Alexei Petrovich Yermolov

Alexei Petrovich Yermolov (also Ermolov , Russian Алексей Петрович Ермолов ;. Scientific transliteration Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov ; born May 24 ^{. Jul} / 4. June  1777 ^greg. In Moscow , † April 11 ^jul. / 23. April  1861 ^greg. Ibid) was a general in the Russian army and diplomat. From 1817 to 1827 he was Governor General of the Transcaucasian Provinces, he founded the city of Grozny .

Alexei Petrovich Yermolov

Alexei Yermolov was one of the most outstanding Russian artillery commanders of the Patriotic War and one of the most popular figures of his time. Because of his military successes and his charismatic charisma, he was one of the great war heroes of Russian romanticism; his life has been sung about by authors such as Pushkin , Lermontov and Zhukovsky .

Life

origin

Jermolow came from a noble family of officers from the Orjol governorate . He attended boarding school at Moscow University and in 1787 joined the Preobrazhensky Life Guard Regiment .

First distinction and banishment

Four years later he was promoted to lieutenant and then moved to the Nischegorod Dragoon Regiment as captain. In 1793 he was a brief teacher in the artillery and pioneer cadet corps before he took part in the suppression of the Polish uprising in 1794 under Suworow in the Warsaw suburb of Praga . For this he received the Order of St. George fourth class (January 12, 1795).

In 1796 he fought under Subov in the Persian War on the Caspian Sea and was arrested and exiled on January 7, 1799 on charges of having been involved in a conspiracy against Tsar Paul I. He spent the next two years in exile in Kostroma . After Alexander I took office , he was recalled and transferred to the 8th Artillery Regiment on May 13, 1801. On June 21st he switched to mounted artillery .

War against Napoleon

In the war year 1805 Jermolow served in the front and rear guards, distinguished himself at Amstetten and Austerlitz and was promoted to colonel (July 16, 1806). The following year he took part in the campaign in Poland at Prince Bagration's lecture . During the retreat to Landsberg and the Battle of Preussisch Eylau deployed in the rearguard, he distinguished himself in several actions as the chief of a company of mounted artillery.

In June 1807 Jermolow led the mounted artillery company near Guttstadt , Deppen , Heilsberg and Friedland and received the Georgsorden third class on September 7, 1807. On March 28, 1808 he was appointed major general and inspector of mounted artillery. In this function he inspected the artillery companies of the Danube Army in 1809. While his division took part in the campaign against Austria in 1809, Jermolow remained for more than two years as commander of the divisional reserves in the governorates of Volhynia and Podolia . In 1811 he took command of a guards artillery brigade.

During the campaign of 1812 Yermolov took part in the retreat to Smolensk and played an important role in the dispute between Generals Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration and Barclay de Tolly for supreme command of their combined armies. Yermolow was an opponent of the "German" Barclay, called on Bagration to oppose it and appealed to Tsar Alexander to replace Barclay with Bagration, who was of lower seniority. After the armies were united on August 2, Yermolov fought near Smolensk and Lubino (Walutina Gora) and was appointed lieutenant general on November 12, 1812 (seniority was dated August 16, 1812). He excelled at Borodino ( Battle of Borodino ), where he led a counterattack that led to the recapture of the great redoubt, and was slightly wounded in the process. For his courage he was awarded the Order of Saint Anne, First Class. During the remainder of the campaign he served in the staff of the main army and fought at Malojaroslavets .

In October and November 1812 he was in the vanguard under Miloradowitsch and fought at Vyasma and Krasny . In late November he led a division in the Battle of the Beresina under Rosen and on December 3, 1812, at the request of Kutuzov , he was reassigned to the main army as chief of staff. Three weeks later, Yermolov was appointed commander of the Russian artillery.

In 1813 Jermolow fought near Lützen , where he was accused of insubordination and transferred to the post of commander of the 2nd Guards Division. He then commanded the Russian rearguard at Bautzen and Kulm and was awarded the Prussian Iron Cross for this. In 1814 he distinguished himself again in the Battle of Paris and received the Order of St. George on April 7, 1814.

Governor General of the Transcaucasian Provinces

Alexei Yermolov (1843)

In 1817 he became governor general of the Transcaucasian provinces of Russia and commander in chief of the armed forces there. On behalf of the tsar, he traveled to Tehran to make some concessions regarding the demarcation of the border, which had remained unclear in the peace of Gulistan , and to finally make peace. Yermolov despised the "Asians" and "Persians", was tyrannical, arrogant and obsessed with gaining territories for Russia through the use of force. On his journey via Tabriz to the court of Shah Abbas Mirza , he acted as if he wanted to provoke war. In the Shah's palace he refused to take off his shoes and confronted the Shah with demands that were impossible to meet, including an alliance against the Ottoman Empire , the recruitment of Russian officers for the Persian army, safe passage for troops to Central Asia or the opening of a consulate in Gilan . He refused any concessions on the grounds that they would damage Russia's reputation among the inhabitants of the Caucasus.

Over time, Yermolov's resistance to improved relations between Persia and Russia grew . In 1818 he advised the Tsar to reject the succession to the throne from Abbas Mirza; however, the Tsar chose to ignore Yermolov's advice. Yermolov subsequently allied himself with the rival of Abbas Mirza, Mohammed Ali Mirza , who was excluded from the line of succession. Ivan Fyodorowitsch Paskewitsch later reported to the Russian Foreign Minister Karl Robert von Nesselrode that Yermolov's behavior was harmful and helped trigger the Russo-Persian War .

In January 1826, Tsar Nicholas I ordered Yermolov to make every effort to end the disputes with Persia and to establish peaceful relations. Yermolov ignored this instruction. In May 1826, Russian troops occupied Mirak in the Yerevan Khanate (present-day Armenia ) and fortified it, cutting off trade routes to and from Yerevan. Mirza Abbas opened the war against Russia on July 28th, and there is consensus that Yermolov brought it about. Due to passivity and Persian successes, Yermolov was withdrawn from high command. Under Davydov and Paskevich, Russia retained the upper hand in the war and forced the disastrous peace of Turkmanchai on Persia .

In 1827 Yermolov took to the field against Chechens , who made the Georgian military route across the Caucasus unsafe.

In November of the same year he fell out of favor in Moscow and had to give up his offices to Count Paskevich . Since then he has lived in the Russian capital, busy with scientific studies, and in 1853 briefly took over the command of the militia of the Moscow governorate.

Awards

In addition to the awards mentioned, Yermolov received a large number of other orders and decorations in his long military career: the Russian Order of St. Andrew the First Called , the Order of St. Vladimir I Class, the Alexander Nevsky Order and the Order of the White Eagle .

The foreign orders include the Prussian Red Eagle Order I. Class and the Pour le Mérite , the Knight's Cross of the Austrian Military Maria Theresa Order , the Baden Military Karl Friedrich Order of Merit , the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun and two gold swords of honor, one with diamonds.

Works

Yermolov left interesting and valuable memoirs from his service. Pogodin (Moscow 1863), his notes ( Zapiski ) on the war of 1812 his son (there, 1863) published excerpts from his memoirs .

• M. Pogodin: Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov: Materiali dlia ego biografij [AP Ermolov: Materials for his biography] . - Moscow, 1863
• AP Ermolov: Zapiski Aleksei Petroviča Ermolova (1798–1826). 2 volumes. - Moscow, 1863 (reprint Moscow, 1991)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Firuz Kazemzadeh: Iranian relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921 . In: Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (Eds.): The Cambridge History of Iran . tape 7 . Cambridge University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0 , pp. 335 .
2. ↑ Firuz Kazemzadeh: Iranian relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921 . In: Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (Eds.): The Cambridge History of Iran . tape 7 . Cambridge University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0 , pp. 337 .

literature

• Alexander Mikaberidze (Ed.): The Czar's General: The Memoirs of a Russian General in the Napoleonic Wars . - Ravenhall Books, September 2005, ISBN 1-905043-05-8 .
• Moshe Gammer : 'Proconsul of the Caucasus': a Re-examination of Yermolov. Social Studies, March 2003. Online

Web links

Commons : Alexei Petrovich Yermolov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Article Alexei Petrovich Jermolow in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D037771~2a%3D~2b%3DAlexei%20Petrovich%20Jermolow