László Almásy

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Count László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós (22 August 1895–22 March 1951) was a Hungarian desert researcher, aviator and soldier who also served as the basis for the protagonist in Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient and the movie based on it.

Almásy was born in Borostyánkő in Hungary (modern-day Bernstein in Austria), into a non-titled noble family. He studied in a boarding school in Eastbourne, England, where he also received his first pilot's license. During World War I, he served with the Austro-Hungarian royal air force.

After the war, Almásy continued to support King Karl of Austria, and, on two occasions, drove him to Budapest when he tried to get his throne back. It may be that Karl bestowed him unofficially with the title of count that Almásy only used outside of Hungary.

After 1921, Almásy worked as a representative of an Austrian car firm Steyr in Szombathely, Hungary, and won many car races in their colors. He also organized hunting trips to Egyptian luminaries. During his drive from Egypt to Sudan along the Nile in 1926, he developed an interest in the area and later returned there to drive and hunt. He also demonstrated Steyr vehicles in desert conditions in 1929 with two Steyr lorries and led his first expedition to the desert.

In 1932, he left to find the legendary Zerzura, The Oasis of the Birds, with three Britons, Sir Robert Clayton, Commander Penderel and Patrick Clayton, who were sponsored by Prince Kemal el Din. The expedition used both cars and aeroplanes. They discovered prehistoric rock art in Uweinat and Gilf Kebir, and Almasy claimed that that he found the third valley of Zerzura in Wadi Talh.

He also discovered the magyarab tribe in Nubia, who speak Arabic but believe that they are the descendants of Hungarian soldiers who served in the army of Turkey in the 16th century.

Almásy had succeeded in turning from an autodidact into a serious explorer. In the mid-1930s, time for research and adventure was drawing to a close: His former sponsor Clayton had died in 1932 — yet not of the crash-land as described in "The English Patient", but of an infection from a desert fly from the Gilf Kebir. Clayton's wife died one year later in a mysterious plane crash.

Almásy, called Abu Ramla ("Father of the Sands") by his Bedouin friends, recorded his adventures in the book Az ismeretlen Szahara, first published in 1934 in Budapest. The German edition, under the title Unbekannte Sahara. Mit Flugzeug und Auto in der Libyschen Wüste, was published five years later by Brockhaus in Leipzig. It contains accounts of his most sensational discoveries like the one of the Jebel Uweinat (the highest mountain of the Eastern Sahara desert), of the rock paintings in the Gilf Kebir and of the lost oasis of Zerzura.

In the following years, Almasy led archeological, ethnographical expeditions with German ethnographer Leo Frobenius. He also worked in Egypt at Al Maza airfield as a flying instructor. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he had to return to Hungary. The British suspected that he spied for Italians — and vice versa.

Abwehr recruited him in Budapest. As a Hungarian reserve officer he was assigned to Luftwaffe, as a hauptmann (captain) and assigned to Afrika Korps. In 1941–1942 he worked with the German troops of Erwin Rommel using his desert experience and led military missions, including Operation Salaam, to infiltrate two German spies through enemy lines. This was a not a covert operation, Almásy and his team wore German uniforms, although they used American cars/truck with German signs... Almásy delivered the German agents Hans Eppler and his fellow Brandenburger to Cairo in the same way. Rommel promoted Almásy to major. His role in World War II is probably never going to become completely clear. For delivering spies he received the Eisernes Kreuz from Erwin Rommel, however, Almasy was never a Nazi.

After the end of the desert war, Almásy visited to Balkan countries and Turkey during WW II. At the end of the war, he was supposed to deliver information to British intelligence. After the war he was arrested in Hungary and ended up into a Soviet prison. After communists took over in Hungary, Almásy was tried for treason in the Communist People's Court but was eventually acquitted. He escaped the country reputedly with the aid of British intelligence. He returned to Egypt where he worked selling Porsches. He, however, could not return to the desert to continue his expeditions.

Almásy became ill in 1951 during his visit in Austria. He died of dysentery in a hospital in Salzburg, where he was also buried. The epitaph on his grave, erected by Hungarian patriots in 1995, honours him as a "Pilot, Saharaforscher und Entdecker der Oase Zarzura" (Pilot, Sahara Explorer, and Discoverer of the Zerzura Oasis).

[edit] References

• Mitchell, Sandy. "The Real Count Almasy" theage.com.au (2 July 2002) [1]
• Bierman, John. The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy: The Real English Patient. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
• Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. fiction, 1992.
• Schrott, Raoul, and Michael Farin. Schwimmer in der Wüste (Swimmer of the Desert). Innsbruck: Haymon, 1997.
• Torok, Zsolt. "László Almásy: The Real 'English patient' - The Hungarian Desert Explorer." Földrajzi Közlemények 121.1-2 (1997): 77-86.[2]
• Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Ondaatje's The English Patient and Questions of History." Comparative Cultural Studies and Michael Ondaatje's Writing. Ed. Steven Totosy de Zepetnek. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2005. 115-32.
• Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, 'History,' and the Other." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 1.4 (1999) [3].
• Hungarian Aristocracy
• Afrika Korps
• El verdadero "Paciente Inglés"
• Another Almasy on film