In February 1921, at the head of the Asiatic Cavalry Division, Ungern expelled Chinese troops from Mongolia and restored the monarchic power of the Bogd Khan.

During his five-month occupation of Outer Mongolia, Ungern imposed order on the capital city, Ikh Khüree (now Ulaanbaatar), by fear, intimidation and brutal violence against his opponents, such as the Bolsheviks, Jews and Chinese.

[5] Ungern-Sternberg grew up in the Governorate, with his home being the Hoyningen-Huene estate at Jerwakant (modern Järvakandi, Estonia), deep in the forests, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) from Reval.

"[9] Ungern-Sternberg believed that return to monarchies in Europe was possible with the aid of "cavalry people" – meaning Russian Cossacks, Buryats, Tatars, Mongols, Kyrgyz, Kalmyks, etc.

These events were traumatic for Ungern-Sternberg, confirming his belief that the Estonian peasants who worked on his family's lands were all "rough, untutored, wild and constantly angry, hating everybody and everything without understanding why".

His cousin Count Hermann von Keyserling, who later knew him well, wrote that the baron was very curious from his teenage years onward with "Tibetan and Hindu philosophy" and often spoke of the mystical powers possessed by "geometrical symbols".

Comparison of old narrations collected by B. Rinchen with scattered memoir data and memories preserved in Mongolia suggested that Ungern could be associated with Gesar, who in some Buddhist representations of the Mongols was considered the god of war and associated with Jamsaran.

His request was granted, and he served as an officer in eastern Siberia in the 1st Argunsky and then in the 1st Amursky Cossack regiments, where he became enthralled with the lifestyle of nomadic peoples, such as the Mongols and Buryats.

Ungern moved to Outer Mongolia to assist the Mongols in their struggle for independence from China, but Russian officials prevented him from fighting on the side of Mongolian troops.

[25] On 19 July 1914, Ungern joined frontline forces as part of the second-turn 34th Regiment of Cossack troops stationed on the Austro-Hungarian frontier in Galicia.

These decorations were offset by disciplinary issues: he was eventually discharged from one of his command positions for attacking another officer and a hall porter during a drunken rage in October 1916, for which he was sentenced to two months in prison after a court martial.

They maintained it as a stronghold in their preparations for war in the Transbaikal region, raising troops in a Special Manchurian Regiment, the nucleus of forces led by Grigory Semyonov.

[35] Kolchak was a conservative but not a monarchist, and he promised that after the victory of the Whites he would reconvene the Constituent Assembly, disbanded by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, which would then decide the future of Russia, including the question of whether to restore the monarchy.

[37] In Dauria, Ungern formed the volunteer Asiatic Cavalry Division (ACD), creating a fortress where he launched attacks on Red forces.

[40] In 1919, taking advantage of the instability in Russia, the Chinese government, established by members of the Anhui military party, sent troops, led by General Xu Shuzheng, to join Outer Mongolia to China.

This action violated the terms of a tripartite Russian-Mongolian-Chinese agreement concluded in 1915 that secured Mongolian autonomy and did not allow the presence of Chinese troops except minimal consular guards.

[46] The marriage had a political aim, as Ji was a relative of General Zhang Kuiwu, the commander of Chinese troops at the western end of the Chinese-Manchurian Railway and the governor of Hailar.

[35] After Kolchak's defeat by the Reds and Japan's subsequent decision to withdraw its expeditionary troops from the Transbaikal, Semyonov, unable to withstand the pressure of Bolshevik forces, planned a retreat to Manchuria.

After the defeat, his forces retreated to the upper currents of the Kherlen River, in Setsen-Khan Aimag, a district ruled by princes with the title Setsen Khan, in eastern Outer Mongolia.

[49] The Chinese had tightened their control of Outer Mongolia by then, by strictly regulating Buddhist services in monasteries and imprisoning Russians and Mongols whom they considered "separatists".

Borrowing a tactic from Genghis Khan, he ordered his troops to light a large number of campfires in the hills surrounding Urga and to use them as reference points for Rezukhin's detachment.

[44][page needed] Early on 4 February, Ungern launched an assault on the Chinese White barracks from the east, captured them and divided his forces into two parts.

Several hundred Cossack and Mongol troops were dispatched to stop the several thousand Chinese in the area of Talyn Ulaankhad Hill near the Urga–Uliastai road in central Mongolia.

In April 1921 he wrote to Beijing distancing Outer Mongolia from Ungern's vision and asking if the Chinese government would be interested in resuming the dominant relationship it had had under the former emperors.

In 1921, various Red Army units belonging to Soviet Russia and to the Far Eastern Republic invaded the newly independent Mongolia to defeat Ungern.

[b] Believing that he had the unwavering popular support of locals in Siberia and Mongolia, Ungern failed to strengthen his troops properly, although he was vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the Red forces.

[21][page needed] Chinese forces slaughtered most of a 350 strong White Russian forces in June 1921 under Colonel Kazagrandi in the Gobi desert, with only two batches of 42 men and 35 men surrendering separately as Chinese were wiping out White Russian remnants following the Soviet Red army defeat of Ungern Sternberg, and other Buryat and White Russian remnants of Ungern-Sternberg's army were massacred by Soviet Red Army and Mongol forces in the same summer, in Uliastai Mongols beat Colonel Vangdabov's Buryats to death with clubs for being loyal to Ungern-Sternberg.

[75][page range too broad] After a show trial of 6 hours and 15 minutes on 15 September 1921, prosecuted by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, Ungern was sentenced to execution by firing squad.

His campaigns in Mongolia were, at best, quixotic efforts to re-establish dead empires, marked by brutality and violence directed at not only his own troops but the local populace.

His expedition to Mongolia and conquest of Urga, by driving the Chinese out the country, also eliminated the one force in the region which might have been a match for the Red Army and made it inevitable that the Soviets would invade.