Baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim: Finland's closest counterpart to George Washington. He was born in the Autonomous Principality of Finland when Finland was a dependency of Imperial Russia to an old family of Swedish ancestry. Entering Military School he narrowly avoided having his career ended by an adolescent prank but his family saved him and he entered the service of the Czar. He served in the Russo Japanese War and in World War I as well as going on an espionage mission,uh, "scientific expedition" in the wilder parts of Central Asia, where he engaged in many exploits including personally meeting the Dalai Lama. During World War I he was a general in the Czarist army, ironically on the opposite side from several who would later be his most trusted officers. After the Bolshevik Revolut