Nikolai Vladimirovich Russky

General Russky

Nikolai Ruzsky ( Russian Николай Владимирович Рузский * 6 ^{. Jul} / 18th March  1854 ^greg. 1854 ; † 18th October 1918 in Pyatigorsk ) was a general of the Russian army .

Life

Russki was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Kiev Military District from 1896 to 1902 and Chief of Staff of the 2nd Manchurian Army during the Russo-Japanese War . Between October 6, 1906 and January 31, 1909, the commanding officer of the XXI. Army Corps, on March 29, 1909 he was appointed General of the Infantry .

At the beginning of World War I , on July 19, 1914, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Army, which was subordinate to the Southwest Front under the command of General of Artillery Nikolai Ivanov in Galicia. At the beginning of September he defeated the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army under General Rudolf von Brudermann on the Gnila Lipa , broke through in the Battle of Rawa Ruska on Lemberg and was able to occupy this metropolis.

On September 3, 1914, after the defeat at Tannenberg , he took over the leadership of the Northwest Front instead of General Jakow Schilinski . He withstood the attack of the German 8th Army in the Battle of Masuria and prepared a new invasion of East Prussia . In mid-October, together with the commander-in-chief Nikolai Nikolajewitsch and the armies of the south- western front, he was able to stop Hindenburg's attack during the campaign on the Vistula and successfully repel the Germans in the western apron of Warsaw . In November 1914 he led the defense of Poland against the renewed attack by the German 9th Army in the Battle of Lodz . At the beginning of December 1914 he had to give up the city of Łódź after further German attacks in the direction of Łowicz . After he was pushed back to the Lyck - Augustów line in the winter battle of the Masuria in February 1915 , he was replaced on March 17, 1915 by General of the Infantry Mikhail Alexejew .

Russki (center) as Commander in Chief of the Northern Front

Russki took out between 30 June to 18 August 1915 the supreme command of the Baltic States in defense of St. Petersburg standing 6th Army . On August 18, 1915, he took over the supreme command of the newly formed northern front for the first time to protect Riga and the threatened Dune Line. On December 6, he was replaced by General Plehwe . In the following year, 1916, he again succeeded General Alexei Kuropatkin on August 1 and took over the leadership of the northern front again until April 25, 1917. During the February Revolution of 1917 , Russky exerted significant pressure on Tsar Nicholas II to resign from his headquarters in Pskov , where the imperial train was stopped . In September 1918 he was taken hostage by the Red Army in the North Caucasus and murdered by the Bolsheviks together with the former army commander Radko Dimitriev .

literature

• Olga Barkowez, Fyodor Fedorow, Alexander Krylow: "Beloved Nicky ...". The last Russian tsar Nicholas II and his family , edition q in the Quintessenz Verlags-GmbH Berlin, 2002, ISBN 3-86124-548-5 .