Name that historical figure!

[Spear Dog]

General Enrico Cialdini.
If I'm reading the research correctly, he was the Royal attack dog and Garibaldi's nemesis, the two nearly duelling at one stage. He commanded the army that defeated Garibaldi at the Battle of Aspromonte. English language articles are a bit thin on Cialdini but some Italian headlines I saw make me think he may be being regarded as a war criminal by some, for aspects of his military career.

[Diocle]

Yes, it is the General Enrico Cialdini. +rep, compliments and to you the next.

From Wiki:

He was born at Castelvetro, in the province of Modena. In 1831 he took part in the insurrection at Modena, fleeing afterwards to Paris, whence he proceeded to Spain to fight against the Carlists. Returning to Italy in 1848, he commanded a regiment at the battle of Novara. In 1859 he organized the Alpine Brigade, fought at Palestro at the head of the 4th Division; in the following year invaded the Marche, won the battle of Castelfidardo, took Ancona, and subsequently directed the Siege of Gaeta.

For these services he was created Duke of Gaeta by the king, and was assigned a pension of 20,000 lire by the Italian Parliament. In 1861 his intervention envenomed the Cavour-Garibaldi dispute, royal mediation alone preventing a duel between him and Garibaldi. Placed in command of the troops sent to oppose the Garibaldian expedition of 1862, he defeated Garibaldi in the controversial battle of Aspromonte. Between 1862 and 1866 he held the position of lieutenant-royal at Naples where he fought against the Brigandage in the Two Sicilies, and in 1864 was created senator.

On the outbreak of the war of 1866 he resumed command of an army corps, but dissensions between him and Alfonso La Marmora prejudiced the issue of the campaign and contributed to the defeat of Custoza. After the war he refused the command of the General Staff, which he wished to render independent of the war office. In 1867 he attempted unsuccessfully to form a cabinet sufficiently strong to prevent the threatened Garibaldian incursion into the papal states, and two years later failed in a similar attempt, through disagreement with Giovanni Lanza concerning the army estimates.

On 3 August 1870 he pleaded in favour of Italian intervention in aid of France, a circumstance which enhanced his influence when in July 1876 he replaced Costantino Nigra as ambassador to the French Republic. This position he held until 1882, when he resigned on account of the publication by Pasquale Stanislao Mancini of a despatch in which he had complained of arrogant treatment by William Henry Waddington. He died at Livorno in 1892.

His behavior in the suppression of the 'brigandage' (for someone actually they weren't brigands but patriots still fighting for the now vanished Kingdom of Naples) is considered by some Italian historians and some Italian today politician (Grillo) as a war crime, we have to consider that after the War between the States in the USA the brigandage was faced in a similar brutal way, the final word about this man has still to be written, the mattern concerning the asymmetrical war against insurgency is always very complex.

[Spear Dog]

Thanks Diocle, and for the extra info.

Next person:

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

think at must be Jesus... no wait no it's Stalin!

[Spear Dog]

Jesus, Stalin - the Jews probably wish neither had been born. Stalin is correct, not a bad looking fella - at whatever age he is here, he looks harmless enough. More to fool us.

+ rep, your turn.

[Diocle]

.... yes but have you seen the eyes? he is evil and mad, look at the eyes ... it's clear ...

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

This is my high school photo... SAME EYES!

[geyserik]

Oda Nobunaga!

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Yeah who painted it, sorry I should have said that.

[Spear Dog]

Giovanni Niccolo, a Jesuit painter. Portrait and credited artist both on Wiki page for Oda Nobunaga - I think this one definitely goes to geyserik.


btw, have you seen these at the JAPAN TREND SHOP:

Samurai underwear.

[Diocle]

IMO he is Stalin again ... in one of his evil and countless disguises .....

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I think Nobunaga has a lot more to do with Napoleon than with Stalin. The Ikko-Ikki may be compared with the Bolsheviks and Nobunaga lit them real good. Also Nobunaga had to contend with various coalitions, unlike Napoleon he actually won.

Spear Dog's turn!
That doesn't look like very comfortable underwear.

[Sicknero]

http://i43.tinypic.com/2w4d6kg.jpg[/IMG]

Make up your own sword jokes.

[Spear Dog]

I'm thinking this maybe a little more difficult:

[Mary The Quene]

Ranjit Singh

[Aymer de Valence]

Alexander Gardner, a mercenary Scotsman who fought for the Sikhs

[Spear Dog]

I said to myself " If anyone gets this straight up it will probably be Aethelwulf"! I'm now sure we read at least some of the same stuff.

Alexander Gardner is correct, a remarkable 19th century adventurer who helped make the Khalsa of the Sikhs a match for any European army by organising and training their impressive artillery divisions.

By his own accounts he was born in Wisconsin to a Scottish father and an Anglo-Spanish mother. According to Baron von Hügel, who met Gardner in 1835, he was Irish, but the evidence for that assertion is obscure.[2]
Gardner went to Ireland in about 1809. He returned to America in 1812, but finding his father dead he returned to Europe and never went back to America. From Europe he travelled to Astrakhan where his brother was working, but when his brother died in 1817 he tried to secure a position in the Russian Army. When that failed he left Russia and spent the next 13 years wandering through Central Asia.
In 1823 he was captured in Afghanistan by Habib Ullah Khan, the nephew of Dost Mohammed Khan. Habib Ullah was fighting his uncle for the throne of Kabul, and he recruited Gardner to his cause as the commander of 180 horsemen. After an attack on a pilgrim caravan Gardner married one of the captives and went to live in a fort near Parwan where a son was born to the couple. When Habib Ullah was defeated in 1826, Gardner's wife, a native woman, and his baby boy were murdered by Dost Mahommed's forces. Gardner fled north with a few companions and near the River Oxus his party were attacked by 50 horsemen: they lost eight out of their thirteen men and the survivors were all wounded but were able to escape. Their route now lay towards Badakhshan and the valley of the Kokcha; the Oxus was finally crossed opposite the Shakhdara to reach the valley of Shignan, still in the year 1826. From this point his narrative is fragmentary and very hard to understand, large parts being highly improbable or impossible. He claimed to have reached Yarkand on 24 September but the year is uncertain, either 1827, 1828 or 1829 are possible, certainly he was there by 1830. He returned to Afghanistan, and visited Kafiristan, possibly the first westerner to do so.[2] In August 1831 he left Afghanistan as an outlaw for the Punjab, where he was appointed Commandant of Artillery. He served in this position for many years before he was transferred to the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, where he was one of between 32 and 100 Western soldiers in Ranjit's army.[3] He was later promoted to the rank of Colonel by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.


The untented Kosmos my abode,
I pass, a wilful stranger:
My mistress still the open road
And the bright eyes of danger.
Epigraph of Alexander Gardner's Autobiography


He remained in the Sikh army after Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, but after the First Anglo-Sikh War he joined the service of Gulab Singh, Maharajah of Kashmir, and spent the rest of his life in Srinagar.[2]
Gardner was involved in numerous gun fights and sword fights during his career. He was described as being six-foot, with a long beard, an all around warrior and fighter. Gardner was known to have saved the City of Lahore in 1841 when his comrades abandoned him and he fired the guns that killed 300 enemies. He is described by Keay as continuing to suffer the effects of 14 wounds in later life.
Gardner remained in the service of the Maharajas as they came and went, and witnessed the fall of the Punjab as a sovereign kingdom. This he vividly described in his book on the Fall of the Sikh Empire.[4]
Gardner kept a journal, much of which was lost. Extracts were published in 1853, and attracted controversy. His exploits were so bizarre that the geographer Sir Henry Yule disbelieved them.[2] In later life, Gardner related his adventures to several prospective biographers, and after his death the surviving material was published in Soldier and Traveller: memoirs of Alexander Gardner; edited by Major Hugh Pearse.[5]

+rep and you're up.

[Aymer de Valence]

Haha, was the tartanesque-garb which gave it away! Good picture Spear Dog!

[Tankbustaz]

dennis"the menace " decrace?

[Aymer de Valence]

I will give you that, it's Denis Decres; Napoleon's Minister of Marine from 1801 - 1814. What a headache of a job that must have been. Your turn sir!