Alexei Nikolayevich Kuropatkin

Alexei Kuropatkin

Aleksey Kuropatkin ( Russian Алексей Николаевич Куропаткин ; born March 17 ^{. Jul} / 29. March 1848 ^greg. In Ujesd Chelm , Pskov Governorate ; † 16th January 1925 in Ujesd Toropets , Pskov Governorate) was a general of the Russian army and war minister .

Kuropatkin, also known as a Russian military writer and traveler, received his education in a cadet corps . He joined the 1st Turkestan Rifle Battalion in 1864, became an officer in 1866, and was so distinguished that he was sent to the Emir Jakub Khan in Kashgar as head of a diplomatic-military mission . He summarizes his experiences in this region in a travel guide on Kashgar that was published in the early 1870s. Kuropatkin then went to the Nikolai Academy of the General Staff , which he graduated from in 1874, and then went to Algiers as a volunteer . After his return he went again to Turkistan , where he participated in the conquest of Kokand and Samarkand . He was then appointed to the General Staff in Saint Petersburg , where he was head of the Asian section for a time and also held the post of adjunct professor for military statistics in the Nikolai Academy of the General Staff. In the Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878 he served as Chief of Staff of General Skobelev's 16th Infantry Division. In 1879 he was given command of the Turkestan Rifle Brigade, with which he took part in the campaign against Akhal-Teke (1880–1881) in what is now Turkmenistan. He reached the conquest of Geok Tepe on January 12, 1881 and received the Order of St. George 3rd Class and wrote a detailed book about the campaign. In 1882 he was promoted to major general and in 1883 assigned to the General Staff, where he was responsible for strategic issues. In 1890 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed commander in chief of the Trans-Caspian military district.

Alexei Kuropatkin in the First World War

In 1898 he took over the post of Minister of War from Pyotr Wannowski . During his term of office, tensions with Japan that led to the Russo-Japanese War in 1904/05 increased. In February 1904 he took command of the Russian armies in Manchuria . In October he took over the supreme command of the entire Russian armed forces in the Far East as the successor to the recalled Admiral Yevgeny Alexejew . After the defeat in the Battle of Mukden in March 1905, he offered his resignation and was replaced by General Nikolai Linewitsch , the previous commander of the 1st Manchurian Army , which he now took over. After the end of the war he also gave up this command and retired into private life. Contemporaries accused Kuropatkin of having caused the defeat in the war through his defensive strategy. He responded with an extensive account of his view of the war, which was published in several languages as a multi-volume work entitled The Russian Army and the Japanese War .

In the First World War he applied for a command and in October 1915 received command of the Grenadier Corps. On January 30, 1916 he was briefly Commander in Chief of the 5th Army . On February 20, 1916, he was appointed Commander in Chief of the Northern Front and in July was transferred to Turkestan as Commander in Chief to put down a rebellion that had broken out there. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was temporarily placed under arrest, but released again by the Provisional Government . He returned to his hometown, where he ran an agricultural school until his death.

Vladimir Nabokov recorded his earliest childhood memories of Kuropatkin from October 1905 in his autobiography Memory . During a visit to Nabokov's father, one of the founders of the Constitutional Democratic Party , Kuropatkin had just received news that he had been appointed commander in chief of the Russian armed forces in the Far East.

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personal data
SURNAME	Kuropatkin, Alexei Nikolajewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Куропаткин, Алексей Николаевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Russian general and minister of war
DATE OF BIRTH	March 29, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ujesd Cholm , Pskov Governorate
DATE OF DEATH	January 16, 1925
Place of death	Ujesd Toropez , Pskov Governorate