The Marmot’s Hole

James Palmer has apparently written a book on one of my favorite historical figures, Baron Robert Nickolaus Maximillian von Ungern-Sternberg a.k.a. the Mad Baron, the White Russian warlord who actually ruled Mongolia for part of 1921.

Now, when I say “favorite,” this is not because Ungern von Sternberg had any admirable qualities — he was batshit insane (just look at his photo), a sadistic psychopath whose story is almost too weird to believe:

Ungern was obsessed with his role in history, which he saw as restoring Nicholas II’s brother, Michael (who had, in fact, already been killed by the Bolsheviks), to the Russian throne and to restore Genghis Khan’s glory and the rule of the living god-king, the perverted Bogd Khan in Mongolia.

In a savagely inept campaign, Ungern managed to expel Chinese troops from Mongolia, take the capital Urga (now Ulan Bator) and restore the Bogd Khan with himself as dictator (aided by Tibetan troops lent by the Dalai Lama).

Ungern’s reign was tyrannical and his tortures, described by Palmer, were sadistically, chillingly bizarre.

His unfortunate victims, whether Communist, Jewish or merely the well-off, included women and often children, particularly Jewish ones - ‘because the Jews are not protected by any law… neither men nor women nor their seed should remain’. They suffered frenzied beatings (’did you know men can still walk when flesh and bone is separated?’), being dragged by a noose behind moving cars or hunted through streets by Cossacks; there were beheadings, burnings alive, dismemberments and disembowelments, exposure naked on ice, the rending of bodies by wild animals, being forced naked up trees until they fell out and were shot and, finally, in Palmer’s evocative description, Ungern ’sometimes ordered his men to bend back a tree, then bound the victim to it to be ripped apart by the branches when it was released’.

Let nobody ever accuse of him of missing the big picture:

The Mongolian army was only a token force and he found resistance only from occupying Chinese forces. He captured the capital of Urga (today-Ulan Bator) in minus forty degree weather on February 21, 1921, and declared himself dictator on March 3rd. The Chinese had large stocks of munitions, artillery, and machine guns in the town which Sternberg distributed.

For the next six months, a surreal existence fell over Mongolia as the Baron and his army, now dubbed the Order of Military Buddhists, performed every type of atrocity imaginable including torture and cannibalism. He believed himself the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. He became a convert to the eightfold-path. Interpreting the Buddhist scriptures in his own manner, he believed that in the act of killing the weak he upgraded their position in the universe and they would be reborn as greater beings. He therefore felt that by washing Urga with the blood of innocent people he was saving the world in a cosmic sense, one bullet at a time.

For a real fun read, take a look at Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski’s Beasts, Men and Gods, which can now be read online. Just to give you a little background on Ossendowski:

After Kolchak’s defeat in 1920, Ossendowski joined a group of Poles and White Russians trying to escape from communist-controlled Siberia to India through Mongolia, China and Tibet.[1] After several thousands of miles the group reached Chinese-controlled Mongolia, only to be stopped there by the take-over of the country led by mysterious baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg. A mystic who was fascinated by beliefs and religions of the Far East such as Buddhism and Lamaism, and who believed himself to be a reincarnation of Genghis Khan, Ungern-Sternberg’s philosophy was an exceptionally muddled mixture of Russian nationalism with Chinese and Mongol beliefs. He also proved to be an exceptional military commander and his forces grew rapidly.

Ossendowski joined the baron’s army as a commanding officer of one of the self-defence troops. He also briefly became Ungern von Sternberg’s political advisor and chief of intelligence. Little is known of his service at the latter post, which adds to Ossendowski’s legend as a mysterious person. In late 1920 he was sent with a diplomatic mission to Japan and then USA, never to return to Mongolia. Some writers believe that Ossendowski was one of the people to hide the semi-mythical treasures of the Bloody Baron.

Amazing stuff.