{"id":6068,"date":"2015-08-06T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=6068"},"modified":"2015-08-06T16:29:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T20:29:09","slug":"international-man-of-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2015\/08\/06\/international-man-of-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"International Man of Mystery??"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"cov1_0018\"<\/a> \"cov1_0017\"<\/a> \"cov1_0020\"<\/a> \"cov1_0019\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I came across this French volume the other day and assumed it was about some sort of military hero, but as I took a closer look at the cover of the book I noticed that he was apparently a Swiss officer, a Swiss diplomat, a French officer, and a vagabond??\u00a0 So who was Hans Ormund Bringolf?\u00a0 Clearly my interest was piqued though I couldn’t find much reputable information only vague theories and scant biographical sketches.\u00a0 From these sources a picture emerged of a man who seemed to go in out and of military service while having a number of sketchy dealings.<\/p>\n

Bringolf was first in the Swiss military \"cov1_0018\"<\/a> while studying the law and earned the nickname “Lieutenant Blessed” because he had been declared prematurely dead on several occasions while on maneuvers, presumably due to his recklessness. \u00a0After\u00a0earned his law degree he joined the Swiss Diplomatic service\u00a0during which time<\/p>\n

\"cov1_0017\"<\/a> he forged some checks and was expelled in 1904.\u00a0 To avoid prosecution he went to America where he was a commander of a U.S. police contingent in the Philippines, though he was later jailed for fraud in Peru. \u00a0 After he was released he went\u00a0back to Germany where he pretended to be Baron von Tscharner, was found out and served another prison sentence.\u00a0 During World War I he served in the French army in Serbia where he earned another nickname “The Lion of Manastir”\u00a0\"cov1_0020\"<\/a> for his audacious behavior on the front.\u00a0 This supposedly inducted him in the Legion of Honor.\u00a0 However it wasn’t long before he was caught up in more fradulent actitivies.<\/p>\n

Eventually he settled in Hallau where he wrote his memoir, this version was edited by Blaise Cendrars and translated by Paul Budry.\u00a0 It would be interesting to see how Bringolf presents himself in this book for it seems more likely that a description of him as “criminal” is more apt than vagabond.\u00a0 To explore his interpretation of his life story you can find this volume in Widener’s collection.<\/p>\n

\"cov1_0016\"<\/a> Feu le lieutenant Bringolf.<\/a> [Traduction de Paul Budry. Version de Blaise Cendrars]. Paris, Au sans pareil, 1930.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Alison Harris, Julio Mario Santo Domingo Project Manager, for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired\u00a0Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. I came across this French volume the other day and assumed it was about some sort of military hero, but as I took a closer look at the cover of the book I noticed that he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[72741],"tags":[131805,131802,3826,131800,131797,131804,72720,15132,131803,131801,131799,131798],"class_list":["post-6068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-widener-library","tag-being-the-memoirs-of-lieutenant-bringolf","tag-blaise-cendrars","tag-fraud","tag-french-officer","tag-hans-ormund-bringolf","tag-i-have-no-regrets-the-strange-life-of-a-diplomat-vagrant","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection","tag-memoir","tag-paul-budry","tag-swiss-diplomat","tag-swiss-officer","tag-wwi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-1zS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6068"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6221,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions\/6221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}