Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 177 - The Bloody White Baron Part 1: Wolf Rehab

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Baron Roman Von Ungern-Sternberg is one of the most insane men to ever live. *clarification: Estonians aren't slavic people. However, Russian and Baltic German nobility saw them as slavs due to their peasant status. No, this makes no sense. Sources for all related shows: The Bloody White Baron by James Palmer https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/ungern-sternberg-buddhist-isis/459327/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNUq7IUU300 Willard Sunderland (2014) The Baron’s Cloak, A History of the Russian Empire in War and Revolution SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now, back to the show. Whoa. And welcome to yet another lovely, very special episode. The Lion's Lead by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me, as always, is Liam. Hello, Liam. Hey, Joe, how's it going, buddy? I've been using the very special intro to Lions Led by Donkeys, and I'm starting to feel like I'm writing a sitcom from the 90s.

This is the one where I boof heroin, right? Yes. You have to boof heroin so we can show the importance of using needles. Yeah, you have to boof heroin so we could show the importance of using needles. It's been a while, but I bet I can stretch that old pucker out. Remember, kids, only boof heroin from your most trusted drug dealers. Or whoever. A guy named Curtis is probably fine. Or whoever.

Just boof strange things that you buy off street corners. People don't buy drugs from street corners anymore. You've got a guy. First of all, I live in Philly where, yes, we do. Fair enough. We have the largest open-air heroin market in the United States, man. Congratulations on having the Bacara market of American heroin. Thank you.

It's truly great. market of American heroin. Thank you. It's truly great. Now, speaking of open-air heroin markets, actually, that will end up being unsubjected a little bit. Nice!

Somehow. I did it. Somehow that is the case. Now, for, I think, the first time in the history of this podcast, we are going to be talking about the Russian Civil War. But not that side of it.

Sorry. Didn't want to get everybody's hopes up. Didn't want to get everybody's hopes up. We are not talking about the Bolshevik side of the Russian Civil War. Though, obviously, we do have to touch on it, right? We could just never acknowledge it which would at least be funny yeah i get real mad at us in the comments would it be funny actually don't acknowledge its existence um no uh the reason why is because it's

it's fucking complex um also as everybody's aware i generally try not to touch on things that people have already talked about mike dun Duncan over on the revolutions podcast has done a fucking incredible series on the Russian civil war and the revolution. That is, I think like two years long. I don't know. I'm not going to top that. I'm not going to fucking try.

Uh, but so here's the too long. Didn't read version of the Russian civil war in order to get into it. And we talk about the Russians of war. We jump into a swirling mass of warlords and revolutionaries and people who desperately want to build their personal politics on events that occurred before most people had electricity. Now, it was a time of horrible monsters, obscene violence. and it for some people it was uh the the right environment to make it possible for some of the weirdest fucking people in history to flourish oh yeah there are some stories uh obviously we'll touch on one today but they're they're like the uh the the train we talked about on your uh guest

episode yeah well there's your problem yeah yeah now uh there's also like the story of like the allied invasion of archangel the czech legion all of these little side stories oh yeah um but this two-parter i think i think we can do this in two parts brings us to one of the most insane people we've probably ever covered and someone that most of you have probably never heard of and that is Roman von Ungern Sternberg better known as the Bloody White

Baron if I had a guitar solo drop I would play around Bloody White Baron yeah it sounds like this is the name that sounded like a goat being strangled uh bloody white baron does sound like some sort of arkansas sludge metal group some unrecognizable logo and shit yeah exactly it's like uh black dahlia murder with the the words that you can't read uh also i love that's not a dig on Black Dahlia Murder. I actually like them.

They're from my hometown. They're really fucking good, actually. The most consistent band in metal. Yeah. And now, before we get started, I'm going to have to highlight the source I used for this. The book, The Bloody White Baron, the extraordinary story of

the Russian nobleman who became the last Khan of Mongolia by James Palmer and boy does that title give up a lot of what we're about to talk about oh that's fucking sick now prepare it everyone saw a good name on this show it's big name territory

where you know you just get so many honorifics slapped on to the end it ends up sounding like kind of like a i don't know a german compound word for bar probably sure so now this is big name territory quite possibly one of the biggest we've ever had and that his full name is nicolai Robert Maximilian Freher von Ungern Sternberg we're gonna call him Roman for short to make

my life easier now obviously two of those are honorifics but they're part of his name he died before all those were taken away now he was born Roman that is remember Roman is this guy that's who we're gonna be talking about was born in Gra that is. Remember, Roman is this guy. That's who we're going to be talking about.

He was born in Graz, Austria in 1885 to a German-Estonian father and a German mother. Now, they were almost immediately divorced because his dad was an alcoholic psychopath and also legendary anti-Semite. This is something that he will pass on to Roman. Come on, man. Oh, there's levels of anti-Semitic stuff in this

series that we're going to talk about that rivals only the episodes where we've talked about Nazis. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for subjecting me to this. Love you too the 30s he would have been the biggest fan of the nazis um but this is this is what i wanted to hear on the day i get uh laid off that's right that's right um hey it could be worse you could be in russia in the 1800s. That is true. I'd just get pogromed and it would be over. Roman's dad was incredibly anti-Semitic, like I said, and he did his most to pass that on to his child, though his mother would do most of the raising.

It wouldn't really matter. This anti-Semitic through line would never truly go away. It is so much so that they made an antisemitic joke out of their last name so now the ungern part of their name meant unwilling or reluctant and the sternberg part sounds vaguely jewish if you're uh kind of antisemitic um he was not jewish of course i I mean, I guess so. There's a lot of names at Endenburg that are not Jewish for people who are unaware.

I don't feel like I need to point that out, but I feel like I do. Yeah, you might as well. Yeah. Now, I think I've used the term base-level anti-Semitic before because this is the late 1800s, early 1900s in Germany and Eastern Europe. Anti-Semitism is is all of the rage of a national pastime.

Yes. So when I say baseline racism, I mean, people just generally believe Jews are evil. You know, now the Sternberg family was oh boy way worse than that most families apparently now the the joke that they made was if i was a sternberg i would be unhappy or unwilling about it too because because the the erngard part uh okay that's pretty shitty but you know these are not great people we're going to be talking about jokes are yeah yeah

anyway Roman and his family were not Jewish but they were also not Russian though they would make endless claims of relations with Russian nobility over the years this has actually never been proven though they were technically Russian nobility of German birth because they were Baltic

German now for people were Baltic German. Now, for people unaware, Baltic Germans were the Germans who took over what is effectively today Estonia during Crusades. They're, I don't know, colonizers is a good way of putting it. Anyway, the too long didn't read of now there's Baltic Germans. Anyway, the too long didn't read of now there's Baltic Germans. Now, this Baltic German nobility was folded into the Russian nobility sphere due to shifting borders and empire. And because they were good at doing what they did, which was lording over this territory and paying taxes to the people above them. So the Russians were kind of like, sure, fine, whatever.

We don't care. You're Russian nobility now. Yeah. So the Russians were kind of like, sure, fine, whatever. We don't care. They kept a lot. Most Baltic German families kept very strong ties to their German identity while being Russian nobles. The Ungern-Sternberg family went the other way. They 100% decided

they were Russian. Though the Russian and German nobility constantly fucked and intermarried. So there is a possibility that they were related somewhere down the line. Nobody's ever been able to find it. Though this bragging was a bit of a through line of the Ungern-Sternberg family. What a thing to brag about, too. Particularly Roman, who... Look how messed up my jawline is.

I can't eat without assistance, you plebe. Now, this is... Like, Roman was so prideful about his family heritage, he lied about it at an extent that almost bordered on a tick. Like, he claimed to be related to Mongolian Khans, despite the fact that they related to Mongolian Khans, despite the fact that they were not Mongolian. He claimed that a member of his family

had been the court of Ivan the Terrible. Remember, he's not Russian. And even said a member of his family had been on the Ark, as in the one built by Noah and staffed only by his family. Also by Jews. Also by Jews. That was us, guy.

I'll work for your Ark, but goddammit it i hate you uh i'm only here for the zebras uh the only thing that he could rightfully claim that he was related to the hapsburgs so we were right about making fun of his jawline but he never did instead he claimed he was related to the romanovs that being the czar's family of russia and decided that he was russian there's no evidence he was related to the Romanovs, that being the Tsar's family of Russia, and decided that he was Russian. There's no evidence he was related to the Romanovs in any way. But it was the fact that his family leaned so hard on being Russian. We'll talk a little bit. There's a weird little thing about that.

Now, the real reason for this at this point of his life is the family had moved back to estonia where they were nobility uh and fell under the russian empire now at this point of russian imperial history and something the soviets would also later continue to in my opinion a much greater extent uh is that they're very very big on russian chauvinism which is a very very fancy term for russian nationalism uh that was you know forced down the throats of various minorities that fell under the Empire and later the Soviet Union. I think on the show about

Russianization, Russification? Russification, yeah. That's the reason for the pale of settlements, violence against clergy, destruction of churches. It happens for decades and decades and decades. Yeah, it happens for decades and decades and decades.

Now, there's also something here that I really like that I've never seen before called Borderland Syndrome. Now, this is coined by a researcher named Isaac Berlin, or sorry, Isaiah Berlin. And he believes that there's

some kind of insecurity based on that comes from being on the fringes of a powerful empire that breeds a kind of pathologically intense attachment to the daddy in this imperial relationship. Now, for example, Ungern Sternberg is German, but he's a Baltic German. So he's on the fringes of the Russian Empire. Napoleon was born in Corsica. Now, he was only French by a legal technicality. If he had been born a couple of years earlier, he would have been Italian. And he was bullied for having a Corsican accent all the way until bullying kind of got you the wall. There's also Joseph Stalin, who was not Russian. He was Georgian and changed his name on purpose and had a speech coach to get rid of his accent. And obviously hitler famously not german uh he was austrian

so like there's a there's a lot of these cases throughout history obviously some being significantly more intense than others sure that's interesting i had never heard that obviously i i was unfamiliar with it um now because of this attitude roman and his family were deathly loyal to the Russian Tsar they also happened to be legitimately related to those German crusading knights that had carved out Estonia so they were like seriously old money and nobility now they were

like one of the older money families of the Baltic Germans not the most powerful but certainly like I don't know that's right yeah they had you know, planted their seed. They had certain levels of cash and siege, I assume. Just an absolute obscene amount of money. Now, despite the little fact that...

Now, remember, Estonia is mostly populated by Slavs, you know, Estonians. However, these Baltic Germans do not like them and the future the feeling is very mutual uh they see like slobs they see the local estonians grant this is not estonia yet that has not been created but um there's a deep fucking racism between the lording baltic germans who consider the the local estonian people to be quite literally subhuman um and this is german to do that there's also something weird here because the russian nobility also felt the same way even though they were russian ethnically they're very similar so they believe that their elevated noble standing meant that they were a different race, which is just a God tier amount of gymnastics to get around racism,

right? Why not? Now, this huge divide between the Baltic Germans and the Estonians began as soon as settlement occurred. And it was very much still there when during Romans times, there are strict social lines dominated by germans over the slavs and they literally went all the way down to the justice system and this might surprise you this was very unequal no i'm not surprised like one of the things like if if uh an estonian i'm

using that term to tell the locals uh even though i know like i already said estonia doesn't exist yet but the estonians would like if they were to accuse a russian of something in court uh or a german uh in court they would have to bring like three people to equal one noble all right that's fucked up but yeah and it would never work out anyway because they're like yeah but i'm a baron they're like ah yes good point you win sir now yeah now as you can imagine Roman believed that this is the natural order of things this is the way things were supposed to be there was supposed to be nobility

ruling over peasants and any deviation from that was like spitting in the face of God even though he was not I mean he was a Protestant yeah but he was never truly very religious. That will change, kind of. It's weird.

Oh, boy. Now, obviously, as you can imagine, the Russian nobility had no problems with this, even though it was even more racist in Estonia than it was in a lot of other places. They're like, yeah, but they're nobles. They didn't really care. And Roman was very obsessed with family history. He proudly declared that when asked about the Ungern Sternberg service to the Russian imperial throne, he would scream 72 killed during wartime, which meant 72 members of his family had died while fighting for Russia. Sure.

There's no proof that that's true though he would tell endless amounts of stories about military heroes that are part of his family that he claimed that he was like related to he was close friends with including someone and I do have to say this is a sick fucking nickname the brother of Satan shit that's tight

fuck yeah that's tight as shit we're getting a lot of good band names from this episode already. Now, there is one story that I prefer that is true that he did not like talking about. Now, this is a guy who is an

Estonian named Otto. Same last name, Ungern Sternberg, who would lure ships to the shore with fake lights, pretending to be a lighthouse. So they would crash into the shore, at which point he would murder the crew and steal everything on board. Fucking Uncle Otto, man.

You cannot leave the Moldova. Now, the Roman was not fond of telling that story, but that one is literally part of historical record because he was eventually caught and sentenced to Siberia. Now, when Roman did tell this story otto was suddenly a romantic privateer under the service of an indian prince against the british which he was not uh i don't need to point that one out yet yeah all right that's amazing can you imagine that like hey yo i heard your uncle like that's your drunk on at the russian nobility summit or whatever the fuck hey i i heard your uncle was uh kind of a pirate uh no he was a privateer uh yeah this guy didn't even use a boat he just used

some flashing lights which admittedly is that's balling on a budget if I've ever heard one and I do have to say in so when he crazy discount warehouse now the best part of the story is when he was sentenced to Siberia he didn't go to Siberia not in Romans mind

instead he went to India where he claimed his grandfather Otto had converted to Buddhism. Now, this is like the live, laugh, love of weird imperial Russian pirates, but never happened. This would have been very hard, as Buddhism wasn't exactly a huge religion in India at the time. It's kind of like saying he discovered Islam by moving to Indiana, right? It's possible, but unlikely. Is that how Nate discovered it?

Yeah, that is how Nate reverted. But like I said, not impossible. Highly unlikely. I mean, more unlikely because Otto never went to India. He went to fucking Siberia. So, right. But this was his gateway into buddhism somehow he he tricked himself into believing that this is true and i have no doubt that roman actually believed this happened um because this started a lifelong obsession with

religion of buddhism something that will become way weirder later on um now as roman grew up there was one thing uh that was pretty common to every school group that he was ever a part of every classroom everything he was violent as hell um he was a bullying little shit that literally listened to nobody cool cool cool cool cool i mean he went to the same schools as all of his shitty aristocratic uh neighbors and stuff because remember he's a very very he's not going to like i don't know estonian public school number one whatever whatever the 1800s version of that is uh instead he was considered such a bully surrounded by other probably horrible bullies people of incredible privilege who never have to treat anybody equally.

He was so bad that other children wouldn't go near him. He routinely stabbed other kids with compasses and scissors so often that he was no longer allowed to use them. Jesus. Alright, alright. Did he wet the bed too? Just tell me he wet the bed.

He started fires, abused animals. Actually two of those things are right. We get there oh so speaking of abusing animals there was that time he kicked open somebody's door and strangled their pet owl to death jesus yeah that happened is this guy gonna get what he deserves tell me this guy's gonna get what he deserves eventually he does okay great in about uh 20 years okay yeah the moral arc of the universe is a long-awaited sort of justice unfortunately he gets his justice at the hand of the checker so i'll let you be the judge of that never mind now despite the fact that everybody knew that he was smart he was he was very smart he was very like cunning clever he was fucking terrible at school work

um I mean he was too busy strangling owls and stabbing kids with scissors to listen to teachers and remember his teachers are commoners they don't have like nobility teachers so he saw his teachers as below him that he doesn't need to listen to

them I'm sure this helps and like that was uncommon even for the school which is kind of weird right like other aristocratic kids were dicks but they did their schoolwork he never did anything uh when someone noted that he never once turned in a single assignment in a year which if it wasn't for the stabbing kids and strangling owls i would defend that fuck it why not right yeah now eventually because you can't get kicked out of these schools right because they're for rich kids i mean they're not they're not just for rich kids this isn't like i don't know the the montessori school or whatever this is for literal nobility so you can't get like kicked out but his mother was asked to withdraw him from school which is

close as it gets that's rough i mean fuck him but that's rough but because of their money and connections he was never truly blacklisted like you're not gonna like the ungern sternberg kid can't come to your school because he's an umberg sternberg kid so he was immediately accepted into another school uh which is modeled after a naval academy in st petersburg russia now somehow he actually this is a glow up for him this school is significantly better than the other one this school is way more prestigious than the first one that he got kicked out of um and he and he admittedly uh did this he immediately started doing the same thing he failed upwards and then continued to fail um he broke every rule that the school had

this including things like smoking inside and fighting but also growing his hair out um you know and he stole from the kitchens because one of the things that the school did was try to teach military discipline to these kids. Oh, wow. And remember, I mean, because these schools are feeder schools into the aristocratic branch of the Russian Imperial military, which were all officers. So, like, you know, the one of the main discipline measures that the Russian military used was, you know, just misery, being hungry all the time, not being fed. They weren't hit or anything because that would be conscripts that get hit, not them. They were hungry a lot. So he'd steal from the kitchen.

He made it a year there before being withdrawn as well. Again, at the school's insistence. Now, after this, the family weren't quite sure what to do with them. It was obvious he didn't care about school he was just a a malignant tumor to everybody he was around he was a dick um but you know then roman decided fuck this i don't need this because true adventure i'm going to india to live with auto i'm gonna go become a pirate uh no he did the thing that is very common amongst men of his age and honestly that has this has not gone away a war started so he decided he was gonna go see adventure but the thing is is like remember he failed out of

two military schools he was not an officer so he enlisted as a regular soldier to the horror of his family like oh no you're gonna go be a normal person yeah you're gonna have to go touch commoners which admittedly probably disgusted him um but in case anybody had lost track of the time the russo-japanese war had just started ah and now if we're not going to go into this because roman misses the war entirely but we'll get there uh we did a three-part series on the russo-japanese war go listen to it it's hilarious um now the russo-japanese war kicked off and remember for people unaware this occurred on the fringes of the collapsing chinese empire it was not near either Japan nor Russia.

It took a long fucking time to actually get there. This is back when war took months to get to, if not longer. By the time he actually got there, the war was over. But during that time, he did get promoted to corporal, so congrats, I

guess. Good job, Roman. I assume it was the worst job of the Russian army just like it was the worst job in the US army when I had it now he was eventually sent back to Russia and you know when the Russians lost the Russo-Japanese war

it caused like an institutional tremor through all of the various failings going back generations of the House of Romanov right the system he loved so much the monarchy was falling to absolute shit the war was embarrassing

to the government and increased conscription had driven people to the breaking point on top of just you know not having food being treated like shit now this sparked what's known as Bloody Sunday. No, not that one. The other one.

No, not that one. The other one. There's a lot of Bloody Sundays. When soldiers fight on protesters outside the Winter Palace and soon peasants were in revolt, seizing and burning down farms and their lord's manor. This happened throughout the empire. Roman considered peasants rising up a slight against

the natural order of being dominated by the nobility without complaint. And this is a direct quote from him. Quote, our family has never taken orders from the working class. Dirty workers have never had any servants who think they can command. This guy's going to get one

between the eyes and I'm going to share what he does. I love that you can't possibly be in charge. You've never had a servant. That's actually a pro. That's good. Yeah. Like we said, Roman was deeply deeply racist,

which he believed that not only does the working class and the peasantry need to be put in their place. He believed this for Germans as well. German peasants, you suck. You're below me too. But he thought it was even worse for Slavs. So he was...

And there's so many different layers here. Remember, he considers himself Russian, who are Slavs, and hates Slavs. But he considers himself an elevated Russian, so he's nobility. There's a lot of layers here, although I'm stupid. It's like peeling the layers back in a very dumb onion. A really dumb onion, if you will.

In Russia, things were sparked by socialist revolutionaries, right? If anybody wasn't unaware of that fact, there's a whole thing about it. They ended up becoming some kind of union. Wouldn't know. Now, in Estonia, it was a little bit different. There was socialist revolutionaries, as there was pretty much everywhere.

But it was more of a national revival. but it was more of a national revival. People in these fringe areas of the empire, and I can speak from the Armenian history side of this, wanted their own national identity, their own national sovereignty, and things like that. And it was not uncommon for the Estonians to form their national identity during this time. Right.

And while some people wanted independence, other people were simply arguing for equality with the Baltic Germans who had lived there. Which, fat chance of that, motherfuckers. Good luck. Most nobility don't go ahead and be like, you're right, we won't be noble anymore. They normally have to see Mr. Choppy Choppy. Now, when that failed, they went ahead and vented 700 years of pent up anger against the German nobility just all over the place.

In one week of December 1905 alone, one fifth of all German owned property in Estonia had been destroyed and burnt down. Yeah, good for you. Next time, go for 100 this included a lot of stuff owned by roman's family and like quite a few nobility that didn't quite get out on time find themselves swinging from a tree which you know what happens i'll give it this it's owned you know fuck you the revolt was brutally brought under control when 20 000 imperial soldiers strolled in as imperial soldiers want to do the thousands were killed and thousands more were sent to siberia and for roman this whole event confirmed all of his prejudices against the

peasantry against the locals against everything and it only made him more of a staunch monarchist according to him the peasants didn't revolt because of things uh because things were unequal or they were sick of being fucked with or maybe they just really don't like the ungern stern gurd family i don't know i mean they don't like the vibe yeah this whole this whole vibe is cursed fam I'm gonna go grab a bayonet and I don't know cancel your permanent end I hate I just said all of that yeah you should be ashamed of yourself

I'm ashamed of myself yeah that's good I'm glad are the youths entertained are you entertained my back hurts yeah I got fired today, Trell. Oh, you know what? I'm going to have to fire you from this podcast and immediately exit out of this recording. Do not fire me from this podcast.

At least not until Nick comes back. We have a union grievance process. You have to file it to my dog. Aww. Dog. process you have to file it to my dog um now he believed that all of this failed uh because quote feral animals only fit to be tamed and corralled rough and untutored wild and constantly angry hating everybody and everything without understanding why that's how he described normal people like i said i'm gonna be real happy when this guy gets one between the eyes.

Yeah. After this, various changes that Roman absolutely hated began to take part or take hold in Imperial Russia. This included things like the October Manifesto that granted very little democratic representation in the Duma, which would be dissolved multiple times whenever the Tsar farted incorrectly. But his loyalty to the Tsar was unchanged and unchallenged, and he eventually went on to attend the Paul I Military Academy, actually graduating from a school and becoming

an officer in the Imperial Army. Well done, asshole. You finally did it. Third time is the charm. Remember, remember kids if you're listening and you are having a hard time in school remember you too could one day become roman von ungern sternberg just join the army let's say fucking enjoy there yeah now um look and then get devoted and then write some more books and then have a podcast with your friend leo that's right. I just accidentally

went around about why I called myself Ungern Sternberg. I don't like that. Oh, Joe. You'll figure out. Actually, I hate it way more because I wrote this, so it's going to get worse. It always does. Now, while he was in school,

he was still a very bad student. He graduated at the bottom of his class uh but one thing he got yeah but you know one thing he got really into while he was in school was buddhism and esoteric occultism what the fuck while still has somehow tying it back to the czar he kind of accidentally created i don't know like the Imperial God Emperor from Warhammer 40K in his own mind. Or like that weird Nazi esoteric shit. Same shit. So this all came from a woman named Helena Blavatsky, which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with. She is the gene seen for a lot of weird Nazi occultism and esotericism.

Not going to get into that wormhole uh one bit um but i do know one thing you ever watch saturday night live from like the 90s all the chicago football fans eating brats and shit someone named helena blavatsky sounds like she'd fit in great that's all that's the only thing that came to my mind is like nazis blavatsky um yeah there's a there's a whole layer of other shit if anybody wants to read more into helena blavatsky um i believe last podcast and left talked about her quite a bit i don't know i'm not going to get into her because that shit will suck your brain in yeah anyway he finally graduated from the school without getting kicked out ed was sent to a cossack regiment um Now, for people unaware, Cossacks are a minority group in the Russian Empire,

kind of loosely related to outlying republics. You'd consider them Kazakh or Mongol. It depends on which Cossack group you're talking about. It's a very, very weird web of different ethnicities all forming upon one culture, which is cool, honestly. Learning about the Cossacks is kind of rad. But at the time...

Talk about the pogroms, Joe. Oh yeah, we'll get there. Now the Cossacks were and kind of still are did you just say you like pogroms oh no i said we're going to talk about the pogroms did you just say that i think i heard that everybody this shirt that says i am not a fan of pogroms is asking a lot of questions the shirt should have answered um but like to this day cossacks are kind of used as like a weird paramilitary strike force against people again that stand against the,

well now the Federation, then the Imperial throne. They were kind of like almost like a border patrol in some various areas because they were considered more hardy than Russians, much better horsemen. And he chose to go to a cossack regiment which is interesting most russians do not enjoy working with cossacks in this period uh he was sent off to manchuria to serve with the regiment made up the trans bicol uh

cossacks and he was the reason why he chose to serve with the trans bicol cossacks or cossacks in general he didn't care he wasn't actually smart enough to realize there's a, there's different Cossacks. Um, it's because he was surprised. Yeah. Right. He had a very large obsession with anything vaguely Eastern,

which is what he would consider Cossacks because of Buddhism is obsession, obsession with Buddhism. He's like, Cossacks are probably Buddhist. And to be fair, he was right. Um, but there's another part that Liamo marty kind of touched on that he really really enjoyed

that was how much they hated jewish people um he actually he always fucking is man he he truly found that part appealing he's like ah they ride horses they're buddhists they hate jews i'm gonna go work with them now the trans baikal uh cossacks were closely linked to mongolia they often married into mongolian families uh they practiced the same kind of buddhism that mongolians did i don't know what the hell we ever did to them but sure yeah uh you existed how dare you uh get us into trouble yeah do you need to de-escalate your existence is what I believe a western journalist would say both sides of this

conflict they can de-escalate my dong yeah de-escalate these dicks now Roman got very close to these guys so close in fact that he hung out more with the Cossacks than he did with his fellow Russian officers which is very weird for them to do at the time.

And where his unit was stationed was literally in the middle of nowhere. It had no roads. The nearest town is 200 miles away. And the only transportation was horse. So that meant Roman got very, very good at writing, mostly to fit in. He wanted the Cossacks. He wanted to be one of the cool ones. fit in like he wanted the cossacks he wanted to be one of the cool ones right um and because his head has always been kind of out there uh he used this time in the region uh to continue to lie his

ass off uh when writing about his life later on he claimed that he attempted to start an order of the military buddhists to stand up against the forces of revolution and defend the czar um now he claimed that this idea failed uh because nobody was able to live up to his high standards um it's more likely it failed because he never tried it but what he also wrote is that in order to inspire men to seek enlightenment his idea of enlightenment because remember he probably only knows of buddhism through like various secondhand books and shit written by like orientalists um he introduced limitless opium alcohol and weed hoping this would trigger his men to becoming better men of faith this did not work all right though this uh

this did begin start a lifelong love affair with sweet sweet opium that he will never kick. Yeah, you and me both, buddy. Now, the idea of a drunk and high Cossack wandering through the steppe attempting to create a holy army is pretty funny. It almost certainly didn't happen. But what did happen was Roman crawling into a bottle while also doing opium.

When he got drunk, he got violent as hell, and nobody's entirely sure how or what happened. But one night he got so drunk, he dueled another hell and nobody's entirely sure how or what happened. But one night he got so drunk, he dueled another officer, which led to him resigning. So you can probably assume who was at fault there. The officer didn't die or anything like that. But he was still rich, still a noble and still had a commission in the army. So he got invited to take up a position with the 1st Amur Cossack Regiment.

This unit was even further away from pretty much every form of life, right? It was all the way by the Chinese border. And once there, his record shows him constantly getting drunk and fighting as well as doing a few more duels. During one of these duels, he was struck incredibly hard with the flat side of someone's sword, which opened a gash across his forehead, which is pretty telling in all the photos everybody has of him. Like, he has a very distinctive scar on his face. But it also knocked him unconscious and caused a pretty serious brain injury. Oh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, most people in Roman's life point to this moment

as being what caused him to change and throw himself off a deep end and never really look back. Like, he was doing normal, shitty rich guy stuff up until this point. He was being a stuck-up dick to commoners, hating peasants, all normal stuff. Right.

Dueling officers in the military the military honestly still kind of normal that wasn't even illegal at the time but after this he begins to do some wild ass shit uh so one time he was at a restaurant and someone brought him a bill before he was done like he was still drunk Someone said he was still drinking wine or something like that. So he responded by throwing him out a window. Oh, okay. Holy shit. All right. And another time he decided that when someone questioned his marksmanship using his sidearm,

he decided to pull it out in a cafe and start shooting people's hats off yeah williams all over to shit yeah i mean uh he was also drunk uh there he didn't kill anybody this time either i because if he did he probably wouldn't get out of prison um even the russian military back then would frown upon you randomly dropping people in the middle of a cafe now by 1913 he had enough of the army he decided that um this wasn't what he wanted in his life and he requested a discharge to be transferred over to the army reserves um now if anybody's keeping track at home that is in two years he'd gone through two units not to mention that he was so drunk and violent he couldn't even hang out with Cossacks, which is a fucking feat.

That's tough. That's like being so into kids that Spartans tell you to chill out. Right? For anybody who doesn't know, Cossacks are prized in Russia

for just wanton violence like that's why the the empire kept them around is that they knew that they could turn them loose on people and they would get praise from the government for kind of being like a paramilitary hit squad the fact that he was so unruly and violent that the cossacks were like, whoa, is kind of nuts. I guess they didn't see it. They didn't bond over their Jew hating like he hoped. What a shame. It's like being so

anti-Semitic that the local white identity church is like, please don't come back. But, you know, he didn't wait for his letter to be approved he just kind of assumed it would and by the time that the government actually approved of his uh letter and his resignation uh he had already left he just abandoned his unit jumped on horseback

yeah so like he kind of lucked out that he didn't accidentally go AWOL. But I don't think I really don't think nobles could go AWOL. There's like you go back to that unit. You bastard lib. If you're enlisted, you're like, we're actually going to beat you to death of a stick. It happens. Now, he eventually made his way to Urga, which is modern day Yulan Bitar, Mongolia, the largest city in Mongolia back then. And I believe still today it's the capital city um and so yeah it is now remember he had been his his vision of everything he considered eastern or mongolian or buddhist is very much high in the sky shit he's the only buddhist that he'd ever talked to were cossacks at this point

um he had never been to mongolia he had never actually he doesn't know anything about actual mongolian culture nothing like that so when he stepped foot in erga it probably seriously rocked his brain it's it's like one of those things called paris syndrome have you ever heard of that yes absolutely so paris syndrome for people who don't know is people who've built up Paris to the point of forgetting. It's actually a city that people live in, you know, uh,

with its own problems. It's a gross one too, man. It's, it's, it's kind of, it's got its problems. Um,

and I, and I say this as, and I'm sorry, a Frank of oil, which I am. I mean, I wrote my capstone paper on Napoleon. I understand. Yeah.

We're all bad people here, Joe. It's history. Fuck it. Now, the syndrome part of that is people build this thing up in their head so much that when it fails to meet the expectation, they kind of have a panic attack.

And that kind of happened to him because when he got to Urga, I mean, Urga is a very early developing city. It has its problems. He had been so full of eastern mysticism and wonder that he was very shocked when he discovered that Urga was desperately poor, had no electricity,

nobody had built sewers, people would dump garbage and sewage in the street. I've been to places in the world that this happens in. It's the way things are sometimes. But for someone that came from an aristocratic background with a small army of servants, it shocked them quite a bit. Sure. For instance, there were so many wild dogs in the street during this time that it was common for people to carry a stick in order to in case they had to fight him

off um like as you do remember honey don't forget your dog fighting stick now when roman arrived in mongolia he uh he found a mongolia that had just kind of gotten independence. It wasn't quite official, but it was, it was known as the Bogd Khanate. They broke off from the, the Chinese empire only two years before when something that resembled an orderly transition from colony to Buddhist theocracy, sort of.

It was one of those things that happened at the fringes of the Chinese empire because it was rapidly collapsing. They just lack the ability to stop it from happening. They're too busy, I don't know, stealing money and collapsing from within to worry about without. Now, that didn't mean that the two sides didn't fucking hate each other. Even though the Chinese were pretty much like, fine, whatever, be the bugged Khanate. We'll just hang out over here. Like, there was still just deep-seated chinese racism against the mongolians and the mongolians hated the chinese for generations of oppression alongside quite a bit of racism themselves so like yeah not great

uh neighbors this led to what could be known as tense relations uh even after independence there's a couple violent outbursts hate crimes. The Chinese government really didn't have any central control over their military. So occasionally groups of Chinese soldiers would just raid towns. Okay. Yeah, pretty much. Now, the new ruler of the Khanate was the Bogd Khan or the Holy Emperor and head of the Mongolian of Mongolian Buddhism and therefore the state. He was one of the so-called yellow hats of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the third to be specific, with the other two being the Dali and the Panchen Llamas.

So he's he's up there, if you believe that. Yeah, yeah. Though this Bogd Khan, the eighth, was a bit different than the holy man that you would expect. Now, he was a... Is he going to be a warrior monk? No, not even a little bit. Oh. He was a

morbidly obese alcoholic who fucked an endless stream of men, women, and children who were brought before him. I was going to make a joke, and then you said, and children. I was like pull up pull up pull up terrain i was like morbidly obese alcoholic we're two-thirds of the way there he was you were one half of a bogged con sir uh. I was an adult kid, fucking. Yeah, I mean, you will always have that. Now, because of these rampant fuck parties,

he eventually caught syphilis, which of course went untreated. As you do. So it was slowly stealing his eyesight and turning him insane. As you do. He also spent an absolute ton of money on a private zoo, which included several elephants and giraffes, which this will somehow become important later.

I promise. He also had several cars with this being Mongolia in the early 1900s. You can only imagine how expensive that was. Also, there was barely any roads for him to drive the cars on. It was just a flex. Look at me. look at me look at me i want to go see the car that i can't drive also people like pointed out that like he couldn't fit in some of the cars he he was huge oh well at least i could fit my gti so there you go he probably could not a gti is a small car i oh, thank you, Joe. I know.

I cannot fit comfortably in a GTI. Yes, you could. You push the seat the whole way back. You make Ross miserable in the backseat. We all do it. That's the experience of riding with me in any car, to be fair. How tall are you? You're like an inch taller than I am, man.

I'm 6'3", but my proportions are very weird. Do you have long legs? I the long i have long legs and long arms so a lot of things don't actually short little legs so that makes sense yeah that makes it honestly that makes the whole like vehicle transportation thing a lot easier in life like i i drive a prius which make the obvious joke yes i do i back when i had a normal job i used to have to commute an hour one way in the washington so like yeah like gas is expensive you know whatever as we know a liberal cry baby that's right uh i actually uh used my prius to truck ms-13 gangsters into the polls in 2016 to help my gti but it didn't work so well because, you know, small car. So you're like stacking MS-13 on the roof and shit.

Yeah, you get a ratchet strap. Guys, I know it's not comfortable. Just five more minutes. And they're all just like, we'll kill you, Gringo. Remember, folks, we're doing this for the Great Replacement. This is a bit, although, no, the Great Replacement is real and it's cool.

That's what my dad has. That's a new thing my dad's on is that he encourages the great replacement because he doesn't think like white Americans should have rights anymore, which like, you know, get get Liam's dad on the podcast. Oh, come on, man. He loves D-Day. Say what you will about the old Priuses that looked like like shoes or like like a roller skate the new ones have a lot of newer i don't have a new car but newer ones have a lot of

oh hell yeah i have the prius how much you can tell me this offline i need to know how much that cost you to ship uh too much uh but yeah i know less expensive than a new car. I will say that. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, the Bogd Khan was the theocrat, the dictator of Mongolia. And his blood. And the dictator of Kid Fokken. God damn it. The dictator, if you will. That's right.

That's right. His political policies mostly came down to just murdering opponents. his political policies mostly came down to just murdering opponents and he became so well known for poisoning people that it was common when he invited people over for dinner that nobody would eat other than him um

yeah I said I'm not hungry through tears I think this is just a game for him so he could steal your food um now any monk right he's he's he's like the third messenger of god or whatever if he says he wants my french fries he gets the fucking french fries right i'm not gonna stop the guy now any monk or actual holy man that was like

you know i feel like it's kind of distasteful for the the the reincarnated third hat to be fucking so many kids or being a massive glutton. That's kind of a bad look. They would just immediately get murdered. Now, not much is known about Roman's early 1913 journey into Mongolia. He wrote

very little about it. And we can assume that not much had taken place and this is a bit and i'm going on a limb here we can assume that because if it had he had written about it endlessly and probably would have lied about it he doesn't say shit about this point we just know that he went there and we know that he is he's the guy who lies about you know how great everything he does is or whatever absolutely endlessly yeah um, yeah. He wasn't the only Russian interested in the country. The Russian government

was a huge supporter of the newly independent Mongolia. Within a year of independence, there was agreements of mutual aid and support. Money poured into the country that was immediately used for giant fuck parties for the Khan, as one does. As one does.

I got big Jabba the Hutt energy. Just living in a basement, having women and men brought to him for fun. And children. I'm trying to leave that part out. I'm grounding us. Now, the reason for this is the Russo-Japanese War, pretty much. Russian pride had been kicked in the the deck so hard at shit like crack the emperor uh and like their pride was hurting and they couldn't

fuck with japan anymore right like japan just like kicked your head has arrived right yeah so like i guess we could fuck with china uh that's that seems easier now alexei kuru potkin which is if you haven't listened to the series he's one of the main idiots that gets russia involved in this war right he was a massive racist which was common in the russian imperial circle at the time and he said quote in the near future a major global war in the near future a major global war could flare up between the yellow and white races. For this purpose, Russia must occupy northern Manchuria and Mongolia. Yep.

That's a good hit. Yeah. Because of this, the empire nearly annexed Mongolia entirely after they broke away from China, but instead decided to use them as a proxy instead because the Russians were kind of having a hard time managing their empire as it was, making it larger seem stupid. Right. They also deployed military trainers to try to modernize the Mongolian army, which wasn't really a thing. There was no centralized Mongolian military. It was mostly ran by warlords and things like that.

But they tried to create one numbered around 20,000 people. And they had a hell of a time because Mongolians lacked modern firearms. They still had muskets and most of them still would rather use a composite bow because they still used it for hunting. So that didn't work. Yeah, 100%. Now, Roman ran into these military

trainers and tried to join them, but it was refused at first. But he managed to worm his way in by constantly showing up at the camp and bitching about it anyway and took the rank of captain. Because if you bitch enough, people eventually just concede and so you shut up. Other Russian officers thought he was a fucking weirdo. They refused to hang out with him.

They noted that he rarely cut his hair. He rarely shaved. And more importantly, even for the time, he rarely bathed, if at all. Well, at least I shave and bathe. Well, I don't shave, but I do bathe. I beg of you to stop fighting good things in common with this guy I'm just doing this to annoy you at this point

people like remember him sitting alone in silence most of the time not like reading or anything just like this serial killer shit yeah and occasionally he would just jump to his feet and quote be seized

by a strange spirit and lead a whooping cossack charge against or across the plains by himself okay dude's not lost his fucking mind yeah okay no i i would like to say i have nothing in common with this man other than our avoidance to

shaving since joe wants to be my fucking mom about it what's uh what's liam doing i don't know he was staring at a wall for three hours i was running across the backyard screaming about that's funny because i have skin to affective disorder but usually i just sort of stare off into space when i get like that see that's better than right than riding on a Cossack charge and being he spent most of his time touring the various temples of the area which there were a ton and also

he seemed to internalize just touring them just like going around just hanging out yeah and he seemed to really internalize Buddhist art a lot of Buddhist Mongolian Buddhist art involved like the layers of hell and torture and things out yeah and he seemed to really internalize buddhist art a lot of buddhist uh mongolian buddhist art involved like the layers of hell and torture and things like that the shit is sick if you ever get a chance to go to like absolutely awesome an exhibition on it absolutely go do that

yeah the the art slaps it's awesome but slap he would eventually attempt to recreate all of those using prisoners yeah we're not quite there yet, but yeah, that's where he gets his ideas. Now, he also spent his time drinking and fighting, but by 1914, the live-left love pilgrimage that had come to an end and he returned home to Estonia

with nothing to show for his adventure. Now away from the army, the only job... Not even like a tattoo or something? Not even a tattoo. He didn't even get like, I don't know, the eternity symbol on his ankle or a butterfly on his lower back. I just don't know if it's a heart on her left wrist and that's probably the most obnoxious tattoo

I know about. I mean, I have the state of Kentucky on my calf, but don't worry about that. Anyway. I got all kinds of dumb tattoos. I can't insult anybody else. I have seen your thirst traps joe now the only thing he was ever kind of good at was being in the army but he had lost that job he was now unemployed and living off his family's money while sitting around at his mom's house as you know we all do from time to time i really can't can't make fun of this guy we we all we've all been we've all

had to sit at our mom's house yeah he he eventually uh just became a more anti-semitic version of my brother um oh yeah oh you have a brother oh yeah yeah now listen to the pod he does not okay mark if you're listening i love you i. Now, by 1914, if you notice from the date, that meant Europe was about to blow itself up over inbred cousins beefing over turf. And so he was mobilized on July 19th and sent right back to the Trans-Baikal Cossacks, more specifically the Nurchurchinsky Regiment. Now, this regiment is important to be named because it would become famous for fighting in some of the most absolute, dumbest, most vicious, most casualty-producing battles of the entire Eastern Front. And that says a lot coming from that topic. Yeah, that's bad. Officers suffered 170% casualties while enlist Smith suffered 200% casualties. Suffered what?

Yeah. That meant if you were in the unit, you were guaranteed to at least get hurt, but probably die. Now, the Russian Imperial Army's rate was not great in general, but this was four times higher than the rest of the army. Yeah, that's really bad.

That's real bad. Roman would survive mostly on dumb luck and a brain full of opium and insanity for instance he survived the battle of tannenberg unwounded which is he might be one of the only people to be able to say that that is it skill is it sheer dumb luck only god knows it's nobody wants to fight the crazy guy like he's not on horseback anymore it's some uh what's his name churchill bad jack exactly yeah what are you gonna do yeah he wasn't on horseback anymore though he continuously argued that he should be but he would lead charges from the front carry like a pistol and a sword and scream at like because remember he spoke german so like

he would run at the Germans screaming and yelling curse words and like boom psalms at them yeah all right that'd be a little unnerving sure I wouldn't like that though his you know his streak would eventually get broken he got wounded five times in two years

but none of them were super serious this never seemed to slow him down and unlike and like a lot of people that we've talked about on this war, he fucking loved war. He thought it was a fucking hoot. Because remember, he'd missed out on it. And during the Russo-Japanese War, he'd finally got his war. And he finally found something he was good at. For all of his flaws, and there were many leading soldiers in the combat or more specifically

killing people, he was very good at. He excelled at it. Hey, he finally is good at something. Yeah, it just requires 20 million people to die or whatever. Oh, that's less good. Now, while back home,

the Germans pushed into Estonia and a lot of his baltic german neighbors became collaborators he just went the other way he became more and more and more psychotically russian uh and eventually got rewarded the cross of saint george the first of two he would end up getting so like he was very good at fighting but he was not a good officer i need to outline that he was a terrible officer. There's a reason why none of his heroics end up equaling promotions. Because he was still a drunken psychopath.

And when he wasn't busy running headlong into machine guns, which he did multiple times, somehow never getting shot. One time when he wasn't doing that, he was off doing things that would get him thrown in jail. One time while on leave, he got blackout drunk and attacked a hotel clerk with his sword. And then after slashing the person's face to ribbons, he just laid down on the couch in a lobby and went to sleep. But because he did this in the middle of a very large city in front of a lot of people. This actually landed him in jail for two whole months. Holy shit. Now, being a noble in jail, his jail experiences was nothing. And he got out and he was sent to the caucuses front of the command of Grigory Seminov,

someone that if anybody is familiar with the Russian Civil War, your hair probably just came up on the back of your neck. He had much of the same hobbies that Roman did, and that was mostly hating Jews, which ended with them becoming best friends. I love to do it,

man. And this is probably the only actual friend that Roman would have in his entire life. Oh, good. I was depressing. He's a terribly semi. We'll get you eventually, you dumb sluts. Now, once he reports to the caucus front, Roman witnessed the Assyrian genocide firsthand. I have to do it.

Can't go a whole episode. Can't do it. He got some great ideas and jotted them down yeah that's right he took cliff notes actually he was disgusted by it um wow now to be fair a lot of this is because assyrians well not white are christian um so when he saw pontic greeks armenians and assyrians being slaughtered by Ottoman Turks, I think he saw as more of a race war than anything as like, this is bad because

genocide is bad. It was more of a they're killing Christians, which unfortunately is a lot of how discourse back then is framed. It's gross. Yeah, for sure. There was a little special side genocide during this time that targeted the Yazidi people,

something that he does not talk about. Though, to be fair, he probably has no idea who Yazidis are. Now, Roman wanted to desperately intervene, and so did Semenov. He daydreamed of starting an entire Assyrian and Armenian regiment, liberating the entire area by himself

like a, I don't know, Lawrence of Arabia type. But, of course, the Russian military thought this is a fucking stupid idea. It's insane, and they wouldn't let him do it. Though, ironically enough, Russians themselves would recruit Assyrians, Pontic Greeks, Yazidis,

and Armenians to help them fight the Turks. Apparently, they just really didn't want Roman doing it, which fair enough. I can't blame you. Yes. Now, at the time, the Russian state they were fighting for was rapidly imploding. By March of the same year, the Tsar abdicated.

Kerensky had come to power. Kerensky notably batted his job, and soon the entire country was collapsing into civil war. Putting it aggressively, mildly. Yeah. Too long, didn't read. Read about it amongst yourselves. Come back. Roman, as you can imagine, was horrified by this turn of events and

specifically the rise of the Bolsheviks. Now, for reasons that Liam specifically can probably expect, it was not because of their peasants or their workers. It's because they were Jews. The Bolsheviks are Jews! Yep.

The Bolsheviks are Jews, Joe! Oh, yes! Yes! Once and finally, we are on top! Oh, time to bend the knee, you dumb Christian fucks! I mean... You dumb Christian fucks. I mean... Now,

he obviously hated the idea of peasants and working class people. He wrote about how much he hated the peasants and the working class. They've never had servants, Joe. They've never had servants. He more specifically, constantly just called them Jews.

It was very much the Judeo-Bolshevism propaganda angle. Yep, well I'm alive and he's not so you can suck that dick. That's right. Sorry, what's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my survival you piece of shit. We will

outlive you, you dumb sluts. I see that we have the same tagline now. He went with his friend Seminoff to Siberia, where they'd go on a recruiting spree, taking in Cossacks and Mongolians and various other fringe anti-communist forces, eventually forming the Siberian White Russian Army.

Now, this was not unified um most of the white army isn't it's like warlords and fuelers right right right like by you're kind of right by saying they're all blanketly anti-communists though that is quite reductive it's dumber than that there's some guys there it's just some guys being dudes. Now, this started off very small. They got a couple hundred people at first and this for people that are vehemently racist as they were. This is a shockingly multi-ethnic army.

You can get at some point, I suppose. Yeah. And granted, all of the officers are white or at least Russian nobility and other kinds of white. Now, their main enemy ended up not being the Red Army at this time, at least not yet. But the Chinese who are growing nervous about the fringe minorities that they hated getting guns and hanging out together. Now, they were bailed out of the situation by, of all people, the Japanese, as well as the U as the US and the British. Yep.

Now, there's a side story here about the US and the British and the Japanese invading during the Russian Civil War, which I promise we'll talk about eventually. The communists like to never let us forget it. We know! We know! Now, more specifically,

and I do have to point this out, most of the White Army's aid came from Japan, not the U.S. or Britain. Yeah, well, don't tell them that. Now, because, you know, fascists like fascists. Now, the Japanese specifically saw fighting in Siberia as good for their goals of expansion. They didn't care so much about communism that was the u.s and the british right um the japanese wanted to expand if you hadn't noticed from what happens after this event in world history um now specifically the japanese empire

began pumping guns and money to semenov's white army they also became more than that depending on your faction of the white army semenov else in particular kind of became a puppet of the Japanese empire. Um, while he secured the entire trans by call region, he ended up surrounding himself with Japanese assistants, military advisors, and trainers. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Um, like he eventually ended up having to learn Japanese racial harmony. Yeah. The code Japan co-prosperity sphere. Anyway, where are those Jews? Meanwhile, Roman was sent down to the town of Duria where he turned this town and the

surrounding areas into his personal fiefdom in an era of war and violence is the main way of solving any problem, Roman stuck out. His army worked on kidnapping anyone they deemed useful, anyone passing by would be robbed and murdered by his men, and because of racism, they targeted Chinese people in particular, where they would chop off their fingers to get the tight-fitting rings. This institutional banditry would become the main source of funding for his army

and would continue to be for the rest of this story no matter where this army moves and it will do some moving now the white army pretty much overall was led by a group of disjointed ununified group of warlords kind of sort of brought over their hatred of communism though like we said before not getting into it that much it's not that easy it is that dumb though these so-called barons which is where the he gets his nickname the barons that would command various parts of the white the white army's area of control would rule with an iron fist but they generally like to play at the fact that they were legitimate

government of whatever area they ruled over. They would set up administrations and whatever, you know, some people put up their own money, license plates, things like that. Roman wouldn't do any of that. And instead when people like brought him paperwork to sign or look at,

he would just throw them in the fire, uh, which is, I assume how most governments are administered. I mean, that's, he's just getting rid of the fire uh which is i assume how most governments are administered i mean that's he's just getting rid of the metaphor yeah he's he's cutting out wasteful government by throwing it in the fire now he only gave orders orally and forbade people to write them down like a gigantic war version of telephone what when Semenov thought this was kind of weird and sent a guy to check

on his records he had him beaten and drafted into his army which Semenov was weirdly cool with I am so god what and while he was the baron of this area he decided to sit down and do some studying do you want to guess what

he read, Liam? Something. Protocols of the Elders of Zion. You got it! You nailed it! Yeah. Now, why am I not surprised? I, again, want to say, as this podcast is Jewish co-host,

now that, of course, I've killed and deposed Nick, it's all true, folks. It's all true, folks. It's all true. The real Nicks are the friends we made along the way. Sure. We sent him to a North Korean gulag. Yeah, he's dead. Sorry. I'm only half of incorrect there.

He is in Korea and he cannot leave. Oh, it's not thoughts, Nick. Now, he got real deep into the protocols of elders of zion roman not nick now he decided that this was such a good piece of literature that everyone should read it so he had it printed out and passed out to all of his men where they would then be quizzed on it now notably ford party yeah no notably this is the only kind of paperwork he seemed to be cool with roman also came to the conclusion that census so it's being propelled by jews that the only answer was to quote

i'm sorry liam exterminate jews so neither men nor women nor even the people of this people will remain oh and i'm alive and he's not so once again scoreboard now roman gave explicit orders that

any jew that passed through his territory was to be summarily executed while doing this he got more and more involved in the occult, fucking around with playing cards and learning how to use them as tarot cards, which I wasn't aware you could do with playing cards. He also dedicated himself to being able to tell people's futures as well as read minds.

Okay, guy. Now, this makes a lot more sense when I tell you that his opium addiction had gotten wildly out of control by this point. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. People would say that he would stare you in the eyes for minutes at a time

and act like he's reading their minds and then just walk off. Now, remember, this is a guy that would just routinely kill people offhandedly. So he just comes over, locks eyes with you. Stinking of opium is like, Oh, is he reading my mind?

Or is he going to kill me today? I honestly can't tell. Um, now he had gotten so big on the opium that he decided, uh, he had actually used it to quit drinking. So he was solely doing opium at this point. That's funny.

I used, uh, uh, alcohol to quit using heroin. Yeah. I actually used a meth to quit smoking uh it's great yeah um no i did not oh well what the fuck joe i've ever once i'm worried about saying something like that like yeah i'm really someone's like wow i never knew you were an addict before

like oh i was you can direct all your complaints to me. I mean, I just used to drink and smoke. Yeah, you used to be cool. I know. I am not cool. You're on my podcast. Of course I'm not cool. Wow! Okay, guy. Now, he ordered all of his men to immediately quit drinking, and in order to do that, take opium, which didn't do great. It didn't work. So anyone who continued to drink would be able to strip

naked and go sleep on a frozen river where many men were eaten by wolves. Yeah, all right. That makes sense. This is a welcome to my three-step process. Step one. You're addicted to heroin if you're to wolves.

If you're eaten by wolves, whatever. Quit doing heroin using this one trick. Therapists hate him. It's just like a happy Beverly Hills Sobriety Institute commercial, but you're sitting naked on a river being chewed on by a wolf.

Thanks to wolves, I no longer am on the H isn't that right Grease the Gadims isn't that right as he's taking off all your hair now Roman and his gackt to the gills followers were so unhinged and violent that Seminoff decided to use that.

He ordered that everyone that like his secret police and everybody else in Siberia that was arrested by the white army were to be sent to Durya where they would be executed and tortured and executed. Because like, well, Romans people seem to be good at this and he wasn't wrong they ran a torture chamber in a place called a Macavivo that would end up killing 5,000 people though it's thought of that that's kind of an underestimate

that's probably way more because he also decided randomly that he would be really into burning bodies so not all of the remains survived. Now, as you know from history and pretty much every episode from this podcast, when you treat people terribly, they will eventually try to kill you. More and more Siberians became Soviet partisans, while still others, being completely politically unaffiliated,

formed bands of fighters to fight the whites because they were so sick of this shit. God, even the wolves are so fat from eating the junkies that they're not taking care of the rest of the predators. Just wobbling along like easy meat.

I need to run a lap or something. I know I shouldn't have another one but they're just so good. All of the alcohol and opium really leads to marbling of the fat. Now, while white soldiers under Roman and Seminov's command were tired of this, they're fucking deserting in mass because their bosses were insane. Like,

like what's my choice? Quit drinking, which their, their life is miserable at this point, right? Their bosses were insane. Like, what's my choice? Quit drinking, which their life is miserable at this point. Right. Like, do I quit drinking to take up opium and all the opium addicts look miserable? Or do I get eaten by fucking wolves? You know? So it's like, you know what? I'm willing to maybe go join these bandits in the countryside.

Oh, also, between 1919 and 1920 1920 typhus and cholera swept through siberia uh so being a doctor of uh of control of disease control you want to guess how he handled this just killing some guys yeah you coughed wrong they just shot you yeah all right and then uh he would just like, well, we need to get rid of these bodies. So he ordered them to be dumped in the nearby river, which of course is drinking water, which caused the spread of disease to get even worse.

And then he killed so many people. He clogged the fucking river. Like, beavers got like fucking outsourced to a psychopath with a pile of corpses so that's when he decided to switch to burning people which

sure I guess that's better I don't know don't kill people maybe don't do that thankfully by 1920 ish the reign of terror that the whites had brought on to Siberia was just about over because

they were getting their shit kicked in by Soviets, by disaffected whites, by angry bands of people who just fucking hated everyone at this point, the Chinese, various other people, and they were going to have to leave Siberia. That's when Roman himself

abandoned his friend Semenov and retreated over the Mongolian border with what was left of his army. And the second and final adventure in Mongolia, which will promise to be far more insane and dumb than the first, is where we will pick up next time

on the conclusion of the bloody White Baron and his band of duology. Opium bandits I've been there I mean who amongst us haven't done a bunch of opium and fed ourselves to fed our like friends and our legs to wolves

to kick alcohol yeah we've all had rough days oh Jesus anyway Liam I'm sorry that's fine Joe to be fair when I started this research project, I did not know he was an anti-Semite. It just ended up being that way.

That's fine, Joe. Which I should have realized he was in the white military, which did some of the worst pogroms of the Russian Civil War. That's fine, Joe. But that is part one. Liamam thank you for joining me plug yourself well there's a problem with the podcast on engineering disasters notably it's joke sabian free that makes it good that's not entirely true i'm on there every once in a while yeah you are and generally you talk about anti-semites

uh uh much less which is good um i mean building it's it's hard for a building to hate jews you'd be surprised god damn it fuck uh who is the architecture firm for this company oh it's the ungern von sternberg uh group Oh, shit. This is Mein Kampf and Associates. That's not good. That's bad. Anyway, everybody, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. You make everything we do possible for some reason.

Sorry about it. Until next time. I don't know. Be nice to the Jews, please. Be nice to the Jews, for fuck's sake. For once, please.