Mannerheim : president, soldier, spy : president, soldier, spy
(Book)

Originally published: 2009.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Gustaf Mannerheim was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century. As a young Finnish officer in Russian service he witnessed the coronation of the last Tsar and was both reprimanded for his foolhardiness and decorated for his bravery in the Russo-Japanese war. He spent two years undercover in Asia as an agent in the 'Great Game', posing as a Swedish anthropologist. Crossing China on horseback, he stopped en route to teach the thirteenth Dalai Lama how to shoot a pistol and spied on the Japanese navy. Having escaped the Bolsheviks by the skin of his teeth in 1917, he led the anti-Russian forces in the local revolt and civil war and later, during Finland's darkest hour, he lead the defence of his country against impossible odds of the Winter War.