Hans von Manteuffel

Baron Hans von Manteuffel, captain in the Baltisches Landeswehr, the Baltic Territorial Army at the orders of General Count Ruediger von der Goltz, which unified the armed forces of Couronian and Livonian nobility (many of them formerly under the Russian Czar) and acted in the war theater of the actual Baltic republics. He led his detachment of assault troops across the bridge on the Daugava river. He was at their head, as ancient chiefs used. He was shot and killed, that very same day his men captured Riga. His funerals proved astonishing: white-caparisoned horses as for ancient Teutonic Knights, he descended from them as most of the Baltic nobility. Two last pictures of him was taken on May 21, 1919, the day before he died . Among other officers, with the attention of Gen. von der Goltz, he was bent, concentrated in studying a map of the city to take. Then he lit a cigarette, he gave a look at the horizon. He thought, maybe, of the battle awaiting for him. Maybe he thought of his destiny, too. He was 27. This futuristic portrait of him is faithful to his last image recorded.