He said .. 'Frankly, I enjoyed the war!'

[Surpmil]

He wasn't the only one. "Happy Odyssey" is the name of his autobiography and it's a good read. The VC notwithstanding, you can take him as pretty much representative of his place and time; only most of those people never wrote their autobiographies, the few that survived WWI. Being a relative of a Belgian PM and the son of a banker he was pretty well connected, but one can't say he didn't succeed on his merits.

Just goes to show what a stiff upper lip can achieve. There's an amusing story in there of his challenging a suitor he didn't consider suitable for a certain lady to a duel in the 1930s. He retired to an estate in the Pripyet Marshes of Eastern Poland in the 1920s and his war experiences probably had something to do with that.

I don't think you'll ever see more wound stripes on a sleeve than that.

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