Stepan Fyodorovich Apraxin

Stepan Fyodorovich Apraxin

Count Stepan Fedorovich Apraksin ( Russian Степан Фёдорович Апраксин , scientific transliteration. Stepan Apraksin Fedorovic ; born July 30, ^jul. / 10. August  1702 ^greg. , † August 6 ^jul. / 17th August  1758 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a Field Marshal of the Russian Army .

Life

Count Apraxin was the son of Admiral General Fyodor M. Apraxin , who had led important naval commands under Tsar Peter I both in the Great Northern War (1700-1721) and in the war against Persia (1722-1723). He joined a guard regiment of the Russian army in 1718 and took part in the war against the Ottoman Empire from 1737 to 1739 under the command of Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich . In 1739 he rose to major general .

At the outbreak of the Seven Years' War he rose to field marshal himself in 1756 and was given command of the 88,000-strong army of operations that was intended to conquer East Prussia . He owed the appointment to his relative, AG Rasumowski , a lover of Empress Elisabeth . For this purpose it was planned to encompass and wipe out the Prussian cover corps by advancing with three columns. The main army was to advance directly from Kovno / Grodno to Koenigsberg, while to the north it was to find support from the Corps Fermor . At the same time, a cavalry corps had to advance into Pomerania in order to interrupt the rear connections of the Prussians. When the advance finally began in May 1757, however, it turned out that the cavalry was not advancing through the vast forests as fast as expected. So at the end of June the Russian troops moved head-on across the Prussian border.

On July 5th the fortress Memel was conquered and on August 13th the Russian columns united at Insterburg . Since the supply situation of the army deteriorated, which after illnesses and destruction only numbered 55,000 men, Apraxin decided to advance to Königsberg immediately. With the capture of this fortress and its large port, his army would be able to be supplied by sea. On August 23, the Russian troops set out and crossed the Pregel . The Prussian army under General Johann von Lehwaldt , only 24,000 men, had to prevent the capture of Königsberg and attacked Apraxin on August 30th (→ Battle of Groß-Jägersdorf ). Although the Russian troops ("without their own merit") won, Apraxin did not take advantage of it. He camped on the battlefield for a week to organize his troops and then decided to retreat to Tilsit . The troop strength sank to 30,000-40,000 men so that Apraxin continued the retreat as far as the Tauroggen area in Livonia .

The Russian army had no lasting successes in the campaign of 1757 despite a clear numerical superiority and a won battle and so soon the suspicion of treason was in the room. Apraxin was therefore released from his command on November 1, 1757, imprisoned in St. Petersburg and charged. Before the investigation was completed, he died of a heart attack in prison on August 28, 1758. At the same time, the Russian army under Apraxin's successor Wilhelm von Fermor had occupied East Prussia as well as Thorn and Elbing , had advanced to the Oder and had fought a battle (→ Battle of Zorndorf ) against the main Prussian army under Friedrich II.

Apraxin in the assessment

Apraxin himself justified his withdrawal on the grounds that his troops had problems with supplies; an argument that supports historian John Keep's research into the 1757 campaign. The GDR historian Olaf Groehler suspected that Apraxin had been in correspondence with the Reich Chancellor AP Bestuschew , who, if the empress was expected to die, called Apraxin's army for a coup in favor of Catherine , the wife of the heir to the throne Peter III. , wanted to have at hand. Keep objected that while Apraxin corresponded with the couple heir to the throne, further allegations could not be proven. In addition, Empress Elisabeth only fell ill after the army had withdrawn to the Memel.

Apraxin was considered a “ponderous and flimsy man” of “moral weakness and lust for self-indulgence” who maintained an “extravagant lifestyle”. Thus, 120 servants and 250 horses moved into East Prussia in his entourage, for which he applied for and received an additional 15,000 rubles in April 1757. It should be noted, however, that his successor Fermor was not inferior to him.

Web links

• Excerpts from various dictionaries on SF Apraxin , Chronos (Russian)

literature

• Бантыш-Каменский Д.Н .: Биографии российских генералиссимусов и генерал-фельдмаршалов, the Russian field marshals (German : Bantysh -Kamenskiy41 ), St. Petersburg : 18 . ( Online version )
• Bernhard von Poten (Ed.): Concise dictionary of the entire military sciences , Vol. 1, Leipzig / Bielefeld 1877.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bernhard von Poten (Ed.): Concise dictionary of the entire military sciences , Vol. 1, Leipzig / Bielefeld 1877, p. 194
2. ^ ^{A b c d} John LH Keep: The Russian Army in the Seven Years' War , in: Bernhard R. Kroener (Ed.) Europe in the Age of Frederick the Great - Economy, Society, Wars , Munich 1989, p. 142
3. ^ Olaf Groehler : The Wars of Frederick II. , Berlin (East) 1981, p. 89
4. ↑ ^{a b} Olaf Groehler: The Wars of Friedrich II. , Berlin (East) 1981, p. 90