Mannerheim

Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy

Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951) was one of the greatest figures of the 20th century, and the only man to be decorated by both sides in both World Wars. As a foreign officer in Russian service, he witnessed the coronation of the last Czar, and was both reprimanded for foolhardiness and decorated for 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. He crossed China on horseback, stopping en route to teach the 13th Dalai Lama how to shoot a pistol, and spying on the Japanese navy on his way home.

Doomed to live in interesting times, Mannerheim escaped the Bolsheviks by the skin of his teeth in 1917, arriving in the newly independent Finland just in time to lead the anti-Russian forces in the local revolt and civil war. He marched in triumph as the saviour of the new nation, only to spend a decade in the political wilderness.

He came out of retirement in Finland's darkest hour, leading the defence of his country against the impossible odds of the Winter War - a mass invasion by a million Soviet soldiers, while the world looked on. Winston Churchill was moved to comment: "Only Finland, superb, nay, sublime in the jaws of peril - Finland shows what free men can do."

This new biography by Jonathan Clements is the first to focus on Mannerheim's adventurous career in the Far East as a soldier and spy. It shows the shaping of Mannerheim the war hero through an exciting, action-packed and often humorous account of its subject's early years as a troubled family man, an officer and a gentleman.