WEBVTT - The Mad Baron in Mongolia (Part 1) 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:05.160 This is Danishchwartz, host of Noble Blood. Just a quick 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:09.440 bit of housekeeping. My new book, The Arcane Arts is 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:11.680 coming out this May. I co wrote it with a 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.760 friend of mine. It's a dual POV dark academia story 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.160 about a grad student and a professor studying illegal magic. 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.079 It's a lot of fun. It's by sd Coverly, which 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.600 is the pen name we chose for both of us 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.640 writing together. But it's not a secret that we wrote it. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:30.880 And if you pre ordered it, it would just mean 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.000 the world to me. So if you're looking for a sexy, fun, 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:39.519 dark academia murder mystery thriller about forbidden magic, look up 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.600 The Arcane Arts. A pre order would be super helpful. Okay, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:49.080 and now time for the episode Welcome to Noble Blood, 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.280 a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:01:00.120 Listener discretion advised. On the morning of January eighteenth, in 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:05.200 nineteen twenty one, the Mongolian capital city of Urga seemed quiet, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.440 typical for a snowy morning in negative forty degree weather, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.600 but out in the distance you could see a series 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.759 of fires had been lit in the hills surrounding the city. 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:24.520 One witness noticed cavalry moving down the mountain side quote 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.280 like little black doubts against the snow. It turned out 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:34.880 that the invaders were a ramshackle army of Mongolians, Tibetans, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:41.080 and Russians led by Russian baron Roman von ungern Sternberg, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.160 a man now sometimes referred to as the mad or 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:51.360 Bloody Baron. A bit of historical context. When the Chinese 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:56.840 Republican force had occupied Mongolia in nineteen nineteen, they had 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:02.200 had Bogged Khan, the highest Tibetan Buddhist authority, placed under 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.640 house arrest, but placed under house arrest in his lavish 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.880 European style home surrounded by a sacred nature preserve, where 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.639 animals like cheetahs, tigers, and even allegedly a pet elephant 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:23.119 lived in cages. Roman von ungern Schernberg had a lofty 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:29.360 goal in coming to Mongolia. He would rescue the bogged Khan. Soon, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:34.720 Tibetan horsemen, fighting alongside the Russian infiltrated the gates of 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:39.120 the temple, their clothing covered with butter and their faces 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.960 smudged with soot to frighten their enemies. The animals in 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.880 the menagerie yelped and howled, and historian James Palmer even 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.200 alleges that the Khan's elephant was so frightened it broke 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:58.040 free from its cage and charged trumpeting through the lines 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.840 of battle, only to be quote discovered a week later, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.440 nearly one hundred miles away. Other historians think that that 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:13.760 detail strains credulity. How could an elephant survive the Mongolian cold? 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.080 But the anecdote speaks to the chaos of the scene. 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.400 Two Tibetan soldiers carried Khan out of the house and 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.640 brought him to safety. An American merchant who witnessed the 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:33.120 scene reported quote the entire action consumed exactly one half 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.240 hour and was the prettiest piece of cavalry work that 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:41.840 one could desire to witness. Apparently, Roman von ungern Sternberg shouted, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:47.320 now Erga is ours. He had pulled off an unthinkable feat, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.520 using his tiny army to take control of the capital 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:57.320 of Mongolia. From his new base in Erga, Roman would 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:03.280 install a brutal military dictatorleadership under the ostensible rule of 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.360 the Khan. Roman had come a long way from his 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:12.280 beginnings as a middling czarist officer with a long history 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:18.080 of disciplinary problems in Russia. Historians have very little positive 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:22.000 to say about him. Historian James Palmer called him a 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:27.240 psychopath who was quote an appalling human being in almost 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:32.600 every way. The baron believed, like many aristocrats, that commoners 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:36.719 were in inferior species. And that's just the tip of 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.480 the iceberg when it came to Roman's odious views after 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.960 the Russian Revolution, he believed he had been chosen by 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.960 God to protect the ideals of the monarchy, and he 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.080 was invading Asia to save it from the same fate 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.960 that Russia had suffered. As improbable and feudal as his 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.880 mission would seem, he would do anything to achieve it, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.840 even putting thousands of lives at risk. I'm Dana Schwartz, 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:14.080 and this is noble blood. To call Roman von ungern 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:19.280 Sternberg a proud Russian would be an understatement. He constantly 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.760 bragged to anyone who would listen about his connections to 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.719 the Romanovs and other members of the Russian aristocracy. Historian 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:32.359 James Palmer wrote that Roman's quote sense of attachment to 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:38.400 the Russian Empire was almost pathologically intense. Roman wrote in 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.960 his journals that like his fancy Russian ancestors he had 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.320 quote never taken orders from the working classes, and thought 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:51.840 it was preposterous that quote dirty workers who've never had 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.320 any servants of their own but still think they can command, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.960 should influence Russia's rule. But it actually turns out that 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:06.520 Roman had almost no Russian ancestry. His parents were German, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.039 and he spent most of his early childhood in Estonia, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.359 which at that time was called Estland. The reason why 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.200 he considered himself Russian has to do with the complicated 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:24.320 relationships between Russia and its colonies in the nineteenth century. 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:30.360 Roman's German ancestors invaded Estonia way back during the Crusades 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.839 and had been there ever since. Eventually, the Russians began 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.760 to take over the area. German colonists in Estonia, like 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.599 Roman's family, were more aligned with the Russian invaders than 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:49.719 the native Estonians, who these aristocrats regarded for the most 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:54.400 part as lowly peasants. On the other hand, the Russians 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.280 were willing to ally with the German aristocracy in their 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:04.600 quest to expand their tree's eastern frontier. Many of Roman's 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:10.320 family members benefited from that partnership by pursuing military careers 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:15.040 in the Russian army. Throughout the eighteen sixties, Russia also 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:21.120 implemented an intense program of Russification in the border territories 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:25.560 like Estonia to embed them more deeply into the empire. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:31.840 Roman's birth certificate indicates how entwined these two cultures became. 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.920 He has two different birth dates. According to the Western 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.960 Gregorian calendar, he was born on January tenth, eighteen eighty six, 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.760 and according to the Russian Julian calendar, he was born 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:52.640 on December twenty ninth, eighteen eighty five. Russia's attempt to 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.480 exert greater cultural control over Estonia may have worked a 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:02.080 little too well on Roman. As a child, he loved 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:07.160 hearing stories about his warlike Crusader ancestors with names like 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.400 the Axe and the Brother of Satan. He saw the 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.840 powerful Russian Empire as an extension of that military lineage. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.280 He considered himself Russian because he wanted to be on 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:26.440 the winning team. His excitement about war and violence made him, 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:32.079 by all accounts, a terrifying and terrible child. As one 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.320 relative put it, quote, Roman was a terror to his 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.800 fellow pupils and his masters. According to one source, at 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:45.200 twelve years old, he tried to strangle his cousin's pet owl. 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.520 In class, he had a habit of tossing his books 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.760 out of the window of the classroom in the middle 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.880 of the lesson, running outside to grab them, and never 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.880 coming back. As you might expect, his grades were abysmo. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.640 In nineteen o two, he was ranked the worst student 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.640 in his class. When he transferred to military school as 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.520 a teenager, he racked up forty two demerits in just 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:15.120 a year and a half, including oversleeping, skipping class, fighting, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.880 smoking in bed, keeping his hair too long, and losing 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.880 his homework. He was simply too entitled to care. Once, 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.160 while on watch during military training, he just wandered away. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.640 He told his supervisor, I'm not some sort of manservant. 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:37.680 I don't have to stand in one place. In February 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.600 nineteen o five, the head of the school wrote to 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.640 his family asking them to withdraw him from the school 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.520 or he would be expelled. They chose withdrawal, and the 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.840 following year he was sent to war. The Russo Japanese 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.360 War was winding down, and Roman spent a little under 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.640 a year puttering around Manchuria before coming back to Russia. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.200 But while he was away the peasantry of Estonia rose 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.439 up to demand better conditions through a series of riots. 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.440 In just over a week in December nineteen o five, 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:17.640 one fifth of all German owned property was destroyed, including 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.280 much belonging to the ungern Sternbergs. Even the manor house 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.959 where Roman grew up was left nothing more than quote 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:31.240 a blackened shell. The ideology of the Russian army helped 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:38.400 Roman process the destruction of his family home and aristocratic lineage. Unfortunately, 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:43.360 it imbued him with an even uglier, more vengeful sense 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:48.120 of elitism. Much of the Russian nobility believed that peasants 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:53.760 were a biologically inferior race, with actual black blood that 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.600 distinguished them from the elite. Because of that, imperial rule 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:03.840 was divine and natural law, making a peasant revolt a 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:10.199 world shattering crisis. This idea would have galvanized someone like Roman, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.320 who found almost all of his self worth in his 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.680 proximity to the Russian monarchy. He wrote later that he 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:23.800 considered these revolutions an omen of quote famine, destruction, the 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.160 death of culture, of glory, of honor, of spirit, the 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:33.440 death of states, and the death of peoples. Having found 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.960 new moral purpose in the Russian Army. He enrolled in 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.960 a prestigious military academy in Saint Petersburg and began training 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.840 as a cadet. There. Roman transformed from a failing student 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.440 into merely a mediocre one. As James Palmer put it, 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.320 this gave him limited options when he graduated in nineteen 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.240 o eight. Those at the top of the class had 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.280 first paid over where they'd be stationed. Roman, over a 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.520 hundred spots down on the list, decided to set off 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:13.480 for the Transbical Region, an area of eastern Siberia outpast 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:19.040 the Urals and bordering Mongolia and China. Why he decided 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.760 to go so far away is still something of a mystery. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.920 It was an unconventional choice for a new graduate to 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.839 one of the furthest and most unstable parts of the 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.800 Russian Empire, but a photo from around this time gives 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:41.160 us a clue. Roman was photographed in a uniform with 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.720 what one historian called his quote bullet shaped head and 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.760 stage villain mustache. One of his buddies, a Russian merchant, 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.160 described Roman this way quote a scrawny, ragged, droopy man 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.040 on his face had grown a wispy blonde beard. He 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.240 had faded blank blue eyes, and he looked about thirty 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:10.120 years old. His military uniform was in abnormally poor condition, 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.360 the trousers being considerably worn and torn at the knees. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:19.720 He carried a sword by his hip end quote. This 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.840 wouldn't be just any sword, but a three foot curved 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:29.560 Cossack saber, a design that originated in Mongolia, which would 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:35.160 eventually become the site of his biggest military achievements. While 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:40.400 Roman was a controversial and unsuccessful figure in Europe, out 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.440 in the farthest reaches of the Russian Empire, his career 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:50.880 was just beginning. Roman stepped off the trans Siberian Railway 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.200 to report for duty in the Siberian city of Cheetah 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.560 on July twenty seventh, nineteen o eight. By the time 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.760 he had arrived, the re Jin was in crisis. Nearby, 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:08.120 Mongolia had been independent for two years after three centuries 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:14.640 of Chinese rule. Russia tacitly encouraged Mongolian independence, thinking it 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.880 would help them expand further into Asia. As a Russian 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.320 general put it at the time, quote, in the future, 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.560 a major global war could flare up between Asia and Europe. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.560 For this purpose, Russia must occupy northern Manchuria and Mongolia. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:38.600 Only then will Mongolia be harmless end quote. Russia had 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:44.320 increased its presence in the newly independent Siberia. Administrators from 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:50.800 the Resettlement Administration, the Russian State's new Colonization Agency were 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:56.680 stationed throughout the country, administering land, handing out cheap guide books, 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.960 and managing quote settler relay camps. Away from the rigid 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.600 hierarchies and forced decorum of his life in Europe, Roman 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:12.880 was finally in an environment that rewarded his let's say, toughness, independence, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.160 and viciousness. But there wasn't much for him to do. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.560 Aside from trapesing around the mountains of eastern Siberia and 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:26.520 Mongolia with few actual duties, he spent his time scribbling 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:31.200 new Mongolian words into his notebook. One witness recalled that 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.359 he would sit alone in silence before suddenly becoming animated 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.840 enough to ride his horse across the plains in quote 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:44.280 wild charges towards nowhere, in particular at the Mongolian border. 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.680 Roman also had an opportunity to deepen a burgeoning interest 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:54.040 in Buddhism. Back in Europe, Roman had developed an extracurricular 0:15:54.160 --> 0:16:00.600 interest in Eastern religion and the occult. This wasn't entirely unpressed. 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:05.080 Roman's cousin wrote that even as a tween, Roman had 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:09.560 always had an interest in Tibetan and Hindu philosophy, and 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.120 called Roman quote one of the most metaphysically and occultly 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.960 gifted men I had ever met. His cousin apparently believed 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:23.000 that Roman could actually read minds. At the time, many 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:30.040 Russian intellectuals were entertaining what they considered quote exotic ideas 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:36.200 encapsulating both spiritualism and Eastern philosophy. Roman may have walked 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:41.360 by bookstores with occult or spiritualist titles on display, or 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.760 encountered fringe religious groups in Saint Petersburg. Palmer alleges that 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.600 Roman would have resonated with the quote elitism baked into 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:57.320 occult religious ideas. He suggests that occultism rests on the 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.960 principle that there is secret none that only a few 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:07.760 worthy people can understand, appealing to Roman's belief in hierarchy 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:14.600 and innate sense of superiority. The historian also hypothesizes that 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:19.440 Roman's unwavering belief in the tsar's inherent right to rule 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.000 had a mystical element that would have aligned with more 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.160 fringe religious beliefs. However, all of that doesn't explain Roman's 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:35.600 interest in Buddhism specifically. Historian William Sunderland argues that Roman 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:42.159 was quote spiritually restless and a self styled iconoclast, making 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:48.679 an unfamiliar religion like Buddhism particularly appealing. However, Sunderland hedges 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:53.960 that we don't have any proof of Roman's motivation's only possibilities. 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.000 In any case, Roman was able to spend his idle 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.920 hours talking to the blamas and monks who dominated Mongolian 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:09.120 society after the country's independence. Roman took a particular interest 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.200 in the Bogged Khan or Holy Emperor, who ruled over 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.400 the country. While the two had never met, the Bog 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.679 Khan was an infamous political figure and celebrity. He was 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:25.440 the head of Mongolian Buddhism, and much like the Dali Lama, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:30.600 he was considered a living Badhisattva. All that said, rumor 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:34.600 had it that the Bog Khan wasn't the most pious man. 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.639 He was apparently a binge drinker, and members of his 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:44.919 cabinet reported meetings turning into night long bacchanals. He was 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:50.480 going blind either from drinking or from having contracted syphilis 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.320 after sleeping with one of the monks at his court. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.040 He was also said to be cruel and violent. Apparently, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.679 he would toss an electrified rope over the wall of 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.480 his palace, and when passers by would touch it, they'd 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.560 get shocked and believe they had received a spiritual blessing. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.480 When he got bored, he'd fire a pair of guns 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.960 that had been given to him by a Russian visitor 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:22.399 at random targets. He had a vast collection of taxid army, 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.920 from pufferfish and penguins to elephant, seals, and a zoo 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:32.080 with giraffes, tigers, chimpanzees and more who were left to 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:37.920 weather the cold in outdoor cages. These sensational stories may 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.320 be mostly apocryphal, especially given that so many of these 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:48.159 reports come from Europeans, who justified their own colonial interests 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:53.720 by making Mongolia seem exotic and brutal. That said, even 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.280 more measured accounts portray the bag Khan as a mercurial 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:03.560 and violent figure, not entirely unlike Roman, who angered quickly 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.800 and had no difficulty executing anyone who got in his way. 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.919 After Roman spent a few years in eastern Siberia, he 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.240 was reassigned in nineteen thirteen. It was a routine move, 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.919 but Roman was disappointed. He hadn't accomplished much, and he 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.600 returned to Estonia unemployed and aimless. In peacetime, he struggled. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.960 As Palmer put it, quote, he was a loser, albeit 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.119 an upperclass one who would always be sheltered from the 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:40.480 consequences of his own actions. But a loser. Nonetheless. Luckily 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.199 for Roman, if not for anyone else, peace would not 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.600 last long. World War One had broken out, giving him 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.639 a new opportunity to prove himself in battle. He was 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.560 mobilized on July nineteenth, nineteen fourteen, and for the next 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.400 two years he bounced around from us Ukraine to southern 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.399 Lithuania and eventually back to Siberia for the first time. 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.040 In Roman's life. He was apparently a quote exemplar to 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:14.680 the other officers and soldiers, according to one of his supervisors. 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.760 One officer described his wartime service as quote a feat 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:24.920 of uninterrupted heroism performed for the glory of Russia. Apparently, 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:29.040 he would go first in every charge, even in dangerous missions, 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.600 and hyped up his fellow soldiers. He wrote later that quote, 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.399 life is the result of war and society is the 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:42.360 instrument of war. To refuse war means to refuse an 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:48.800 epic life. However, on October twenty second, nineteen sixteen, Roman 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.639 would get in trouble yet again. He got drunk with 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.880 another officer in Ukraine while they were both on regimental leave, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.840 and when they went back to a hotel at the 0:21:59.920 --> 0:22:02.760 u s end of the night, the receptionist wouldn't let 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.639 Roman book a room without a certificate from his commander, 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.840 which he didn't have. Roman tried to swing at the 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.800 receptionist and broke a glass window. Instead. Roman called his 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.880 commander and tried to convince him to approve the hotel 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:23.439 s day, but the commander refused. Furious, Roman yelled, whose 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.679 face do I have to mess up? He turned toward 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.639 the officer he got drunk with, who was still with 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.240 him in the lobby, called him a swine and scratched 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:38.040 his face with his sword. With that, Roman was discharged 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:45.080 and put in military prison until January nineteen seventeen. After 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.440 his release, Roman returned to the Eastern Front in Siberia, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.639 but by then there was little left to return to. 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:55.800 No more than a month After he was out of prison, 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:59.520 the monarchy that Roman had been so devoted to in 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:05.480 Russia collapsed. Russia suffered thousands of casualties on the battlefield 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:10.400 and rampant food shortages on the home front. Workers protested 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:15.880 rising prices for scanty provisions. Even soldiers joined the riots 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:19.880 they had been ordered to suppress. In February nineteen seventeen, 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:24.080 Zar Nicholas the Second abdicated the throne, ending three hundred 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:27.879 years of Romanov rule. Later that year, Lenin seized the 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.800 Winter Palace and took over the government. The Bolsheviks attacked 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:36.760 everything that Roman had stood for, religion, elitism, and the monarchy. 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:41.199 The revolution threatened to strip him of his regiment and 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:45.480 his authority. To Roman, it seemed like the Estonian riot 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.560 in nineteen oh five had spread to the rest of 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:53.120 the country, upending life as he knew it. Over in Siberia, 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:58.840 morale was low. Soldiers had defected en mass exhausted by 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:02.960 years of war, trudging through the snow far away from home. 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:08.320 As civil war took hold across the country, Russia split 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:13.359 into shifting zones of control. The Bolsheviks the Reds held 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:18.720 the central heartland, while anti Bolshevik forces. The White occupied 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:23.880 the peripheries, including Siberia. Roman aligned himself with the anti 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:27.920 Bolshevik White forces and viewed the Civil War as an 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.800 extension of World War One, where he had to quote 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:37.080 defend the motherland. But this was a guerrilla war consisting 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:43.159 of quote identity chechs, detentions, beatings, executions, and occasional raids 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:48.760 and skirmishes on suspected dissidents as opposed to formal battles 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:56.440 between two opposing forces. These tactics befitted chaotic, anti authoritarian 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:02.399 figures like Roman. From nineteen seven to nineteen twenty, Roman 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:08.920 enacted his sadistic reign of terror, overseeing beatings and interrogations 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:14.760 of suspected Bolsheviks in a Siberian detention center to the hills. 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:18.480 He would shout as he sent prisoners away to be executed. 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:24.240 When he wasn't terrorizing prisoners, he traveled through Siberia to 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:29.800 Manchuria and Mongolia, buying horses or checking in on gold mines. 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:36.199 Even those more banal routine missions required brutality from Roman. 0:25:36.920 --> 0:25:41.800 To fund these excursions, he stole money and jewelry from travelers, 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:47.360 and grain, livestock, and other goods from warehouses and cargo trains. 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:52.199 But by nineteen twenty Roman's coalition among the Whites was 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:56.479 falling apart. The Bolsheviks pressed the Whites even further and 0:25:56.680 --> 0:26:01.400 further east, and they lost control of the Trans Siberian Railway. 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:05.320 In October of that year, the Reds marched into Cheetah, 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:10.120 the White Siberian stronghold and Roman's home base, taking over 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:13.679 the city. But by the time the Reds arrived, Roman 0:26:13.920 --> 0:26:18.040 was already gone. He was off to Mongolia, about to 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:22.760 embark on the most ambitious military campaign of his life. 0:26:22.800 --> 0:26:26.639 This time he wasn't fighting under Russia. He was on 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:32.000 his own. This is the end of part one of 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:36.800 our two part episode on Roman von ungern Sternberg. But 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:40.480 keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:51.320 little bit about one of his most colorful modern descendants. 0:26:51.760 --> 0:26:56.400 Whatever legacy Roman von ungern Sternberg had imagined for himself, 0:26:56.680 --> 0:27:00.360 he almost certainly could not have imagined where his name 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:06.080 would end up. In twenty twenty six TikTok over on TikTok, 0:27:06.200 --> 0:27:11.439 his distant descendant Leonie von ungern Sternberg, makes content about 0:27:11.440 --> 0:27:16.879 her daily life in videos she calls the modern Baroness Diaries. 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:21.040 She's an NBA student, and it seems like her content 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:27.640 is fairly typical for wealthy influencers, videos about travel, skincare, 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:31.439 and fashion. But then there are also videos where she 0:27:31.600 --> 0:27:36.920 acknowledges that yes, her ancestor was in fact the bloody Baron, 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:40.880 but no, she does not want the far right edge 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:45.159 lord to have reappropriated his ideology to think that she 0:27:45.359 --> 0:27:49.159 agrees with them. In fact, she had family killed by 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:53.320 the Nazis for trying to protect Jews. In her own words, 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:57.040 quote all these people telling me I should reclaim the 0:27:57.119 --> 0:28:01.080 throne to Mongolia, But I'm literally just a girl who 0:28:01.200 --> 0:28:14.679 drinks Macha. Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio 0:28:14.880 --> 0:28:18.320 and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is 0:28:18.359 --> 0:28:22.240 hosted by me Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:27.000 Hannah Johnston, Hannah 'swick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:31.160 Dana Schwartz. The show is edited and produced by Jesse 0:28:31.280 --> 0:28:36.440 Funk and Nomes Griffin, with supervising producer rima Ill Kali 0:28:36.760 --> 0:28:40.880 and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young and Matt Frederick. 0:28:41.400 --> 0:28:47.000 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, 0:28:47.240 --> 0:28:50.640 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.