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Anew the motor car was rushing along, sweeping a great circle on the prairie, and anew Baron Ungern with his sharp, nervous voice carried his thoughts round the whole circumference of Asian life. "Russia turned traitor to France, England and America, signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and ushered in a reign of chaos. We then decided to mobilize Asia against Germany.
Soon we were out on the plain with the car going like an arrow, with the wind whistling and tossing the folds of our coats and caps. But Baron Ungern, sitting with closed eyes, repeated: "Faster! Faster!" For a long time we were both silent. "And yesterday I beat my adjutant for rushing into my yurta and interrupting my story," he said. "You can finish it now," I answered.
Another part of the letter told how General Bakitch and the six thousand men who had been interned with him by the Chinese authorities on the River Amyl had received arms and started to join with Ataman Annenkoff, who had been interned in Kuldja, with the ultimate intention of linking up with Baron Ungern.
Afterwards in Urga I learned more of this General Rezukhin distinguished by his absolute bravery and boundless cruelty. He was the watchdog of Baron Ungern, ready to throw himself into the fire and to spring at the throat of anyone his master might indicate.
Fifteen miles further on we crossed a battlefield, where the third great battle for the independence of Mongolia had been fought. Here the troops of Baron Ungern clashed with six thousand Chinese moving down from Kiakhta to the aid of Urga. The Chinese were completely defeated and four thousand prisoners taken. However, these surrendered Chinese tried to escape during the night.
In among the noisy crowd Mongol, Buriat and Tibetan riders threaded swiftly; caravans of camels solemnly raised their heads as we passed; the wooden wheels of the Mongol carts screamed in pain; and all was illumined by splendid great arc lights from the electric station which Baron Ungern had ordered erected immediately after the capture of Urga, together with a telephone system and wireless station.
Surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of the splendid hotel at Peking, while shedding all the attributes of traveler, hunter and warrior, I could not, however, throw off the spell of those nine days spent in Urga, where I had daily met Baron Ungern, "Incarnated God of War."
Djam Bolon came back with a little woman of middle years, who squatted down eastern style before the brazier, bowed low and began to stare at Baron Ungern. Her face was whiter, narrower and thinner than that of a Mongol woman. Her eyes were black and sharp. Her dress resembled that of a gypsy woman.
We knew that in the neighborhood of Urga and Van Kure engagements were taking place between the Chinese troops and the detachments of the Anti-Bolshevik Russian General Baron Ungern Sternberg and Colonel Kazagrandi, who were fighting for the independence of Outer Mongolia.
This group explained that they were former officers in the Imperial Guard. They were Colonels Poletika, N. N. Philipoff and three of the latter's brothers. They announced that they wanted to collect all the White officers and soldiers then in Mongolia and China and lead them to Urianhai to fight the Bolsheviki; but that first they wanted to wipe out Ungern and return Mongolia to China.
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