Boris Aleksandrovich Engelhardt
Борис Александрович Энгельгардт
1877–1962
○ Natural causes
Headed the Duma Military Commission whose order sending the garrison back to barracks triggered Order No. 1
In Paris in 1916 he told an old comrade: "Perhaps we'll have to do it by revolutionary means... We're only afraid that we might be swamped from the left."
A Baltic German nobleman and General Staff officer who graduated from the Page Corps and the Nicholas Academy, he served in the Russo-Japanese War, retired for health reasons, and was elected to the Fourth State Duma in 1912. During the February Revolution, as chairman of the Duma Military Commission, he drafted the order of 28 February, signed by Rodzianko, demanding all soldiers return to barracks and obey their officers; the order panicked the garrison and became the direct impetus for the Petrograd Soviet's hasty adoption of Order No. 1. He served as Petrograd's first revolutionary commandant, joined the White movement's propaganda arm after October, lived in exile in France and Latvia, and was arrested by Soviet authorities, exiled to Central Asia, and spent his last years as a translator in Riga.
Career timeline
- 1896–1903Graduated Page Corps and General Staff Academy; served in Life Guards Uhlan Regiment
- 1904–1905Served in Russo-Japanese War, 1st Manchurian Army HQ
- 1908Retired for health; zemstvo activity, Mogilev Governorate
- 1912–1917Deputy, Fourth State Duma; Octobrist, Progressive Bloc
- 1917.02Chairman, Duma Military Commission; revolutionary commandant of Petrograd
- 1918–1919Head, political section, Volunteer Army (Kiev, Odessa); OSVAG, AFSR
- 1920–1940Exile in France and Latvia: taxi driver, racehorse trainer
- 1940–1962Arrested, exiled to Khorezm (until 1946); translator, Riga