Mikhail Andreevich Berens

The admirals Kedrow, Berens and Tichmenev (center from left) on the submarine Tjulen in Bizerta, July 1921

Michail Andrejewitsch Berens ( Russian Михаил Андреевич Беренс ; born January 16, 1879 in Kutaisi , Georgia , then Kutaisi Governorate , Russian Empire ; † January 20, 1943 in Tunis ) was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy and during the Russian Civil War (1917/1918 until 1920/1921) an admiral in the Navy of the White Army of General Pyotr Wrangel .

career

Boxer Rebellion and Russo-Japanese War

Berens completed his training in the Naval Cadet Corps in Saint Petersburg in 1898 and became a nautical officer . He served in the (First) Pacific Squadron from 1900 to 1905 , became the commander of the gunboat Giljak ( Russian "Гиляк" ), and distinguished himself on June 4, 1900 in the defeat of the Taku forts during the Boxer Rebellion . In 1904 he became a 1st class navigational officer and initially served on the ship of the line Sevastopol ( Russian "Севастополь" ). Soon he was transferred to the Smeli torpedo boat ( Russian: "Смелый" ) as an officer on watch . In November 1904 he became the commander of the Boiki torpedo boat ( Russian «Бойкий» ). Even before the fall of Port Arthur , he managed to escape the Japanese blockade with his ship and to Yantai on the Chinese Shandong Peninsula and from there to Tsingtao , where the ship and crew from December 19, 1904 until the end of the war in January Were interned in 1905 . He was awarded the Golden Sword of St. George ( Russian Золотое оружие “За храбрость” ).

First World War

After the end of the war he served in the Baltic Fleet from 1906 , first on the armored cruiser Rurik ( Russian "Рюрик" ) and then from 1909 to 1911 as second and finally as first officer on the armored cruiser Diana ( Russian "Диана" ). From 1911 to 1913 he was commander of the destroyer Ljogki ( Russian "Лёгкий" ), from 1913 to 1914 commander of the destroyer Turkmenez Stawropolski ( Russian "Туркменец Ставропольский" ), then until April 1915 commander of the destroyer Pobeditel ( Russian «Победитель» ).

The Russian destroyer Novik

The large torpedo boat V 99 sinks after two mine hits

In April 1915 he was promoted to captain 2nd rank ( frigate captain ) and was given command of the modern destroyer Novik ( Russian "Новик" ). With this he was involved in a number of mine laying operations in the Irbenstrasse and in front of Libau , whereby there were several short battles with German ships, such as on 6/7. May 1915 with the small cruiser Munich and on June 28, 1915 with the small cruiser Lübeck . During the second German advance into the Riga Bay , the Nowik got into a brief battle with the large torpedo boats V 191 , G 193 and G 194 on August 14, 1915 and on August 17, 1915, together with three other destroyers, with which only four months Large torpedo boat V 99 previously put into service , which was significantly damaged in the process and fell into a minefield while trying to escape and sank after two mine hits . Berens was then awarded the Order of St. George 4th Class in 1916 and became a Knight of the French Legion of Honor . With the Order of St. George came the promotion to captain 1st rank ( captain of the sea ) and in the same year Berens became commander of the battleship Petropavlovsk ("Петропавловск").

Towards the end of 1917 he became Chief of Staff of the Baltic Fleet, but was removed from his post and removed from service on January 12, 1918 by the Council of People's Commissars without a pension .

Civil War and Post War

In March 1919 Berens traveled to the Far East , where he made himself available to Admiral Kolchak and his counter-revolutionary government. Kolchak promoted him to rear admiral and appointed him commander of the naval forces of the "white" Russians stationed in Vladivostok . On the night of January 31, 1920, after Kolchak's capture in Irkutsk , Berens led his remaining ships to Tsuruga in Japan with the naval cadets from the Naval Academy there and numerous refugees from Vladivostok .

Berens managed to return to European Russia. On August 28, 1920 he reached Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea by ship and joined General Wrangel's White Army . Wrangel appointed him in September 1920 commander of the Kerch fortress and on October 27th as the commander of the ships operating in the Sea of ​​Azov of the hull Black Sea fleet still fighting Wrangel . After the Red Army had also conquered the Crimea peninsula in November 1920, Berens moved with his ships, like the rest of the White Fleet, to Constantinople on November 14th . There they were reorganized on November 21 in the so-called Russian Squadron , consisting of four divisions, under the command of Rear Admiral Mikhail Kedrov (1878-1945). Berens received command of the Second (Azov) Division and became Kedrov's deputy. In the period from December 1920 to February 1921, the entire squadron then moved in several groups to Bizerta in what was then the French protectorate of Tunisia . The first ships left Constantinople on December 12th, reached Bizerta on December 19th, 1920 and were interned there. In January 1921, when Admiral Kedrow was transferred to Paris, Berens succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Squadron in Bizerta. He remained in this position until October 29, 1924, when the French government formally handed over the ships to the Soviet Union after it had recognized the Soviet Union under international law and the ship's crews pulled down the flag with the St. Andrew's cross . A Soviet naval delegation headed by the renowned naval engineer Alexei Krylow traveled to Bizerta in December, but found the ships no longer usable. They were therefore sold and gradually scrapped. The crews stayed as emigrants in Tunisia and France.

Exile and death

Like many of the seamen who went into exile with him, Berens stayed in Tunisia. He worked as a technical advisor in the agricultural sector. He died in Tunis on January 20, 1943 and was buried in Megrin, a suburb of Tunis. His ashes were reburied on April 30, 2001 in the Borshel cemetery in Tunis, where many of the former squadron crews and their relatives lie.

Awards

• Order of St. Stanislaus , Third Class, with Swords and Bow
• Order of St. George , Fourth Class
• Order of Saint Anne , Second Class
• Golden sword of St. George, "for bravery"

Familiar

His two years older brother Yevgeny ( Russian : Евгений Андреевич Беренс) (1876–1928) joined the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution , was chief of the admiralty from 1917 to April 1919, then commander in chief of the Soviet navy until February 1920, and finally military attaché in Great Britain and France.

literature

• С. В. Волков: Офицеры флота и морского ведомства: Опыт мартиролога. Moscow, 2004, ISBN 5-85887-201-8 (Russian)
• В. К. Пилкин: В Белой борьбе на Северо-Западе: Дневник, 1918–1920. Moscow, 2005, ISBN 5-85887-190-9 (Russian)

Footnotes

1. ↑ The Second Pacific Squadron was only assembled from ships of the Baltic Fleet after the fall of Port Arthur and was destroyed in the naval battle of Tsushima in May 1905.
2. ^ New York Times , December 14, 1920: Wrangel's Fleet Sails .