Non-Silk Road. Black Baron Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg Roman Fedorovich von Ungern Sternberg

Baron Ungern von Sternberg in the view of jyotish December 9th, 2015

In his young years, Roman Fedorovich gave himself up to drift: his military career, without any special leaps, flowed as usual, and at that time the baron looked deep into himself. The state in which Ungern von Sternberg was then can be judged by the description of Baron Peter Wrangel, who was “lucky” to be the commander of a “Buddhist” at one time: “Ragged and dirty, he always sleeps on the floor among the Cossacks of his hundred, eats from a common cauldron and, being brought up in conditions of cultural prosperity, he gives the impression of a person who is completely divorced from them. An original, sharp mind, and next to it a striking lack of culture and an extremely narrow outlook. Amazing shyness, extravagance that knows no limits...”

In July 1913, Ungern suddenly emerged from his drift. He resigns - at that time the baron was with the rank of centurion in the 1st Amur Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army - and leaves for the Mongolian city of Kobdo. Ungern's formal goal is to join the Mongol rebels in their fight against China. The weak explainability of such actions from the point of view of conformist common sense is what subsequently puts those writing about the baron before a choice - either Roman Fedorovich is insane, or, more likely, he simply carefully hid his thoughts and motives from those around him.

It is unlikely that Roman Fedorovich so easily sacrificed his military career in the Russian Empire in order to enter the Mongolian service. Moreover, he never managed to fully participate in the Mongol liberation war - peace reigned there. According to the scant information about this period of the baron’s life, he spent his time studying the Mongolian language and horseback riding at night across the steppe, where he loved to chase wolves. True, other evidence says that von Ungern-Sternberg made pilgrimages to several Buddhist monasteries and even visited Tibet.

Immediately after the outbreak of World War I, von Ungern-Sternberg interrupted his Mongol adventure, returned to Russia, and then went to the front. During the war, the baron showed courage bordering on recklessness, he was wounded five times, but each time death, being face to face with him, was forced to turn aside. One of the baron’s colleagues recalled about him: “In order to fight like that, you must either seek death, or know for sure that you will not die.”

In the early 1950s, Ungern's astrological chart was published and analyzed in one of the Indian magazines dedicated to Jyotish (Indian astrology). The astrologer drew attention to several combinations in the horoscope. The first is the conjunction of Mars with the so-called ghost planet Rahu. Under such a connection, crazy brave men are born, devoid of fear by nature. And most importantly, self-realization of a person with such a combination is possible only through war. The second was a combination of the conjunction of Venus and another “shadow planet” Ketu in the 12th house of the horoscope, which promised the baron liberation from reincarnation already in this life. By the way, the Buddhist lamas based their recognition of Ungern as a manifestation of Mahakala not on his military exploits, as one might think, on the position of the planets in his horoscope.

Although I must note that the generally accepted opinion about the manifestation of Mahakala is worth clarifying - the great Bogdo-gegen recognized it as a manifestation of Begdze (Zham-srin - Tib.), or Zhamsaran, as the Mongols called him. This is indeed the god of war, but if we talk about Vajrayana Buddhism more professionally, Begjo is a manifestation of the Yamantaka Speech.

Begdze (Zhamsaran).

Zhamsaran-sakhyusan is a special Protector who is associated with the karma of the Mongol-speaking peoples. And Bogd Gegen VIII named Ungern after him. There is even a legend that after the ruler of Mongolia declared Ungern, who liberated Urga (Ulaanbaatar) from the Chinese occupiers, to be the Defender of Dharma and the manifestation of Zhamsaran, he handed him this pistol:

On the magazine of the pistol is the mantra of Avalokiteshvara. Above is an image
wrathful offering in the highest Vajrayana tantras.

As a follower of Buddhism, the baron knew that liberation could not be achieved without a guru. We do not know who Ungern’s spiritual mentor was. However, evidence says that Roman Fedorovich never acted without consulting the lamas around him. Even the formal order numbers of the commander of the Asian Cavalry Division were carefully verified by the numerological calculations of the lamas. It is unlikely that a guru should be looked for in Ungern’s circle. The real spiritual mentor was most likely located far away: perhaps in some Mongolian monastery, perhaps even in Tibet. It is the teacher’s order that can explain the fact that in the fall of 1920, Ungern’s Asian Cavalry Division broke away from its “familiar” place in Transbaikalia and made its famous raid into Mongolia.

It is known that the Mongol ruler and high priest, the “living Buddha” of the Mongols, Bogdo Gegen VIII, while under Chinese arrest, secretly sent a message to the baron with a blessing for the liberation of Urga from the Chinese. In the winter of 1921, the baron took the city, breaking the resistance of Chinese troops, which were several times larger than his division. The Bogdo Gegen, who regained power in Mongolia, granted Ungern the title of prince. Was he the baron's guru? Hardly. Soon von Ungern-Sternberg would go on a campaign against Soviet Siberia, in which the ruler of liberated Mongolia was hardly interested. This means that the baron was the “spiritual child” of some other person, whose ambitions were in no way limited to Mongolia.

The liberation of Urga on February 3, 1921, and the subsequent solemn restoration of the former Khalkha theocracy on February 26, placed Ungern and his comrades on a par with the greatest national heroes of Mongolia. The corresponding decree was signed and announced by the VIII Bogdo-gegen in the Uzun-khure monastery. It read: “I, Jebtsun Damba Khutukhta, Lama of Outer Mongolia, was enthroned, and by the will of heaven, by the triple agreement of Mongolia, China and Russia, our country was governed independently. Unexpectedly, as a result of violence and inappropriate actions on the part of revolutionary Chinese officials, soldiers and officers, our country was subjected to various restrictions. But thanks to the prayers of the lama, who possessed three treasures, famous military generals appeared who destroyed the insidious enemy, took Urga under their protection and restored their former power, which is why they deserve great veneration and high rewards.”

Ungern was elevated to the rank of hereditary prince Darkhan-Khoshoi Qing-wan - the highest khan title available only to Chingizids by blood - with the title of “Great Bator who revived the state, General Zhang-jin” (in another translation - “Great Bator who gave development to the state, commander ").

The robe of Ungern, who was executed by sentence of the Extraordinary Revolutionary Tribunal on September 15, 1921 in Novonikolaevsk, is currently kept in the collections of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. However, there is interesting information about another “uniform” stored in the collections of the Minusinsk Museum of Local Lore. It was transferred to the museum on September 30, 1921 by a prominent partisan figure P.E. Shchetinkin through the Minusinsk district executive committee, about which the relevant documents have been preserved. In the description of journalist N. Kalemeneva, this is “some kind of strange vest that wraps around like a Mongolian robe - from left to right. Small stand-up collar, very deep armholes. On the left and right sides there are hanging loops made of yellow cord, fastened with convex round buttons. On the shoulder straps there is a zigzag lined with the same cord and several metal stars are sewn on... I remembered a photograph of the baron... In it he is photographed in this strange vest, dressed over either a tunic or a jacket. Apparently, that’s how he wore it - in combination with the traditional military uniform of the Russian army.”

Cherry kurma, which belonged to Baron R.F. Ungern von Sternberg (Minusinsk Museum of Local Lore, Minusinsk). Photo by A. Mukhranov (published: http://www.muhranoff.ru/2009/1.htm)

Let's listen to Roman Fedorovich himself, who wrote in a letter to a Chinese general: “Now it is unthinkable to think about the restoration of the kings in Europe... For now it is only possible to begin the restoration of the Middle Kingdom and the peoples in contact with it to the Caspian Sea, and then only to begin the restoration of the Russian monarchy.. Personally, I don't need anything. “I am glad to die for the restoration of the monarchy, even if not of my own state, but of another.”

In August 1921, Ungern was captured by the Reds. A few days later, Lenin made his proposal: “I advise you to pay more attention to this case, to ensure that the credibility of the accusation is verified, and if the evidence is complete, which, apparently, cannot be doubted, then arrange a public trial, conduct it with maximum speed.” and shoot." Trotsky, who headed the Revolutionary Military Council, wanted to hold the trial in Moscow, in front of “all working people.” However, the “red Siberians” persuaded their “elder brothers” to hold a tribunal in Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk). It remains a mystery why Trotsky and Lenin so easily abandoned the desire to show the “show” with the “bloody baron” on the “big Moscow screen.”

The trial took place on September 15, 1921, and the baron was shot that evening. The archives preserve the protocols of Ungern's interrogations. They are very strange: as if the “commissars” were trying to prove to someone that it was Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg who was interrogated. For example, for some reason the baron told during interrogation that he had visited the “living Buddha” Bogdo Gegen VIII several times and that he really loved champagne. Or again - when asked why he wore a cherry Mongolian robe, Ungern replied “to be visible to the troops at a long distance.” By the way, the robe, in fact, was one of the main evidence that it was the baron who was arrested and shot. Another “evidence” was a photograph of the captive Ungern in this very robe.

This quote from the protocol also looks very suspicious: “I was captured alive due to the fact that I did not have time to take my own life. I tried to hang myself with a rein, but the last one was too wide.” The Buddhist, whom the Mongols revered as Mahakala, tells the commissars that he wanted to cowardly hang himself... It looks like a joke. The document with the interrogation protocol ends with the words “He answers all questions without exception calmly.” Perhaps these are the only words that could be believed. They say that the baron was shot in the chest, so that his brain could then be taken to Moscow for research. The body was buried in the forest, in an unknown place.

After the news of the baron’s execution, the ruler of Mongolia, Bogdo Gegen, gave the order to hold services for Ungern in all Mongolian churches.

By the way, the day of Ungern’s death was analyzed by an astrologer - in that very Indian magazine of the 50s. So - on September 15, 1921, according to the baron’s horoscope, four planets connected at once in the so-called “house of death”: Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and the “ghost” Rahu. All this indicated, in the opinion of the astrologer, that von Ungern-Sternberg nevertheless left this world at that very moment. And in the “house of enemies” the Sun and Mars, the main planet in the baron’s horoscope, connected.

Main material: Baron Ungern. Journey to the End of the Night
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It is thanks to the baron, with his complete disregard for danger, who was able to entice a handful of Cossacks and soldiers into what seemed to contemporaries a crazy campaign against Urga, that today’s Mongolia is a state independent from China.

"Demon of the Mongolian steppes." A novel about Ungern.

It was not easy to write a somewhat truthful biography of General Ungern. I read 5-6 biographies of General Ungern, but all of them were basically not true. Complete fiction as presented by F. Ossendovsky and copied from him by Esaul Makeev. The most truthful one was written by N. N. Knyazev.

Only the service record or data of R. F. Ungern’s brother, Baron Konstantin Fedorovich Ungern, could provide correct biographical materials, but the service record was lost, and the author was not lucky enough to meet Baron K. F. Ungern in exile. In exile (in Shanghai) is a distant relative of the general, Baron R. Saryl-gun-hure, who has the full pedigree of the House of Ungaria (published in 1940 in Riga). Baron R. Ungern was so kind that he spent several hours on inquiries and read everything related to Roman Ungern, but, unfortunately, he is given little space in the family chronicle.

The biography in the variation below is to some extent correct, but suffers from a number of “gaps”, which could not be filled in due to the lack of sources or the inconsistency of them.

Around the beginning of the 12th century. Two brothers de Ungaria moved from Hungary to Galicia. Both of them married the sisters of the Slavic prince of the Livs. From here came the two oldest families of the Ungerns and Livins, later the most serene princes. From Galicia de Ungaria and his family moved to the Baltic states.

During the ownership of the Baltic states by the Livonian knights, the de Ungarias became barons Ungerns, and during the time of the Swedish rule in the Baltic states, an obliging historian who wrote a family chronicle added “Starnberg” to the surname, having found some kind of relationship between the Ungaria family and the Czech Count Starnberg. The main blood of the Ungern family is Hungarian - Slavic. Over time, German and Scandinavian blood was mixed into it in large doses.

During the time of the Livonian knights in the Baltic states, many from the House of Ungern moved to Prussia. During Swedish rule, the Ungerns moved to Sweden. Thus, in the history of Prussia and Sweden from the 13th to 17th centuries, the surname Ungern-Sternberg is often found in high positions.

The founder of the Russian house of barons Ungernov-Sternberg is Baron Reno. During the conquest of the Baltic states by Tsar Peter, Baron Reno Ungern provided the Tsar with great assistance in the development of the newly conquered region by the Russians. On the other hand, Baron Reno Ungern negotiated with Tsar Peter many privileges for the region, especially for the nobility. He was the first leader of the nobility of the Baltic region. Baron Renault had many sons, which is where the large house of the Ungern barons came from. All of them owned significant land in the Baltic States and even islands in the Baltic. Thus, the island of Dago belonged to one of the branches of the Ungern barons.

All the Ungern barons enjoyed complete trust and stood close to the throne of the Russian emperors for two centuries until the very end - 1917. The Ungern barons did not hold major positions in Russia. They preferred to stay in the Baltic states - on their own land, holding high positions by election, but some of the Ungern barons served in the army and in the diplomatic corps.

Baron Roman Fedorovich Ungern-Sternberg was born in December 1885 in Graz (Germany), where his mother temporarily lived. He lived all his childhood and youth years in the Baltics on his estates. I completed my education according to the high school program with home teachers. By the age of 17, his scientific and mental baggage was sufficient. He knew Russian, German, French well and English satisfactorily. His mind was capable of understanding complex philosophical issues.

In 1903 he entered the Naval Cadet Corps, junior midshipman class.

The Russo-Japanese War began. Midshipman Baron Ungern leaves the Corps with great difficulty and volunteers for one of the infantry regiments going to the theater of operations in Manchuria. According to some information, the volunteer Baron Ungern took part in several battles against the Japanese and was awarded the insignia of the 4th class military order, according to others, more accurate, that the regiment with which Ungern arrived reached Manchuria only at the end of the summer of 1905 and not took part in the battles. I believe that the last version is correct because I did not see the soldier’s George on the chest of General Ungern. If he had one, I'm sure he would wear it with pride.

In 1906, he returned with the regiment from Manchuria to Russia, leaving the regiment and returning home at the height of the revolutionary movement in the Baltic states. Baron Fyodor Ungern (father of General Ungern) was killed during the riots, which instilled in his son a deep hatred of all kinds of “socialism.”

Time demanded that Baron R. F. Ungern decide on his life's career. In 1906 or 1907, he entered the Pavlovsk Military School, which, as Baron Wrangel testifies, he graduated with “great difficulty.”

By special request, after graduating from the Pavlovsk Military School, Baron Ungern was promoted to officer with enrollment in the Transbaikal Cossack Army, assigned to the 1st Argun Cossack Regiment and, upon arrival in the regiment, assigned to the Tsagan-Oluevskaya village of the 2nd department of the Transbaikal Cossack Army troops

With his enrollment in the Cossack class, the cornet Ungern seemed to break ties with the Baltic barons Ungern. What motives forced the cornet to take such a serious step is unknown. The answer must be sought in character. While in Manchuria and Transbaikalia, Baron Ungern liked the open spaces and wilds of Transbaikalia, where a restless soul and a penchant for adventure could find a way out.

The first official steps in the regiment of the cornet Ungern were not brilliant: he drank a lot, was violent when drunk, did not get along closely with his comrades, did not like everyday measured life, was uncontrollably hot-tempered, withdrawn, proud, proud. Mentally he stood above the average level of Cossack officers and lived aloof from regimental life. While drunk, he insulted the centurion M. and in response received a saber blow to the head. The wound soon healed, but the head wound subsequently caused headaches. Both perpetrators of the scandal had to leave the regiment.

Cornet Ungern was transferred to the 1st Amur Regiment, stationed in the city of Grodekovo in the Primorsky region, where he went alone, on horseback, accompanied only by a hunting dog. The journey is almost 1000 km through mountains and valleys, without food supplies. Cornet Ungern did not like the life and conditions of service in the Amur Regiment. He began to ask his superiors to transfer him to the Verkhneudinsk Cossack Regiment, part of which was stationed in Kobdo (Mongolia). Mongolia attracted the cornet Ungern. Probably due to a shortage of officers in the Amur Cossack Regiment, Ungern was denied transfer. Having been refused, he went into reserve and left for Kobdo.

The stay of Baron Ungern in Kobdo remains completely unclear. According to some information, he had some connection with the service of the division of the Verkhneudinsk Cossack Regiment, in which the cornet B.P. Rezukhin served, with whom he is friends; according to other information, he remains a reserve officer and lives his free life, traveling around Mongolia. One way or another, Baron Ungern spent 1913 and 1914 in Kobdo. before the start of the Russian-German War. During this time, he studied the Mongolian language well and made great acquaintances with Mongolian princes, gegens and influential lamas. He traveled the length and breadth of Khalkha and could rightfully consider himself a Mongol expert.

He was not a zealous son of the Christian Church (Lutheran). Some believe that during the time period 1913–1914. he accepted Lamaism, but did not officially break with his mother church.

One must think that over these years, a fantastic idea to restore the great Mongol Empire matured in Ungern’s head, and his entire mystical worldview took shape, which is roughly formulated as follows: “With the help of Mongol horsemen, restore the imperial throne in China. With the help of the Mongols and Chinese, restore the feudal-knightly system in Europe and unite the masses into guilds.”

The mysticism of Central Asia, Mongolian myths, and legends left an indelible influence on the entire subsequent life of Baron Ungern.

In 1914, when Germany declared war on Russia, Baron Ungern from Kobdo hurried to the city of Chita in order to leave for the theater of military operations with the first departing Cossack regiment. But in Chita it turned out that the Transbaikalian Cossacks were not intended to be sent in the first place, due to Japan’s undecided position, and it is unknown when the Transbaikalian Cossacks will go to war and whether they will go yet. Baron Ungern travels independently to the west and joins one of the secondary regiments of the Don Cossack Army operating on the Austrian front.

In the very first battles, Centurion Ungern shows exemplary courage. He is one of the first officers of the regiment - a Knight of St. George. He is showered with awards and wounds, luckily not serious. He spends his time recovering from wounds not in excellent field hospitals, but in the convoy of the 2nd category of the regiment. As soon as he was able to sit on a horse, he went into battle and the wounded man again rode into the 2nd category convoy.

When the regiments of the native Transbaikal army arrived at the theater of military operations - on the Caucasian front, Ungern hurried to return to his army and was enlisted in the Nerchinsk Cossack regiment, operating in the area of ​​​​Lake Urmia. The revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the army at the front forced officers to think about strengthening the front with outside, non-Russian forces. Esaul Ungern formed a detachment of volunteer mountaineers and with them carried out the entire reconnaissance service ahead of the “protesting” regiment.

Here, in the Nerchensky regiment, Captain Ungern became close friends with Captain G. M. Semenov, a Cavalier of St. George. Esaul Semenov was characterized by his superiors and colleagues as dexterous, not so smart as cunning and able to grab the “bull by the horns” in time. What Ungern and Semyonov had in common was: both were Knights of St. George, both Mongolians, both young and with initiative.

Esaul Semenov was born on the border with Mongolia. Since childhood I knew Mongolian. While serving in the consular convoy in Urga, he made great acquaintances among influential Mongols. He was involved in Mongol affairs to overthrow the Chinese, for which reason he was removed from the convoy to the regiment.

Baron Ungern and Captain Semenov, as Mongol experts, with the collapse of the army, naturally thought about creating Buryat-Mongolian cavalry corps, which would be able to support the collapsing front. The ideologist of this idea was Captain Ungern, and Captain Semenov undertook to implement the idea.

In April or early May 1917, Captain Semenov arrived in Petrograd, where he presented two reports to the Minister of War. The first report outlined a plan: to crush Bolshevism with the help of cadets, and the second outlined a plan for creating Buryat-Mongol units to reinforce the front. The first proposal of Captain Semyonov was rejected by the government, but the second was accepted.

In June 1917, according to the new style, Semenov received from the Minister of War greater authority to form Buryat-Mongolian units of troops and went to Transbaikalia, summoning Captain Baron Ungern from the front, for which he had special permission.

By the time both esauls arrived in Transbaikalia, the Bolshevik emissaries had already managed to process the local population, and the area adjacent to the station remained a quiet corner. Manchuria. Esaul Semenov settled at the station. Dauria. Ungern also arrived here.

It was necessary to organize a reliable primary cell. Captain Ungern took charge of this. From the volunteer prisoners of war held in the Daurian barracks, Ungern formed a police team and, with its help, established control on the railway line from the station. Tin to st. Manchuria.

In the last days of December 1917, captain Semenov, captain Ungern, captain Rezukhin, captain Pogodaev, captain Tirbakh, captain Firsov, captain Glebov - a total of seven people, at night, at the station. Manchuria broke into the barracks of the Russian reserve squad, seized rifle pyramids, thereby disarming them, and the next morning the squads were put into carriages and sent to Russia, which the squads were happy about. For Esaulu Semenov, all the captured property of the squad and barracks served as the material basis for the formation of the Special Manchurian Detachment (SMD).

Colonel Ungern became the right hand and ideological leader of all the endeavors of Colonel Semenov, already called “ataman”. Colonel Ungern began to form the Asian Cavalry Division, the personnel of which were: Buryats, Mongols, Tatars, Koreans and loitering Japanese. Russian officers in the newly formed units acted only as instructors; they did not interfere in the internal life of military units.

All 1918–1919 General Ungern in the Daursky region was an almost absolute master, doing many dark deeds through the commandant of the station. Dauria of Lieutenant Colonel Laurents. Hardly any of the Bolsheviks successfully passed Art. Dauria, but, unfortunately, many peaceful Russian people also died. From the point of view of universal human morality, normal time, Dauria station 1918–1920. - a black spot on the White movement, but in the worldview of General Ungern it was justified by those lofty ideas with which the baron’s head was full.

The pan-Mongolian idea of ​​Ataman Semenov and General Ungern was implemented in June 1920 by the All-Mongolian Congress at the station. Dauria. Thus, General Ungern was brought forward by events into the arena of the Mongolian events of 1920–1921.

The idea of ​​​​restoring the monarchy in China did not leave the head of General Ungern. He goes to Beijing in the summer of 1919 to get acquainted with monarchist groups. Ungern's stay in Beijing was marked by two events: the first was the enormous scandal he caused in the old Russian embassy, ​​and the second was his marriage to Princess Ji. Due to the lack of authentic documents, both the first and second cases remain unclear. The first served only for funny stories, but the second - marriage - is not an empty phrase.

Historically, a trace remained in the family chronicle of the Ungern barons: “Baron, General R.F. Ungern-Sternberg was married in his first marriage to Princess Ji, born in 1900 in Beijing and in marriage called Elena Pavlovna,” that’s all. Baroness Elena Pavlovna lived at the station. Manchuria, while the husband lived at the station. Dauria, when he was not on campaigns against the Bolsheviks. Occasionally, the husband visited the baroness. In 1920, in May or June, General Ungern, having provided his wife with decent funds, sent him to Beijing, “to his father’s house.” Much says that General Ungern was not interested in the fate of his wife.

Who, under what conditions, introduced General Ungern to Princess Ji, what purpose General Ungern pursued by getting married remains unclear. Whether the marriage was performed in a civil or ecclesiastical manner is unknown. According to unverified rumors, Baroness E. P. Ungern lived in Changchun (Xiangjing) in 1941 at the court of Emperor Pu Yi.

General Ungern was a great enemy of women and it must be assumed that his marriage to Princess Ji was purely political in nature and stemmed from the annoying idea: “restoration of the Chinese monarchy,” and with his marriage he was approaching the contenders for the Chinese legitimate imperial throne.

The life and activities of General Ungern from 1920/21 until the end of his days are fully and truthfully presented in this work.

In conclusion, we need to dwell on the characteristics of Baron Ungern given by his immediate superiors - General Baron Wrangel and Ataman Semenov.

The latter devotes a lot of space to General Ungern in his memoirs. According to Semenov, Ungern is an outstanding intellectual personality, gifted by nature with all the qualities of a “leader.” The characterization as presented by Ataman Semenov is a continuous hymn to General Ungern. A small but vivid description is given by General Baron P. N. Wrangel (published in the magazine “Beloye Delo”, volume 5). I quote it in full. “Podesaul Baron Ungern-Sternberg or “Podesaul Baron,” as the Cossacks called him, was an interesting type. Such types, created for war and an era of upheaval, could hardly exist in an atmosphere of peaceful regimental life. Usually, having suffered a shipwreck, they were transferred to a border country or were thrown by fate into some regiments on the Far Eastern outskirts and Transbaikalia, where the situation gave satisfaction to their restless nature.

From an excellent noble family of Livonian landowners, Baron Ungern found himself left to his own devices from early childhood. Since childhood I dreamed of war, travel and adventure. Since the outbreak of the Japanese War, Baron Ungern leaves the Naval Corps and enlists as a volunteer in an army infantry regiment, with which he goes through the entire company as a private. Repeatedly wounded and awarded the Soldier's George, he returns to Russia and, having been arranged by his relatives to attend a military school, graduates from it with great difficulty.

Striving for adventure and avoiding the situation of peaceful military service, Baron Ungern leaves school for the Amur Cossack Regiment, located in the Amur region, but does not remain there for long. Unbridled by nature, hot-tempered and unbalanced, who also loves to drink and is violent when drunk, Ungern starts a quarrel with one of his colleagues and hits him. The insulted man wounds Ungern in the head with a saber. The mark from this wound remained with Ungern for the rest of his life, constantly causing severe headaches, which undoubtedly affected his psyche. As a result of a quarrel, both officers had to leave the regiment.

From the beginning of the Russian-German War, Ungern entered the Nerchinsk Regiment and immediately showed miracles of courage. Wounded four times within one year, he received the Order of St. George, the St. George's weapon, and by the second year of the war he was already promoted to the rank of captain.

Of medium height, blond, with long red mustaches drooping at the corners of his mouth, thin and haggard in appearance, but of iron health and energy, he lives for war.

This is not an officer in the generally accepted sense of the word, for not only does he completely not know the most elementary regulations and basic rules of service, but, quite often, he sins both against external discipline and against military education - this is the type of amateur partisan.

Ragged and dirty, he always sleeps on the floor, among hundreds of Cossacks, eats from a common pot and, being brought up in conditions of cultural prosperity, gives the impression of a man completely estranged from them. I tried in vain to awaken in him the consciousness of the need to take on at least the outward appearance of an officer. There were some strange contradictions in him: an undoubted, original and sharp mind and next to this an amazing lack of culture and an extremely narrow outlook, amazing shyness and even savagery and next to this an insane impulse and unbridled irascibility, wastefulness that knew no limits and an amazing lack of the most basic requirements of comfort.

This type had to find his element in the conditions of real Russian turmoil.

During this turmoil, he could not help but be, albeit temporarily, thrown onto the crest of a wave and with the cessation of the turmoil, he also inevitably had to disappear.”

Memo: Major General Boris Petrovich Rezukhin

None of us Ungernovites living in Shanghai knows the biography of B.P. Rezukhin and it is not possible to obtain materials for writing it, while in the history of Mongolia in the significant year 1921 it is impossible to pass over in silence the colorful figure of B.P. Rezukhin, as the closest assistant to General Ungern.

It is known that B.P. Rezukhin is not a native Transbaikal Cossack, but a registered one after graduating from some military school. Probably in 1909 or 1910 he joined the 2nd Verkhneudinsk Cossack Regiment of the Transbaikal Army and was enlisted as a junior officer in the hundred of N.M. Komarovsky's squadron, which was stationed in Kobdo in Western Mongolia.

When Baron Ungern arrived in Kobdo in 1913, friendly relations were established between the cornets Ungern and Rezukhin, which remained until August 14, 1921.

Small in stature, reddish blond, with a red fluffy mustache, a clear, persistent gaze - he endeared people to him. Strong in spirit and body. By nature he was a reserved person, although in the hostel he was cheerful and approachable. He loved cheerful company, listening to jokes, songs and courting women, but in relation to the latter he was timid and, it seems, did not have permanent mistresses. Always clean, even smartly dressed, he loved comfort, good food and drink, but he did not get drunk. Having a drink over a glass of liqueur and coffee and having a pleasant conversation gave him real pleasure. He didn't talk much. He always performed his service properly. An excellent rider. He was a typical cavalry officer of a good, old cavalry regiment and did not fit into the Cossack environment. As a true cavalryman and warrior, in his life money and life itself had no overriding value. He finished the Russian-German war with the rank of captain, awarded the honor of op. St. Vladimir 4 tbsp. with swords and bows. Was married. My wife is stuck in Moscow.

Ungern von Sternberg Roman Fedorovich - born 01/22/1885. Baron, Lutheran. From an ancient German-Baltic (Baltic) count and baronial family, included in the noble matriques (lists) of all three Russian Baltic provinces. The main blood of the Ungern family is Hungarian-Slavic. The Baron grew up in Reval with his stepfather Baron Oscar Fedorovich von Goyningen-Hüne. In 1896, by decision of his mother, he was sent to the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Corps, upon admission to which the baron changed his name to Russian and became Roman Fedorovich; a year before his graduation, during the Russo-Japanese War, he left his studies and went to the front as a 1st category volunteer in the 91st Dvina Infantry Regiment. However, when Ungern's regiment arrived at the theater of operations in Manchuria, the war had already ended. For participation in the campaign against Japan, the baron was awarded a light bronze medal and in November 1905 was promoted to corporal. In 1906 he entered and in 1908 graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School in the 2nd category. From June 1908 he served in the 1st Argun Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army with the rank of cornet. At the end of February 1911, he was transferred to the Amur Cossack Regiment of Count Muravyov-Amursky. In July 1913, he resigned and went to Kobdo, Mongolia, where he served in the hundred of Yesaul Komarovsky (the future white general) as a supernumerary officer; then returned to his family in Revel (now Tallinn, Estonia).

With the outbreak of the First World War, he entered the 34th Don Cossack Regiment. During the war he was wounded five times. For his exploits, bravery and bravery during the war, the baron was awarded a number of orders. So in the fall of 1914, on the outskirts of East Prussia, Baron Ungern accomplished a feat for which he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. During the battle on September 22, 1914, he, being at the Podborek farm, 400-500 steps from the enemy trenches, under actual rifle and artillery fire, gave accurate and correct information about the location of the enemy and his movements, as a result of which measures were taken that resulted in represents the success of subsequent actions. At the end of 1914, the baron transferred to the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment, during his service in which he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree, with the inscription “For bravery.” In September 1915, the baron was seconded to the detachment of special importance of the Northern Front of Ataman Punin, whose task was partisan operations behind enemy lines. During his further service in the special detachment, Baron Ungern received two more orders: the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree, and the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree. Baron Ungern returned to the Nerchinsky Regiment in August 1916. During this period, he was promoted to podesaul, and also to esaul - “for military distinction”! In September 1916, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree. However, for an excess that occurred later - disobedience and an anti-disciplinary act - the commander of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment, Colonel Baron P.N. Wrangel, was removed from the regiment and transferred to the Caucasus Front to the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Regiment, where he ended up again together with his friend from the previous regiment by G. M. Semenov. After the February Revolution, Semyonov sent Minister of War Kerensky a plan for “using the nomads of Eastern Siberia to form them into units of “natural” (innate) irregular cavalry...”, which was approved by Kerensky. In July 1917, Semenov left Petrograd for Transbaikalia, where he arrived on August 1 with the appointment of Commissioner of the Provisional Government in the Far East for the formation of national units. Following him in August 1917, his friend, military foreman Baron Ungern, also went to Transbaikalia, where together they actually began preparing for the upcoming civil war with the Bolsheviks.

After Semyonov began forming a Special Manchu Detachment in Manchuria, Baron Ungern was appointed commandant of the Hailar station with the task of putting in order the infantry units located there, which had been disintegrated by the Bolshevik agitation. The Baron is initially engaged in the disarmament of pro-Bolshevik units. Both Semyonov and Ungern at this time gained gloomy fame for their repressions against the civilian population, which very often had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. After the appearance in the winter and spring of 1918 in Transbaikalia of numerous trains with pro-Bolshevik-minded soldiers returning from the collapsed German front, Semyonov’s detachment was forced to retreat to Manchuria, leaving behind only a small piece of Russian land in the area of ​​the Onon River.

In the Civil War he took part on the side of the White movement, commanding the Foreign Cavalry Division (later the Native Cavalry Corps, Asian Cavalry Division) in the troops of Ataman Semyonov in Transbaikalia. In October 1918 he received the rank of major general. On December 9, 1918, Baron Ungern was appointed commander of the Native Cavalry Corps (later transformed into the Asian Division). Ungern is actually the absolute ruler of Dauria and the adjacent section of the Trans-Baikal Railway. During the campaign, in the absence of Ungern, he was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel L. Sipailov, and order was maintained by a small contingent of Cossacks and Japanese. The forces of Semyonov and Ungern actually had no influence on the overall outcome of the Civil War. In November 1919, Red troops approached Transbaikalia. In March 1920, the Reds took Verkhneudinsk and the Semyonovites retreated to Chita. In August 1920, the Asian Division of Baron Ungern left Dauria and went to Mongolia with the goal of storming Urga, the capital of Outer Mongolia (now the city of Ulaanbaatar), occupied by Chinese Republican troops. There is a version that Ungern’s division in this movement was supposed to become the vanguard, after which, according to the plan, Semyonov himself was later to follow.

The first assault on Urga began on October 26, 1920 and ended in failure - among the Chinese there were several determined military leaders who managed to keep the units from fleeing, after which the Chinese advantage in firepower and numbers became apparent. The fighting lasted until November 7, and during the second assault the Ungernovites were very close to success, but the position of the Chinese was saved by the courage of one of their officers, who managed to lure the retreating Chinese into a counterattack. Ungern lost about a hundred people killed and was forced to retreat to the Kerulen River, where the baron began to restore discipline, which had been shaken after the defeat, with harsh measures. In December 1920, Ungern again approached Urga, replenishing his forces with a hundred Tibetans under the command of the cornet Tubanov. This time, the baron finally listened to the advice of other senior commanders of the Asian Division, including an experienced career officer, Colonel Ivanovsky, who arrived from Semyonov, and the plan for the third assault was developed for the first time by the only meeting of the commanders of individual units in the history of the detachment.

Ungern's troops were replenished by Mongolian and Buryat detachments that joined him, and when in January 1921 two Chinese regiments were defeated on the outskirts of Urga, this opened the way for the baron to the coveted capital. Before the third assault, Ungern's troops were determined by the size of the Asian Division itself - 1,460 people. The Chinese garrison numbered 10 thousand soldiers. The spiritual and temporal ruler of Outer Mongolia, Bogdo-gegen, was in the hands of the Chinese as a hostage. Ungern, inspired to take a daring step by the Mongol princes who wanted to restore the monarchy in the country and put an end to strife, sent a special detachment to rescue him, which stole the prisoner from the city occupied by ten thousand enemy troops. After this, the Asian Division carried out an assault that ended with the capture of Urga on February 3, 1921. Urga greeted the Asian Division and Ungern as liberators. However, first the city was given over to the troops for plunder, after which the baron harshly nipped in the bud all the robberies and violence of the Chinese against the Mongols in the city. The baron took part in the solemn coronation of Bogdo-Gegen in February 1921. For services to the ruler, Ungern was awarded the title of “qing-wan” (distinguished prince) and khan (usually available only to Chingizids by blood) with the words “The great bator who revived the state, commander ", many of the baron's subordinates received posts as Mongol officials.

Ungern develops the city and the local Mongolian government (the “experienced revolutionary” Damdinbazar was appointed prime minister of the puppet government) and reveals himself as a cruel, despotic ruler, beginning his reign with a massacre directed against the Chinese and Jewish population of the Mongolian capital, as well as persons suspected of “ leftist sentiments. The Jewish pogrom that took place in Urga resulted in the total extermination of Jews. Despite this, the baron implemented a number of progressive measures: he opened a military school in Urga, strengthened the Mongolian economy (opened the National Bank), and improved healthcare. Realizing that few people in Mongolia consider him a welcome guest and that the country’s leadership is constantly looking back towards the Bolsheviks (in 1921 it was already clear that the White Cause in Russia was lost and that Urga needed to start building relations with Bolshevik Russia), Baron Ungern tries to establish connections with Chinese monarchist generals in order to restore the Qing dynasty with the help of their troops.

Contrary to Ungern’s expectations, the Chinese were in no hurry to restore either the dynasty or implement Ungern’s plan - and the baron had no other choice but to move to the Soviet Transbaikalia, for the Mongols, in turn, seeing that Ungern was no longer going to fight with China, had already begun to change their relation to the Asian Division. Baron Ungern was also prompted to leave Mongolia as quickly as possible by the impending very soon end of the supplies he had captured in Urga. Immediately before the campaign, Ungern made an attempt to contact the white Primorye. He wrote to General V.M. Molchanov, but he did not answer the baron.

On May 21, 1921, Lieutenant General Ungern issued order No. 15 to “Russian detachments on the territory of Soviet Siberia,” with which he announced the start of a campaign on Soviet territory. The order was written by the famous Polish-Russian journalist and writer Ferdinand Ossendowski. The order stated:

...we see disappointment and distrust of people among the people. He needs names, names known to everyone, dear and revered. There is only one such name - the rightful owner of the Russian Land, the All-Russian Emperor Mikhail Alexandrovich... In the fight against the criminal destroyers and defilers of Russia, remember that with the complete decline of morals in Russia and complete mental and physical depravity, one cannot be guided by the old assessment. There can be only one punishment - the death penalty of various degrees. The old principles of justice have changed. There is no “truth and mercy.” Now there must be “truth and ruthless severity.” Evil, which came to earth to destroy the Divine principle in the human soul, must be uprooted...

The purpose of Baron Ungern's campaign to Soviet Russia lay in the context of the revival of the empire of Genghis Khan: Russia had to unanimously rebel, and the Middle Empire had to help it overcome the revolution. However, by the time the Asian Division invaded Russia, the peasantry had already been allowed to breathe a little - the surplus appropriation system was abolished, replaced by a solid tax in kind, and the NEP began, which significantly muffled the discontent of the peasants. And one of the largest peasant uprisings - Tambov - was already suppressed by the Bolsheviks. As a result, Ungern failed to receive mass support, which was the main reason for the failure of the Northern Expedition of the Asian Division. And the Mongols themselves, ready to fight with Baron Ungern against the Chinese, were not at all interested in a campaign against Soviet Russia. Setting out on a campaign to the north, Baron Ungern sent Colonel Ivanovsky to Ataman Semyonov with a request to open a second front and support the offensive of the Asian Division, but the former Kolchak commanders refused to obey Semyonov, although this speech significantly increased the chances of white units occupying part of the Far East. Lieutenant Colonel Sipailov was left in Urga with a commandant’s team and a small contingent of the Mongolian Military School, and a barrier consisting of 300 horsemen of the Buryat division with a Russian machine-gun team assigned to it was set up directly in front of the city.

Ungern planned to cut the Trans-Siberian Railway with his blow, blowing up the tunnels on the most vulnerable Baikal section of the highway. The implementation of this plan could lead to the cessation of communication between the Far East and the rest of Bolshevik Russia and would significantly ease the position of the white units in Primorye. At the end of May 1921, the Asian Division headed to the border of Soviet Russia. Before the campaign, Baron Ungern gathered the greatest forces he had ever had: the 1st and 4th cavalry regiments of the Yesauls Parygin and Makov, two artillery batteries, a machine gun team, the 1st Mongolian, Separate Tibetan, Chinese, Chahar divisions made up the 1st 1st brigade under the direct command of General Baron Ungern, numbering 2,100 soldiers with 8 guns and 20 machine guns. The brigade attacked Troitskosavsk, Selenginsk and Verkhneudinsk.

The 2nd brigade under the command of Major General B.P. Rezukhin consisted of the 2nd and 3rd cavalry regiments under the command of Colonel Khobotov and Centurion Yankov, an artillery battery, a machine gun team, the 2nd Mongolian division and a Japanese company. The number of brigade is 1,510 fighters. The 2nd Brigade had 4 guns and 10 machine guns at its disposal. The brigade was tasked with crossing the border near the village of Tsezhinskaya and, operating on the left bank of the Selenga, going to Mysovsk and Tataurovo along the red rear lines, blowing up bridges and tunnels along the way.

The baron also had three partisan detachments under his command: - a detachment under the command of a regiment. Kazangardi - consisting of 510 soldiers, 2 guns, 4 machine guns; - a detachment under the command of the ataman of the Yenisei Cossack army, Yesaul Kazantsev - 340 soldiers with 4 machine guns; - a detachment under the command of Yesaul Kaigorodov consisting of 500 soldiers with 4 machine guns. The addition of the above-mentioned detachments to the main forces of the Asian Division would have made it possible to level out the numerical superiority of the Reds, who had deployed more than 10,000 bayonets against Baron Ungern in the main direction. However, this did not happen and the baron attacked the enemy’s numerically superior troops.

The campaign began with some success: the 2nd brigade of General Rezukhin managed to defeat several Bolshevik detachments, but at the same time the 1st brigade under the command of Baron Ungern himself was defeated, losing its convoy and almost all of its artillery. For this victory over the Ungern brigade, the commander of the 35th Red Cavalry Regiment, K.K. Rokossovsky (future Marshal of the USSR), who was seriously wounded in battle, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The position of the Asian Division was further aggravated by the fact that Ungern, who believed in the lamas’ predictions, did not, due to the negative result of the fortune-telling, storm Troitskosavsk in time, which was then occupied by a weak red garrison of only 400 bayonets. Subsequently, at the time the assault began, the Bolshevik garrison amounted to almost 2,000 people.

Nevertheless, Baron Ungern managed to withdraw his troops from near Troitskosavsk - the Reds did not dare to pursue the 1st brigade, fearing the approach of General. Rezukhin and his 2nd brigade. The losses of the baron's brigade amounted to about 440 people. At this time, Soviet troops, in turn, undertook a campaign against Urga and, having easily knocked down Ungern’s barriers near the city, on July 6, 1921, entered the capital of Mongolia without a fight - General Baron Ungern underestimated the strength of the Reds, which was enough to repel the invasion of the Asian Division in Siberia, and for the simultaneous dispatch of troops to Mongolia.

Ungern, having given his brigade a short rest on the Iro River, led it to join forces with Rezukhin, whose brigade, unlike Ungern’s troops, not only did not suffer losses, but was even replenished with captured Red Army soldiers. The connection of the brigades took place on July 8, 1921 on the banks of the Selenga. And on July 18, the Asian Division had already set out on its new and final campaign - to Mysovsk and Verkhneudinsk, by taking which the baron would have the opportunity to fulfill one of his main tasks - to cut the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The forces of the Asian Division at the time of the 2nd campaign amounted to 3,250 soldiers with 6 guns and 36 machine guns. On August 1, 1921, Baron Ungern won a major victory at the Gusinoozersky datsan, capturing 300 Red Army soldiers (a third of whom Ungern shot at random, determining “by their eyes” which of them sympathized with the Bolsheviks), 2 guns, 6 machine guns and 500 rifles, however, during the battle of Novodmitrievka on August 4, the initial success of the Ungernovites was negated by a detachment of armored cars that approached the Red Army, which the artillery of the Asian Division could not cope with. The last battle of the Asian Division took place on August 12, 1921, near the village of Ataman-Nikolskaya, when the Bolsheviks suffered significant losses from the artillery and machine-gun units of Baron Ungern - out of 2,000 people in the Red detachment, no more than 600 people left. After this, the baron decided to retreat back to Mongolia in order to subsequently attack the Uriankhai region with new forces. The Asian Cavalry Division inflicted very significant losses on the Reds - in all the battles taken together, it lost at least 2,000-2,500 people killed. The Reds suffered especially heavy losses on the Khaike River and at the Gusinoozersky datsan.

The baron's plan, according to which the division was to be sent to Uriankhai for the winter, did not receive support from the division officials: the soldiers and officers were sure that this plan would doom them to death. As a result, a conspiracy arose in both brigades against Baron Ungern, and no one spoke in defense of the commander: neither the officers nor the Cossacks.

On August 16, 1921, the commander of the 2nd brigade, General Rezukhin, refused to lead the brigade to Manchuria and because of this died at the hands of his subordinates. And on the night of August 18-19, the conspirators shelled the tent of General Baron Ungern himself, but by this time the latter managed to hide in the direction of the location of the Mongol division (commander Prince Sundui-gun). The conspirators deal with several executioners close to Ungern, after which both mutinous brigades leave in an eastern direction in order to reach Manchuria through the territory of Mongolia, and from there to Primorye - to Ataman Semyonov. Baron Ungern makes an attempt to return the fugitives, threatening them with execution, but they drive Ungern away with shots. The Baron returns to the Mongolian division, which eventually arrests him and extradites him to the red volunteer partisan detachment, commanded by the former staff captain, holder of the full bow of soldiers Georgiev P.E. Shchetinkin.

The reason for the arrest of the baron by the Mongols was the desire of the latter to return home, their reluctance to fight outside their territory. The division commander tried to earn himself personal forgiveness from the Reds at the cost of Baron Ungern's head. The prince’s plan subsequently really succeeded: both Sundui Gun himself and his people, after the extradition of General Baron Ungern, were released by the Bolsheviks back to Mongolia. On September 15, 1921, in Novonikolaevsk, in the building of the Novonikolaevsky Theater, an open show trial of Ungern took place. E.M. Yaroslavsky was appointed the main prosecutor at the trial. The whole thing took 5 hours 20 minutes. Ungern was charged on three counts: firstly, actions in the interests of Japan, which resulted in plans to create a “Central Asian state”; secondly, an armed struggle against Soviet power with the aim of restoring the Romanov dynasty; thirdly - terror and atrocities. During the entire trial and investigation, Baron Ungern behaved with great dignity and constantly emphasized his negative attitude towards Bolshevism and the Bolsheviks, especially towards the Jewish Bolsheviks. At the trial, Ungern did not admit his guilt and did not express the slightest repentance. The baron was sentenced to death and executed on the same day. The Bogdo Gegen, after receiving news of Ungern’s execution, ordered a prayer service for him to be held in all datsans and churches in Mongolia.

Baron Ungern left a significant mark on history, albeit not as much as he had hoped: it was thanks to the baron, with his complete disregard for danger, who was able to entice a handful of soldiers into what seemed to his contemporaries a crazy campaign against Urga, that today's Mongolia is a state independent of China - if it had not been capture of Urga by the Asian Division, then both Outer and Inner Mongolia would have remained today just one of the many Chinese provinces - since Chinese troops would not have been expelled from Urga and there would have been no reason for the entry of Red Army units into Mongolian territory in response to the attack of Transbaikalia by Ungern during his Northern Campaign. Baron Ungern posed a real danger to Bolshevism in that almost the only one of the leaders of the white movement openly proclaimed as his goal not the vague and indefinite idea of ​​a Constituent Assembly, but the restoration of the monarchy.

On September 15, 1921, Baron Ungern was shot. A convinced monarchist, he did not imagine any other state structure for Russia. From the very beginning of the revolution, the Baron already had his own plan for creating a Middle Kingdom, uniting all the nomadic peoples of Mongolian origin, “in their organization not subject to Bolshevism”

“Bloody Baron” R.F. Ungern: myths and facts

To date, literature about the life and work of R.F. von Ungern-Sternberg is quite large. During the Soviet period, certain trends emerged in writings about the baron related to the mythologization of his image. Despite the fact that in modern Russian literature the assessment of the activities of R.F. Ungerna has undergone significant changes; the cliches that developed during Soviet times still continue to exist. One of the first studies on the struggle of R.F. Ungern against the Soviet regime was written by A.N. Kislov. His short work “The Defeat of Ungern” was first published in the magazine “War and Revolution” in 1931. The author set as his goal a review of military operations, so he dwelled little on the atrocities of the “bloody baron.” At the same time, he was the only one who accused R.F. Ungern in the burning of the village of Kulinga with all its inhabitants, including women and children, upon the entry of the Asian Cavalry Division into Mongolia. In 1964, A.N. Kislov’s work was published in the form of a monograph under the same title. The author was more eloquent, describing the actions of the baron, whose image was already firmly established in Soviet literature: “The brutal bandits robbed and killed peaceful Soviet citizens, shot communists and Soviet workers, sparing neither women nor children... Ungern took with him about a hundred hostages, threatening cruel reprisals in case of any opposition from the residents,” wrote A.N. Kislitsyn without any reference to the source of information.

The next researcher in the fight against R.F. Ungern turned out to be even more severe. B. Tsibikov's monograph was written in 1947, at that time Soviet literature was filled with denunciations of the atrocities of fascism. From the author’s point of view, R.F. Ungern was the forerunner of fascist ideology and, accordingly, simply had to be a bloody executioner. To B. Tsibikov’s credit, it should be noted that he did not falsify the data, drawing information from the press of the 20s. For example, he stated that by order of R.F. Over 400 people were killed at Ungern in Urga. The author described in great detail the massacres of Jews, citing specific names. B. Tsibikov colorfully painted pictures of how soldiers of the Asian Division, taking children by the legs, tore children into two halves, and R.F. himself. Ungern supervised the slow burning at the stake of a random traveler caught on the road in order to extort from him where the money was kept.

Subsequently, Soviet authors no longer resorted to such artistic techniques to depict the baron’s atrocities, but the image of the “bloody” stuck with R.F. Ungern is very durable. In 1957, G. Kurgunov and I. Sorokovikov wrote in their book dedicated to the Mongolian revolution: “Ungern is a sophisticated sadist, for him pleasure is not only in the death of his victim, but in the unbearable torment of this victim caused by various tortures. This includes burning alive at the stake, tearing out pieces of meat from the back with hooks, burning the heels with a hot iron, etc.” In the monograph “The Collapse of the Anti-Soviet Underground in the USSR,” D.L. Golikov declared R.F. Ungern a “fanatic Black Hundred,” pointing out that the baron left behind him the ashes of burned villages and corpses, he distributed all the property of the “disobedient” to members of his gang and lived by robbery. Based on newspaper publications from the Civil War, the author stated that R.F. Ungern burned huge villages along with women and children, and also shot hundreds of peasants. Similar trends continued in the literature in the 90s. The author of the monograph “Political History of Mongolia” S.K. Roshchin wrote that R.F. Ungern was “a tyrant, a maniac, a mystic, a cruel, withdrawn person, a drunkard (in his youth).” At the same time, the author did not deny the baron some positive qualities - asceticism, frantic energy, courage.

In the 90s, researchers had access to the memoirs of R.F. Ungern’s contemporaries, and most importantly, they could be freely referred to in publications. Unexpectedly, it turned out that the baron’s associates were no less strict towards his activities than Soviet literature.

For the first time, the life and work of R.F. Ungern received adequate coverage in a fictionalized book by Leonid Yuzefovich. Unfortunately, the author's approach to the memoirs of the baron's contemporaries was practically devoid of criticism. In the work of A. Yuzefovich, R. F. Ungern was captured exactly as he was reflected in the memories of his comrades. At the same time, the assessment of the baron’s activities was generally positive. The author of the monograph “Baron Ungern von Sternberg” E.A. Belov was careful with the testimony of the baron’s associates. But he lost his objectivity in describing the actions of the Asian Cavalry Division during the campaign in Russia. Based on the testimony of R.F. Ungern during interrogations, the author concludes that “in the temporarily occupied territory of Siberia, Ungern behaved like a cruel conqueror, killing entire families of communists and partisans, not sparing women, the elderly and children.” In fact, the execution by order of R.F. Ungern of three families from dozens of villages occupied by the division was an exception (here the baron was guided by some unknown to us, but very specific reasons). In addition, E.A. Belov, in describing the baron’s atrocities on Soviet territory, referred to the most unscrupulous memoirist N.M. Ribot (Rezukhin). Hence the descriptions of mass robbery of civilians, rape of women, torture, and even the burning of an old Buryat man at the stake. All this is not confirmed by other sources and therefore cannot be considered reliable.

S.L. Kuzmin, editor of collections of documents and author of the introductory article to them, deliberately distanced himself from the memoirists, focusing on the military and political activities of R.F. Ungern.

Despite the large number of publications on this topic, the personality and some aspects of the activities of R.F. Ungern remain in the shadows. Until now, there was not enough information to confirm or refute the traditional cliche of the “bloody baron”, which spread both in Soviet literature and in the memoirs of R.F. Ungern’s contemporaries. The situation was changed by the publication of documents and memoirs, carried out under the editorship of S.L. Kuzmin in 2004. Now there is an opportunity to illuminate this area of ​​​​R.F. Ungern’s activity, to separate facts from myths. How many victims did the “bloody baron” have, who exactly fell at his hands, what guided R.F. Ungern when determining punishments for enemies, his own subordinates and “random people”, and, finally, to what extent his actions were exceptional against the general background of the Civil War - this material will answer these questions.

The materials published by S.L. Kuzmin are divided into two blocks: 1) documents; 2) memoirs. In turn, the collection of documents highlights the materials of the investigation and trial of R.F. Ungern. Getting to know these sources leaves a strange impression. All three groups of documents show us their own image of the baron, not similar to the others.

Biographical materials, documents about the activities of R.F. Ungern at the head of the Asian Cavalry Division and his correspondence depict the baron as a purposeful person, strategist, talented commander and organizer. R.F. Ungern differed from the leaders of the white movement A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, N.N. Yudenich in that he was a convinced monarchist and did not imagine any other state structure for Russia. The commanders-in-chief of the white armies took a position of non-decision, believing that the army should not participate in politics. From the very beginning of the revolution, the Baron already had his own plan for creating a Middle Kingdom, uniting all the nomadic peoples of Mongolian origin, “in their organization not subject to Bolshevism.” These nomadic peoples were supposed to subsequently liberate Russia, and then Europe, from the “revolutionary infection”.

Ungern began to implement his plan on the Caucasian front. In April 1917, he formed a detachment of local Aysar residents, who brilliantly proved themselves during the fighting. His initiative was supported by Captain G.M. Semenov, who wrote to A.F. Kerensky about national formations and on June 8, 1917, went to Petrograd to implement these plans. The activities of R.F. Ungern and G.M. Semenov were continued after the October Revolution in the Far East, where they entered into the fight against Soviet power.

Having spent almost the entire Civil War at the most important railway point of communication between the Far East and China, the Dauria station, R.F. Ungern continued to work on realizing his plans for the restoration of the monarchy on a global scale. The main hope in this regard was China, where the civil war between Republicans and monarchists also continued. Traces of global plans are already visible in R.F. Ungern’s letter to G.M. Semenov on June 27, 1918, where he proposed that the Chinese in their units fight the Bolsheviks, and the Manchus fight the Chinese (apparently Republicans), Ungern believed that this would also be beneficial for Japan. On November 11, 1918, in a letter to P.P. Malinovsky, R.F. Ungern was interested in the preparation of a peace conference in Philadelphia and found it necessary to send representatives from Tibet and Buryatia there. Another idea that R.F. Ungern threw to his correspondent was about organizing a women's society in Harbin and establishing its connections with Europe. The last line of the letter read: “Political affairs occupy me entirely.”

At the beginning of 1918, in Manchuria, G.M. Semenov convened a peace conference, where representatives of the Kharachens and Barguts were present. A brigade was created from the Kharachens as part of the white troops. The second conference took place in February 1919 in Dauria. It was of a pan-Mongolian nature and aimed at creating an independent Mongolian state. At the conference, a provisional government of “Greater Mongolia” was formed, and the command of the troops was given to G.M. Semenov. During the Civil War, R.F. Ungern began to train his officers to work with the Mongols. As can be seen from the order for the Foreign Division dated January 16, 1918 (probably an error, in reality 1919), its commander paid special attention to teaching personnel the Mongolian language. From January 1919, R.F. Ungern was appointed by G.M. Semenov to be responsible for the work of the gold mines, which were under the control of the ataman.

It is obvious that potential opponents of R.F. Ungern and G.M. Semenov were not only the Bolsheviks, but also the Kolchakites. In the event of successful actions of the Eastern Front and the capture of Moscow, republican-minded generals from A.V. Kolchak’s entourage would come to power. R.F. Ungern prepared to continue the war against the revolution in any form by forming detachments from Buryats, Mongols and Chinese.

There is no complete clarity regarding the departure of units of the Asian Cavalry Division to Mongolia. This was the period of the collapse of the white movement in the Far East. Its leaders were not confident in the future and began to look for an escape route. In his monograph, E.A. Belov provides information that during this period, R.F. Ungern asked the Austrian government to give him a visa to enter the country, but did not receive permission. The baron's decision to go to Austria could have been dictated by other motives. E.A. Belov cites a draft international treaty drawn up at the headquarters of G.M. Semenov. It provided for the introduction of troops from Great Britain, France, America and Japan into Russia with the aim of restoring the monarchy and subsequent annexations of the territory. Perhaps in Europe, R.F. Ungern was destined for the role of a diplomat, which he already played from February to September 1919 during his trip to China.

S.L. Kuzmin believed that, on the orders of G.M. Semenov, R.F. Ungern was supposed to conduct a partisan raid through Mongolia with the aim of cutting the railway, and then raise an uprising against the Bolsheviks in the Irkutsk-Nizhneudinsk-Krasnoyarsk region. G.M. Semenov wrote that he had a unified plan in case of defeat of the white movement in the Far East. In this case, the White Army base had to be moved to Mongolia. According to G.M. Semenov, an agreement on this was reached between representatives of the Principality of Khamba, the authorities of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Detachments of Chinese monarchists under General Zhang Kui-yu were to take part in the campaign. Mongolia was to be liberated from Chinese Republican troops, after which the fighting was planned to be transferred to Chinese territory. The operation to capture Mongolia was prepared in complete secrecy. Everything stated by G.M. Semenov is fully confirmed by the diplomatic efforts undertaken by R.F. Ungern after the occupation of Urga.

This “Mongolian” plan was not destined to be realized in its full form due to the refusal of support for G.M. Semenov by both the Japanese and the Chinese monarchists. Instead of “retreating to Urga,” the chieftain himself fled to China, and most of his troops ended up in Primorye. The fall of Chita occurred much earlier than G.M. Semenov expected, so the partisan raid of the Asian Cavalry Division turned into an independent operation to create a new base for the white movement in Mongolia.

After the capture of Urga, R.F. Ungern intensified his diplomatic activities. Emissaries were sent to the Chinese and Mongol princes and generals. The Baron sent letters to many prominent figures in Mongolia and China. To Lama Yugotszur-Khutukhta, appointed by Bogdo-gegen as commander of the troops of the eastern outskirts of Khalkha, the baron wrote that his diplomatic assistance was necessary for an agreement with the head of the monarchists Sheng Yun, princes Aru-Kharachiin-van and Naiman-van. R.F. Ungern in his letter proclaimed the union of Tibet, Xinjiang, Khalkha, Inner Mongolia, Barga, Manchuria, Shandong into a single Middle State. The baron also foresaw the possibility of temporary defeat in the fight against the revolutionaries: “Temporary failures are always possible, therefore, when you gather a sufficient number of troops, I could, in case of failure, retreat with the remnants of the Khalkhas to you, where I would recover and, uniting with You, I began to continue the holy work begun under your leadership.” R.F. Ungern’s plan to unite the forces of the Russian counter-revolution, the Mongols and the monarchists of China was designed for a long time. The trip to Russia in 1921 was only the first step in the practical implementation of these projects. The betrayal of his own officers did not give the baron the opportunity to take further steps in this direction.

Many contemporaries considered R.F. Ungern’s campaign in Transbaikalia an adventure. But there may be a different view on this question. V.G. Bortnevsky, who studied the activities of the white emigration, noted that the emigrants began 1921 in the firm belief that a new campaign against the Bolsheviks was imminent. This hope was reinforced by news of the uprising in Kronstadt, mass peasant uprisings and worker unrest, and infighting in the party leadership. Materials from the collection “Siberian Vendée” show that in 1920-21, Siberia was engulfed in anti-Bolshevik uprisings. The regions liberated from the whites have already experienced all the “delights” of surplus appropriation. The uprisings were led by former partisan commanders. It was obvious that in 1921, after the harvest, the struggle would begin with renewed vigor. It was this peasant mass that R.F. Ungern wanted to lead. He could not foresee that the policy of the Soviet government would change and there would be a transition to the NEP.

Many of R.F. Ungern’s actions were designed specifically for the peasant masses. During the uprisings in Siberia, the slogan “For Tsar Michael” was repeatedly put forward, and R.F. Ungern raised a flag with the monogram of Michael II (although the Romanov dynasty was completely at odds with the creation of the Middle Empire). A common slogan was “against the Jews and the commissars.” R.F. Ungern immediately became an anti-Semite. There was a Jewish company in the troops of G.M. Semenov, the Volfovich brothers were the agents of R.F. Ungern himself, but in Urga the baron staged an ostentatious Jewish pogrom. In order No. 15, he ordered the extermination of Jews along with their families.

If successful on Russian territory, R.F. Ungern could not dream, like other white military leaders, of reaching Moscow. His task was to create a Middle State, and only then liberate China, Russia and Europe from the revolution. On his campaign he had to stop, for example, on the Ural line. It was theoretically possible to liberate this territory from Soviet power, but it was impossible to withstand the offensive of the five million Red Army. R.F. Ungern had to rely on the help of one of the great states. Most likely, it should have been Japan. Who, if not her emperor, was concerned about restoring the destroyed thrones? In 1932, the Japanese managed to restore the monarchy in one part of China. A representative of the Qin dynasty, Pu Yi, was placed on the throne of the puppet state of Manchukuo.

The latest researcher of the activities of R.F. Ungern, S.L. Kuzmin, believed that one of the incentives that forced the baron to make a trip to Siberia was incorrect information reported by defectors. They talked about the weakness of Soviet power and the discontent of the population. An analysis of the documents of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Siberian Revolutionary Committee suggests that R.F. Ungern was very well aware of the situation in the Far Eastern Republic.

The food crisis in the Far Eastern Republic caused a conflict in the army command and in the top party leadership. At the end of April 1921, the Politburo in Moscow decided to replace the commander-in-chief of the Far Eastern Republic G.H. Eikhe with V.K. Blucher, “since the army is close to disintegration.” In connection with the decision taken, a split occurred among the communists of the Far Eastern Republic. By order of the Dalbureau, G.H. Eikhe was subjected to house arrest. On April 30, 1921, I.N. Smirnov, via direct wire, informed V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky that, thanks to the inactivity of G.H. Eiche, the army was disintegrating, his authority had finally fallen. G.H. Eikhe introduced Semyonovtsy and Kappelevtsy into all headquarters, which paralyzes the trust of the military masses in the command. I.N. Smirnov demanded that the Dalburo be removed, recalling its members along with G.H. Eikhe to Moscow. In turn, G.H. Eikhe telegraphed to L.D. Trotsky that the Buffer government was ignoring the instructions of the center and was following the separatist path, the “partisan-intrigue trend” was clearly manifesting itself (which he repeatedly reported on). The work of reorganizing the partisan detachments into regular units met with fierce resistance at the top of the partisan command, which decided on a real coup in the army, as G.H. Eikhe reported.

In the spring of 1921, the Far Eastern Republic was experiencing a serious crisis, caused, among other things, by the actions of the Asian Cavalry Division in Mongolia. In light of all of the above, R.F. Ungern’s plan had very real outlines. This is exactly how the RVS of the Fifth Army assessed him in his letter to V.I. Lenin: “If Ungern succeeds, the highest Mongolian circles, having changed their orientation, will, with the help of Ungern, form a government of autonomous Mongolia under the de facto protectorate of Japan. We will be faced with the fact of organizing a new White Guard base, opening a front from Manchuria to Turkestan, cutting us off from the entire East.” I.N. Smirnov’s message to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on May 27, 1921 looked even more pessimistic. He stated that the internal situation of the Far Eastern Republic is well known to the enemy. I.N. Smirnov regarded the situation of the army of the Far Eastern Republic as hopeless and predicted catastrophic consequences.

R.F. Ungern was tried twice. The first trial of the baron was carried out by his comrades. The officers of the Asian Division, having formed a conspiracy, decided to kill their commander. For many years after these events, in their memoirs they continued to condemn the baron for his ruthlessness and cruelty. The second trial took place in Novonikolaevsk on September 15, 1821. This time Ungern was tried by his communist enemies.

Ungern’s defender at the trial in Novonikolaevsk said: “A man who, during his long military career, exposed himself to the possibility of constantly being killed, a fatalist who looks at his captivity as fate, of course, personally does not need protection. But, essentially speaking, the historical truth around the name of Baron Ungern... which has been created, needs protection.” It is for the sake of this historical truth that the researcher often must take on the functions of an investigator, which is simply necessary in the Ungern case, since his enemies in both the white and red camps were interested in distorting historical reality. The officers of the Asian Cavalry Division needed to justify their rebellion against the commander during the fighting, and the Reds wanted to use the “bloody baron” in their propaganda.

At the trial, R.F. Ungern was accused of using methods of mass slaughter (even children, who, according to R.F. Ungern’s statement, were slaughtered in that case) against the population of Soviet Russia (as a system of conquest). so as not to leave “tails”). Ungern used all types of torture against the Bolsheviks and the “Reds”: breaking in mills, beating with sticks in the Mongolian way (the meat fell off the bones and in this form the person continued to live), putting on ice, on a hot roof, etc.

From this it was concluded that Ungern was guilty of: “the brutal massacres and torture of a) peasants and workers, b) communists, c) Soviet workers, d) Jews who were slaughtered en masse, e) the slaughter of children, f) revolutionary Chinese etc.

Let's see how proven these accusations were.

During interrogation about the punishments he used, Ungern said that he used the death penalty. When asked about the types of execution, he answered: “hanged and shot.” To the question “Have you used the Mongolian method of beating until pieces of meat fly off?” - Ungern, apparently with surprise, answered: “No, then he will die...”. Ungern admitted that he put people on ice and roofs. During the interrogation at the trial, Ungern was asked how many sticks he ordered to be given as punishment. Ungern replied that only soldiers were punished with sticks, they beat them on the body and gave up to 100 blows. In the literature you can find an indication that 200 blows put a person on the verge of death. This statement raises serious doubts. For example, punishment with spitzrutens (the same sticks), common in Russia in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries, led to death in the region of 4,000 blows; there are cases when those who received 12,000 blows survived. There is no information that anyone died from caning in the Asian Cavalry Division.

Apparently, the investigators were never able to understand the meaning of the punishments imposed by the baron. They believed that being put on ice and on the roof was a form of torture, so sometimes “hot roof” was added.

During the interrogation of the accused, the judges were interested in why R.F. Ungern beat the adjutant during the First World War. They asked him: “Did you often beat people?” “It happened a little, but it happened,” answered the baron.

R.F. Ungern was repeatedly asked whether he ordered the burning of villages. He answered in the affirmative, but at the same time explained that the “red villages” were burned empty, since the inhabitants fled from them. When asked if he knew that the corpses of people were ground in wheels, thrown into wells and in general all sorts of atrocities were committed, R.F. Ungern answered: “This is not true.”

The only specific question about the executions of families was asked to R.F. Ungern during interrogation on August 27 in Troitskosavsk. The baron admitted that he ordered 2 families (9 people) in Novodmitrovka to be shot along with their children. At the same time, he added that another family was shot in Kapcharaiskaya, about which investigators had no information.

The command staff and political workers of the 232nd regiment and the assistant chief of staff of the 104th Kannabikh regiment were shot. In the Gusinoozersk datsan, R.F. Ungern ordered all the lamas to be flogged for robbing a convoy. For embezzlement of money, the centurion Arkhipov was hanged, and the order was given to shoot Kazagradni because he served both him and the Reds.

During interrogations, only one name was mentioned of a civilian executed on the orders of R.F. Ungern, this is the veterinarian V.G. Gey, an old member of the Centrosoyuz cooperative. From the answer of R.F. Ungern we can conclude that he was asked whether the murder of Gay was caused by mercantile interests. He replied that Gay had almost no metal money. No questions were asked about the fate of Gay's family.

The summary compiled by investigators from the interrogations of R.F. Ungern on September 1 and 2, 1921, stated that he first denied “the beating of the entire male population of the village of Mandal,” and then admitted that this was done with his knowledge. In this case, the baron apparently acquiesced to the investigators and took the blame upon himself. M.G. Tornovsky mentions the village of Mandal, but without any comments. The situation was different with the capture of the village of Maimachen. The Chahar commander Nayden-van conducted this raid on his own, without the baron’s permission. The capture of Maimachen was accompanied by looting and possibly killings of civilians. After this incident, the Chahars were sent back to Urga by the baron.

Only once was R.F. Ungern asked whether he knew about the violence against women committed by L. Sipailov. R.F. Ungern replied that he did not know this and considered these rumors to be nonsense. During the interrogation, R.F. Ungern recalled that there was one woman whom he ordered to be put on ice (she spent the night on the ice of a frozen river).

To questions about the motives for his cruelty with his subordinates, R.F. Ungern answered that he was cruel only with bad officers and soldiers and that such treatment was caused by the requirements of discipline: “I am a supporter of cane discipline (Frederick the Great, Paul I, Nicholas I).” . The entire army was held to this discipline.

Strange as it may seem, investigators and judges made no effort at all to find out the scale of R.F. Ungern’s crimes. In the published materials of the investigation and trial there are no testimony of witnesses, only a few times it is mentioned that they were. The fact that the baron denied the robberies and executions of civilians charged against him, as well as the burning of villages along with women and children, was not taken into account by the court. The specific crimes to which the baron pleaded guilty were the execution of three families (2 families of 9 people, the number of the third is unknown), his associates Arkhipov, Kazagrandi and co-operator Gay. The number of Jews, members of the Central Union and captured Red Army soldiers executed by order of R.F. Ungern was not established. The investigation materials indicated that the baron either released captured Red Army soldiers or accepted them into the ranks of the division. There were cases when he accepted captured communists into command positions.

It seems that the communist investigators were amazed at the modesty of the baron’s “cruelties.” All identified crimes fit into the daily practice of the Bolsheviks themselves. But R.F. Ungern at the trial had to live up to the image of the “bloody baron” and serve as a scarecrow for the population of Russia. Hence the attempts to give the disciplinary punishments practiced by the baron the appearance of torture (planting on a hot roof, beating with sticks until the meat was separated), and the obvious, based on nothing, repeated exaggeration of the victims of the activities of R.F. Ungern.

The death sentence of R.F. Ungern was pronounced in the Kremlin. On August 26, 1921, V.I. Lenin conveyed by telephone to the Politburo his conclusion on the baron’s case, ending with the words: “...arrange a public trial, conduct it with maximum speed and shoot.” The next day, V.I. Lenin’s conclusion in the same edition was approved by the Politburo. The party leaders did not take into account at all that on January 17, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution abolishing the death penalty against enemies of Soviet power. In this respect, the trial of R.F. Ungern was in strong contrast to a similar case heard in early March 1921. In Soviet newspapers, that process was covered under the title “Bloody Feast of Semenovshchina.” Fourteen participants in the massacre of prisoners in the Red Barracks in the city of Troitskosavsk on January 8 and 9, 1920 were brought to trial. In those days, up to 1000 people were killed. In order to stop the executions, the City Duma was forced to ask for Chinese units to enter the city. Although far from the main culprits of the events in the Red Barracks fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities, some of them were also accused of participating in the murders: prisoners were hacked with swords, stabbed with bayonets, beaten with rifle butts and tried to poison them. The result of this noisy trial was a sentence: seven defendants were sentenced to twenty years of community service, one to ten years, one to ten years probation, three were acquitted, and one was expelled from the Far Eastern Republic.

The court of the baron's associates was strict, but it can be assumed that it was just as little objective as the Bolshevik one. Many researchers have noticed that the officers and ranks of the Asian Cavalry Division, who left their memories, were directly related to the uprising against R.F. Ungern. They were interested in denigrating the baron in order to relieve themselves of responsibility for the failure of the campaign and the murder of the commander. At the same time, they tried to shift responsibility to the baron for everything bad that was done by the division during the campaign in Mongolia. Hence the attempts to present R.F. Ungern as an innately cruel person who showed this quality in all periods of his life.

What could his judges from the white camp present to R.F. Ungern? It turns out that very little (if we take it on faith). Indeed, on the orders of the baron, people were not only hanged and shot, but even burned alive. It is impossible to justify these actions, even referring to the emergency situation of that time. But you can try to understand why R.F. Ungern acted one way or another, what guided him in passing sentences, what goals he set for himself. Were the baron's contemporaries, led by the poet Arseny Nesmelov (A.I. Mitropolsky), right in asserting that R.F. Ungern simply satisfied his sadistic passion with his cruel actions?

M.G. Tornovsky was destined to become the main accuser of R.F. Ungern. He spent many years collecting material to paint an “impartial” picture of the activities of the Asian Cavalry Division. Of the ten specific persons killed by order of R.F. Ungern and listed by M.G. Tornovsky (Chernov, Gey, Arkhipov, Lee, Drozdov, Gordeev, Parnyakov, Engelgart, Ruzhansky, Laurenz), other memoirists found: A. S.Makeeva - 6; N.N. Knyazev - 3; at M.N.Ribo - 2; Golubev has 1.

M.G. Tornovsky (1882 - after 1955) - graduate of the Irkutsk Military School. During the First World War he was a battalion commander on the Russian-German front. He received the rank of colonel and was seconded to work at the Irkutsk Military School. After the revolution, he went to Harbin, where he joined the anti-Bolshevik organization “Committee for the Defense of the Motherland and the Constituent Assembly.” Later in the army of A.V. Kolchak he commanded the 1st Jaeger Regiment. In 1919, he was sent to the headquarters of A.V. Kolchak, but on the way he received news that the admiral had been shot, and remained in Urga.

During the siege of the city by R.F. Ungern, M.G. Tornovsky was imprisoned by the Chinese, where he spent about two months. On January 10 or 11, 1921, he was released by order of the Minister of War from Beijing. After the announcement in Urga about the admission of volunteers to the Asian Cavalry Division, M.G. Tornovsky came to the headquarters of R.F. Ungern and introduced himself to General B.P. Rezukhin. He was appointed to the position of chief of staff. M.G. Tornovsky recalled that he “had no heart for the Semyonovites,” since their activities were well known to him. M.G. Tornovsky’s colleague Lieutenant A.I. Orlov and centurion Patrin, who transferred from G.M. Semenov to A.V. Kolchak in 1919, fled from Urga altogether so as not to serve under R.F. Ungern. It is surprising that the baron appointed an officer unfamiliar to him to the post of chief of staff. In the eyes of R.F. Ungern, M.G. Tornovsky was compromised even by the fact that he was a member of the “Committee for the Defense of the Motherland and the Constituent Assembly.” Not to mention the fact that, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the regiment commander left the theater of operations and for a year was engaged in business in Urga, while the Asian Division waged continuous battles. R.F. Ungern was generally very suspicious of Kolchak’s chief officers, preferring not to accept them into service. Most likely, M.G. Tornovsky was assigned to the headquarters for a more thorough check. After two weeks of work, apparently having received a favorable review from B.P. Rezukhin, R.F. Ungern appointed him to his personal headquarters. M.G. Tornovsky himself admitted that he did not have a single person at his disposal and he did not receive assignments (except for the interrogation of Colonel Laurents).

R.F. Ungern was extremely cold towards his new subordinate. On February 5, M.G. Tornovsky entered service in the Asian Cavalry Division, and on March 17 he was wounded and was out of action for two months. Until the division left Urga, M.G. Tornovsky did not have access to information and used only rumors about what was happening. The fact that, when setting out on a campaign, R.F. Ungern did not leave his former chief of staff in Urga (who was still on crutches and could not mount a horse on his own) speaks volumes. On June 14, M.G. Tornovsky caught up with the division and was appointed “marching quartermaster,” although the division did not have a quartermaster at that time. Thus, the author also conveyed the description of the combat operations of the Asian Cavalry Division in his memoirs from hearsay.

Soon a new circumstance appeared, which greatly turned M.G. Tornovsky against the division commander. According to the memoirist, Captain Bezrodny arrived on the Selenga River, bringing many documents that compromised Kolchak’s officers. Regarding M.G. Tornovsky, Bezrodny managed to obtain testimony that he admires V.I. Lenin and sympathizes with his activities. The denunciation was based on a conversation that actually took place, where M.G. Tornovsky noted that Lenin would go down in Russian history forever. Only the intercession of General B.P. Rezukhin forced R.F. Ungern to refrain from reprisals against the imaginary Bolshevik. Although the memoirist was later given the task of promoting the goals of the anti-Bolshevik campaign in the villages, he never earned the trust of R.F. Ungern. This “recruitment and propaganda bureau” recruited only three volunteers in 15 days of work. As a result, on August 10, by order of R.F. Ungern, M.G. Tornovsky was assigned as a simple horseman to the first regiment, where, however, he was made senior over the orderlies.

M.G. Tornovsky stated that he knew nothing about the conspiracy. The murder of B.P. Rezukhin was a complete surprise for him. However, M.G. Tornovsky was elected commander of the brigade by the officers and took it to China. He never saw R.F. Ungern again. Even from this brief review it is clear that M.G. Tornovsky had no reason to love R.F. Ungern. They served together for a very short time and their relationship did not work out. Considering all of the above, M.G. Tornovsky can hardly be considered an impartial witness. Most of his memories are recorded from other people's words. The memoirs of R.F. Ungern’s comrades generally repeat each other in many places. This is understandable; not one of the fighters of the Asian Cavalry Division could be simultaneously in all places where its units operated. It turns out that there are practically no witnesses to the baron’s “atrocities.” All memoirists convey rumors or other people's stories. In order to be completely objective, we will use the testimony of the most “impartial” prosecutor, M.G. Tornovsky, who compiled the memories of his predecessors.

The most impressive of the punishments applied by R.F. Ungern was the reprisal of warrant officer Chernov. The first to describe Chernov’s execution was Golubev (1926), who apparently served in the Asian Cavalry Division (there is no other information about him). According to his story, after the failure of the first attacks on Urga, the Asian Division retreated to Aksha, having with it a large convoy of wounded. The former commandant of Dauria, Colonel Laurens, and warrant officer Chernov were in charge there. Having agreed among themselves, they decided to kill the patients who had money. Later, in order to facilitate the convoy, they gave the order to poison the seriously wounded, but the paramedic did not follow this instruction. When R.F. Ungern received information about abuses in the convoy and the infirmary, he ordered the arrest of Ensign Chernov, flog him, and then burn him alive at the stake. Subsequently, the message about the crime and execution of Chernov was repeated with various variations by many memoirists. For example, in 1934 N.N. Knyazev wrote that Chernov was burned for the murder and robbery of several wounded horsemen who were lying in the infirmary. It is obvious that R.F. Ungern specifically gave the execution of Chernov an indicative, demonstrative character in order to prevent the repetition of such cases in the future.

According to Golubev, Lieutenant Colonel Laurents was an accomplice in Chernov’s crime. M.G. Tornovsky, who personally interrogated Laurents, confirmed this message. According to his testimony, Laurenz was accused of robbing the Mongols and wanting to poison the wounded who were in the hospital. It can be assumed that M.G. Tornovsky was indeed instructed to interrogate Lauretz about his official activities, but he knew nothing about the actual accusation. Lieutenant Colonel Laurenz, as commandant of Dauria, was R.F. Ungern’s closest collaborator. He, along with the commander of the Annenkovsky regiment, Colonel Tsirkulinsky, was wounded during the second assault on Urga. Then Tsirkulinsky and Laurenz received a special assignment and were sent to China.

Information about the mission of Lieutenant Colonel Laurenz can be obtained from a letter to R.F. Ungern from an unknown military sergeant on January 25, 1920: “Lieutenant Colonel Laurenz is leaving for Hailar, probably to Harbin, for accurate reconnaissance of the local situation...” Two letters from Laurenz to R.F. Ungern dated February 1 and 7, where he reported on the completion of the task, have been preserved. On March 2, 1921, R.F. Ungern wrote to Zhang Kun not to believe Colonel Laurenz, since he had fled.

The mission of Laurentz and Tsirkulinsky turned out to be risky. The Chinese began arresting people associated with the baron. Tsirkulinsky was arrested while trying to transport transport with medicines to Urga. He was imprisoned in China and tortured. The cargo was confiscated. For his loyalty, R.F. Ungern forgave Tsirkulinsky not only for the loss of his cargo, but also for the desertion of the hundred officers of the Annenkovsky regiment, whose commander Tsirkulinsky was before his injury. When he returned back, R.F. Ungern appointed him chief of defense of Urga. Apparently, Laurenz behaved differently and, while carrying out the baron’s task, did not show steadfastness and loyalty to the white cause, for which he was shot.

During the trial of R.F. Ungern, several names of people who were shot on the orders of the baron were mentioned. Priest F.A. Parnyakov received special attention from the judges. When asked a question about this by R.F. Ungern, he replied that he ordered the priest to be killed because he was the chairman of some committee. Subsequently, the Bolsheviks continued to “play the card” of F.A. Parnyakov: “A Christian who believes in God sends another Christian, priest Parnyakov, to the next world, since he is red... Baron Ungern is a religious man, I have no doubt about it , and this emphasizes that religion has never saved anyone from the greatest crimes,” prosecutor E. Yaroslavsky angrily exclaimed.

What did the baron's associates write about the priest, whose death was used by the Bolsheviks to expose religion? Colonel V.Yu. Sokolnitsky, chief of staff of Kaigorodov’s detachment, wrote that Fyodor Parnyakov was a Bolshevik and chairman of one of the Urga cooperatives. Member of the Military Board of the Yenisei Cossack Army K.I. Lavrentyev, imprisoned by the Chinese during the siege of Urga, claimed that Fr. Fyodor Parnyakov played a provocative role in the fate of Russian prisoners. He slowed down their transfer to a warm room. M.G. Tornovsky, who lived in Urga since 1820, described the activities of F.A. Parnyakov quite specifically. He called the priest a “Bolshevik figure,” one of the main promoters of communist ideas. M.G. Tornovsky accused F.A. Parnyakov and his comrades of the deaths of about 100 Russian people who were shot based on their denunciations in Urga and its environs. Elsewhere, the memoirist wrote that F.A. Parnyakov and his sons had been involved in the terrorist group of revolutionaries since 1905. The priest himself was “a drunkard, a bawdy, an undoubted atheist.” Obviously, the order to shoot the priest R.F. Ungern gave at the request of part of the residents of Urga, who considered F.A. Parnyakov a Bolshevik and an agent of the Chinese.

Doctor S.B. Tsybyktarov headed the hospital at the Russian consulate in Urga. After Ungern captured the city, he was arrested on charges of Bolshevism and executed. On this occasion, M.G. Tornovsky in his memoirs suggested that S.B. Tsybyktarov was slandered or killed by someone in order to requisition his property. From the memoirs of D.P. Pershin, who accompanied S.B. Tsybyktarov to the baron after his arrest, it follows that the latter was very remorseful for making speeches at a meeting in Urga in the presence of escorted Cossacks. R.F. Ungern himself spoke about S.B. Tsybyktarov: “At a meeting in Chita, I heard him crucify for the communists and for all kinds of freedoms.”

After the capture of Urga, some of Kolchak's chief officers were shot. M.G. Tornovsky wrote that Lieutenant Colonel Drozdov was shot for panic rumors. On this occasion, A.S. Makeev recalled that R.F. Ungern eliminated panic sentiments by shooting Lieutenant Colonel Drozdov, who was spreading rumors. After this, no one else dared to doubt the “sustainability of Urga life.”

In Urga, the former Kyakhti commissar A.D. Khitrovo was arrested and shot. According to the memoirs of D.P. Pershin, two days before his arrest, Khitrovo came to him and told him about the horrors of the Semyonovshchina in Troitskosavsk. He condemned the ataman system and considered it the reason for the collapse of A.V. Kolchak. A.D. Khitrovo took part in the decision of the Troitskosavsky city government to invite the Chinese to the city in order to stop the arbitrariness of the Semenovites. D.P. Pershin recalled that several members of the city government were shot by the Bolsheviks for inviting the Chinese. A.D. Khitrovo did not escape this fate, but on the orders of R.F. Ungern.

M.G. Tornovsky recalled that R.F. Ungern confiscated a large tannery in Urga and put Gordeev (formerly a large tanner-breeder on the Volga) in charge of it. Soon Gordeev was hanged for an unimportant act. What kind of “minor act” is this? M.G. Tornovsky mentioned that Gordeev stole $2,500 and some sugar. K.I. Lavrentiev also pointed out that Gordeev was shot for stealing sugar from the factory’s warehouses. The commander of a hundred of the Asian Cavalry Division received 30 rubles a month; in comparison, the theft of $2,500 was a very serious matter (R.F. Ungern also hanged looters for a stolen piece of fabric).

Since 1912, the Centrosoyuz cooperative operated in Mongolia, engaged in the procurement of meat and leather. After the revolution, the leadership of the Central Union refocused on contacts with Soviet Moscow. Employees of the cooperative supplied money and food to the red partisans, while at the same time disrupting meat supplies to the white front. Before the occupation of Urga, R.F. Ungern was committed to the wholesale extermination of Central Union employees as Bolsheviks. But before the assault, two Transbaikal Cossacks, grassroots employees of the cooperative, ran across to Ungern and passed on information about all the employees of the Central Union. During the last battle for Urga, former White Guards from among the employees of the cooperative joined the Ungern fighters and began to exterminate their former Bolshevik colleagues. Subsequently, R.F. Ungern continued repressions against members of the Central Union, whom he suspected of Bolshevism. This is how veterinarian V.G. Gey was killed along with his family. M.G. Tornovsky, who described his death, mentioned that R.F. Ungern had information that V.G. Gey was in constant communication with the headquarters of the 5th Soviet Army in Irkutsk. F. Ossendovsky in his book “Beasts, People and Gods” wrote about V.G. Geya: “He did business on a grand scale, and when the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, he began to cooperate with them, quickly changing his beliefs. In March 1918, when Kolchak's army drove the Bolsheviks out of Siberia, the veterinarian was arrested and tried. He, however, was quickly released: after all, he was the only person capable of making deliveries from Mongolia, and he actually immediately handed over to Kolchak all the meat in his possession, as well as the silver received from the Soviet commissars.”

For theft, R.F. Ungern often shot his own officers, even honored ones. M.G. Tornovsky, apparently from the memoirs of A.S. Makeev, borrowed the story about the execution of the adjutant baron and his wife Ruzhansky. The adjutant, having received 15,000 rubles using a forged document, fled, hoping to capture his wife, a nurse, at the hospital, but they were caught and executed. After this, A.S. Makeev received the post of adjutant.

Most memoirists describing the conclusion of the Ungernov epic mentioned the execution of Colonel P.N. Arkhipov. He joined the Asian Cavalry Division before the final assault on Urga, bringing with him a cavalry hundred of 90 Cossacks. M.G. Tornovsky dedicated a separate section of his work to the death of P.N. Arkhipov. At the end of June, R.F. Ungern received news from L. Sipailov that P. N. Arkhipov had hidden part of the gold seized during the capture of the Chinese bank (according to various sources, 17-18 pounds or three and a half pounds). The colonel confessed to everything and was executed (according to various sources, he was shot, hanged or strangled after torture).

Despite the fact that R.F. Ungern was forced to resort to the services of executioners and informers, this does not mean that he treated these people with respect and love. The Baron tolerated them as long as they were needed. N.N. Knyazev pointed out that during the period of withdrawal from Troitskosavsk, R.F. Ungern gave a written order to General B.P. Rezukhin to hang his chief executioner L. Sipailov when he arrived in the detachment. At the same time, the chief physician of the division, A.F. Klingenberg, was severely punished. The reprisal against him was remembered by many memoirists. M.G. Tornovsky described this reprisal against the doctor (June 4, 1921) as follows: R.F. Ungern, seeing a poorly bandaged wounded man, ran up to A.F. Klingenberg and began to beat him first with a tashur, and then with his feet, as a result breaking his leg. After this, the doctor was evacuated to Urga. Upon careful examination of the biography of A.F. Klingenberg, it must be admitted that the baron could have had another reason, besides poor patient care, for punishing his chief physician. Memoirist Golubev described the activities of A.F. Klingenberg this way: having fled from the Reds from Verkhneudinsk, he began working as a doctor in Kyakhta, where he became friends with local Jews. Having found himself mobilized into the division of R.F. Ungern after the capture of Urga, A.F. Klingenberg led the massacre of the Jews. At the head of the Cossacks, he came to the apartments of his old acquaintances, confiscated money and valuables, and then shot the owners. Then A.F. Klingenberg became an informant and reported to the baron about conversations among the wounded in the hospital, “shortening the lives of many.” For this he was shot by order of Colonel Tsirkulinsky after the Whites left Urga.

There is no clarity about the circumstances of the death of the other two doctors. M.G. Tornovsky reported on the execution of the Korean dentist Lee and the medical assistant from Omsk Engelgardt-Yezersky. Moreover, the latter was burned in the same way as Ensign Chernov. M.G. Tornovsky did not know the reasons for these executions. They were mentioned in passing by A.S. Makeev (about Lee), D.D. Aleshin and N.M. Ribot (about Engelhardt-Ezersky). If we take these reports on faith, then some unusual partiality of the baron towards medical workers can be traced. G.M. Semenov recalled that when he was in Hailar, R.F. Ungern gave the order to shoot Doctor Grigoriev, who was conducting propaganda against the baron. Among the orders of R.F. Ungern for a separate Asian cavalry brigade, an order dated December 20, 1919 regarding the arrest of the brigade doctor Ilyinsky was preserved. The Baron ordered the arrest of the doctor for one day and two nights for the same thing for which he had already arrested him two weeks ago: “I’ll see who gets tired of it first: should I put him in jail, should he sit,” wrote R.F. Ungern (note , that contrary to the opinion formed in the historical literature about the regime at the Dauria station, the order refers only to arrest, physical force was not provided for at all). The doctors responded with dislike to the baron; one of them, N.M. Ribot, took an active part in the conspiracy against the commander of the Asian Cavalry Division. It is obvious that R.F. Ungern was a monarchist of ultra-right convictions. In his eyes, anyone who did not share his views on government was a Bolshevik. Thus, almost the entire Russian intelligentsia of that time fell into the number of such “Bolsheviks.” During the operations of the division, R.F. Ungern had close encounters mainly with doctors. With them, as representatives of the “revolutionary intelligentsia,” he was sometimes, to put it mildly, excessively harsh.

R.F. Ungern’s suspicion of new people joining the division was well founded. At various levels of the party leadership, including the highest, in Moscow, directives were repeatedly issued to send agitators to the baron’s detachments with the aim of corrupting them. In a monograph devoted to the activities of the Cheka-GPU, published in the 70s, it was stated that the capture of R.F. Ungern was organized by the plenipotentiary representative of the GPU of Siberia I.P. Pavlunovsky. Soviet agents acted in the baron's detachments, who organized a conspiracy in the Asian Cavalry Division. Although such a statement seems very doubtful, the security officers definitely set themselves such a task.

A very telling example is the description in the memoirs of R.F. Ungern’s reprisal of the division’s only horse artilleryman, Captain Oganezov. In the description of M.G. Tornovsky, Oganezov was sent to graze cattle as punishment for the fact that his battery was firing from a closed position. Another version of this event is given by N.N. Knyazev. According to his recollections, Oganezov was punished for firing at the hill where the baron was at that time. We will never know how these events took place. Other memoirists do not mention them. But if you combine both stories, it turns out that Oganezov fired at the hill where R.F. Ungern was after he was prohibited from shooting from closed positions. In this case, the punishment was quite moderate, since the baron could suspect malicious intent. M.G. Tornovsky, at the end of his memoirs, stipulated that in emigration Oganezov “cordially remembered General Ungern.” Perhaps the baron was right in this case too?

The biggest crime of R.F. Ungern was the Jewish pogrom in Urga. M.G. Tornovsky recalled (from hearsay) that before the occupation of Urga, the baron gave the order: “During the occupation of Urga, all communists and Jews should be destroyed on the spot, their property taken away. Give one third of what you take to headquarters, and keep two thirds for your own benefit.” The author pointed out that of all the Jews in Urga, the only survivors were a girl who was adopted by a Russian nanny, and a girl who became Sipailov’s concubine and was subsequently strangled by him. N.N. Knyazev dwelled on this issue in more detail. Describing the baron’s views, he noted R.F. Ungern’s confidence that “the Russian revolution was organized by Jews and only the evil Jewish force supports and aggravates the revolutionary process in Russia. He believed that establishing order in our homeland was impossible as long as Jews existed.” The author noted that some exceptions were made in Urga. The lives of Volfovich and the attorney at law Mariupolsky, a dentist and another Jew were spared, for whom the “Urga barons” Fitingof, Tizenhausen and von Witte pleaded. A.S. Makeev conveyed the following words of the baron: “I do not divide people by nationality. Everyone is human, but here I will do things differently. If a Jew cruelly and cowardly, like a vile hyena, mocks defenseless Russian officers, their wives and children, I order: when Urga is captured, all Jews must be destroyed - slaughtered. This is their well-deserved revenge for not twisting the hands of their reptile. Blood for blood!".

From the memoirs of A.S. Makeev it follows that in addition to the desire to replenish the division’s treasury and stimulate the Cossacks in the fight for Urga, giving the order to exterminate the Jews, R.F. Ungern was also guided by a sense of revenge. The baron had a lot of information about everything that was happening in the besieged city. For the same reasons, after the capture of Urga, the wealthy merchant M.L. Noskov, a confidant of the Jewish firm of Biderman, was executed. According to M.G. Tornovsky, M.L. Noskov greatly oppressed the Mongols, and D.P. Pershin recalled that the merchant was inhospitable to Russian refugees and refused money to the envoys of R.F. Ungern. All this was attributed by the baron to all the Jews living in Urga.

According to eyewitnesses of the events, after the capture of Urga by the Baron, from 100 to 200 people were killed there, about 50 of them were Jews. It is not yet possible to specify or at least clarify these figures. Subsequently, R.F. Ungern adopted a slogan that was then popular in Siberia, and his order No. 15 proclaimed: “commissars, communists and Jews should be destroyed together with their families.” The investigators who interrogated the baron concluded that “the baron absolutely does not accept the revolution and considers the cause of the revolution to be Jews and the decline of morals, which the Jews took advantage of.” He “does not understand people’s power in Sovrossiya and is firmly convinced that power will certainly pass to the Jews.”

The Asian Cavalry Division did not even have the semblance of a military court. R.F. Ungern personally conducted the investigation and passed the verdict. What guided the baron in this quick trial? R.F. Ungern had unlimited trust in his own intuition. I have memories of how, at the first meeting, he asked a person “are you a socialist?”, “Are you a Jew or a Pole?” At the same time, the baron looked his interlocutor in the eyes. The fate of the interrogated person depended on the impression made. R.F. Ungern had a whole network of informants. They operated in China, Mongolia and in the ranks of the Asian Cavalry Division itself. The baron verified the information received during personal interrogation. The informers and witnesses were not present and were not interrogated again. R.F. Ungern acted in exactly the same way when selecting Jews and commissars from among captured Red Army soldiers. Memoirists differ in their assessments of the results of this selection. Even with very high accuracy, the baron's method was inevitably bound to fail.

There are known cases when R.F. Ungern deviated from his rule of personal interrogation. Tragic events occurred at the beginning of 1921 in the city of Ulyasutai. Many officers who had fled Soviet Russia gathered there. As a result of a short struggle, they were led by Colonel Mikhailov, but soon a new group of officers arrived, led by Colonel Poletik, who laid claim to leadership. He presented documents from the “Central Russian Committee for the Fight against the Bolsheviks.” On April 10, Ataman Kazantsev arrived in Ulyasutai and, presenting credentials from the baron, demanded that Mikhailov, Poletiko and a number of other people urgently go to Urga. On the way, this group was met by another envoy of R.F. Ungern, Captain Bezrodny. He conducted a thorough search and found jewelry or incriminating papers on most of the officers. 11 people from the group were immediately shot. F. Osendovsky, who was traveling with this group, claimed that Bezrodny was carrying with him a “stack” of death sentences signed by the baron.

R.F. Ungern was not afraid of death; he said that only death could free a Russian officer from the fight against the Bolsheviks. The baron was not afraid of infantry; at his trial he stated that he could get away from a million infantrymen. Of course, it was bravado. Several thousand scattered white fighters were opposed by thousands of Red and Chinese armies, which included artillery and cavalry. Even the most skilled cavalryman had to retreat before this force. But the heir to the crusaders had at his disposal a formidable weapon - fear. Consciously cultivating the myth of his own cruelty and madness, R.F. Ungern repeatedly increased the strength of the Asian Cavalry Division. Only the Chinese fear of the “mad baron” allowed his fighters to capture Urga with its 15,000 garrison. The rebel officers were so afraid of R.F. Ungern that among them there was not a person capable of personally killing the baron. Seeing that he was returning to the camp, Colonel Evfaritsky, military foreman Markov and 8-9 other officers fled and never joined the detachment.

According to various sources, on August 18-21, an uprising led by senior officers took place in the Asian Cavalry Division. As a result, B.P. Rezukhin was killed, and R.F. Ungern was captured by the Reds. From that moment on, the division, having broken up into separate detachments, ceased to exist. What caused the death of the Asian Cavalry Division? Her officers believed that this was the baron's legendary cruelty. Modern researchers explained it by military failures, the reluctance of officers to go to the West, etc. It seems that one of the main factors that ruined the business that was so successfully started in Mongolia was the unique secrecy of R.F. Ungern. Officers who knew him in the pre-revolutionary period noted that the baron shunned society and preferred solitude. Even when he became the head of the division, he did not betray himself. Under R.F. Ungern there was no headquarters, although division chiefs of staff were appointed, but often these were completely random people. The baron had no entourage and, apparently, no friends at all (except, perhaps, B.P. Rezukhin). Even his adjutants knew nothing of his plans. R.F. Ungern did not trust his senior officers, did not hold their meetings and did not involve them in strategic planning. Finally, he did not speak to the division personnel. His orders were apparently simply read out in hundreds. It can be understood that it was difficult for the baron to communicate with representatives of sixteen languages, but neglect of his Russian soldiers ultimately cost him his life.

The most severe of R.F. Ungern’s accusers, M.G. Tornovsky, accused the baron of ordering the execution of seven ranks of the Asian Cavalry Division, to which we can add 40 officers who deserted from the Annenkovsky regiment (most of them were killed). In addition, by order of R.F. Ungern, 22 military and civilians who were not part of the division were executed, plus up to 50 Jews who died during the pogrom in Urga. A total of 119 people. M.G. Tornovsky, apparently deliberately, left the executions of entire families and the executions of prisoners in the shadows. It is surprising that during the investigation and trial of R.F. Ungern these issues were also practically not considered. Even with the most approximate calculation, the number of casualties of the Asian Cavalry Division from August 1920 to August 1921 did not exceed 200 people (the number of Chinese deaths cannot be established even approximately). The baron's associates pointed to two cases when, on his orders, people were burned alive. During the investigation, R.F. Ungern admitted that on his orders three families were shot, along with women and children. The baron's most serious crime is authorizing the Jewish pogrom in Urga.

It is pointless to compare Ungern’s “atrocities” with the acts of the Bolsheviks. It is obvious that V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky managed to achieve much more on the scale of Russia than the baron at Dauria station and within Mongolia. The Bolsheviks were merciless towards their enemies. Consider the institution of hostages alone, who were taken on class grounds and shot without any guilt. For example, generals P.K. Rannenkampf, R.D. Radko-Dmitriev and N.V. Ruzskaya were executed with a group of hostages in Kislovodsk. Under the direct leadership of R.S. Zalkind (Zemlyachki) and Bela Kun, thousands of officers of Wrangel’s army were shot, who believed the Bolsheviks and decided not to leave their homeland. Among the largest examples of the execution of women and children by the Bolsheviks is the execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg.

The communists were just as ruthless towards their comrades. For L.D. Trotsky, the execution of every fourth or tenth soldier in an offending regiment was a normal occurrence. Commissars, commanders and military experts were shot. One can recall such big names as B.M. Dumenko and F.K. Mironov. A vivid picture of the torture and executions practiced in the red camp is given by a collection of materials from the Special Investigative Commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks. The results of exotic torture are documented in photographs. It is not surprising that the Bolshevik investigators during the trial of R.F. Ungern were very interested in the question of whether the baron put people on a hot roof as a form of punishment.

Even if we take only the Trans-Baikal theater of military operations of the Civil War, the number of victims of R.F. Ungern does not look at all unusual. On March 28, 1919, during the capture of the village of Kurunzulai by partisans, seven captured Cossack officers and six Cossack volunteers were shot. During the Red Terror that followed, six people were shot in the village of Mankovo, and twenty civilians were shot at the Aleksandrovsky Plant. On July 14, 1919, during the uprising in the First Cossack Regiment of Ataman Semenov, thirteen officers and twenty Cossacks died. On July 16, the partisans shot another thirty-eight Cossacks. Although decisions on executions were made by a revolutionary court, it was no different from the baron’s individual court, since it was guided not by laws, but by class principles.

The minutes of the meetings of the People's Court of the Sakhalin Region on charges of participants in the events in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur were published. In the summer of 1920, the anarchist Tryapitsin, who commanded the partisan unit that occupied Nikolaevsk, received a directive from the military headquarters of Ya. D. Yanson with instructions to protect the city from the advancing Japanese troops at any cost. Tryapitsin used this directive for massacres of civilians, who, in his opinion, consisted of counter-revolutionary elements. Among the charges read out at the trial was the following: “It is enough to recall the filling of Amguni with corpses, the mountains of corpses that were transported on boats into the fairway in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, and the one and a half thousand corpses abandoned on the ice of the Amur after the Japanese offensive.” Tryapitsyn was charged with burning the city, exterminating the Japanese civilian population and half the inhabitants of the Sakhalin region. He was sentenced to death.

The cruelty of R.F. Ungern was not something special in the white camp. What he did was normal for punitive operations on the Eastern Front. But what we know about the activities of L.G. Kornilov, M.G. Drozdovsky, A.P. Kutepov makes the number of victims of the “bloody baron” simply ridiculous. For example, M.G. Drozdovsky’s assistant and closest collaborator, Captain D.B. Bologovsky, recalled that during the Yassy-Don campaign a “special purpose reconnaissance team” was formed. During the campaign they shot about 700 people. In Rostov alone - 500 people. The main task of the “team” was not to fight the Reds, but to destroy the old ones who harm the white cause and contribute to the advance of Soviet power. Later, under the direct leadership of D.B. Bologovsky, the leader of the Kuban independentists N.S. Ryabovol (member of the Kuban Rada - one of the white governments) was killed.

We must take into account the exceptional conditions in which R.F. Ungern had to act. The defeat of the white movement on all fronts led to the complete demoralization of the white army. The Cossacks on the Southern Front and the soldiers of A.V. Kolchak equally abandoned the front en masse and surrendered. Monstrous examples of demoralization are known, for example, in the units of Ataman B.V. Annenkov during the retreat to China (they killed and raped the wives and daughters of their own Cossack officers). R.F. Ungern was able not only to save his regiments from collapse (where there were 16 nationalities, and the Russians were in the minority), but also to force them to fight valiantly and win. For this, emergency measures were needed. According to memoirists, the baron resorted to execution in the form of burning at the stake twice - during the period of defeat at Urga (ensign Chernov) and after the failure of the first campaign in the Far Eastern Republic (medic Engelhardt-Yezersky). Each time, the division's combat effectiveness, despite the defeat, was completely restored. In this case, R.F. Ungern showed himself to be an experienced psychologist. He was able to turn punishment into a powerful means of visual propaganda and intimidation. It should be borne in mind that an ordinary execution would have made little impression on the Asians, and even on the Russians, taking into account the conditions of that time. Hence the burning at the stake. Actually, the range of unusual executions was limited to this.

What can we say in conclusion? R.F. Ungern is the only military leader of the Civil War whose victims are known practically by name. Having analyzed the available sources, it was not possible to discover the actions of the Asian Cavalry Division, which Soviet authors wrote about. Neither in the records of interrogations and court hearings, nor in the memoirs of contemporaries do we find descriptions of the murders of women, children and civilians (with the exception of the Jewish pogrom and three families during the campaign in Siberia), nor the monstrous torture in which the baron took part. On the contrary, it becomes obvious that R.F. Ungern did everything to preserve the combat effectiveness of his division and attract the sympathy of the population to it. He sternly suppressed looting, mercilessly fought robbers and thieves, and resorted to the most severe means to maintain discipline. He destroyed those whom he considered enemies. The authors of the memoirs testify that R.F. Ungern never personally carried out his death sentences, but was not even present at interrogations with bias. A.S. Makeev recalled that when the Cossacks brought a kid of a goat to the baron during a campaign, he refused to accept the gift, saying: “You idiots, is it really possible to beat the defenseless? People need to be beaten, not animals." There is evidence that R.F. Ungern did not carry weapons with him even in a combat situation. S.E. Hiltun quoted a review from the Daurian esaul about the baron: “Grandfather doesn’t hit in vain, he’ll flare up and hit; he won’t shoot you, he knows his character and that’s why he never carries a revolver...” The same S.E. Hiltun recalled that during his first meeting with the baron on the streets of Urga, where the battle was still going on, he saw R.F. Ungern without weapons, only with a tashur and two grenades. Some memoirists recalled that when, when the baron tried to hit them with a tashur, they took up arms, his enthusiasm subsided. It is surprising that none of these officers risked offering physical resistance or responding blow to blow. Such was the strength of the baron’s personality that people decided to confront him only with weapons in their hands. The officers did not have enough resolve to kill him.

Neither the court materials nor the memoirs of contemporaries provide material that allows us to compare the real figure of R.F. Ungern with the image of the “bloody baron” existing in literature. Let's try to trace how this image was formed. During R.F. Ungern’s operations in Mongolia, the political bodies of the Far Eastern Republic took care of propaganda. For these purposes, special leaflets were published, which spoke about the atrocities of Ungern’s gangs. They were compiled both for the Red Army soldiers and civilians, and for the fighters of the Asian Cavalry Division itself (Bashkirs, Tatars). Another source of materials for composing the image of R.F. Ungern was the press. Newspapers and newspapermen of the 20s differed little from modern ones. The main role in the direction of publications was played by the situation in the host country of the press and the political order of the editor, owner or sponsor. Thus, for example, the newspaper Volya, the organ of the All-Siberian Regional Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, located in Vladivostok, although it did not praise the activities of R.F. Ungern, it also did not dare to scold it, because the Semyonovites were nearby. The pages of Volya contained reports about R.F. Ungen’s campaign in Mongolia, battles in the area of ​​the Aksha River, and the assault on Urga, and all this without comment. The Paris-based newspaper Latest News, published under the editorship of P.N. Milyukov, could not mince words. For its publishers, the events in the Far East were not of significant importance, but all the same, articles were published in its issues condemning the activities of Ataman G.M. Semenov. The main motive for the publications was that an anti-Bolshevik democratic movement was emerging in Siberia, which was being hampered by the ataman regime. For example, the famous critic of G.M. Semenov A.P. Budberg pointed out in his article that the ataman brought great benefit to the Bolsheviks through his activities. The newspaper generally preferred not to touch upon the activities of R.F. Ungern, since at that time articles about the history of the falsification of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were published from issue to issue. A message about a Jewish pogrom in Urga, carried out on the orders of a white general, would look completely inappropriate against this background.

Soviet newspapers were in a completely different situation. They were obliged to participate in the ideological struggle with the not yet defeated G.M. Semenov and his comrade-in-arms R.F. Ungern, respectively, the “black chieftain” and the “bloody baron.” Here are some examples of this newspaper company. The newspaper “Far Eastern Republic”, which in 1921 published essays “Semyonovshchina” from issue to issue, also concerned R.F. Ungern. On December 10, 1920, the newspaper published the article “Baronism.” It described how the “baron-executioner,” acting on the directives of the “black chieftain,” went on a raid to the West. The action was covered up by the fact that G.M. Semenov announced in the press the expulsion of R.F. Ungern’s units from the armed forces for arbitrariness. Already in the next issue the article “The Horrors of the Ataman Region” was published. It described in vivid colors the events of the end of 1918, when, on the orders of R.F. Ungern, in the village of Utsrukhaitun, the Cossacks flogged one of the peasants, and his father was taken to Dauria, from where he never returned. The baron himself was referred to in the article as “the executioner and the vampire.” To strengthen the impression, the journalist reported that, according to rumors, those executed in Dauria were not buried, leaving them to be devoured by the wolves. The story about how, during the retreat of the Whites, one of R.F. Ungern’s officers shot through a samovar in the house of the executed man, “to leave a memory” for his wife, allegedly as revenge, was completely inconsistent with the main material. Apparently, the nascent Soviet journalism did not yet have enough experience; writers still preferred to find facts rather than invent them. Finally, already at the beginning of 1921 it was reported that “the movement of Ungern’s gang to the east is accompanied by the atrocities and terror of the civilian population inherent in the baron’s fellows.” The robbery of the village of Antoinche and the murder of 200 Chinese were cited as specific facts.

The Far Eastern Telegraph newspaper took a more radical approach to exposing R.F. Ungern. In August 1921, the column “Ungerovschina” was introduced for some time. The editors of the newspaper reported that they had at their disposal many letters, reports, and proclamations depicting the true character of R.F. Ungern and his campaign in Mongoia. What did the editors really have? The publications focused on the stories of the former Commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR in Mongolia, Makstenek. He very emotionally described how after the capture of Urga by R.F. Ungern not a single day passed without execution and up to 400 killed were registered. Baron Burdukovsky's adjutant massacred entire families. “Having occupied Urga, Ungern gave his soldiers the right to kill all Jews and “suspicious” Russians with impunity for three days and confiscate their property,” Makstenek reported. To make things more dramatic, this “eyewitness” reported that in Jewish houses, along with women and children, all the livestock was slaughtered. Among the specific individuals executed by order of the baron, the names of merchants Noskov and Suleymanov were given (from the memoirs of the White Guards it is known that N.M. Suleymanov served as quartermaster and assistant to the mullah in the division).

Newspapers published in China made a great contribution to the creation of the image of the “bloody baron”. Obviously, in order to earn the favor of the new owners, Russian journalists in China simply had to scold R.F. Ungern. Another reason was the antagonism between the atamans and Kolchakites, to which the journalistic fraternity most often belonged. Russian journalists in China ate their bread for good reason. In several issues of the Harbin newspaper “Russia” an article “Ungern’s reprisals” was published, which later became a source of material both for Soviet historical literature and for the memoirs of R.F. Ungern’s comrades. No. 41 described in detail the punishments practiced in the Asian Cavalry Division. One of the lightest penalties was torture “sent to the roof,” where they were kept without food or drink for up to seven days, the journalist wrote. In the newspaper’s interpretation, R.F. Ungern’s entry into Urga with the slogan “Beat the Jew, save Russia!” was greeted with enthusiasm by Russian monarchists. They actively participated in pogroms, robberies and murders. For reliability, a number of genuine names were given in the article. For example, N.M. Suleymanov, the “field quartermaster,” was declared an informer, thanks to whom many were executed. The story about the death of the Jewish lawyer Ryabkin was painted in bright colors. He fled from Sipailov's detachment, received ten bullet wounds, was caught and executed - his nose and ears were cut off, his arms and legs were cut off. Cases of strangulation of Jewish women and children are described. Specific names of witnesses, the only surviving Jews of the Barabanovskys, are given.

Judging by the Soviet press, foreign newspapers published in China did not remain aloof from R.F. Ungern’s revelations. According to information from the Far Eastern Telegraph, in September 1921, the English newspaper Beijing-Tianjin-Times published an article about the capture of the “crazy baron.” It listed the “incredible deeds” of R.F. Ungern and “mourned the harm caused by Ungern and others like him to the anti-Bolshevik cause.” In this case, the baron became a victim of international antagonism. Leading European countries and the United States did not want the strengthening of Japan in the Far East. They tried with all their might to stop Japanese interference in Russia’s internal affairs. The conductor of Japanese influence, Ataman G.M. Semenov, in connection with this, was subjected to persecution in the American and European press. R.F. Ungern also shared the fate of his commander-in-chief.

Newspaper publications testifying to the atrocities of the Asian Cavalry Division in Mongolia and Transbaikalia are not supported by documentary materials. Despite this, newspaper articles have formed the basis of some memoirs and historical studies. Everything that is known today about Baron R.F. Ungern does not fit in with the image of the “bloody baron” entrenched in literature. Extraordinary circumstances forced us to resort to extraordinary, sometimes very cruel, measures. Striving to implement his ideas, just like his opponents V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, R.F. Ungern did not take real people into account; he dreamed of creating a new ideal kingdom and renewing man. The Civil War, with its harsh realities, created an environment in which the brave officer and dreamer was forced to play the role of executioner. But even so, according to G.M. Semenov, “all the baron’s oddities always had a deep psychological meaning and a desire for truth and justice.” This statement of the ataman is confirmed by the materials given above. Cliches that have developed in historical literature over decades cannot be refuted by one article or even a series of monographs. For a long time, the horrors of the Civil War in the Far East will be associated with the name of Baron R.F. Ungern, but time will sooner or later put everything in its place.

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http://www.pravaya.ru/ludi/450/4835

Thin, with burning eyes, a penchant for sadism and esoterics, with delusions of grandeur - this is how his contemporaries captured him and gave him the appropriate nicknames: Bloody Baron, Black Baron. He left a dark mark on the fates of his companions, many ended badly, some went crazy. Even fleeting short meetings with the baron had consequences. This is exactly what the meeting between Ungern and Ossendowski was like in Mongolia. Many years later, after his death, the Black Baron came to him...

Descendant of pirates

Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg was born on December 29, 1886 in the family of an impoverished aristocrat. The history of his family is mysterious and very interesting. There were adventurers, soldiers, as well as just murderers and robbers.

Ungern's ancestors took part in the crusades and fought under the walls of Jerusalem. In the 12th century they were members of the Order of the Swordsmen and took part in the Battle of Grunwald. The knight Heinrich Ungern-Sternberg, nicknamed the Axe, is especially famous. He traveled around Europe and participated in tournaments in France and England, at one of which he died, having met a worthy opponent. Baron Ralph Ungern was a famous pirate in the Baltic Sea. Peter Ungern was also a pirate, had a castle on the island of Dago - a kind of robber's nest. Wilhelm Ungern, who was called the Brother of Satan for his passion for the occult and secret sciences, deserves considerable attention. Grandfather of Roman Fedorovich, pirate, plundered in the Indian Ocean. Before he was captured by the British, he managed to convert to Buddhism in India.

This was a family of pirate knights prone to mysticism. One can have different attitudes towards such a biography, trust it or not, but it should be noted that it clearly shows the features that particularly distinguished the Black Baron. This is a penchant for military life, self-will and an interest in Eastern teachings and the occult.

The Baron believed in reincarnation and believed that he had been traveling since ancient times. And, according to his beliefs, that ancestor of his - a warrior and a magician - was embodied in him. For from century to century this mystic knight Ungern wanders through history.

First steps

The interests of the young baron lay in line with the aspirations of his ancestors. He decided to devote himself to war. In 1908 he graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School. Then he participated in the First World War as part of the 34th Don Cossack Regiment and distinguished himself at the front in the most positive way. Commanding a cavalry squadron, he accomplished a number of feats. Everyone noted his courage, composure, endurance - these qualities more than once saved the lives of him and his fellow soldiers. Baron Wrangel noted that Roman Fedorovich “lived by war, making raids behind German lines that were as fast as they were daring.” For his courage he was awarded a number of orders. Suddenly, an unpleasant stain appeared on the career of such a brilliant officer: a fight with a colleague, which the baron started while drunk. It was then noted that “ his vice is constant drunkenness and that he is capable of actions that discredit the honor of an officer’s uniform.”.

In December 1917, Roman Fedorovich went to Transbaikalia, where he actively fought with the Red Army. He was successful, and in November 1918 he was appointed major general, and the formed Asian Cavalry Division was given command of him. But then the Reds intensified the onslaught, and the baron was forced to retreat to Mongolia.

Liberator of Mongolia

Here they were eagerly awaiting him, hoping that he would help achieve independence from China. The Mongols praised him so much that they declared him the living god of war, in addition, many Buddhists quite seriously considered Ungern to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan - both had blue eyes and a red beard.

For some time, his troops camped in Eastern Mongolia, gaining strength, gathering people under their banner. Both white troops and Mongols willingly joined him.

On February 4, 1921, after long battles, Urga was taken, and the retreating Chinese troops tried to break into China. Baron Ungern finished them off when he met them at the Tola River. Thus, the Mongols' expectations were justified - their country became free.

Sadist and executioner

In Mongolia, those features of his nature were fully revealed, for which he was nicknamed the Bloody Baron. The other side of the “god of war” was revealed - he was a sadist.

Much evidence has been preserved of his actions in captured Urga. Numerous executions, torture - and innocent people suffered. There was no law. Those accused - often of the most ridiculous offenses - were not brought to justice. He simply wasn't there. A suspicious or disliked person could be immediately beaten with sticks on the street or hacked to death. In addition, Ungern surrounded his person with personalities similar to himself. Lieutenant Colonel Sipailov, who became the commandant in the city, became especially famous among them. He was an executioner, a madman, a rapist and a child molester.

The captured Urga itself presented a terrible picture. Complete disarray, corpses everywhere, drunken Cossacks wandering the streets, looking for victims. Hanged people swung on poles and lanterns, and once the baron hanged a woman with his own hands.

It was scary, and many Mongols were already dreaming of the day when the Reds would get to the Bloody Baron.

Soul mates

All this was told in a confidential conversation to Ferdinand Ossendowski, who outlined what he heard and described his Mongolian adventures in the book “ And animals, and people, and gods."

Baron Ungern's belief in the supernatural sometimes reached the extreme. Thus, not a single preparation for battle was complete without fortune telling. The baron's headquarters was always crowded with a crowd of sorcerers and fortune tellers, lamas and simple gypsies. Also, before an attack, the shaman often performed rituals and read spells, and this in front of the entire army. Many chuckled to themselves, but remained silent: the baron did not like it when people doubted such things.

Prophecy

Everything that the baron told the Pole, he asked to be made public after his death. Ossendovsky doubted, he was older than Ungern, and it was reasonable to assume that he would die earlier. But Roman Fedorovich assured him that everything would be different. The book contains his words: "Oh no! Another 130 days and it will all be over, and then... nirvana!

The fact is that a certain fortuneteller told the baron that he had exactly 130 days left to live. On the same day, the two of them went to a Buddhist monastery, where the lama predicted the same 130 days, and also said a few words regarding the fate of his companion, a Pole. Lama said that “he will die when Ungern reminds him that the time has come to give up his life.”

A few days later, the baron said goodbye to the Pole. Each of them went their own way.

Very soon, under the pressure of the Red Army, Ungern had to leave Urga. He retreated. By this time, dissatisfaction with the actions of the baron and his executioners had noticeably increased, and a conspiracy was drawn up against Roman Fedorovich. On August 20, 1921, the Mongols tied him up and handed him over to the red squad.

Baron Ungern was sentenced to death, and on September 15, 1921 the sentence was carried out. This happened exactly 130 days after the prediction.

Herald of Death

Ferdinand Ossendowski returned safely to Poland. The lama's words were long forgotten, and the events of past years also lost their vividness. The Second World War found him in Warsaw, and he had to flee. He found refuge in the suburbs.

And on the night of January 10, 1945, a car stopped in front of the writer’s house, the passenger of which was a certain Lieutenant Dollert from the counterintelligence of the Nazi army. His conversation with Ossendovsky lasted a long time, until the morning. When he left, he took with him a copy of the book “Beasts, Men, and Gods.” A day after his visit, the Pole died.

Soon after the end of the war, they desperately searched for Dollert, but he seemed to have disappeared into the ground. It was not possible to find out anything about him, except that his real name was... Baron von Ungern.