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The Real-Life Robocop of WWI
Adrian Carton de Wiart was either the luckiest or unluckiest soldier that ever existed
With his black eyepatch, striking mustache, empty sleeve, and his cap always tilted at a devil-may-care angle, Adrian Carton de Wiart looked like a pirate — a dapper one, if you like, but still a pirate. He probably would not have minded being called one: as far as daring, bravado, and dirty language were concerned, he was just as good as any Blackbeard or William Kidd.
Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was born into an aristocratic family in Brussels, on the 5th of May 1880. Although he was the son of a Belgian lawyer, he was widely believed to be an illegitimate offspring of the King of the Belgians, Leopold II. He spent his early days in Belgium and England, but, when he was six, his father moved the family to Cairo so he could practice in Egypt’s mixed courts. In 1891, Adrian was sent to a boarding school in England, and later he went to Oxford. However, some people are just not cut out for academic life: Carton De Wiart left school around 1899 to join the British Army at the time of the Second Boer War. He enlisted under a false name, claiming to be twenty-five.
During his life, besides serving in the Second Boer War, he served in both the First and the Second World Wars, also taking part in numerous subsequent campaigns in Poland, Norway, and China…
