This is an accepted version of this page Polish–Soviet WarPolish–Ukrainian WarPolish–Lithuanian WarSecond World War Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart,[1] VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (/də ˈwaɪ.ərt/;[2] 5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was an officer in the British Army.

He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own severely injured fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them.

[6] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography described him thus: "With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend.

[10] In his position as a lawyer, magistrate, and a director of the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company, his father was well connected in Egyptian governmental circles.

[14] Carton de Wiart's serious wound in the Boer War instilled in him a strong desire for physical fitness and he ran, jogged, walked, and played sports on a regular basis.

While on leave, he travelled extensively throughout central Europe, using his Catholic aristocratic connections to shoot at country estates in Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, and Bavaria.

[21] The Duke of Beaufort was the honorary colonel of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, and from 1 January 1912 until his departure for Somaliland in 1914 Carton de Wiart served as the regiment's adjutant.

He was 36 years old, and a temporary lieutenant-colonel in the 4th Dragoon Guards (Royal Irish), British Army, attached to the Gloucestershire Regiment, commanding the 8th Battalion, when the following events took place on 2/3 July 1916 at La Boiselle, France, as recorded in the official citation: Capt.

[38] A.S. Bullock gives a vivid first-hand description of his arrival: 'Cold shivers went down the back of everyone in the brigade, for he had an unsurpassed record as a fire eater, missing no chance of throwing the men under his command into whatever fighting happened to be going.'

[39] At the end of the war Carton de Wiart was sent to Poland as second in command of the British-Poland Military Mission under General Louis Botha.

After an aircraft crash occasioning a brief period in Lithuanian captivity, he went back to England to report, this time to the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill.

They became friends and Carton de Wiart was given the use of a large estate called Prostyń, in the Pripet Marshes, a wetland area larger than Ireland and surrounded by water and forests.

[48] After 15 years, Carton de Wiart's peaceful Polish life was interrupted by the looming war, when he was recalled in July 1939 and appointed to his old job, as head of the British Military Mission to Poland.

[48] Carton de Wiart met with the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły, in late August 1939 and formed a rather low opinion of his capabilities.

His car convoy was attacked by the Luftwaffe on the road, and the wife of one of his aides was killed, and he was in danger of arrest in Romania and only got out by aircraft on 21 September with a false passport—just in time, as the pro-Allied Romanian prime minister, Armand Calinescu, was assassinated that very day.

[56] After a brief stint in command of the 61st Division in the English Midlands, Carton de Wiart was summoned in April 1940 to take charge of a hastily drawn together Anglo-French force to occupy Namsos, a small town in middle Norway.

The naval attack on Trondheim, the reason for the Namsos landing, did not happen and his troops were exposed without guns, transport, air cover, or skis in a foot and a half of snow.

The transports successfully evacuated the entire force amid heavy bombardment by the Germans, resulting in the sinking of two destroyers: the French Bison and British HMS Afridi.

[61] However, following the arrival of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall as Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland, Carton de Wiart was told that he was too old to command a division on active duty.

Carton de Wiart made friends, especially with General Sir Richard O'Connor, The 6th Earl of Ranfurly and Lieutenant-General Philip Neame, VC.

In letters to his wife, Lord Ranfurly described Carton de Wiart in captivity as "a delightful character" and said he "must hold the record for bad language."

The Italian government was secretly planning to leave the war and wanted Carton de Wiart to send the message to the British Army about a peace treaty with the UK.

[69] Within a month of his arrival back in England, Carton de Wiart was summoned to spend a night at the prime minister's country home at Chequers.

Anglo-Chinese relations were difficult in World War II as the Kuomintang had long called for the end of British extraterritorial rights in China together with the return of Hong Kong, neither proposal being welcome to Churchill.

[72] Before arriving in China, Carton de Wiart attended the 1943 Cairo Conference organized by Churchill, U.S. President Roosevelt and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

He wrote that, when he was appointed as Churchill's personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek in China, he imagined a country "full of whimsical little people with quaint customs who carved lovely jade ornaments and worshiped their grandmothers.

[79] Carton de Wiart was assigned to a tour of the Burma front, and after meeting Admiral Sir James Somerville, commander-in-chief of the British Eastern Fleet, he was given a front seat on the bridge of the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth for the bombardment of Sabang in the Netherlands East Indies in 1945, including air battles between Japanese fighters and British carrier aircraft.

The journalist and historian Max Hastings writes: "De Wiart despised all Communists on principle, denounced Mao Zedong as 'a fanatic', and added: 'I cannot believe he means business'.

"[81] He met Mao Zedong at dinner and had a memorable exchange with him, interrupting his propaganda speech to criticise him for holding back from fighting the Japanese for domestic political reasons.

After a visit to Peking, he moved to Nanking, the now-liberated Nationalist capital, accompanied by Julian Amery, the British Prime Minister's Personal Representative to Chiang.