Quick Facts
Biography
Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg (Russian: Барон Ро́берт-Ни́колай-Максими́лиан Рома́н Фёдорович фон У́нгерн-Ште́рнберг) (10 January 1886 NS – 15 September 1921) was an anti-Bolshevik lieutenant general in the Russian Civil War and then an independent warlord whose Asiatic Cavalry Division wrested control of Mongolia from the occupation of Mongolia by the Republic of China in 1921. He was often referred to as Baron Ungern, or simply Ungern.
Ungern was an arch conservative pan-monarchist who aspired to restore the Russian monarchy under Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia and to revive the Mongol Empire under the rule of the Bogd Khan. In February 1921, he expelled Chinese troops from Mongolia and restored the monarchic power of the Bogd Khan.
In June 1921 he went on to invade East Siberia, in support of supposed anti-Bolshevik rebellions and to head off a Red Army-Mongolian partisan invasion, and this action led to his defeat and capture two months later. He was taken prisoner by the Red Army and a month later was put on trial for counterrevolution in Novonikolaevsk. After a six-hour show trial, he was found guilty, and on 15 September 1921 he was executed.
Biography
Childhood and youth
R.F. von Ungern-Sternberg was born in Graz, Austria, on January 10, 1886, to a noble Baltic-German family. The Ungern-Sternberg family was an ancient German noble family that settled in what is now Estonia during the Middle Ages. Ungern-Sternberg's first language was German, but he was also fluent in French, Russian, English, and Estonian. His mother was a German noblewoman named Sophie Charlotte von Wimpffen, later Sophie Charlotte von Ungern-Sternberg, and his father was Baron Theodor Leonhard Rudolph von Ungern-Sternberg (1857–1918).
In 1888 his family moved to Reval (Tallinn), the capital of the Governorate of Estonia within the Russian Empire, where his parents divorced three years later in 1891. In 1894 his mother married the Baltic German nobleman Baron Oskar Anselm Herrmann von Hoyningen-Huene. Ungern-Sternberg grew up in the Russian province of Estland (modern Estonia), with his home being the Hoyningen-Huene estate at Jerwakant (modern Järvakandi, Estonia) that was set deep in the forests about forty miles from Reval. In the summer, Ungern-Sternberg lived on the island of Dago (modern Hiiumaa) in the Baltic, which Ungern-Sternberg liked to boast had belonged to his family for over two hundred years.
Ungern-Sternberg, despite his pride of German origin, identified himself very strongly with the Russian Empire. When asked if his "family had distinguished itself in Russian service", Ungern proudly answered: "Seventy-two killed in wartime!". Ungern-Sternberg believed that return to monarchies in Europe is possible with the aid of "cavalry people", in his meaning, Russian Cossacks, Buryats, Tatars, Mongols, Kyryz, Kalmyks etc.
In 1898, his father was briefly imprisoned for fraud and in 1899 committed to the local insane asylum. From 1900 to 1902 Ungern attended the Nicholas I Gymnasium in Reval. Ungern's school records show that he was an unruly, bad-tempered young man who was constantly into trouble with his teachers owing to frequent fights with the other cadets and breaking other school rules, like smoking in bed, growing long hair, leaving without permission, etc., which finally led to the schoolmaster writing a letter in February 1905 to his stepfather and mother asking them to withdraw their son from the school as otherwise Ungern would be expelled. In 1905 he left the school to join the fighting in Eastern Russia during the Russo-Japanese War, but it is unclear whether he participated in operations against the Japanese, or if all military operations had ceased before his arrival in Manchuria, although he was awarded the Russo-Japanese War Medal in 1913.
In 1905 Russia exploded into revolution, and in the province of Estland, the Estonian peasants went on a bloody jacquerie against the Baltic-German nobility who owned most of the land in Estland, lynching the aristocrats and burning down their estates. One of the estates burned down was the one at Jerwakant where Ungern-Sternberg had grown up. The revolution of 1905 and the destruction of the Jerwakant estate were huge traumas to Ungern-Sternberg, who saw the jacquerie as confirming his belief that the Estonian peasants who worked on his family's lands were all "rough, untutored, wild and constantly angry, hating everybody and everything without understanding why".
In 1906 Ungern was transferred to service in Pavlovskoe Military School in Saint Petersburg as a cadet of ordinary rank. As an army cadet, Ungern proved to be a better student than he ever was as a naval cadet, and he actually studied his course material, though in the words of Palmer Ungern was only a "mediocre student" at best. During the same period, Ungern-Sternberg may become obsessed with the occult and was especially interested in Buddhism. Ungern-Sternberg's cousin, Count Hermann von Keyserling who knew him well later wrote that the baron was very curious from his teenage years onwards with "Tibetan and Hindu philosophy" and often spoke of the mystical powers possessed by "geometrical symbols". Keyserling called Ungern-Sternberg "one of the most metaphysically and occultly gifted man I have ever met" and believed that the baron was a clairvoyant who could read the minds of the people around him.
Later, in Mongolia, Ungern become Buddhist by he did not leave Lutheran faith. There is a widespread view that Ungern was viewed by Mongols as the incarnation of the "God of War" (the figure of Jamsaran in Tibetan and Mongol folklore). Although many Mongols may have believed him to be a deity, or at the very least an incarnation of Genghis Khan, Ungern was never officially proclaimed to be any of these incarnations.
After graduating he served as an officer in East Siberia in the 1st Argunsky and, then, in the 1st Amursky Cossack regiments, where he became enthralled with the lifestyle of nomadic peoples such as the Mongols and Buryats. Ungern had specifically asked that he been stationed with a Cossack regiment in Asia as he wanted to learn more about Asian culture, a request that was granted During this period, Ungern-Sternberg was notorious for his heavy drinking and exceptionally cantankerous moods. During one such brawl, Ungern-Sternberg's face was scarred when the officer he was fighting with struck his visage with his sword, leaving him with a distinctive facial scar. It has been claimed that the sword-blow that caused the scar also caused brain damage that was the root of Ungern's insanity. However, special study revealed that Ungern-Sternberg was not mentally insane, although the wound affected his irritability. Those who knew Ungern-Sternberg well described him as very drawn towards "Eastern culture" as he was fascinated by Asian cultures, especially that of the Mongols and the Buryats. At the same time, Ungern was an excellent horseman who earned the respect of the Mongols and the Buryats due to his skill at riding and fighting from a horse, being equally adept at using both a gun and his sword. In 1913, at his request, he transferred to the reserves. Ungern moved to Outer Mongolia to assist Mongols in their struggle for independence from China, but Russian officials prevented him from fighting within Mongolian troops. He arrived in the town of Khovd in western Mongolia and served as out-of-staff officer in the Cossack guard detachment at the Russian consulate
First World War
On July 19, 1914, Ungern joined front-line forces as part of the second-turn 34th regiment of Cossack troops stationed on the Austrian frontier in Galicia. Ungern took part in the Russian offensive in East Prussia and from 1915-1916 he also participated in rear-action raids on German troops by the L.N. Punin Cavalry Special Task Force. Ungern served in the Nerchinsky Regiment. Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, Ungern gained a reputation as an extremely brave, but somewhat reckless and mentally unstable officer, a man with no fear of death who seemed most happy leading cavalry charges or being in the thick of combat. He was decorated by several military awards: orders of St. George of the 4th grade, St. Vladimir of the 4th grade, St. Anna of he 3rd and 4th grades, as well as St. Stanislas of the 3rd grade. Although decorated with several military awards, he was eventually discharged from one of his command positions for attacking another officer and hall porter during one of his drunk rages in October 1916, which led to him being court-martialed and given two months in prison (details see in). General Wrangel mentions Ungern's determination in his memoirs.
After his release from prison in January 1917, Ungern was transferred to the Caucasian theatre of the conflict, where Russia was fighting against the Ottoman Empire. The February Revolution which ended the rule of the House of Romanov was an extremely bitter blow to the monarchist Ungern-Sternberg, who saw the revolution as the beginning of the end of Russia. In the Caucasus, Ungern-Sternberg first met Cossack Captain Grigory Semyonov, later one of most well-known Russian anti-communist warlords in Siberia. In April 1917 near Urmia, Iran, Ungern, together with Grigory Semyonov, started to organize a volunteer military unit composed of local Assyrians Christians. The Ottoman government had waged the Assyrian Genocide, attempting to exterminate the Assyrian minority, which led to thousands of Assyrians fleeing to the Russian lines. Ungern and Semyonov conceived of a scheme under which the two would organize and lead the Assyrian troops to show an example for Russian army which was demoralized by revolutionary mood. Under Ungern's command, they went on to score some minor victories over the Turks, but their total contribution to Russia's war effort was limited. Afterwards, the Assyrian scheme led Semyonov to the idea of a Buryat troops in Siberia. The Kerensky government gave its approval to Semyonov's plans, and Ungern-Sternberg soon headed east to join his friend in trying to raise a Buryat regiment.
The Russian Civil War
After the Bolshevik-led October Revolution of 1917, Semyonov and Ungern declared their allegiance to the Romanovs and vowed to fight the revolutionaries. In late 1917, Ungern, Semyonov and five Cossacks peacefully disarmed a group of ca. 1500 pro-Red combatants on the railway station Manchuria on the China-Eastern Railway (FER) in China near the Russian border. For a certain time, the station Manchuria was a stronghold of Semyonov and Ungern in their preparations to war in Transbaikal. They start to enroll people in Special Manchurian Regiment, which became a nucleus for anti-communist troops led by Semyonov
After the White troops defeated Reds on a part of the FER line in Russia, Semyonov appointed Ungern commandant of troops stationed in Dauria, a railway station hawing strategic position in the east-southeast of Lake Baikal. Semyonov and Ungern, though fervently anti-Bolshevik, were figures not typical for the White movement, as they had their plans different from main White leaders. Semyonov refused to recognize the authority of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, the nominal leader of the Whites in Siberia. Instead he acted independently, supported by the Japanese with arms and money. For White leaders, like Kolchak and Denikin, who believed in a "Russia strong and indivisible", this represented high treason. Ungern was nominally subordinated to Semyonov but he too often acted independently. Admiral Kolchak was a conservative, but not a monarchist who promised that after the victory of the Whites, he would reconvene the Constituent Assembly disbanded by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, which would then decide the future of Russia, including the question of whatever to restore the monarchy or not. Ungern, on the opposite, believed that monarchs were accountable only to God, and the monarchy was the political system that God had chosen for Russia, so it was self-evident that the monarchy should be restored back to the way it had existed before the October Manifesto of 1905. For Ungern, the opinions of the people of Russia were irrelevant as monarchs were not accountable to the people.
Because of his successful military operations in Hailar and Dauria, Ungern received the rank of Major-General. Semyonov entrusted him with forming military units to battle Bolshevik forces. They enrolled Buryats and Mongols in their national military units. In Dauria, Ungern formed the volunteer Asiatic Cavalry Division (Russian: Азиатская конная дивизия), which included Russians, Buryats, Tatars, Bashkirs, Mongols from different tribes, Chinese, Manchu, Polish exiles and many others. Ungern reinforced his military station at Dauria, creating a kind of fortress from where his troops launched attacks on Red forces. Under his rule, Dauria became a well known "torture center" filled with the bones of dozens of Ungern's victims, people who were executed under accusations of being Reds or thiefs (details in ). Ungern's chief executioner had been a Colonel Laurentz, but later, in Mongolia, Ungern had him executed because Laurentz lost Ungern's trust under uncertain circumstances.
Like many other White units, Ungern's troops employed requisitions as source of their supply. They examined trains passing through Dauria to Manchuria. While these confiscations did not significantly diminish the supplies of Kolchak's forces, private Russian and Chinese merchants lost considerable property.
In 1919, using weakness of Russia caused by revolutions and Civil War, central Chinese Government, established by members of the Anhui military party, sent troops led by General Sui Shuzheng to join Outer Mongolia to China and dismiss her autonomy. This violated terms of tripartite Russian-Mongolian-Chinese agreement concluded in 1915, which secured the autonomy of Outer Mongolia and did not allow invasion of Chinese troops except for small numbers of consular guards Although the Anhui party was supported by Japan, indications that Japan inspired Chinese occupation of Outer Mongoliahave not yet been confirmed by documents. After the fall of the Anhui party rule in China, Chinese soldiers in Mongolia found themselves effectively abandoned. They rebelled against their commanders, and plundered and killed Mongols and foreigners. Some of the Chinese troops during the occupation were Tsahar (Chahar) Mongols from Inner Mongolia, which has been a major cause for animosity between Outer Mongols (Khalkhas) and Inner Mongols.
As part of his plans, Ungern traveled to Manchuria and China (February through September 1919). There he established contacts with monarchist circles, and also made preparations for Semyonov to meet with the Manchurian warlord Marshal Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal". In July 1919 Ungern married the Manchurian princess Ji in an Orthodox ceremony in Harbin. The princess was given the name Elena Pavlovna. They communicated in English, their only common language. This marriage had a political aim, as Ji was a princess and a relative of General Zhang Kuiwu, commander of Chinese troops at the western end of the Chinese-Manchurian Railway, and governor of Hailar.
Restoring the independence of Outer Mongolia
After Kolchak's defeat at the hands of the Red Army and the subsequent decision of Japan to withdraw its expeditionary troops from the Transbaikal, Semyonov, unable to withstand the pressure of Bolshevik forces, planned a retreat to Manchuria. Ungern, however, saw this as an opportunity to implement his monarchistic plan. On 7 August 1920, he broke his allegiance to Semyonov and transformed his Asiatic Cavalry Division into a guerrilla detachment. Ungern's troops stared to move towards towards the border of Outer Mongolia.
Ungern's troops crossed the northern border of Outer Mongolia on October 1, 1920, and moved south-westwards.
Having crossed the Mongolian border, Ungern moved westwards, to the Mongolian capital of Urga. He entered into negotiations with Chinese occupying forces. All of his demands, including disarmament of the Chinese troops were rejected. On October 26–27 and again on November 2–4, 1920, Ungern's troops assaulted Outer Mongolia's capital, Urga (officially Niislel Khuree; now Ulaanbaatar) but suffered tremendous losses. After the defeat, Ungern's troops retreated to the upper currents of the Kherlen River Setsen-Khan Aimag (district ruled by princes with the title Setsen Khan) in eastern Outer Mongolia. He was supported by Mongols who sought independence from Chinese occupation, especially the spititual and secular leader of Mongols, the Bogd Khan, who secretly sent Ungern his blessing for expelling Chinese from Mongolia. The Chinese had tightened their control of Outer Mongolia by this time, strictly regulating Buddhist services in monasteries and imprisoning Russians and Mongols whom they considered "separatists". According to memoirs by M.G. Tornovsky, the Asiatic Division numbered 1,460 men, while the Chinese garrison was seven thousand men strong. The Chinese had the advantage in artillery and machine guns, and had built a network of trenches in and around Urga. At his camp, Ungern imposed a ferocious discipline on his Russian soldiers to prevent desertion and demoralization of troops.
Ungern's troops started movement from their camp to Urga on January 31. On February 2, Ungern's troops battled for control of Chinese front lines and secured parts of Urga. On February 2, 1921, Ungern's detachment, led by B.P. Rezukhin, captured Chinese front-line fortifications near Small Madachan and Big Madachan settlements in southeastern vicinities of Urga. During the battle Ungern's special detachment of Tibetans, Mongols, Buryats and Russians rescued the Bogd Khan from house-arrest and transported him through the Bogd Uul to Manjushri Monastery. At the same time, another detachment moved to mountains at the east of Urga.
On February 3, Ungern gave his soldiers a respite. Borrowing a tactic from Genghis Khan, Ungern ordered his troops to light a large number of camp fires in the hills surrounding Urga, using them as reference points for Rezukhin's detachment. This also made the town appear to be surrounded by an overwhelming force. Erly in the morning on February 4, Ungern launched an assault to the Chinese White barracks from the east and captured them. Then Ungern divided his troops in two parts. First part launched a major assault on the remaining Chinese positions in the Chinese trade settlement (Chinese: 買賣城, Maimaicheng). Second part moved westwards towards the part of Urga called Consular Settlement. Upon reaching the Maimaicheng, Ungern had his men smash their way in by blasting the gates with explosives and improvised battering-rams. After breaking in, a general slaughter set in as both sides fought with sabers. After the capture of Maimacheng, Ungern joined his troops attacking the Chinese soldiers at the Consular Settlement. After Chinese counter-attack, Ungern's troops retreated little to northeast and then launched another attack with support of another Cossack and Mongolian detachment launched workaround attack from northeast and northwest. Then Ungern's troops gradually moved westwars in Urga pursuing retreated Chinese soldiers. The capital city was finally taken to the evening of February 4. Chinese administration and commaders abandoned their soldiers and fled northwards from Urga on 11 cars at the night from 3 to 4 Februay. Chinese soldiers moverd northwards on February 4 and 5. They massacred all Mongolian population along to road from Urga to Russian border. Russian Red-sided colonists moved from Urga together with Chinese coldiers. During the capture of Urga Chinese side lost about 1500 soldiers, Ungern's side 60.
After the battle, Ungern's people staged plundering Chinese stores and killing Russian Jews lived in Urga as the Cossacks were set against the Jews. Ungern ordered killing the Jews except for those having his written notes. Calculations by archival documents and memoirs revealed that 43 to 50 Jews were killed during whole Ungern's stay in Mongolia, or about 5-6% of all people executed under the pretext of his orders. Several days later plundering was stopped by Ungern, but his secret bureau led by Colonel Leonid Sipailo continued serching for "Reds".
Between March 11 and 13, Ungern captured a fortified Chinese base at Choir between the mountains Otsol Uul and Choiryn Bogd Uul to the south of Urga. Ungern's troops were 900 people and Chinese troops 1500. After capture Choiryn, Ungern himself returned to Urga. His detachments, consisted of Cossacks and Mongols, moved southwards to Zamyn-Üüd, a frontier settlement and another Chinese base. Chinese soldiers abandoned Zamyn-Üüd without a battle.
When remaining Chinese troops, having retreated to northern Mongolia near Kyakhta, then attempted to round Urga to the west in order to reach China, Russians and Mongols feared an attempt to re-capture Urga. Several hundred Cossack and Mongol units were dispatched to meet the Chinese troops of several thousand strength in the area of Talyn Ulaankhad Hill near Urga - Uliastai road in central Mongolia. There big battles raged from March 30 to April 2, where more than thousand Chinese, about 100 Mongols, 30 Russians and Buryats were killed. The Chinese troops were routed and pursued to the southern border of the country. Thus Chinese forces left Outer Mongolia (see details inand ).
Mongolia and Ungern in February - August 1921
Ungern, Mongolian lamas and princes brought the Bogd Khan from Manjusri Monastery to Urga on February 21, 1921. On February 22, a solemn ceremony took place, restoring the Bogd Khan to the throne. As a reward for ousting the Chinese from Urga, the Bogd Khan granted Ungern the high hereditary title darkhan khoshoi chin wang in the degree of khan, and other privileges. Other officers, lamas and princes who had participated in these events also received high titles and awards. For seizing Urga, Ungern received from Semyonov the rank of Lieutenant-General. Mongolia was proclaimed an independent monarchy under the theocratic power of Bogd Khan, or the 8th Bogd Gegen Jebtsundamba Khutuktu. There is a widespread view that Ungern was dictator or great khan of Mongolia and the monarchic Mongolian Government was his puppet. Historical documents disprove this view.
On February 22, 1921, Mongolia was proclaimed an independent monarchy. Supreme power over Mongolia belonged to the Bogd Khan. According to some eyewitnesses (his engineer and officer Kamil Giżycki, and Polish adventurer and writer Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, etc.), Ungern was the first to institute order in Urga; imposing street cleaning and sanitation, and promoting religious life and tolerance in the capital, and attempting to reform the economy. Ossendowkski, one of the most popular Polish writers in his lifetime (at the time of his death in 1945, Ossendowski's overseas sales were the second-highest of all the writers of Poland), had served as an official in Admiral Kolchak's government and after its collapse, fled to Mongolia. Ossendowski become one of Ungern's very few friends and in 1922 published a bestselling book Men, Beasts and Gods in English about his adventures in Siberia and Mongolia, which remains the book by which the Ungern story is best known in the English-speaking world. Comparison of Ossendowski's diary with his book and with documents on Mongolia revealed that his reports on Mongolia at Ungern is largely true, except for a few stories; Ossendowski was the first to describe Ungern's views in terms of Theosophy, although Ungern himself has never been a Theosophist.
Ungern did not interfere in Mongolian affairs and only assisted Mongols with some issues according to orders of the Bogd Khan. Russian colony, on the contrary, suffered cruelties from Ungern's secret bureau led by Leonid Sipailo. Many innocent people were tortured and killed by Sipailo and his subordinates. A list of people known as killed by Ungern's orders or by others on their pretext, both in Russia and Mongolia, confirms losses of 846 people, about 100 or 120 from Urga, which was about 3-8% of the total foreign colony population (seefor details).
Some eyewitnesses considered his Asiatic Cavalry Division as a base for future Mongolian national army. This division consisted of national detachments, such as the Chinese regiment, Japanese unit, various Cossack regiments, Mongol, Buryat, Tatar and other peoples' units. Ungern said that 16 nationalities served in his division. Dozens of Tibetans also served as part of his troops. They might have been sent by 13th Dalai Lama, with whom Ungern communicated, or these Tibetans may have belonged to the Tibetan colony in Urga. Presence of the Japanese unit in the division is often explained as an evidence that Japan stood behind Ungern in his actions in Mongolia. Studies of interrogations of these people from Japanese archive revealed that they were mercenaries served for their own, as other nationals in the division, and that Ungern was not managed by Japan
Defeat, capture, and execution, 1921
The Bolsheviks started infiltrating Mongolia shortly after the October revolution 1917, i.e., long before they took control of the Russian Transbaikal. In 1921, various Red Army units belonging to Soviet Russia and to the Far Eastern Republic, invaded newly independent Mongolia to defeat Ungern. These forces included Red Mongolian leader Damdin Sükhbaatar. Spies and various smaller diversionary units went ahead to spread terror and betrayal to weaken Ungern's forces. Ungern organized an expedition to meet these forces in Siberia and to support ongoing anti-Bolshevik rebellions. Believing he had the unwavering popular support of locals in Siberia and Mongolia, Ungern failed to properly strengthen his troops despite being vastly outnumbered and out-gunned by the Red forces. However, unbeknownst to Ungern, the Reds had successfully crushed uprisings in Siberia, and the Soviet economic policies had temporarily softened in Lenin's NEP. Upon Ungern's arrival to Siberia, few local peasants and Cossacks volunteered to join him.
In the spring the Asiatic Cavalry Division was divided into two brigades: one under the command of Lieutenant-general Ungern and the second under Major-General Rezukhin. In May, Rezukhin's brigade launched a raid beyond the Russian border to the west of the Selenge River. Ungern's brigade left Urga and slowly moved to the Russian town of Troitskosavsk (present-day Kyakhta in Buryatia). Meanwhile, the Reds moved large forces towards Mongolia from different directions. They had a tremendous advantage in equipment (armored cars, airplanes, rail, gunboats, ammunition, human reserves, etc.) and in numbers of troops. As a result, Ungern was defeated in battles that took place between June 11 and 13 and failed to capture Troitskosavsk. Then the combined Bolshevik and Red Mongol forces entered Urga on July 6, 2912, after a few small skirmishes with Ungern's guard detachments.
Having captured Urga, the Red forces failed to defeat the main forces of the Asiatic Division (Ungern's and Rezukhin's brigades). Ungern regrouped and attempted to invade Transbaikal across the Russo-Mongolian border. To rally his soldiers and local people, Ungern quoted an agreement with Grigory Semyonov and pointed to a supposed Japanese offensive which was to support their drive, although neither Semyonov, nor Japanese were eager to assist him. After several days rest, on July 18, the Asiatic Division started its raid into Soviet territory. Eyewitnesses Kamil Giżycki and Mikhail Tornovsky gave similar estimates of their numbers: about three thousand men in total. Ungern's troops penetrated deep into Russian territory. The Soviets declared martial law in areas where the Whites were expected, including Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia). Ungern's troops captured many settlements; the northernmost being Novoselenginsk, occupied by them on August 1. By this time, Ungern understood that his offensive was ill-prepared; he also heard about the approach of large forces of the Reds. On August 2, 1921 he began his retreat to Mongolia, where he declared his determination to fight Communism. While Ungern's troops wanted to abandon the war-effort and to head towards Manchuria to join with other Russian émigrés, it soon became clear that Ungern had other ideas. He wanted to retreat to Tuva, then to Tibet. Troops under both Ungern and Rezukhin effectively mutinied and hatched plots to kill their respective commanders. On August 17, Rezukhin was killed. A day later conspirators unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Ungern. His command then collapsed as his brigade broke apart. On 20 August Ungern was captured by the Soviet detachment led by the guerrilla commander P.E. Shchetinkin (later a member of the Cheka).
After a show trial of 6 hours and 15 minutes on 15 September 1921, prosecuted by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, the Baron was sentenced to execution by firing squad. The sentence was carried out that very evening or night in Novonikolaevsk.
"When the news on the Baron's execution reached the Living Buddha [the Bogd Khan], he ordered services to be held in temples throughout Mongolia."
References in popular culture
- Critical analysis of James Palmer's book against documents-based historical data led to conclusion that his book should be "estimated as ideologised propagandistic writing with numerous mistakes in facts and explanations. It cannot be used as a scientific source. We can be sorry for Western readers who, the majority being unfamiliar with the Russian and Mongolian languages and being persuaded by a flow of laudatory reviews, may look to this book for historical facts"
- Ungern-Sternberg is the main villain in the video game Iron Storm.
- In 1938, Ungern-Sternberg was the protagonist of what Palmer called a "trashy novel" published in Germany titled Ich befehle! Kampf und Tragödie des Freiherr Ungern-Sternberg (I Order! The Struggle and Tragedy of Baron Ungern-Sternberg) by Berndt Krauthoff, which depicted Ungern-Sternberg as a noble Aryan hero battling the Jews.
- “Ungern-Sternberg” is a song by French punk rock group Paris Violence which contains the lyrics “Ungern-Sternberg, chevalier romantique / Tu attends la mort comme un amant sa promise” (“Ungern-Sternberg, romantic knight / You wait for death like a lover).
- Ungern-Sternberg is often mentioned in the novels of the Spanish thriller writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
- Ungern-Sternberg is featured in the graphic novel Corto Maltese in Siberia by the Italian writer Hugo Pratt.
- The novels of the Russian surrealist writer Victor Pelevin often feature Ungern-Sternberg, most notably his 1996 novel Chapayev and Void.
- Ungern-Sternberg is used fictionally as a key character in the backstory of the 2010 novel The Fuller Memorandum by the British writer Charles Stross.
- Kuzmin S. L. How bloody was the White Baron? Critical comments on James Palmer's The Bloody White Baron. The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia (Faber & Faber 2008. 274 pp. ISBN 0-571-23023-7). – Inner Asia, 2013, vol. 15, no 1, p. 186
- ^ Palmer, James The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia, New York: Basic Books, 2009 page 244.
- Palmer, James The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia, New York: Basic Books, 2009 page 243.
- Stuttaford, Andrew (6 July 2009). "The Heart of Darkness". AndrewStuttaford.com. Retrieved 2016-09-26.