The Bloody White Baron

The Bloody White Baron

Review by John S. Major

The “White Russian” counter-revolution that sought to overturn the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917-18 produced more than its share of bizarre and colorful characters. Yet none more so than Freiherr Roman Nikolai Maximillian von Ungern-Sternberg—Russian nobleman, czarist military officer, and would-be dictator of Mongolia. James Palmer’s account of von Ungern-Sternberg’s brief and bloody career was one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in the past year. It is a good thing that the story is true, because it would be hard to invent a fictional character as strange and compelling as the White Baron.

Born in 1885 into a German-Estonian noble family (their residence a legacy of Prussia’s expansion into eastern Europe), Ungern was a difficult child and a terrible student. Bored, impulsive, violent, he was the despair of his parents and teachers alike; sent to military school, his career as a cadet foundered in arrogance and insubordination while he dabbled in Theosophy, Buddhism, and anti-Semitism. Only with actual experience of warfare did he begin to bloom. Posted to Siberia at the beginning of World War I, Ungern later served on the European Eastern Front, where he tasted—and loved—killing enemies who were trying to kill him. Legitimized violence made him, at last, feel truly alive.

The Revolution found the ultra-monarchist Ungern back in the trans-Baikal, fighting the Bolsheviks for control of the trans-Siberian Railroad. Personally fearless, and a ferocious disciplinarian, Ungern drove his troops hard and won some battles, but his cause was doomed. By 1920 Ungern looked increasingly to Mongolia as the canvas on which to paint his ambitions. In its struggle to gain independence from China, Mongolia was open to salvation from any quarter, even one as dubious as the White Baron. With a rising sense of theatricality, Ungern adopted Mongol dress, portrayed himself as the successor of Genghiz Khan, and did nothing to discourage rumors that he was a reincarnation of the War God. In 1921 he did succeed in driving Chinese forces out of the capital, Urga (now Ulaanbaatar), and establishing a de facto protectorate over Mongolia’s Living Buddha god-king, the Bogd Khan. But Ungern’s extortionate requisitions of supplies and the ferocious punishments he meted out to soldiers and civilians alike soon wore out his welcome. Fleeing westward with the remnants of his army, pursuing a fantasy of setting himself up as king of Tibet, he was captured by a Red patrol and soon afterwards, proud and unrepentant, was executed in a Russian prison yard.

Palmer does a superb job in this book not only of portraying Ungern himself, but in delineating the context of his tumultuous career—the chaotic world of Reds and Whites, Mongolian monarchists and rebels, and Byzantine warfare and politics that provided the only environment within which someone as ambitious, violent and delusional as Ungern could thrive. Few people could have written this book at all; Palmer makes it a masterpiece.

PRAISE FOR THE BLOODY WHITE BARON:

"The rise and fall of Baron Ungern-Sternberg is one of the most demented, savage and grotesque stories of modern times. Palmer, with his special knowledge of Mongolia and enthusiasm for Ungern's blend of lunacy, politics and war, delivers an enjoyable, exciting biography that recounts the crimes and conquests of this monster compellingly, colorfully and with cinematic relish." —Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of Stalin and Potemkin

"Newcomers will surely find it startling to learn that at least a decade before Hitler came to power, there was already a European leader whose adherence to a mix of sloppy religiosity, historical determinism and half-baked racialism was in danger of getting him far further than any sane person could possibly have predicted." —Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Basic Books Inc. ( February 01, 2009 )

Item #: 48-8758

ISBN: 9780465014484

Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 x 0.72 inches

Product Weight: 17.0 ounces