Mannerheim's tiger-skin trophy now adorns wall in Finnish garrison
Finland's wartime Marshal shot four tigers in Nepal in 1937
By Antti Manninen
Monday of last week marked the 70th anniversary of the day when the then Field Marshal C.G. E. Mannerheim, Finland’s wartime commander-in-chief and the country’s first post-war President, donated the skin of an Indian tiger to the Finnish White Guard.
The animal was one of four he had shot in the previous year while on a trip to India that also included a tiger safari in Nepal with the King of Nepal.
Since 1937, the tiger-skin has led a rather colourful and well-travelled life. Until Monday, that is, when it finally found a place of honour on the wall of the trophy room at the Guard Jaeger Regiment’s HQ at the Santahamina army garrison, in the eastern suburbs of Helsinki.
The Director of the Mannerheim Museum Vera von Fersen was present at the ceremony. She was delighted that the pelt, which had for years been stored in the museum’s attic, could now be put back on display.
"And the only rightful place for it is in the premises upholding the traditions of the Finnish White Guard", she said.
After the Continuation War (1941-44), when the White Guards were disbanded on the orders of the Soviet Union, the tiger-skin was given to the War Museum, who then returned it to the Mannerheim Museum.
There it went into storage, because the museum had two other skins from that same hunting trip - in all Mannerheim shot four animals, including one reputed to have been a man-eater.
The fourth skin is in the hands of the now-disbanded Uusimaa Dragoon Regiment in Lappeenranta.
At the time of the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Mannerheim was the honorary commander of this regiment, whose history stretches back to the 17th century. Under Russian rule the Dragoons had been the only cavalry regiment in Finland. It was first disbanded in 1901, and then reformed briefly to fight on the ultimately victorious White side in the Civil War.
Mannerheim was already approaching the age of 70 when - at the end of 1936 - he received an invitation from an English friend, and then later also from the titular monarch of Nepal, King Tribhuvan, to take part in a big game hunt.
At the time, the then President of Finland P.E. Svinhufvud was coming to the end of his term, and Mannerheim was soon to be relieved of his tasks as Chairman of the Defence Council.
Despite the strenuous efforts of his friends to persuade him otherwise, Mannerheim decided to repeat the trip he had made to India some nine years earlier, in which his hunting fortunes had been less than stellar: not one tiger had been shot.
He travelled by sea via London, Marseilles, and the Suez Canal to India.
While in London he acquired for himself a suitable weapon for the task, a double-barrelled Mauser that had been rechambered by the famous British gunmakers James Purdey & Sons.
“It looks just like a shortgun and it is a powerful weapon", reports Nikolai Marschan, a guide at the Mannerheim Museum.
The hunt hosts put several dozen elephants at Mannerheim’s disposal. The actual shooting took place from the baskets strapped to the elephant’s back.
The Marshal reports in his memoirs that initially his luck was just as bad as in 1928.
In the view of the natives this was because of the anger of their gods, who first had to be suitably appeased and mollified with a proper celebration.
Thereafter things looked up, and Mannerheim bagged four tigers, including one huge beast that allegedly measured 323 cm from nose to tail. This magnificent specimen, which was also said to have killed two men, is on the floor of the salon at the Mannerheim Museum.
Mannerheim had the skins dressed professionally in London.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.1.2008
Links:
Mannerheim Museum
Mannerheim website
Mannerheim and Hunting
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (Wikipedia)
White Guard (Wikipedia)
ANTTI MANNINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
antti.manninen@hs.fi
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| 5.2.2008 - THIS WEEK |
Mannerheim's tiger-skin trophy now adorns wall in Finnish garrison
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