Roman von Ungern-Sternberg

Born into the Russian Empire's Baltic German nobility, Ungern-Sternberg served as a military officer through the empire's collapse. After the 1917 Revolution he became an ultraconservative warlord in the Russian Civil War, fixated on restoring the Russian throne and reviving Mongol imperial power under the Bogd Khan. His devotion to Vajrayana Buddhism and his brutal treatment of soldiers and enemies earned him the nickname "the Mad Baron". In February 1921, commanding the Asiatic Cavalry Division, he expelled Chinese troops from Outer Mongolia and reinstalled the Bogd Khan, then ruled the capital through fear and systematic violence against Bolsheviks and Chinese. Four months later he rode into eastern Siberia to rally anti-Bolshevik partisans; within two months the Red Army captured him. He was tried for counter-revolution in a six-hour proceeding in Novonikolayevsk and shot the same day.