"Into the fire through trenches and mud,
Son of Belgium and Ireland with war in his blood,
Leading the charge into hostile barrage,
By design, he was made for the frontline!"
-"The Unkillable Soldier" performed by Sabaton, 2022
Imagine being totally insane and war-hungry, even Death would not lay his hands on you until the ripe age of 83. This is what happened when you are a former law student which was also a 5-war veteran, who suffer various injuries from mild like grazed ear to wild like losing his own eye and hand. The latest war time story is centered around this one British soldier, who was actually born in Belgium, carrying Belgian and Irish blood. Some even said that he was the illegitimate son of a certain Belgian king.
The name was Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart. He was born in Brussels on the 5th of May 1880 into a Belgian aristocratic family who practices law, from lawyer Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart and Ernestine Wenzig, who was Irish. Despite this, some also suggests that young Adrian was the illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians. He was also had strong connections through his cousins. One was the Prime Minister of Belgium; the other was the Political Secretary to the King. Nevertheless, when his mother passed away sometime between 1886, Léon Carton de Wiart subsequently moved to Cairo, Egypt with young Adrian, so he could practice international law there. During this time, young Adrian had developed a fascination of warfare. Hell, he once stated in his Happy Odyssey autobiography that if the British didn't recruit him by the time of the Second Boer War in 1899, he would still go to South Africa to fight with the Boers instead. He did eventually enlist with the British army for that campaign, but had to do so with fake identity, as he was a foreigner and underage for that matter (he was 20 prior to enlistment, the army requires someone to be at least 25 years of age).
When he arrived in South Africa, he was immediately exposed to the chaos of warfare, and subsequently received his first wounds, being shot in the stomach and groin respectively. By his accounts, he described the Boers as a bunch who has "pretty good shots". His shenanigans in South Africa earned the wrath of his father for abandoning his law studies but allowed him to stay in the army. During his first 8 years serving in the army, he remained a Belgian citizen. In September 1907, he finally took his oath of allegiance to King Edward VII, officially making him a British citizen. When the First World War broke out, he was actually en route to British Somaliland for a campaign against Mohammad bin Abdullah, dubbed "Mad Mullah" by the British. During that battle, he was assigned to the Somaliland Camel Corps. During a battle at Shimber Berris, Carton de Wiart was shot in the face not once or twice, but three times. One bullet struck him in his left eye, one grazed his left ear, and another ricochet and buried itself in the same wounded eye.
When Carton de Wiart actually participated in the Great War itself, he had to sign an agreement to wear a glass eye to replace his destroyed left eye. But he immediately ditched that eye from his taxi, and replaced it with a black eyepatch, creating his well-known signature look. He then took part in the Western Front in 1915. During this campaign, he was wounded seven more times in different places, including losing his left hand in a freak accident when blast struck him. When doctors refuse to amputate his mangled mess of a left hand, he tore off two of his remaining fingers hanging by a skin with no pain at all, just to prove his point. During the battle of Somme, he was shot through his skull and ankle, in Passchendaele, he was shot through the hip, in Cambrai, another wound in his leg, and another shot to the ear in Arras. And during his adventures, he was promoted up to temporary brigadier general by the conclusion of the First World War.
The war might be over at this point, but not the adventures of Adrian Carton de Wiart. He was sent to Poland on a British-Poland Military Mission, and on this country as well he witnessed the start of the second world war in 1939. He was at the age of 61 when he re-enlisted to fight the conflict. He ended up on the frontline again, this time in Norway. In 1941, he boarded the aircraft bound to Yugoslavia as part of the British-Yugoslavian Military Mission, just in the nick of time as Hitler was prepared to invade the country. But the airplane crashed in Italian-controlled Libya for engine failure. He survived the crash along with many others, but ended up in a Prisoner of War camp, which he managed to escape. His final military mission was when he was appointed as a personal representative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill on his mission to China. It was on this assignment that he reportedly told Chairman Mao Zedong that he hated communism right in his face and was met with laughter by Chairman Mao.
His final injury didn't come as a result of an armed conflict, but rather a silly incident when he slipped through the stairs, broke several vertebrae, and knocked unconscious. He finally retired from the army at the ripe age of 66 in October 1947 with the honorary rank of lieutenant general. And on the 5th of June 1963, he finally greeted Death as an old friend at the age of 83. During his time in the armed forces, he fought through 5 wars, two of them were world wars, survived two plane crashes, escaped an Italian Prisoner of War Camp, sustained numerous injuries, lost an eye and a hand, and roasted a Communist Party leader right on his face. There are also stories of him being a frequent visitor to a hospital. It has been said that he was being admitted to this hospital so often, the facility actually kept a fresh pair of pajamas EXCLUSIVELY for General Carton de Wiart. Talk about dedication right there.
Many people talk about people who involved in wars as someone who only wants to serve their own country or someone with no disregard of his own life, but none of those men was like Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart. The man was described as a man too stubborn to die, and it's only fitting to immortalize this mad lad with the title of "The Unkillable Soldier". This man's entire story is that of a First-person shooter protagonist. Imagine yourself being shot multiple times, and suddenly you are back in top shape only by stepping out of harm's way for few minutes. And for that, I salute in admiration to the legend that is Adrian Carton de Wiart.
"Frankly, I had enjoyed the war"
-Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey: The Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: 1950
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