“Adrian my boy, beware the call to arms.
War is hell, and never forget it!
Violence begets violence, there is nothing for you on the field of battle but suffering
and death!”
“Adrian, my son!
You’ve returned from uni-whaaaaa?”
“It was everything you told me father…
everything you told me and more…
I can’t wait to do it again!”
[intro]
Do you want to serve your country?
How about someone else’s?
Why not ours?
This is the army.
Just four years of service can completely change your life.
Do you want to start a new life with your best friend on a 500,000 acre hunting estate
in the marshes of Poland?
Do you want to avoid capture by Italian fascists when disguising yourself as a peasant?
You’ll hardly recognize yourself with your newfound confidence and skills.
Unless you have an opinion about keeping your arms, legs, face, mental health, your very
life and maybe your immortal soul.
In which case you need Babbel!
Yes, Babbel’s 10 minute interactive language learning lessons will have you speaking in
just three weeks!
You’ll learn with lessons, games, podcasts, and much more in less time than it takes to
finish bootcamp.
You’ll have the skills and the confidence to travel the world and make friends who probably
won’t die in a ditch with their face blown off.
See them at a local foreign coffee shop, and not in your nightmares.
Babbel.
Dulce et Decorum est.
Mr. Carton de Wiart is probably one of the biggest mad lads to ever walk this Earth,
which has cemented his place in pop history.
He was born to an aristocratic family in Brussels, but one apocryphal tale says he was a dark
prince, the illegitimate son of King Leopold II, a backstory which would make him a good
10% cooler, if it weren’t for all the slavery and genocide that Leopold did.
Adrian grew up living the kind of privileged life most people in his day could only dream
of: he studied at an elite British boarding school and went to Oxford University, the
man had the opportunity to become anything he wanted and he chose to drop out and be
a soldier.
To each his own.
Adrian was shipped out to South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War, which long-time
viewers may recognize put him in direct opposition to another boots-on-the-ground mad lad Fritz
Duquesne, otherwise known as the spy who escaped prison, smuggled himself into America, became
best friends with the president, nearly convinced Congress to start a hippo farm in Louisiana,
and left behind about 40 billion dollars worth of buried treasure.
Anyway Adrian comes home with serious injuries to his stomach and groin, but for whatever
reason he’s in love with the military.
Possibly because when he wasn’t at war he had enough money and free time to play polo
and schmooze his way around Europe, but don’t let that mislead you.
Yes he was aristocrat-ing it up fox hunting in England and courting his future wife countess
Friederike Maria Karoline Henriette Rosa Sabina Franziska Fugger von Babenhausen, eldest daughter
of Karl, 5th Fürst von Fugger-Babenhausen and Princess Eleonora zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein
und Jagstberg of Klagenfurt, but in kind of the same way an athlete might train for a
marathon, Adrian was staying fit training for war.
When at long last World War One finally kicks off, Adrian is already en route to Somaliland
to go kick some teeth in and, uh, ends up getting shot in the face twice.
It’s noteworthy that this man’s claim to fame is all the times he got shot without
dying, I wonder if the British strategy was just “De Wiart!
Are you ready to be a hero?”
“Yes sir!”
“Great!
You’re the tank of the party, we need you to get out there and draw aggro so we can
shoot the Somalis while they’re busy shooting you”
Because in 1915 they move him to the Western front with one eyeball and missing half an
ear, and no one’s writing home about this guy’s skills as an infantry battalion leader,
although I have to say, I would have been terrified if I were put in his battalion.
He specifically requested that he and his men be put into the most dangerous situations
possible, in the course of the first world war Adrian Carton de Wiart was shot through
the ankle at the Battle of the Somme, shot through the skull in the same battle, continued
serving to be shot in the hip, shot in the ear again, lost his left hand, and when the
doctor refused to amputate he ripped off his own fingers.
When asked years later what it was like to serve in the most hellish war ever fought
up to that point, he replies “Frankly I had enjoyed the war”.
You know what though, one thing that gets downplayed that I think deserves more respect:
rather than pop back to Britain to live up the roaring 20s, Adrian took a post as 2nd
in command of Britain’s Mission to support the newly formed Polish Republic.
Poland, as you might know, was basically resurrected from the grave after World War One, but a
lot of its neighbors were ready with shovels to send it back.
Adrian fought the Bolsheviks, the Ukranians, the Lithuanians, the Czechs, all the while
sending messages to the British Prime Minister that read “Dear Mister Prime Minister, In
order to further our mission, might I request that the UK do something about this war”
to which the Prime Minister replied “To the Esteemed Mr. Carton de Wiart, Thank you
for your report on the threats to our mission in Poland.
Please tell the Poles to eat my shorts”
Honestly it’s a small miracle Poland made it in one piece to 1939 but then, well, Germany
gave power to a man with a toothbrush stache and about 70% of a Karen haircut who makes
friends with the Soviets just long enough to wipe Poland off the map.
Britain declares war in response, and Adrian, as an enemy of both the Germans and the Soviets,
now finds himself in quite a predicament.
Adrian’s job originally was to advise Polish high command, but Poland was quickly down
for the count.
The Soviets overran the estate he’d called home for the last two decades and Adrian flees
the country headed South.
The Luftwaffe attack his convoy while the battle lines are closing in from either side,
but he manages to cross the border into Romania, and from there he hitch a plane ride with
a fake passport.
He was given the rank of acting major general and led a force to retake the city of Trondheim
but ended up stuck in the snow surrounded by Nazis because the British refused to withdraw
for political reasons, then when the army finally got around to pulling him out of there
he was going to be moved to Northern Ireland to defend against a posible invasion, but
Northern Ireland’s new commander-in-chief decreed that at 60 years of age, Adrian was
too old to be leading active duty troops.
Instead he would be sent on
"Diplomatic mission to meet with the Yugoslavian government and negotiate terms for an alliance
in the likely event Hitler invaded the country.
Bah!
That’s no fun at all.”
“Well it could be worse, at least -” [KABLOOEY] “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh?”
“The left engine’s failed, we’ll have to start a descent and reroute to the nearest
-” [KABLOOM] [Red lights flashing, sirens wailing]
“I hope you read your handbooks!”
Believe it or not, not the first time Adrian survived a plane crash.
They splashed down off the coast of Italian Libya.
The Italian army was waiting for them when they came to shore and hauled them off to
prison.
Adrian was put in a special POW camp for high-ranking officers in an old castle.
I’m sure it was dire straits, but hell if the trenches were peachy you’d think this
would be like summer camp.
He made 5 different escape attempts, and once managed to escape the fortress after 7 months
of digging.
He disguised himself as a peasant in Northern Italy, but was quickly identified as the only
61-year-old with an eyepatch and a missing arm who couldn’t speak Italian.
"Good evening, Mr. de Wiart.”
“Where are we?”
“You have been transferred, to a very special facility in Rome.
We’re here to ask you some questions” “Unless you’re here to negotiate your
surrender I’ve got nothing to say to you” [evil laugh] “Is that so?
Then perhaps…
you will help us negotiate our surrender.”
In a stunning turn of events, yes, Italy was secretly preparing to exit the war in 1943
and Adrian was flown off with an Italian negotiator to Lisbon where they had a nice talk with
the British, and then Adrian was flown back to Britain as a free man.
Score!
Then within a month he got another unexpected transfer.
Churchill noticed that the last time he heard anything about Adrian he was crashing into
the ocean and two years later he was negotiating Italy doing…
well, what Italy does in World Wars.
So Churchill sends de Wiart to be his personal representative in China.
Much like Poland, Adrian found a new home in China and developed a love for the country
and its citizens, once lifted of his preconception of “a whimsical little people with quaint
customs who carved lovely jade ornaments and worshiped their grandmothers”
He did a lot of reporting back to Britain, nothing as crazy as crashing a plane, escaping
a POW camp, or getting shot through the skull.
Damn war heroes living long boring lives instead of dying in a blaze of glory.
He must’ve gotten close, though, the Chinese government in the 40s didn’t last long,
what with Mao Zedong’s impending communist takeover and all.
And when Adrian met Mao at a dinner, he got up to interrupt the great leader’s speech
to accost him for his actions during the war.
Mao was in a good enough mood and Adrian was British enough that the great leader laughed
it off, but part of me wonders if Adrian was hoping to cross ‘fistfight with a dictator’
off his bucket list.
He continued his work in China for a few years, traveling through Southeast Asia as well,
until he made the decision to retire in 1947, and on his way back home to Britain, he slipped
on some stairs, broke several bones, and fell unconscious but didn’t die!
Whew, that was a close one.
He lived until 1963 and spent more than a decade in retirement with his second wife.