Mikhail Wassiljewitsch Alexejew

General Mikhail Alexeyev

Mikhail Wassiljewitsch Alexejew ( Russian Михаил Васильевич Алексеев ; * 3rd November ^July / 15 November  1857 ^greg. In Tver ; † 25 September ^July / 8 October  1918 ^greg. In Ekaterinodar ) was a general of the Imperial Russian Army . During the First World War he had been in command of the Northwest Front from 1915. Between 1915 and 1917 he was Chief of Staff of the Tsar and, after the February Revolution , he was the highest in command from March to July 1917. In 1918 he fought against the Bolsheviks in the civil war .

Life

origin

Alexeyev embodied like many of his generation, the type of climber in the Army of the Tsar . He himself came from a humble background - his father was a common soldier - and used the opportunities for social advancement that the armed forces offered young men at the time. He joined the army at the age of 19 and completed general staff training in 1890 . For a man of his origin, this career could be considered remarkable in itself, because the Russian army was still deeply socially divided in the 19th century. A thin layer of nobles , who occupied the highest ranks, faced poorly paid lower-ranking officers . A year before the Russo-Japanese War , Alexeyev was raised to the rank of general .

World war

At the beginning of the war in August 1914, Alexejew was posted as Chief of Staff of the Southwest Front under Nikolai Ivanov . This front achieved significant successes against the army of the Danube Monarchy, it conquered Lemberg and almost all of Galicia . At the beginning of the war, the Russian army was split into two fronts, the northwest and the southwest. Due to personal quarrels, the cooperation between the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Januschkewitsch and General Ivanov was insufficient. For better coordination, the Stawka appointed Alexejew on March 17, 1915 as Commander-in-Chief of the Northwest Front, as he and Ivanov had worked well together. The positive result did not materialize, however, the fronts continued to operate without mutual coordination, with all the consequences for the troops.

In August 1915, Tsar Nicholas II personally took over the command of the headquarters , as the troops under Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolajewitsch had suffered severe defeats. Alexejew became the new Chief of Staff of the Army - but de facto he was the Commander-in-Chief, as the Tsar was dutiful but not very decisive.

In his role as chief of the Stawka, the general proved to be an old-school officer. He did not suggest tactical innovations, nor did he attempt to prepare the army structurally for a modern war, apart from efforts in the arms sector. Although he often tried to remove incompetent commanders, he made use of the courtly and comradely intrigue game that had elevated these very people to high posts. He missed the chance to change this system instead of using it, if he ever had it. He also protested against political injustices, such as Romania's entry into the war , to which he also refused substantial Russian aid. However, he was never really able to assert himself in this regard and preferred his post to a word of power that was dangerous for him. He also carried out politically motivated orders, even though they were militarily nonsensical. He was the thought leader and commander behind the Great Withdrawal of the Russian Army in the fall of 1915.

After the failed battle on Lake Narach in the spring of 1916, he too no longer believed in the ability of the Russian army to attack, although without realizing the real reasons for their two-year defeat. Thus he turned out to be a stumbling block for the successful Brusilov offensive , which had begun in the summer of 1916 , since he had fallen into the same phlegm as a result of the preceding events that paralyzed the entire caste of old officers.

1917 and 1918

With the beginning of the February Revolution in 1917 , Alexejew, who was in close contact with a number of politicians, together with other high Russian generals, put considerable pressure on Tsar Nicholas II with the aim of persuading him to abdicate from the throne. As early as March 1, he sent a telegram to the tsar with a project of the declaration of abdication attached. The next day he forwarded telegrams to the Tsar from the commanders of Russian troops, Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Romanov , the Tsar's uncle, Brusilov , Ewert and Sakharov , in which they asked for a quick succession to the throne. When Nicholas II saw that the army, which was one of his most important pillars, had turned against him, he was ready to surrender power. This decision of the ruler was later even extended by the fact that he had not only signed the deed of abdication for himself but also for his son. At the same time, Nicholas II also announced his resignation from the post of commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. For a while, Alexeyev was slated to be the candidate for the Tsar's successor, but this was dropped after strong resistance from the ranks of the Russian State Duma .

Alexeyev's role remained dubious. He was appointed chief of staff and sanctioned the arrest of General Kornilov on September 1, 1917, the day after he had instigated an uprising against the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky . Thereupon Alexeev was appointed commander in chief of the Russian armed forces, but announced his resignation after only 12 days. After the October Revolution of 1917, he traveled to the Don region, to Novocherkassk , where, with the approval of the commander of the Don Cossacks, Kaledin, he encouraged and promoted the formation of an anti-Bolshevik volunteer army . After the arrival of General Kornilov, who never forgot that it was Alexeyev who had him arrested in September 1917, serious disagreements began between the two commanders, until they agreed on the separation of functions. Kornilov took command of the fighting force, while Alexeyev concentrated heavily on questions of domestic and foreign policy and finances. After Kornilov's death, Alexeyev led the volunteer army back to the Don area. On August 31, 1918, he took over the supreme command of the volunteer army and organized the so-called special assembly, which assumed the role of government in the Don area. Alexeyev died of a heart attack on October 8, 1918. After the collapse of the White Army , the remains of the anti-Soviet troops transferred his body to Belgrade , where he was buried. Alexeyev was one of the most important tsarist military at the beginning of the 20th century.

literature

• Военная энциклопедия. Volume 1: А – Бюлов. New edition: Институт Военной Истории, Москва 1997, ISBN 5-203-01655-0 (German: Military Encyclopedia ).
• Константин Александрович Залесский: Заглавие Кто был кто в Первой мировой войне. биографический энциклопедический словарь. Астрель, Москва 2003, ISBN 5-17-019670-9 (German: Who was who in the First World War ).

Web links

Commons : Michail Wassiljewitsch Alexejew  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Entry on grwar.ru (Russian)
• Biographies , Chronos (Russian)