Mikhail Gordeyevich Drozdovsky

Russian White movement Imperial establishment and White movement 1881–1919 ✕ Died of wounds

White general who marched volunteers from the Romanian front from Iasi to the Don in 1918 to join the Volunteer Army

Born in Kiev, he graduated from the General Staff Academy and fought in the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars, winning the Order of St. George. A staunch monarchist, in 1917 he refused to recognise soldiers' committees and executed Bolshevik elements. In 1918 he formed a brigade of some 800 to 1,050 volunteers on the Romanian front and left Iasi on 11 March; after a long march across Ukraine he fought at Rostov and Novocherkassk in May. In June he joined the Volunteer Army as commander of the 3rd Infantry Division in the Second Kuban Campaign, one of the first White commanders to take captured Red Army men into his ranks. Wounded near Stavropol in November 1918, he died in Rostov-on-Don in January 1919, and his division, named after him, became one of the Volunteer Army's elite "colored" units.

Also known as: Mikhail Drozdovskii · Mikhail Drozdovskiy