Col. Prince Bermondt-Avalov (I)

Pavel Rafalovich Bermondt-Avalov was a tsarist officer in the staff of the General Prince Anatoly Pavlovich Lieven. When the Revolution exploded in Russia, they both, and afterwards Bermondt-Avalov on his own, enrolled a mixed German-Russian voluntary White Russian army to fight the Bolsheviks . Bermondt-Avalov was an enchanter and an adventurer. He was born a Ussuri Cossack, then adopted by the Georgian Prince Avalashvili (Avalov in Russian). He and Gen. von der Goltz had seized Latvia. The director of the Bank of Latvia joined them. Bermondt-Avalov had him print his own rubles (as Ernst von Salomon recounts in his memories, all his German soldiers kept them as a joke, only the Russian ones considered them seriously). He was tall, scenic, in his Cossack uniform. He rode a wonderful steed and kept his yatagan through his belt. He was called names by his enemies. He won battles, he lost wars. He was loyal to the Russian Empire, a Monarchist. A German by adoption. He settled in Germany, went across all the conservative movements in Weimar times. The Nazis imprisoned and deported him. He escaped. He lived in Belgrade, he died in New York. He was a wonderful aesthetical adventurer. He had the occasions, and the guts to go through them, and the will to survive. His eyes were deep blue. His moustaches were jet black. His baldness hidden under the Ushanka. Pure rhetoric of war. But of first choice, an ideal life for a novelist.