Imperial Russian cavalry general who led Kornilov's march on Petrograd
On 31 August 1917 (O.S.; 13 September N.S.), offered surrender of his powers before Kerensky, Krymov concluded he had been trapped and shot himself with a revolver; he died of the wound in the Nikolaevsky military hospital. This suicide is the official account; other explanations are also recorded.
Aleksandr Krymov was a cavalry general of the Imperial Russian Army. Born into a noble family of the Warsaw Governorate, he graduated from the Pskov Cadet Corps and the Pavlovsk Military School, then from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1902, and commanded cavalry units in the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War, gaining a reputation as a decisive commander. In April 1917 he took command of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, and in August he led its march on Petrograd during the Kornilov affair, which was halted by railway workers and wavering soldiers. After meeting Kerensky he shot himself and died in the Nikolaevsky military hospital. The official account of suicide is accompanied by other explanations of his death, and assessments of the affair itself are disputed.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1890–1892Cadet at the Pavlovsk Military School; commissioned second lieutenant into the 6th Artillery Brigade
- 1902Graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy
- 1904–1905Served in the Russo-Japanese War with the 4th Siberian Army Corps staff
- 1911–1913Commanded the 1st Argun Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Host
- 1915–1916Commander of the Ussuri Cavalry Brigade, expanded into a division in December 1915
- 1917Commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, leading Kornilov's advance toward Petrograd
- 1917Commander of the Separate Petrograd Army, appointed by Kornilov
Related historical events
Military career and the Kornilov affair
Military career
Krymov graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School in 1892 and was commissioned second lieutenant in the 6th Artillery Brigade; in 1902 he completed the Nicholas General Staff Academy in the first class. He served with the staff of the 4th Siberian Army Corps during the Russo-Japanese War, commanded the 1st Argun Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Host from 1911 to 1913, and then became an officer for assignments under the commander of the Turkestan Military District. In the First World War he commanded a brigade of the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division from September 1914 and the Ussuri Cavalry Brigade from March 1915, taking over the division when it was formed in December 1915; he gained a reputation as a decisive cavalry commander, and in autumn 1916 the division was moved to the Romanian front.
Radicalisation in 1917
Krymov had been close to the Duma opposition to Nicholas II well before February 1917. The historian of Russian Freemasonry Nina Berberova wrote that generals Alekseev, Ruzsky, Krymov and others were initiated with Guchkov's help and joined his conspiratorial plans; this is her account, offered with reservations. In January 1917 Krymov travelled to Petrograd and, according to the memoir of Duma chairman M. V. Rodzyanko, promised a group of Duma members the army's support for a coup; he returned to Kishinev on 11 February. After the commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, F. A. Keller, refused to swear the corps to the Provisional Government and was dismissed on 5 April 1917, Krymov was appointed in his place.
The Kornilov affair
On 24 August 1917 Kornilov appointed Krymov commander of the Separate Petrograd Army, tasked with suppressing disturbances in the capital, and the next day sent the 3rd Cavalry Corps and the Native Division toward Petrograd; the units moved by rail from the Stavka area, the corps having been brought up from the Romanian front reserve. The march was thwarted as Kerensky and the Soviet broke up Kornilov's movement, amid thoroughly inadequate technical preparation and the inert resistance of a mass that little trusted Kornilov; the Bolsheviks worked with railway workers to impede it. According to Kersnovsky, Krymov halted his troops at Luga on 29 August.
Contested assessments
Assessments of Krymov diverge. Per Denikin he rejected any agreement with Kerensky and held that the knot could be cut only by force, and became voluntarily an instrument, the 'sword', of the Kornilov movement. As a cavalry commander he was praised, including by A. G. Shkuro and in the nickname 'the third saber of Russia', while K. Mannerheim criticised his unauthorised withdrawal from the Magura position in January 1917 as a gross breach of the laws of war, and A. A. Kersnovsky judged that he failed to exploit a favourable situation.
Death and significance
On 30 August 1917 Colonel Samarin, sent by Kerensky, proposed that Krymov come to Petrograd for talks, and he agreed; after Kerensky proposed that he surrender his powers he concluded that he had been lured into a trap and chose death over humiliating interrogation and arrest. The official account has him shoot himself through the chest after leaving Kerensky's office and die of the wound. Alongside it are recorded Kerensky's explanation by the shock of a refused handshake, the version that he was shot by an adjutant after raising his hand to Kerensky, Denikin's account of death in the Nikolaevsky military hospital, and Wrangel's testimony. Whether the Kornilov affair was a carefully planned coup, a Kerensky manipulation or a botched attempt at cooperation in an authoritarian direction remains disputed, and its principal beneficiary was the Bolshevik Party.