Baltic German tsarist general who commanded the White Northern Army and was kidnapped by the NKVD in Paris
I feel neither anger nor vengeance toward them; they are just pitiful grey folk who can be incited to anything.
A Baltic German aristocrat and tsarist lieutenant general who rose to corps command in the First World War. During the Civil War he served as head of the Arkhangelsk Northern Government and commander-in-chief of the White Northern Army, fighting the Bolsheviks with British and American interventionist support; when the Allies withdrew in autumn 1919, he carried on alone before evacuating to Norway in February 1920. In exile he became chairman of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), leading anti-Soviet émigré activity until 1937, when NKVD agent Nikolai Skoblin lured him into a trap in Paris. Drugged, locked in a steamer trunk, and smuggled to Moscow, he was shot in an NKVD prison in May 1939.
Career Timeline
- 1898Military attaché in Brussels and The Hague
- 1901Military attaché in Italy
- 1914–1916Chief of Staff, 5th and 12th Armies (WWI)
- 1917Commander, 26th Army Corps, Romanian Front
- 1919–1920Head of Northern Government and Commander, Northern Army
- 1920–1930Exile in France, chief of staff under General Wrangel
- 1930–1937Chairman, Russian All-Military Union (ROVS)
- 1937Kidnapped by NKVD in Paris