Omaha daily bee., 1918-08-12
WARS BEST FAKIR
HAS BRIEF CAREER
Exploits Surpassed Those of
D'Artagnan, But Were
Product Of His Imag-
ination.
Correspondence of Associated Press.

Correspondence of Associated Press.
Paris, July l5.-The heroic exploits
and hairbreadth escapes of D'Artag-
nan as narrated by Dumas in The
Three Musketeers' fade into COM
parative insigni6cance when COM
pared with the achievements of Rene
Bertrand as told by himself. Minus
an arm and a leg, with nine medals
glittering on his breast, and asserting
that his body bore more than so bull
let and bayonet wounds, Private
Rene Bertrand of the French Colonel
Infantry" posed in Paris as the great
est hero of the war.
Now he has been arrested as per-
haps one of the wars greatest fakirs
and the police authorities declare that
he lost his leg and arm in railway
accident and that five imprisonments
instead of five citations compose his
record. 1t was the publication of
Betrands photograph in a French
newspaper that led to his undoing.
Deluded Army Officers.
Meantime, while reveling in the
fruits of his own romance, Bertrand
enjoyed the confidence of army Of
ficers and the credit of the leading
Paris cafes. One famous and fearless
aviator made Private Bertrand his
godson and adopted" him for the
balance of the war. ...
The medals he wore included the
cross of the legion of honor, the mill
tary medal, the war cross with seven
palms and five stars, the British mill
tary cross, the Belgian war cross, the
colonial medal, medal of Morocco,
and the medal for saving life, and the
medal for wounds. In addition he
wore the "fouragere" of the legion
of honor.
Where he got them has not been
disclosed, but to account for them
Bertrand constructed a story of Won
derful incidents. According to this
tale he won the military medal by
saving the lives of two officers and
was himself wounded i'll the thigh
when surrounded by natives while
fighting with the French terri
torial forces in Morocco in 1918.
A Thrilling Exploit.
Then, according to his own story,
Bertrand won the war cross in a pa
troll exploit in the present war when,
after his companions were killed he
Captured a whole German cooking
outfit at Laon, having Killed most of
the cooks. Next, fighting with the
British on the Somnle he won the
military cross by capturing II Ger
mans single-handed. Meantime he
had been captured FIVE times by the
Germans but always managed to es-
cape L
In The next chapter of his biogra-
ply Bertrand appears in the fight
around Monastir on the Macedonian
front where he simultaneously op-
Grated four machine guns and
wreaked such an awful havoc with
the enemy that their attack was beat
en- off. At the battle of Monastir he
essayed to rescue an officer who lay
wounded in No Mans Land and was
himself wounded in the abdomen. De.
spite his pain he dragged the officer
back to safety and went out again
to rescue wounded nurse. In the
| last trip his arm was shattered by
a bullet and later was amputated.
Amputates Own Leg.
Next we find Bertrand a passenger
on board a ship bound for France
The torpedo which hit the vesse
shattered one Of Betrand's legs. Calm
tly amputating it with his knife Be
{trand bound up the stump, dragges
himself to the rail, threw himsel
/ overheard, paused long enough to res
1 cue the captain and swan to piec'
fof drift wood where he lived for thre,
days and three nights kefore beini
trescued by Spanish vessel. Fo
1 this Bertrand said he received th'
medal OF the legion of honor.