Famous in Finland

A forthcoming Haus book has already attracted attention in Finland, where it has made the pages of the country’s best-selling newspaper, the Helsingin Sanomat. Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy chronicles the adventures of a cavalry officer in the Tsar’s service, who spent two years crossing China on horseback and posing as an anthropologist. In fact, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim was one of the Tsar’s secret agents, spying on China to allay Russian fears of a new war in the Far East.

 

Mannerheim was a career cavalry officer, who gave up the easy life of a palace guardsman in Saint Petersburg for active service fighting the Japanese in Manchuria. After his two-year spying mission in China, Mannerheim found later fame as a general, regent and eventually president of Finland, which broke away from Tsarist Russia amid the upheavals of 1917. He is mainly remembered for leading the country’s defence from Soviet attack in WW2. But Marco Polo author Jonathan Clements was drawn to the oriental adventures of the young Mannerheim, who taught the 13th Dalai Lama how to use a gun, sent home notes on the Japanese navy in invisible ink, and once accidentally camped on top of the site of the legendary Terracotta Army. In particular, Clements was intrigued by the young Mannerheim’s feud with the French explorers who were supposed to provide his cover story.

 

The distinguished orientalist Paul Pelliot was forced to take Mannerheim along on his own cross-Asia expedition as the price of a visa for Russian Turkestan. Pelliot was increasingly jumpy about the presence of a spy in his party, and the military Mannerheim and the scholarly Pelliot were constantly at odds, eventually icily parting company.

 

But while Mannerheim’s thoughts on Pelliot are known, Pelliot’s impressions of Mannerheim have only been made available recently, with the publication of Carnets de Route, Pelliot’s account of his own Asian journey. Mining this new French-language source for detail, Jonathan Clements found himself suddenly facing enquiries from eager Finns, keen to add to the country’s cottage industry in Mannerheim Studies, several months ahead of the book’s scheduled publication.

 

The Helsingin Sanomat article is now available in online English translation here:

 

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/British%20historian%20writes%20book%20on%20Mannerheim__s%20journey%20through%20Asia/1135244374867

 

 

Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy will be released by Haus Publishing in October 2009.