Gustav Mannerheim was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century and the only man to be decorated by both sides in both World Wars. He witnessed the coronation of the last Tsar, and he was both reprimanded for foolhardiness and decorated for bravery in the Russo-Japanese War. He spent two years undercover in Asia as an agent in the "Great Game," posing as a Swedish anthropologist, and then crossed China on horseback, stopping en route to teach the thirteenth Dalai Lama how to fire a pistol. After narrowly escaping the Bolsheviks in 1917, he arrived home to a newly independent Finland before leading the defence of his country in the Winter War.