The Wolf Who Looked Like A Man
As
a boy, Ungern-Sternberg was noted for being such a ferocious bully
that even the other bullies feared him and several parents forbade their
children from playing with him as he was a "terror".
Ungern was well known for his love of torturing animals, and at the age
of 12 he tried to strangle to death his cousin's pet owl for no
particularly good reason other than his cruelty toward animals.
Ungern-Sternberg had extreme pride in his ancient, aristocratic family
and later wrote that his family had over the centuries "never taken
orders from the working classes" and it was outrageous that "dirty
workers who've never had any servants of their own, but still think they
can command" should have any say in the ruling of the vast Russian
Empire. A highly decorated soldier, the baron was extremely brave but
regarded as unstable, whatever that meant in the context of the Tsarist
army. Despite his many awards, he was eventually discharged from one of
his
command positions for attacking another officer and a hall porter during
a drunken rage in October 1916, which led to his being court-martialed
and sentenced to two months in prison.
After the revolution he joined
up with the Cossack general Semyonov where he distinguished himself as
one of the effective White Russian commanders, killing his opponents
left, right and center.
He attacked Mongolia on his own and seized
towns, killing the Jewish colonists there and everyone else who he
thought needed elimination. He was mystical and took counsel from
shamans as to when to attack the Bolsheviks, on their advice he delayed
his offensive allowing the Reds to reinforce and slaughter his small
army. His men mutinied and he was captured by the Reds, after a 6 hour
show trial he was executed by firing squad on 15 September 1921 in
Novosibirsk.
Ungern as a character in Hugo Pratt's marvelous adventure comic, Corto Maltese.
(We're beautiful, Semenoff, beautiful).
https://youtu.be/n0tBn6fNkPM?t=337
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