiography of St. Mary The Younger where we find evidence that these relationships were not confined to the highest reaches of the aristocracy or members of the clergy. Mary’s biography includes this glowing assessment of her son Vaanes – a respected military commander – and his ‘associate’ Theodore. 

“Being above material things and [the the desire of] profit, he always conceded the spoils to his fellow soldiers, and as a result was much loved by them, and highly reputed, and spoken about by everybody. As his associate and helper in all his excellent exploits he had a certain Theodore…[who was] a man brave and robust in military matters but braver still in the ways of God. Vaanes was yoked to him, like a bull of good lineage and strong, they were plowing in one another as though into rich farmland, and they were sowing the seeds of excellence, as though the best of farmers.”

In a similar vein Boswell draws attention to the paired saints, Sergius and Bacchus, who were said to have been members of Emperor Galerius’ bodyguard corps. According to their hagiography the two men were joined in ‘spiritual brotherhood’ sometime in the early 4th century during the final years of the Roman persecution of the early Church. The story goes that their secret was revealed when they refused to offer sacrifice at a temple dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter. When they subsequently refused to renounce their faith the two soldiers were publicly humiliated by being paraded through the streets in women’s clothing before being tortured and executed. When the Emperor Constantine adopted christianity as the state religion shortly afterwards the couple were added to the list of Church martyrs and nominated as official patrons of the Byzantine army. Boswell’s conclusion that Sergius and Bacchus’ relationship should be understood as sexual is somewhat controversial among theologians but the earliest records of the saints describe Bacchus as the ‘sweet friend/companion and lover’ of Sergius.

The Byzantine Empire’s Islamic rivals were also protected by a military caste renowned for homosexuality. The mamlūks (literally ‘’purchased slaves’) were soldiers employed to serve as the elite guards corps of Muslim Sultans from the Middle Ages right through to the end of the 18th century. Typically, young boys or teenagers were taken from turkic, caucasian or eastern-european communities and brought to Egypt where they were subjected to an intense education program designed to prepare them for service as military commanders, regional governors and to serve as viziers (advisors) to the Sultans. This somewhat convoluted arrangement was predicated on the assumption that soldiers with no family or tribal connections to the ruling class could be counted on to remain loyal to the Sultan.

Although the mamlūks enjoyed enormous privileges relative to the general population, various laws and traditions were put in place to prevent them from becoming a hereditary aristocracy. Accordingly, mamlūks were separated from the wider society throughout their training and chaperoned at all times by eunuch overseers. The young mamlūks were taught Arabic (the language of administration) but spoke to each other in Turkish rather than the local dialect and, although they were allowed to take wives, they were forbidden from divorcing them and were forbidden from passing on any inheritance to their children. Instead, each new generation inducted into the mamlūk caste was purchased from the eurasian frontiers of the empire.

In his sprawling survey of Islamic Homosexualities scholar Stephen Murray emphasised that this strict social isolation gave rise to widespread pederastic relationships within the mamlūk military academies to the point where the main function of eunuchs became ‘keeping the Mamlūk adults away from the Mamlūk boys’. Referring to previous scholarship on the subject Murray points out that:

“it does not seem to have occurred to any of the military historians who have written about the mamlūks that sexual attraction might have played some part in selecting which boys to buy. At least one early-nineteenth-century traveller to Mesopotamia (Iraq) … remarked that most of the upwards of fifty Georgian and Circassian mamlūk bodyguards of the pasha of Mousul were “extremely handsome, and all of them young and superbly dressed”. Similarly an earlier (pre-Napoleonic) traveler, W. G. Browne remarked that the mamlūks “are in general distinguished by the grace and beauty of their persons”

Even if they were selected for their looks, the strict training provided to the mamlūks appears to have put them in good stead on the battlefield. Armies led by mamlūk horsemen were ultimately responsible for evicting the last crusaders from the Holy Lands and they also hold the distinction of being one of the few military forces to deal decisive defeats to Mongol armies at the height of their power. These successes broke the spell of Mongol invincibility and enabled the mamlūks to amass considerable political power and prestige. Having started out as bodyguards and advisors, many former slaves rose through the ranks to assume the role of Sultan themselves.

Murray is careful to point out that the slave-soldiers of the Ottoman Empire that eventually overthrew the mamlūk Sultanate retained many of the same social structures. “Lest it be supposed that the fall of the mamlūks had anything to do with homosexuality” he wrote “it should be emphasised that the victors were no less pederastic than the mamlūks”.

In Europe a pronounced shift seems to have occurred in public attitudes towards homosexuality in the late Middle Ages. The concept of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ sex acts was given greater emphasis in Christian theology and old-testament injunctions against homosexuality were once again dusted off. Boswell notes the ‘rabid and obsessive negative preoccupation with homosexuality’ that gripped Western Europe but can only speculate on what prompted the shift in mentality. The first chapter of Dante Alighieri’s famous Divine Comedy, published in the early years of the 14th century, provides a hierarchy of sin in which homosexuality is considered a somewhat mild offence – sharing the upper rung of purgatory with sins like swearing and charging interest on loans. Yet only a few years later King Philip IV of France presided over the brutal inquisition and disbandment of the Knights-Templar for, among other things, allegedly permitting sexual relationships between members. Over the next several centuries same-sex relationships were increasingly prosecuted by both secular and religious tribunals in Europe.

In the 15th and 16th centuries the Age of Discovery brought Europeans in contact with a wide range of societies in Asia, Australasia, the South Pacific and the Americas. The variety of sexual mores and taboos that explorers and colonists encountered not only contradicted European assumptions about sexuality but also presented a theological dilemma. How could these far flung people be considered to be ‘living in sin’ if they were never given the opportunity to hear about God’s laws in the first place?

For the sailors themselves, the unique demands and hazards of life at sea gave rise to a distinctive homosocial seafaring culture. Long, open-sea voyages took an incredible toll on sailors with many ships returning with only a fraction of their original crew. By necessity, replacements were drawn from a range of ethnic groups and nationalities who brought with them their own attitudes to warfare, recreation and sex. Even though rules and regulations aboard naval and merchant vessels were often highly restrictive and brutally enforced, life aboard sailing ships also represented an escape from many of the norms of European society. 

The most extreme form of this escape can be found in the case of privateers and pirates. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries competition between European colonial powers gave rise to a large number of informal navies and outlaw groups that raided ports and preyed upon merchant shipping. This battle for control of the seas was concentrated on the Caribbean where French, English, Dutch and Spanish navies vied for control Hispaniola (part of modern day Haiti) while a whole host of transnational privateers and pirates mounted raids from their enclave on the island of Tortuga. 

The necessity of working out how to divide the spoils of these raids led to the creation of semi-formal partnerships between crew members known as ‘matelotage’. As in the case of the Byzantine practise of ‘spiritual brotherhood’ the exact nature of these arrangements is hard to pin down but, in many cases, these unions appear to have served more than a purely economic purpose – often joining a more experienced crew member with a younger man and implying some sort of sexual arrangement (matelots were expected to share not only their earnings but also the services of any women they purchased). 

One scholar of gay history, Barry Richard Burg, suggested that the earliest form of matelotage was probably more akin to maritime debt servitude – with sailors trading sexual favours for additional rations, security, or as payment for outstanding loans. However during the so-called Golden Age of Piracy (roughly from the 1650s to the 1730s) matelotage appears to have taken on a more equitable form – obliging partners to share goods in common and determining inheritance in the event that either party was killed in battle. The buccaneer Alexander Exquemelin wrote: ‘It is the general and solemn custom amongst them all to seek out… a comrade or companion, whom we may call partner… with whom they join the whole stock of what they possess.’

Contemporary sources suggest that, while pederasty was somewhat commonplace among sailors, these practices had a tendency to cause feuds and resentment – especially amongst somewhat egalitarian pirate crews. To avoid jealous disputes one of Bartholomew Roberts’ famous ‘articles of agreement’ dictated that “no Boy or Woman to be allowed amongst [the crew]”.

Moral outrage over the prevalence of matelotage appears to have prompted one French governor of Tortuga – Bertrand d’Ogeron – to formally request that prostitutes be sent from France in order to curb the ‘debauchery’ of local sailors and buccaneers. Starting in 1669 women were taken from poor-houses and slums in Europe, shipped to the Caribbean, and pressed into service as prostitutes at the first brothels in the Americas. Over the course of d’Ogeron’s tenure more than a thousand women were brought to Tortuga but the rebalancing of genders didn’t appear to make any appreciable impact on the practise of matelotage.

Many subsequent historians have dismissed these unions as nothing more than an insurance policy amongst pirates. In an offhand comment that reveals the extent of this socio-historical blindspot, a recent article in the New York Times declared that “pirates were probably no more sodomitic than the average British sailor.”

Throughout this period the official penalties for sodomy were extremely severe but, as is often the case, exceptions were often made for wealthy elites and talented soldiers. If you happened to be both then so much the better. Probably the most famous gay military and political figure of the 18th century was Prussia’s Frederick II who is remembered for a string of military successes in the Silesian Wars of the 1740s which earned him the title of Frederick ‘The Great’. Looking back from a vantage point of almost three centuries it’s hard to convey how dramatic these victories appeared at the time. When Frederick II ascended to the throne of Prussia his kingdom looked like a wine stain on the map of Europe – consisting of three entirely separate blotches on what is now northern Germany and Poland. But despite its geographic vulnerability the Prussian state commanded a disproportionately large and well-trained standing army. 

Frederick’s father – known to history as the ‘Soldier King’ – had introduced sweeping reforms to centralise bureaucratic power and formalise military conscription and training. He was also well aware of his son’s sexuality and, on one particular occasion, subjected the young crown prince to a harrowing ordeal in an attempt to punish his son’s wayward behaviour.

At the age of eighteen Frederick had fallen for a Lieutenant in the Royal Guard named Hans von Katte. Seeking to escape his father’s abuse Frederick conspired with von Katte to flee to England but the two young men were arrested in the attempt and put on trial for treason. Von Katte’s father – himself a General in the Prussian army – petitioned for his son to be pardoned but the king replied curtly declaring “Your son is a canaille; so is mine; there is nothing we can do about it.”

From his prison cell at the fortress of Küstrin, Frederick was forced to watch as von Katte was led out into the courtyard to be executed. When Frederick begged for his lover’s forgiveness von Katte replied with astounding composure given the circumstances “There is nothing to forgive” he said “I die for you with joy in my heart!”. Frederick reportedly passed out just moments before Von Katte was beheaded and remained almost catatonic with grief for several days following the execution.

Despite this and other instances of savage childhood trauma Frederick II came to be considered the model of the ‘enlightened despot’ once he assumed the throne – promoting religious tolerance, patronising the arts and widening access to the civil service. Nevertheless it was Frederick’s expansion of the army that made the biggest impression on Prussia’s neighbours. A French diplomat of the era glibly described Prussia as not so much ‘a state with an army but an army with a state’. As commander of this war machine Frederick annexed the most productive regions of neighbouring Silesia and Saxony and laid the groundwork for what would become a unified German nation. Indeed, some of the rituals and symbols of this early force would be brought back into vogue during the Nazi era including the goose-step and the ‘totenkopf’ (death’s head) insignia of the Prussian cavalry corps. 

One particular member of Frederick’s entourage would go on to have a substantial influence on military doctrine in the New World. During the Seven Years War Frederick II had taken a young soldier named Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben under his wing. A graduate officer of the Prussian military academy, Von Steuben was, for a time, Frederick II’s aide-de-camp – a sort of latter-day squire to senior military officers. Von Steuben was also gay but, apparently, not high-profile enough to avoid allegations and charges concerning his relationships. In the late 1770s, aware that his chances of promotion in Europe were limited, Von Steuben accepted an invitation to North America to serve as a military advisor to George Washington’s revolutionary army in their war against the British.

As Inspector General of Washington’s troops Von Steuben brought Prussian discipline to the colony’s irregular forces and, when victory was eventually achieved, he wrote the foundational military manual for the newly independent United States Army. When von Steuben died in 1794 he left the estate gifted to him by Washington to his lovers and former comrades in arms. Von Steuben is remembered fondly in U.S. history as the ‘Drillmaster of the Revolution’ and several towns and regions are named in his honour, as is the yearly German-American cultural festival held in some major cities (The titular Ferris gatecrashes a Von Steuben’s Day Parade in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Over the last two and a half centuries reverence for the country’s Revolutionary War heroes and a persistent strain of protestant puritanism have combined to produce some wonderfully obtuse commentary on von Steuben’s personal life with many biographies referring to the intensely emotional ‘friendships’ that he had with his ‘boon companions’. 

What do these examples tell us about the place of homosexuality within the military? While social tolerance for homosexuality has ebbed and flowed in response to cultural and religious shifts over the centuries, military institutions have remained dedicated to promoting intimate ties of companionship between soldiers. Time and time again this urgent demand for ‘unit cohesion’ has helped blur the line between friends, comrades, and lovers.

Even at the height of Anglo-European homophobia something of the logic behind the Sacred Band still found its way into military doctrine. The principle of keeping comrades together from training through to deployment was spelled out in the British Army’s ‘Regulations for the Rifle Corps’ (1800) and continues, to this day, in the form of ‘buddy systems’ employed by U.S. and Australian armies.

Chapter 2 of Soldiers and Sexuality will look at homosexuality within modern Western military institutions and its wider social effects  – focusing particularly on the dramatic upheavals that occurred within Australian society during the Second World War. 

References:
Plato (circa. 360 BC) – Symposium
Xenophon (circa. 360 BC) – Symposium
Aeschines (circa. 346 BC) – Against Timarchus
James Romm (2021) – The Sacred Band
John Boswell (1994) – Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1994)
Alice-Mary Talbot (1996) – Holy Women of Byzantium
Stephen Murray (1997) – Islamic Homosexualities
Barry Richard Burg (182) – Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition
Friedrich Kapp (1859) – The Live of Frederick von Steuben
Valery Ryzhov (2019) – The Golden Age of Tortuga
C. H. Harring (1910) – The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century
Caleb Crane (2009) – Bootylicious