László Almásy

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László Ede Almásy (originally gróf Almásy László Ede 22 August 1895–22 March 1951) was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, 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 at Berrow 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 Automobile 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 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.

Almasy's role in relation to the Gilf Kebir was not discoverer. The Bedouins already knew it was there, but tended to avoid the caves except when searching for stray livestock, attributing the cave paintings inside to djin or unpredictable spirits. Egyptian Prince Kemal ed Din wrote an article about Gilf Kebir for National Geographic in 1921. What Almasy did was to map and enter each cave and draw the paintings inside.

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. In fact he was a Hungarian who worked for which ever colonial power offered him the best surveying contract.

The Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, recruited him in Budapest. As a Hungarian reserve officer, he was assigned to Luftwaffe as a Hauptmann (captain) and assigned to the 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 subsequently promoted Almásy to major.

The details of Almásy's role in World War II are likely to remain unclear. For delivering spies, he received the Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz) from Rommel. He was, however, never a Nazi. He was a Conservative Hungarian Nationalst whose loyalty was to the Hungarian government.

After the end of the desert war, Almásy relocated to Turkey where he became involved in a plan to cause an Egyptian revolt which never materialized. He then returned to Budapest where with his contacts from the Roman Catholic Church he helped save the lives of several Jewish families at a time when Jews were being sent to concentration camps.

After the war he was arrested in Hungary and ended up in 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 (Britain's "Vietnam" at the time was Egypt and Palestine and they probably wanted his desert knowledge) and they spirited him into British occupied Austria and were chased by a KGB 'hit squad' until they got him on a plane to Cairo. They supposedly bribed Hungarian officials to enable his release. He returned to Egypt at the invitation of King Faruk and became the prestigious Director of the Desert Institute. He continued directing expeditions into the desert and in 1950 he organized an expedition to search for King Cambyses 'Lost Army' of history, the legendary Persian King who's army of 10,000 men had apparently vanished in the 'Sand Sea' that Almásy so loved.

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

• Ladislaus e. Almásy. Schwimmer in der Wüste (Swimmer of the Desert). Innsbruck: Haymon, 1997. (new edition of Unbekannte Sahara)
• Török, Zsolt: "Salaam Almasy - Almásy László életregénye". Budapest:ELTE Eötvös, 1998. (the first biography, in Hungarian, unfortunately).
• Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. fiction, 1992.
• Bierman, John. The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy: The Real English Patient. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
• Török, Zsolt. "László Almásy: The Real 'English patient' - The Hungarian Desert Explorer." Földrajzi Közlemények 121.1-2 (1997): 77-86.
• 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) [1].
• Mitchell, Sandy. "The Real Count Almasy" theage.com.au (2 July 2002) [2]
• Laszlo Almásy, the real English patient.
• Hungarian Aristocracy
• Afrika Korps
• El verdadero "Paciente Inglés"
• Another Almasy on film