Kolchak general who planned the Chelyabinsk operation and lost Omsk as commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front
Born at Orenburg and trained at the General Staff Academy, he was jailed at Astrakhan after the October Revolution, escaped and joined the Directory's forces at Ufa in 1918. In June 1919 he took command of Kolchak's Western Army (the 3rd Army from July) and with Dmitry Lebedev planned the failed Chelyabinsk operation. Made commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front in November, he failed to hold Omsk, losing the capital and huge stores, and in December the Pepelyayev brothers arrested and removed him. Emigrating in 1920, he wrote White Siberia in Germany, blaming the defeat on Jews, the Entente and the Socialist Revolutionaries, sympathised with fascism, joined a far-right émigré group and died in Berlin in 1941.
Activities and affiliations
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1904–1917
Russian Empire state institutions
Military command -
1918–1920
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1904–1905Russo-Japanese War
- 1908Graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy
- 1916–1917Acting chief of staff of the 3rd Finnish Rifle Division; officer at Stavka
- 1918Imprisoned at Astrakhan; escaped and joined the Directory's forces; major general
- 1919Denikin's representative at Kolchak's headquarters
- 1919Chief of staff, then commander of the Western (3rd) Army; planned the Chelyabinsk operation
- 1919Commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front; lost Omsk; arrested by the Pepelyayev brothers
- 1920Great Siberian Ice March; emigrated
- 1933Joined the Russian Liberation People's Movement