My first childhood impression of the Civil War in Russia is associated with the famous poster by the artist V.N. Denis "Entente", in which a caricature bourgeois set three dogs in general's caps on the Soviet republic: a shepherd - Kolchak, and two bulldogs - Denikin and Yudenich. So the name Yudenich for a long time began to be associated with precisely that vicious bulldog from the revolutionary poster. And the very activity of Yudenich did not present a special mystery - one of the main leaders of the White movement with his unsuccessful campaign against Petrograd in 1919. In childhood, these impressions were successfully illustrated by the Soviet films “We are from Kronstadt”, “They were the first”, “Optimistic tragedy”. Then the novel by L. Kochetov "The angle of incidence" was added to them. Then there were serious works by Soviet historians, including N.A. Kornatovsky "The Struggle for Red Petrograd", memoirs of the White Guards published in the USSR, for example, "Yudenich near Petrograd" and others. And although they generally did not change the portrait of Yudenich, they already represented him as a rather outstanding personality. Then, while working on materials about the First World War, I got acquainted with a wonderful book by Lieutenant General N.G. Korzun "The First World War on the Caucasian Front", in which the author conducts a brilliant analysis of the victorious actions of the Russian troops in the Caucasus. The book mentions the names of Russian, Turkish military leaders, but, for obvious reasons, the name of the main creator of these victories, the commander-in-chief of the troops, General Yudenich, is never mentioned. He remained the "bulldog" from the poster. Finally, perestroika and the collapse of Soviet power threw out a huge wave of previously forbidden literature on us, opened many closed archives, and the poster "dogs" gained the right to the truth. Moreover, they were not only returned from non-existence, but also raised to the shield of glory, ranking them almost among the folk heroes. The apotheosis of this was the erection of monuments and serial films, for example, A.V. Kolchak, the repeatedly republished works of A.I. Denikin, and the reburial of his ashes from French soil to Russian. And this is fair, well, maybe they went too far with Kolchak. In my opinion, there can be no heroes in the Civil War, by definition, because this is not just a war, but a fratricidal war, the greatest tragedy of the whole people. But here's what's interesting. Both under Soviet power and after its collapse, Yudenich did not get even a hundredth of the attention that was and is still being paid to his neighbors in Denis's famous poster. Moreover, Yudenich turned out to be objectionable not only to the Soviets, but also to many of his associates in the White movement, emigration. Yes, and some of the current "discoverers of the secrets of history" do not favor General of Infantry Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich.

It would be unfair to talk about the complete disregard for his services to the Fatherland. Yes, this is impossible in relation to the victorious commander of the First World War, who did not lose a single battle, the commander-in-chief of the Russian imperial Caucasian army, the last holder of the Order of St. George the Victorious 2nd class in Russia and our history. The complexity of working on Yudenich's biography also lies in the fact that, unlike, say, Denikin, he did not leave behind serious works, memoirs. He had no children, and his wife was marked only by mean memories. Nephews and other relatives were lost in the vastness of Russia after the civil war. And yet. Over the past twenty years, serious works by such historians as V.Zh. Tsvetkov, A.V. Shishov. The latter released a reprinted book about General Yudenich more than once. For some reason, it is presented as a novel, although it is very far from belles-lettres. In my opinion, the most fully and convincingly told about Yudenich was the recently deceased emigre historian N.N. Rutych-Rutchenko and domestic researcher S.G. Zirin. I want to thank them especially. Several videos dedicated to the general have been released. September 27, 2013 from Gatchina started, I think, not the last motor rally through the cities of Russia and Europe in memory of the 80th anniversary of the death of N.N. Yudenich. And yet, the general was “kicked” back in the Civil War and after it, for example, by such politicians as V.L. Gorn, M.S. Margulies, generals A.P. Rodzianko, B.S. Permikin, all kinds of other figures of the White movement and emigration, continue to "kick" until now. Diplomat and writer O.G. Goncharenko in his book "Secrets of the White Movement", ironically calling Yudenich "the great conspirator of the North-Western Army", does not leave a stone unturned from the general's military talent, and his moral cleanliness. The now well-known “expert” of everything and everyone, Estonian citizen and writer Mikhail Veller, categorically states in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda: “Denikin in exile went in a torn overcoat and frayed trousers. But General Yudenich acquired a beautiful villa, a car, a collection of paintings and carpets. And such statements, unfortunately, are not enough. Not the love, to put it mildly, of the liberals for Yudenich is understandable, but neophyte sovereigns make claims to him. To some, even the name Yudenich seems suspicious. In this regard, I want to recall a well-known everyday anecdote from the life of the great Russian artist Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov. In 1922, during a tour of the Moscow Art Theater in the United States, he was recognized as one of the outstanding actors of all times and peoples. The Jewish community of New York, having learned that the real name of Kachalova was Shverubovich, arranged a grand banquet in honor of the famous Jewish artist Shverubovich. At the banquet, Kachalov, listening to the toasts, was in no hurry to dissuade the guests who were speaking, although he never once specified in his life that his surname was purely Belarusian, and his father was an Orthodox archpriest of the Church of St. Nicholas the Pleasant in Vilna.

But seriously speaking, the victorious commander, infantry general, St. George Knight Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, in my opinion, already with one feat in the First World War, earned his place in the pantheon of glory of the heroes of Russia. Of course, Yudenich, like any other person, is not perfect and sinful, he made mistakes and, perhaps, was not always sincere, but his whole multifaceted difficult life is devoted to selfless service to the motherland and one must talk and talk about it constantly. Which I consider it necessary to do, by no means, without claiming to be the ultimate truth.

THE ROAD TO EPAULTES

Let's start with the last name. The basis of the surname was indeed the Jewish name Judah (Praise God). In Belarusian - Yudenya. And Yudenich is the son of Yudenya. In Belarus and Lithuania, this was a fairly common surname among the gentry. It is known for certain that the father of our hero, Nikolai Ivanovich Yudenich, was born on April 7, 1836, in the family of Ivan Nikolayevich Yudenich, a hereditary nobleman of the Minsk province. So the future general and hero was a real hereditary Belarusian nobleman. How his father got to Moscow is not known, but in the lists of 1856 we find him among the graduates of the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute in Moscow. He was released with the rank of ensign. In the same year, his father died, and the young graduate himself was left as a combat officer at the school of surveying topographers, which is part of the institute.

It is simply necessary to say a few words about the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute, if only because not only the whole life of Nikolai Ivanovich Yudenich, but also his family, including, for some time, his son Nikolai, will be connected with it. It was the oldest closed special educational institution in Russia in terms of boundary and topographical part, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. Founded on May 14, 1779 and named after the newly born grandson of Empress Catherine II, Konstantin, first as the Land Surveying School, but already in 1835 transformed into the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute, in a few years it went from a special secondary educational institution to a higher one. An adherent of the army way of life always and in everything, Emperor Nicholas I in 1849 transferred the institute to the military path, increased the number of classes to 8 and included it in the Land Survey Corps. In 1867, like many things in the country under the new Emperor Alexander II, the Land Survey Corps, and with it the Land Survey Institute, returned to civilian status, and soon the institute turned into a full-fledged higher educational institution. Having completed the full course of sciences, he received the title of land surveying engineer with the rank of the Xth class or senior surveyor's assistant with the rank of the YIIth class. The institute was first located in the former estate of the princes Kurakins on Staraya Basmannaya Street, and in 1873 moved not far to the Demidovs' estate on Gorokhovsky Lane, house 4. The three-story building with columns for a long time will be among the sights of one of the capitals of Russia. Under Soviet rule, this will first be the Moscow Geodetic Institute, then the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers. It still exists in the same old place, but, of course, as the State University for Land Management. We now have solid universities.

I must say that there was the only educational institution of this profile in the empire, which enjoyed great prestige in society, not only among the enlightened public. Its graduates have always been in great demand in all provinces and districts of Russia without exception. The Institute had much to be proud of. One of the directors from 1835 to 1838 was the famous writer, Slavophil S.T. Aksakov. V.G. taught at the institute. Belinsky. Among the teachers were such well-known professors as N.M. Aleksapolsky, A.E. Worms, N.M. Kiselev. Known as a brilliant engineer and memoirist, Lieutenant General-Engineer Andrei Ivanovich Delvig is the half-brother of Anton Delvig, no less famous friend of A.S. Pushkin. And among the students and graduates of the institute were not the last people of the empire, and not necessarily in the field of geodesy and land management. Really taught at the institute. In addition to general educational disciplines, the following subjects were taught: geodesy and land surveying, flat and spherical trigonometry, higher physics and chemistry, mineralogy and geognosy, the beginning of architecture and bridge structures, drawing, practical astronomy, the theory and practice of magnetic observations. The institute had astronomical, meteorological and magnetic observatories and a geodetic museum. In addition, classes of manual labor functioned perfectly, in which metalwork, turning and bookbinding skills were taught.

It is also important to note the fact that students from the 1st to the 8th grade could not only study at the institute, but also live with further transfer to students until the end of the full course of science. Pupils aged 12 to 16 years old were accepted into the 1st grade at the state expense or by self-employed boarders. Svokoshtnye pupils paid 200 rubles. per year and 30 rubles. at the same time for furnishing. Mostly the children of land surveyors and officials were taken to the state kosht. Those who served in the Survey Department, and then the rest of the children of clerical employees from the nobility and the townspeople. First, they studied in four general educational streams from the 1st to the 8th grade, then they moved to two higher ones in surveying or engineering. In the summer, older pupils and students usually had field practice in land surveying, surveying, and astronomy in camps.

It was in such an educational institution that Nikolai Ivanovich Yudenich began and ended his service. He studied excellently, for only excellent students occupied vacancies for officers at the institute itself. And all his further service speaks of outstanding abilities. In 1861, he was a second lieutenant - an educator officer at the school of boundary surveyors. Since 1863, he has already been teaching geodesy and astronomy at school, and arithmetic in the rank of lieutenant in the Orphan's House, located right there in the wing. In 1867, he was already the chief of police (the position corresponded to the inspector of the gymnasium - S.K.) at the school of military topographers. In 1868, together with all the land surveyors, he retired as a citizen with the rank of collegiate assessor, in the military - major. In 1870, he was a court adviser (lieutenant colonel) and a full-fledged teacher at the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute. In 1874 he was a collegiate adviser (colonel). By this time he is already married, the father of three children. The family lived here in the building of the institute, like almost all families of teachers and employees. All this time, until 1886, he was active in teaching and social activities, making not the last contribution to the formation and development of the institute, as one of the best educational institutions in the empire. A brilliant teacher, he does not shy away from literary activity. There is an excellent library in the house, but he did not move him towards belles-lettres. But he is closely involved in special literature. One of the famous graduates of the institute, the tsarist and Soviet general, and surveyor M.D. Bonch-Bruevich writes in his memoirs: “The need to create a scientific center that would direct the geodetic work being carried out in different parts of the vast empire was carried out long before the revolution by many survey engineers. In the 80s of the last century, Yudenich, one of the teachers at the Konstantinovsky Survey Institute, organized in Moscow the Society of Survey Engineers, which published its own printed journal, Survey Vestnik, and did a lot to develop geodesy as a science. The journal was published in 1883-1884 under the editorship of N. Yudenich, D. Zharkov and S. Rudin, and ceased to exist due to lack of funds. Editors and publishers did not have enough money for more than 24 issues.

In 1886, Nikolai Ivanovich left Moscow, went to Kursk as head of the Land Surveying School, where he received the rank of state councilor (civilian general). From there, three years later, he was transferred to Tiflis, also as the head of the Land Surveying School, with the rank of real state councilor. In 1891, he returned to Moscow as an honored person with orders - St. Stanislav 2nd and 3rd class, St. Anna 2nd and 3rd class, St. Vladimir 3rd class to the post of inspector of his native Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute . Everything would be fine, but since 1885 he has been tormented by angina pectoris, which worsened in Tiflis and served as one of the reasons for returning to Moscow. He will serve his institute for a little over a year. In the spring, the disease worsened, the family urgently moved to the dacha in Pererva, where the father of our hero reposed in Bose on June 2, 1892, in fact, not yet an old man, only 56 years old. He will be buried at the Semyonovsky cemetery in Moscow. Such is not conspicuous, but very useful life for the good of the fatherland. It is important for us to note that from early childhood, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich grew up in a truly patriarchal, and at the same time, an intelligent family of a Russian service nobleman, which, without any doubt, greatly influenced the character, upbringing, and moral character of the future commander. My father was directly involved in this. In addition to special studies in the house, they loved literature, music, and painting. Children grew up diversified people. By the way, it is not a sin to notice such a detail. From all of the above, it is clear that Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich could not meet his father in 1904 in Moscow on the way to the Russo-Japanese War, as some biographers note. At best, I could only visit his grave at the Semyonovsky cemetery.

Many biographers of the general write that his mother Agniya Nikolaevna Yudenich, nee Dal, was the cousin of the Russian writer, friend of Pushkin, author of the famous dictionary Vladimir Ivanovich Dal. This is also not true. Agnia Nikitichna was born on January 25, 1836 in Moscow in the family of Nikita Frantsevich Dal and could not possibly be Vladimir Ivanovich's cousin, since his father was Ivan Matveevich, not Ivan Frantsevich. The wife of General Yudenich Alexandra Nikolaevna spoke about the relationship of Yudenich's mother with the famous writer in one of her interviews after his death, misleading the future biographers of our hero. In general, the surname Dal was not so rare in Rus'. Another thing is curious, exactly how Agnia Nikitichna met Nikolai Ivanovich. I think that the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute could not have done here either, because one of her brothers Valery studied at the institute together with Yudenich. It is not difficult to understand what follows. The last thing known about the fate of Agnia Nikitichna is her move to Kharkov in 1892 after the death of her husband.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich had two sisters. The eldest is Alexandra and the youngest is Claudia. Both not only loved, but idolized their brother, who answered them in full reciprocity. Surprisingly, the sisters, one way or another, turned out to be connected with the Land Survey Institute. Born in 1860, Alexandra Nikolaevna, like her brother, lived within the walls of the institute, married the teacher of this institute, Pyotr Andreevich Lavrentiev. After graduating from the institute, he worked as a land surveyor, taught mathematics at the institute, was a class teacher, inspector, rose to the rank of state councilor, holder of many orders. On July 28, 1902, he suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Alexandra Nikolaevna, with her four sons, moved to her mother in Kharkov, where she lived until the 1917 revolution. She fled from the revolution to distant Ufa, settled in the house of a classmate of the husband of the director of the local land surveying school. What became of her and her sons is still unknown. It's a pity, because these were the last descendants of the Yudenich family. Even less is known about the fate of the general's younger sister. Klavdia Nikolaevna was born in 1868, she also spent her childhood and youth in the institute's apartment. She married a certain I.L. Paevsky, about whose fate nothing more is known. Had two daughters. During the World War in 1916, like her sister, she moved to her mother in Kharkov. The further fate of her and her daughters is not known. Revolution, civil war spared few.

Such a close connection of the Yudenich family with the Konstantinovsky Land Surveying Institute gives us an answer to the controversial question about the childhood and study of the future general. Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich was born on July 18, 1862, as we now know, in the family of an educator of the school of surveying topographers, a second lieutenant, and not a collegiate assessor or director of the Surveying Institute, as almost all biographers note. He grew up like all children of preschool age. And then biographers send him to a classical gymnasium or a cadet corps (at that time military gymnasiums - S.K.) Allegedly, the boy dreamed of becoming a military man from childhood. But in the lists of graduates of Moscow gymnasiums, we do not find the name of Yudenich. And why did he need gymnasiums, if God himself arranged his life within the walls of the Land Survey Institute, where he was born, lived, where his father taught, and where one could get one of the best education in Russia as a boarder. Little Kolya Yudenich, without any doubt, wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, and the family only welcomed this.

We see some pictures of the life of boarders of the Land Survey Institute in the memoirs of Nikolai Ivanovich Astrov, a well-known pre-revolutionary public figure, a former Moscow mayor and secretary of the Moscow Duma, who lived in the institute’s apartment as a child: “Our rooms overlooked the courtyard of the Institute. Oh, this yard was much more interesting than the street! In the yard, in our opinion, the whole life of the entire Institute was concentrated. The director of the Institute, the stern General Apukhtin, with a gray mustache and a cigar in his teeth, was walking around the yard. The windows of the apartments of Inspector Lamovsky, the educators of the Institute, overlooked the courtyard. All the residents of the Institute were walking around the yard.

And on spring days, in warm weather, at 12 o'clock the bell rang and pupils poured out of the opened doors of the Institute. This was especially interesting. Noise, din instantly filled the entire huge yard. Pupils in black jackets, and in summer in canvas blouses, partly rushed into the institute garden, partly ran around the yard. We, sitting at the window, were completely delighted, looking at the revived courtyard. Eyes darted. They didn't know who to look at. So everything was interesting, new and exciting.

Games began, one more interesting than the other. There were bast shoes, and a gypsy, candles, towns, priests, siskins, piles, tags, nightingale robbers. In the corner of the yard stood gigantic steps, on which they flew with a skid...

And then the bell rang again. Games, revival somehow immediately subsided, as if slashed. Noise and din immediately lost their sonority and intensity. The cutting sound of the bell conquered the noise, the movement, the fun.

Pupils were lined up by age and company in the correct rows. This was also interesting. Then a command was given, and the rows quickly turned into columns. And after a new, short command from the educator, the columns walked peacefully around the yard and, starting with the smallest, were drawn into the gate and disappeared into the black space of the corridors of the main building. The institute absorbed the noisy crowd of pupils. The yard immediately went silent. But after a few minutes, all the windows of all floors were filled with pupils scattered around the classes. Now the noise and hubbub rushed from the open windows.

But here again the distant, crashing sound of the bell. The windows close almost simultaneously and the noise stops. There is complete silence. This is the beginning of the teaching ... ".

In the same memoirs, we find, perhaps, the only mention of the Yudenich family, Kolya Yudenich himself: “Against the windows of our apartment, across the large courtyard, was the apartment of one of the educators of the Institute, N.I. Yudenich. In the Yudenich family, with whom we children soon met and became friends, there was our contemporary, the girl Klavochka. Klavochka became our common favorite... In the Yudenich family was Kolya Yudenich, a slender, handsome young man. He was much older than us. He looked down on us. We admired him and everything he did, said, seemed to us indisputable. Our delight knew no end when Kolya Yudenich once appeared at the institute's courtyard as a cadet of the Alexander Military School. Two years later we already saw him in a hussar uniform. It was interesting and filled us with pride.

Kolya Yudenich, from our institute court, became a hussar.

Then life parted us in different directions. And only the Great War and the Caucasian exploits of General Yudenich made me feel joy again...

After all, this is Kolya Yudenich, from our institute yard!

Yudenich was never a hussar, Astrov, of course, made a mistake, but is this mistake so important. As well as his attitude towards the baby, typical of many young people, is unimportant. True, one can note the secrecy that is beginning to manifest itself in the character of Yudenich. No, he did not avoid comrades, he liked friendly campaigns, but he always kept a certain distance in relations. Never been that kind of shirt guy.

There is no doubt that Nikolai Yudenich studied excellently, and probably he would have made a capable and needed land surveyor for the country, but man proposes, and God disposes. I think a sharp turn in the fate of our hero occurred because of the Russian-Turkish war that broke out in the mid-70s. The war of liberation, incredibly popular in all sectors of Russian society, which brought many young people into the army who had never dreamed of a military career before. We will not dwell on well-known events in detail. It is important for us to note how the whole country stirred up to fight for a just cause - the liberation of the Orthodox Slavic brothers from the centuries-old Turkish yoke. The great humanist, philologist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in his diary for 1877 writes: “It is the people themselves who have risen to war, with the tsar at their head. When the royal word was heard, the people poured into the churches, and this was all over the Russian land. When they read the manifesto, the people were baptized, and everyone congratulated each other on the war ... They only mean that the whole people have risen for the truth, for the holy cause, that the whole people have risen to the war and are going.” Fifty-year-old Leo Tolstoy declared: "All Russia is there, and I must go." Ivan Turgenev said: "If I were younger, I would go there myself." Found even younger. Writers Garshin, Vereshchagin, Pomyalovsky. Artists Makovsky, Vereshchagin. Doctors Pirogov, Botkin, Sklifosovsky. And thousands of young and old volunteers of all classes of imperial Russia, not excluding women. After the defeat in the Crimean War, the Russian Imperial Army, utterly criticized after its defeat in the Crimean War, finally spread its wings, and even with the inevitable costs of the war, launched, in the end, victorious campaigns in the Balkans and the Caucasus. The names of generals Gurko, Dragomirov, Skobelev, Radetsky, Stoletov sounded throughout the country. The military uniform returned its former attractiveness and attractiveness. The regiments of the first stage went to war, the guards left. The regiments of the Grenadier Corps stationed in it left Moscow.

Rushing to the front, or at least to the army, all the youth of the empire - students and high school students, artisans and peasants, philistines. They also left the Land Survey Institute, so that Yudenich had someone to take an example from. The first to leave was Victor Shirokov, who was finishing his course of sciences. He will go to the glorious Moscow 3rd Alexander School, which will forever connect him with the army. After school, there will be a service in artillery, study at the Academy of the General Staff, command of a regiment in the Russian-Japanese war, "Golden St. George's weapon" for courage. He will rise to the rank of lieutenant general in the imperial army, commander of the 21st army corps. Did Yudenich think that in many respects he would repeat the career of his classmate at the institute. True, after the revolution, Shirokov will be in the ranks of the Red Army as the commander of the Oryol military district? Of course not, but the dream of moving to the Alexander Military School began to take on the features of reality. I also heard a lot about the school, its history, the order in it and the level of training from the father's friend, State Councilor Dmitry Petrovich Rashkov, who taught topography not only at the Mezhev Institute, but also at the Alexander School.

The last straw was the parade on August 8, 1878 of the regiments of the Moscow garrison, who returned with a victory from military campaigns to winter quarters. Moscow loved its grenadiers, cavalrymen, artillerymen, considering them the best, native Moscow. And now the favorites, real heroes with award-winning St. George banners and trumpets to the thundering brass of orchestras, ironed Moscow's pavements. All of Moscow poured into the streets, including students of the Land Survey Institute. Here they are, the first heroes of the battles for Kars and Erzurum - the 1st Life-Grenadier Ekaterinoslav Emperor Alexander II Regiment, two battalions of which were quartered in the Kremlin. Behind him are the inhabitants of the Khamovniki barracks of the 2nd Grenadier Rostov and 3rd Grenadier Pernovsky regiments. And then the heroes of the Balkans - the glorious 11th Fanagori Grenadier Prince Suvorov and the 12th Astrakhan Grenadier Regiment hurried to their Krutitsky barracks. Then the cavalry. The 1st Hussar Sumy Prince of Denmark Regiment was led by the commander, the favorite of Moscow, Marquis Leonid Andreevich de Traves. Blue Hungarians and crimson chikchiri swept through the streets in a wave, opening the way for artillery. Looking at the ceremonial splendor, Nikolai Yudenich wholeheartedly wanted to merge with this whole, beautiful, powerful mass, then not yet imagining that in a few years he would be able to serve for some time in one of the regiments passing by - the 12th Grenadier Astrakhan. Be that as it may, he decided to leave the Land Survey Institute for the 3rd Alexander Military School. In the family, his choice met with understanding. True, I had to promise my father to certainly graduate from the General Staff Academy in the future and become a highly educated promising officer.

To finally finish with the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute, we note that Yudenich was not the first and not the last commander of the Russian army ever associated with this educational institution. These turned out to be more than enough, in fact, for a purely civilian institute of engineers and land surveyors. Let me say a few words about them.

Perhaps the most famous after Yudenich was Lieutenant-General of the Imperial and Red armies, doctor of military and technical sciences, Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, who graduated from the institute. Brother of the closest associate of V.I. Lenin, a prominent military theorist and geodesist, the author, together with M.I. Dragomirov of the famous "Textbook of tactics", who served in the imperial army to the chief of staff of the Northern Front, and under Kerensky to the commander-in-chief of the front, he was one of the first to go over to the side of Soviet power. True, he was not eager for positions, despite the closeness of his brother to the leader of the world proletariat. Twice he refused the post of Commander-in-Chief, a little more than a month he led the Field Headquarters of the RVSR, but even during the Civil War he left combat work and, remaining in the reserve of the Red Army, returned to his native geodesy, which he did until the end of his life. The author of the well-known 9-volume Geodesy reference manual, he will be arrested twice, but released both times, live a long life and rest as a 76-year-old honored scientist at the Vagankovsky cemetery. We, moreover, are curious about the similarity of his biography with the biography of Yudenich. Also a Belarusian hereditary nobleman, the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute, the Alexander Military School, the Lithuanian Life Guards and the 12th Astrakhan Grenadier Regiments, the General Staff Academy, the commander-in-chief of the front forces in the First World War. As if he was following in the footsteps of Yudenich. But only before the revolution. What does not happen in life.

Yudenich has much in common with another pupil of the Land Survey Institute, Infantry General Nikolai Petrovich Mikhnevich. Also the Alexander Military School, the Guards, however, not the Lithuanian, but the Semenovsky Regiment, the Academy of the General Staff, also commands a brigade in the Russo-Japanese War. Then the teaching of military art at the same time in all the academies of the empire, starting with the Academy of the General Staff, until he leaves to command the 2nd Guards Division and the 5th Army Corps. He will start and end the world war as the chief of the General Staff of the War Ministry, and retire to the reserve. After the revolution, at the age of 69, he will enter the Red Army, and for another 8 years he will teach in Soviet military educational institutions. He will die in 1927 and rest in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Another classmate of Yudenich at the Land Survey Institute and the Alexander School, Infantry General Vladimir Gavrilovich Glazyev, having passed the guards regiments, the General Staff Academy, including as its head, will manage to lead the Ministry of Public Education for more than a year. Then again the army, the command of the corps, the Moscow military district. Since February 1918 in the Red Army, he will die in 1920. Another "surveyor" General of Infantry Yevgeny Evgenyevich Ussakovsky also went through all the same career steps as Yudenich, rising to the rank of corps commander. He did not serve in the Red Army, since he died in 1918, but his son Alexander, a colonel in the imperial army, served the Bolsheviks regularly.

All these "surveyors" have much in common with Yudenich, with the exception of the main thing - in the Civil War they will find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. By the way, he dreamed of entering the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute, who also did not think about a military career at first, another illustrious commander of the Russian land - Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky, but that's another story.

So, in August 1879, Nikolai Yudenich from the Land Survey Institute was transferred to the 3rd Alexander Military School as an ordinary cadet and puts on, as we read in one of his biographies, “the desired form of a cadet - Alexander - a soldier, protective with scarlet epaulettes on his shoulders" . True, the epaulettes of the Alexandrovites were always white, and the protective khaki color would appear in the Russian army only after 30 years. This is by the way.

The 3rd Alexander Military School was one of the six especially privileged military educational institutions of the Russian imperial army. Such schools became one of the elements of the famous Milyutin military reform of the 60s-70s of the 19th century. They were established by the highest order of August 25, 1863 and by order of the Minister of War No. 330 of September 16, 1863. It was envisaged to create several special special military educational institutions for the training of highly qualified primary-level officers of all branches of the armed forces. This is how these six best military schools in Russia appeared - five in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow. They issued officers to all branches of the military, but with the exception of the most privileged Corps of Pages, they had a specialization: the St. Petersburg Pavlovsk Military School - infantry; Petersburg Nikolaev Cavalry School - cavalry; St. Petersburg Mikhailovsky Artillery School - artillery; St. Petersburg Nikolaev Engineering School - sappers; Moscow Alexander School - infantry. Although for some time their graduates went to other branches of the military. In addition to these six schools, a whole network of cadet military schools was unfolding, in which applicants were not so demanding, the training programs were simpler, and the status of graduates was lower. But the first six schools trained the elite of the Russian imperial army, both for the guards and for the rest of the military units of the empire. And only one of them, the Alexander Military School, was located not in St. Petersburg, but in Moscow. For the northern capital, pages and junkers were not particularly exotic, but, as it were, added splendor to the numerous guards regiments quartered in the city and its environs. Moscow is another matter. For Moscow, the junkers - Alexandrovites, as it were, personified the Russian guard and enjoyed special attention and love from all sections of Moscow society without exception. This not only imposed on the junkers additional duties of the representative nature of Moscow celebrations, from the coronation of the next sovereign to the opening of Moscow innovations, but also brought up in them a special exactingness towards themselves, a special manner of behavior and the life of the school in general. Muscovites knew and loved the school building with columns on Znamenka not far from Arbatskaya Square. This building, in a slightly modified form, still exists today, as one of the buildings of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

For those who want to get acquainted in detail with the life of the school, its pupils and educators in all its aspects, I would recommend the book “Alexander Military School 1863-1904” published in Moscow in 1901 by Lieutenant V. Kedrin. and the famous novel of the famous Alexander and lieutenant A.I. Kuprin "Junker". The first book is a rigorous study, the second is a highly artistic, easy-to-read prose by a great master. And both of them are literally imbued with love for their native school, pride in their cadet and officer ranks. No wonder Kuprin liked to repeat that - first of all, he is a Russian officer, then a Tatar prince, and only then a writer. I will allow myself to conduct a very brief excursion around the school, so that it is clear what the former land surveyor Nikolai Yudenich, who came to its walls, faced, according to what rules and way of life he will spend two fleeting years here.

So, who actually went to school. Pupils of military gymnasiums (cadet corps) were admitted there with admission to free vacancies of young people of all classes with completed secondary education, according to certificates. Those who did not complete the course of secondary educational institutions had to pass rather difficult entrance exams at the school. Nikolai Yudenich passed without exams and was enrolled in the junior year. Most of the applicants were still graduates of military gymnasiums (cadet corps) from the nobility. There were few outside candidates. In general, the number of civilian applicants was constantly changing from an increase to a complete absence, as, for example, in 1890-1894. Together with Yudenich, 6 out of 10 representatives from the civilian class graduated in the top ten, and out of 154 graduates, there were more than a third of them.

The school consisted of combat, educational and economic parts. In combat terms, it was a battalion of 4 companies. At the head was the head with the rights of the head of the division, to whom the battalion commander was subordinate, who supervised the military order and the exact performance of the duties of the service of officers and cadets subordinate to him, discipline, servility, morality of the junkers, their drill training and study. He also oversaw the economic part (uniforms, equipment, food, reporting). Company commanders supervised the service, combat and military education of the junkers and the company economy. In each company there was a junior and senior class, which were led by educator officers and their closest assistants, sergeant majors and junker belts (non-commissioned officers) from the junkers. It was a special cadet caste with stripes on shoulder straps and with cleavers with an officer's lanyard. It is important for us to note that the best junkers in combat and training were assigned to the junker belt

The training programs included the teaching of the military (tactics, topography, military art, fire training, fortification, artillery, cavalry, etc.), and general education (Russian language and literature, mathematics, including analytical geometry and the beginning of mathematical analysis, physics, chemistry ., history, geography, statistics, foreign languages, logic, psychology and the Law of God) disciplines. Teaching was divided into lectures by professors in classrooms and rehearsals in all subjects. Education at that time was no laughing matter. The best Moscow university professors were invited to give lectures, such as S.M. Soloviev, V.I. Guerrier, N.I. Storozhenko, V.O. Klyuchevsky. N.V. Bugaev, Archpriest Ivantsov-Platonov and others. Let's face it, such a scientific, intellectual atmosphere could not even be found in all higher schools. And this also distinguished the Alexandrovites from the cadets of other schools.

The daily routine is striking in its harmony and extreme workload. Juncker, in fact, had to work from dawn to dusk, not sparing his stomach. Judge for yourself. From September 1st to April 1st, the schedule is as follows. Rise at 6 o'clock. 30 min. From 7h. 15 minutes. Until 7 o'clock 45 min. morning prayer, gymnastics, morning examination, tea, outpatient examination if necessary by a doctor and a walk. From 8 o'clock until 12 noon 10 min., on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and on other days from 8 am. up to 1 hour 35 min. - cool lessons. Changes between lectures - 10 min. From 12 noon 10 min. until 12 noon 40 min. breakfast. After breakfast on Wednesdays and Saturdays drill until 3 o'clock. 30 min. On other days from 1h.45 to 3h. 45 min. At 4 o'clock lunch. From 4 h 30 min. until 5 o'clock 30 min. the junkers have a rest. Then two hours of mandatory classes to prepare for rehearsals. Once a week from 6 to 8 pm in each company, gymnastics and fencing classes. At 8:30 a.m. evening tea and at 8 o'clock. 45 min. roll call, prayer and dawn, after which the cadets work until 11 o'clock and go to bed. From April 1 until the middle of May, the order changes somewhat: on those days when there are no junker exams in the morning at drill exercises, on the days of the exams drill drills were not held. With going to the camps and after the end of shooting, the distribution of the day depended on the type of combat activities, and especially on live shooting. Lunch during this period was at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and dinner at 8 o'clock in the evening, after which a roll call and prayer were held at a common signal for the entire Khodynka camp. On holidays and Sundays, as well as on weekdays, in their free time from class and drill classes (where is it? - S.K.), those who wanted senior class cadets went on vacation from 2 to 4 times a week, and junior cadets class, from 1 to 3 times, depending on the behavior score. On Sundays and holidays, they left for the night only with their parents and close relatives.

During the years of Yudenich's studies, the cadets of the senior classes were divided into 3 categories according to the final exam. The 1st category included those who received an average of at least 8 points from all subjects of teaching, while the average score in military sciences and mathematics should have been at least 6, in behavior and military service - at least 9. The 2nd category included cadets who received at least 7 points in the final exam, and at least 8 in military service. all others belonged to the 3rd category. According to the ranks, the release was carried out. The 1st category were issued as second lieutenants in the army infantry, artillery, sappers, cornets in the cavalry, or seconded to the guards regiments (as a rule - the best - S.K.). Junkers, who graduated in the 2nd category, were released into the army infantry as ensigns. The 3rd category went to the army regiments as cadets for 6 months, and then they passed a simple exam for an officer's rank. Upon graduation, everyone received an allowance for uniforms in the amount of 300 rubles. The 3rd category received 50 rubles each. Juncker, who received the highest score for graduation, was entered on the marble board of honor of the school.

It was into such an environment that 17-year-old Nikolai Yudenich joined. A special spirit began already with the motto that every school had. For example, Pavlovsky - “Die yourself, but help out a comrade!”, At the Nikolaev Cavalry - “And they were a friendly family of soldiers, a cornet and a general!”. Alexandrovtsy proudly repeated: "Faithful to duty, God is with us!" Actually, the last phrase also crowned the banner of the school with a white cross on one side and the Savior Not Made by Hands on the other. And this phrase was not an empty phrase. With her, the transformation of Kolya Yudenich into a real military man began. He came from the Land Survey Institute with more than enough knowledge in general subjects, surpassing many former cadets by a head. But drill training, a military bone was not enough. In all schools there was and was implanted the cult of the military, his superiority in all respects over civilians. No wonder the same Kuprin, and he was not the only one who remembered the Junker song for life

I can't stand civilians

And I call them shpaks

And even my grandmother

They are beaten in the face with shoes

It should be noted that the junkers based their superiority over the civilians on the main sign of a military man - their readiness at any moment, without reasoning, to go to death and give their lives for the sovereign emperor, for their homeland. At that time it was taken for granted, and understood by all sections of society. Putting on shoulder straps, the cadet quite seriously prepared for death. It was. Yudenich understood this immediately and never later doubted the correctness of such a motto. He was also lucky in the complete absence of the so-called "hazing" within the walls of the Alexander Military School, then called "tsukanie". This, by the way, was not forbidden in many schools, especially in the Nikolaev Cavalry. In Aleksandrovsky, according to an unwritten law, the senior junkers treated the younger ones in a friendly and patronizing way, even though they called them "pharaohs". However, playful nicknames have always existed in the Russian world, and will exist forever. In a word, for a young, physically developed person, it was not difficult for a couple of months to go through the simple school of a young soldier and turn into a decent construction worker, a military bone. The very atmosphere of the school contributed to this. And such an atmosphere, first of all, was created by the command of the school, the officers. And here Yudenich was lucky, although there were no particularly outstanding personalities among the educator officers. And are they needed in the painstaking, inconspicuous, but very responsible work of educating future officers of the Russian imperial army.

The first and most important impression was made, of course, by the head of the school, Major General of His Imperial Majesty's retinue, Mikhail Petrovich Samokhvalov. An interesting look at him from the cadet environment, in my opinion, was given by Kuprin: “The school authorities understood the great importance of such a strict and soft, family, friendly military education and did not interfere with it. It was justifiably proud of the well-organized herd of its thoroughbred one-year-old and two-year-old colts - hot, bold to the point of insolence, but wonderfully obedient in capable hands, skillfully combining affection with severity ... degree, perhaps a little excessive ... The junkers appreciated his devotion to the school and his pride in his Alexandrovites. In fact, he was a well-deserved and well-known person in the army. He began his service in the guards regiments - Lithuanian and Moscow, the Academy of the General Staff, staff and command positions, including command of the 7th Samogitsky Grenadier Regiment, famous throughout the army. From the regiment, he will come to the school, which he will command for almost twelve years and will go into service in the division. The class inspector was Colonel Nikolai Nikolaevich Svetlitsky, an extremely pedantic and very attentive teacher. He did not become famous for anything special, but he will rise to the rank of General Chief Orlovsky Bakhtin of the Cadet Corps. The battalion was commanded by Colonel Vladimir Karlovich Vodar, who actually served all his life at the Alexander School, starting as a junior officer, private artillery teacher, company commander and battalion commander. The school and the cadets were everything for him in this life, as well as for the company commander, Captain Alexander Yegorovich Dubyago. The meeting with these people was for Yudenich the first revelation of understanding the essence of what a Russian officer should be like, how he should behave with superiors, subordinates, outside the unit in a civilian environment. Understanding what the honor of an officer is in general.

The study itself was given to Nikolai Yudenich much easier than military education, although for many pupils of military gymnasiums (cadet corps) mastering the course of school sciences became a stumbling block. Former cadets often "floated" not only in general education disciplines, especially mathematics, physics, chemistry, drawing, but also in the military. For example, fortification, which required remarkable drawing skills. The school of the Land Survey Institute, mastered by Yudenich perfectly, helped him easily master the course of the school. Yes, and the teachers were the best in Moscow, one to match the other. So, tactics and military history were taught by the famous military scientist Colonel Dmitry Fedorovich Maslovsky, artillery, Major General Vasily Alexandrovich Eksten, and fortification by Colonel Sergei Nikolayevich Prudnikov. And a whole galaxy of university professors involved in the work. We have already talked about State Councilor Dmitry Petrovich Rashkov from the Land Survey Institute, who facilitated Yudenich's transition to the school. The story was read to Yudenich by the famous Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky, who came to the school on the recommendation of his teacher, the even more famous Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov, who had previously taught there. Yudenich will forever have a love for national history, including as a science. It is no coincidence that even in the last years of his life, already in exile, he will head the "Society of Zealots of Russian History" with special attention. And it all began here, in a two-story building with columns on Znamenka, within the walls of the Alexander Military School. Yudenich also listened to the lectures of the famous economist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov, and the professor of Russian literature Vladimir Petrovich Sheremetevsky, the author of the once famous book "The Word in Defense of the Living Word." A brilliant mathematician, professor of the Agricultural Academy, a native of the family of a naval officer, Yakov Yakovlevich Tsvetkov, forever instilled a love for the most accurate of the sciences.

Camp life, topographic surveys, and astronomical measurements were also familiar to Yudenich from the camps of the Land Survey Institute. In the camps, he leaned most of all on drill exercises and live shooting.

Undoubtedly, the first meeting with the sovereign Emperor Alexander II, who visited the school on November 27, 1879, was a huge shock for the young Nikolai Yudenich. Then, before graduation, after the maneuvers on the Khodynka field at the highest review, he will also be honored to see the sovereign Emperor Alexander III, but that first meeting with the tsar forever touched his heart and determined until the end of his days attitude to the monarchy, the sacred personality of the Russian tsar in general. Yudenich is not alone in this. For a junker, a young officer of that time, already to see the adored monarch became something incredible. Remember how Nikolai Rostov from War and Peace reacted to this. Yudenich is probably closer to Alexander Kuprin: “The Tsar is getting closer to Alexandrov. Sweet, pungent rapture seizes the Junker's soul and carries it in a whirlwind, carries it up. Quick waves of chill run through the body and the hair on the head rises like a hedgehog. He sees the sovereign's face with marvelous clarity... What blissful, sublime, forever unforgettable seconds! Alexandrov is definitely not. He dissolved, like a speck of dust, in a common multimillion-dollar feeling. And at the same time, he realizes that his whole life and will, like the life and will of his entire multi-million homeland, has gathered, as if in focus, in this one person, whom he could reach with his hand, gathered and received an unshakable, unique, iron statement. And that is why, next to the airiness of his whole being, he feels magical power, a supernatural possibility and a thirst for an endless sacrificial feat.

Kuprin, after leaving the army, having got into the society of the writing brethren, will quickly turn into a real liberal, will be disappointed both in the monarchy and in the kings. Will wake up only after the Bolshevik coup. What can not be said about Yudenich. During the revolution, like almost all military leaders, he will not defend the throne, it is absurd to go against the will of God, but in his heart, without any doubt, he remained a monarchist until his last days. This was constantly talked about by his friends and enemies. In addition, he, like his classmates at the school, was indelibly impressed by the death just a few months after the meeting at the hands of the revolutionary idolized sovereign Emperor Alexander II. From here, by the way, began and never ended his hatred of the revolutionaries and the revolution in general.

Be that as it may, but to the surprise of himself and his family, Nikolai Yudenich studied and served easily and with pleasure. It is no coincidence that already on February 10, 1880, he was promoted to junior junker harness. To do this, it was necessary to study well, be listed as one of the best combatants and have no complaints about service and discipline. Now, looking at the famous photographs of the elderly General Yudenich, it is hard to imagine that this overweight, bald old man was once the best gymnast of the course, the favorite of the famous Moscow athlete Albert Khristoforovich Lambertini, who taught fencing and gymnastics at the school. As well as the best dancer, who was repeatedly set as an example by the school dance teacher, artist of the Imperial Bolshoi Theater Ivan Dmitrievich Nikitin. All his life, like all Alexandrovites, Yudenich will remember the legend of the school, the leader of the school orchestra, State Councilor Fyodor Fedorovich Kreinbring. And there were also the famous balls on Znamenka and in women's educational institutions in Moscow, and, probably, the first love. There were school gatherings with choral singing. There was also a literary magazine "Aleksandrovets", where, together with all the cadets, Yudenich wrote notes, letters, congratulated officers and teachers. And he would definitely leave for the city, like a cadet who did not receive a single remark during the entire period of training. The layoffs were doubly gratifying. As a Muscovite, he invariably went home, to his beloved family, with an overnight stay. What else does a young man need to be happy - a cadet of one of the best military schools in Russia? For those wishing to know the details, I recommend reading Kuprin's novel Juncker, which has been mentioned more than once.

Two years flew by like a blink of an eye. Aleksandrovtsev was promoted to officer on August 8, 1881. August 6 (old style - S.K.), as you know, the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. It was believed that the cadets, as it were, are transformed into officers. The dream of hundreds and hundreds of cadets who received the coveted officer epaulettes came true. Remember how Lermontovsky Grushnitsky admired: “Oh, epaulettes, epaulettes! Your stars, guiding stars... No! I'm perfectly happy now." Having succumbed to Pecherin's sarcasm, many people still consider such enthusiasm to be some kind of insignificant, martinet fetish. Meanwhile, for each newly-minted officer without exception, the first officer's epaulettes of the road are unusual. And it is unlikely that he will ever experience such delight later in his life, receiving regular military ranks. This will always be remembered even after parting with the army. I know for myself. Harness-junker Yudenich, together with fellow students, received an order for production at a solemn construction, which, according to tradition, he hid under the cadet shoulder strap. And in the pocket there were already officer's epaulettes and an officer's cockade. “Epishka”, again according to tradition, personally put on each graduate a small silver image of the Holy Pleasant and Wonderworker Nicholas, the guardian of Russian soldiers, around the neck.

Yudenich was released in the 1st category as a second lieutenant with enrollment in the army infantry and secondment to the Life Guards of the Lithuanian Regiment with an obligation, in accordance with Article 183 of the Charter on military service and other circulars, to serve in active military service for three years. He graduated with seniority in rank, that is, he had the opportunity to receive the next rank not after 4, but after 3 years. Yudenich graduated seventh on the list, among the best, and, of course, had a wide field for choosing regiments and places for future service. As a rule, the best tried to get into the guards, artillery, grenadiers, who lodged in the capitals, large cities of the central provinces. And then everything went on a descending list to the most remote corners of the Russian empire, where there were separate regiments and units of the Russian infantry. Secondment to one of the guards regiments also depended on the connection of the head of the school with this or that regiment, as it was carried out on his recommendation. "Epishka" served in the Lithuanian and Moscow regiments and gladly recommended his graduates there. However, he recommended to other guards regiments. If only there was a vacancy. Yudenich chose the Lithuanian Regiment for several reasons. Firstly, General Samokhvalov was well remembered in the regiment, they considered him theirs. Secondly, the Life Guards Lithuanian Regiment was part of the 3rd Guards Division, which was stationed in the Kingdom of Poland, and the regiment itself was in Warsaw. Service in the regiment did not require from the officers such significant, additional, material costs as the officers of the guards regiments located in St. Petersburg and its immediate environs. By the time of graduation, his father had risen to the rank of collegiate adviser (colonel), but his funds were clearly not enough to provide his son with a normal service in St. Petersburg.

Of the 154 graduates of the Alexander School in 1881, the first three entered the artillery. The first of the first sergeant major Alexei Bezrukov at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School in St. Petersburg. Having been honored with being entered on the marble board of honor of the school, he, nevertheless, did not show himself in anything special in his later life. It is known that he rose to the rank of Major General of the General Staff and ended his service in the Red Army. Sergeant major Nikolai Kashperov, second in graduation, joined the 1st Grenadier Artillery Brigade in Moscow. The third, sergeant major Vitaly Timiryazev, like Alexei Bezrukov, went to St. Petersburg to the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. Nothing is known about their further service and fate. Of Yudenich's classmates, only Andrei Saranchev, the last of the sergeant-majors, released fourth, and Artur Klembovsky, released eleventh of the Junker belts, left a certain mark in Russian military history. Let me say a few words about them.

Lieutenant-General of the Russian Army Andrei Mikhailovich Saranchev was issued with a secondment, like Yudenich, to the Guards, only the Pavlovsky Regiment in St. Petersburg. Very soon he would meet Yudenich again within the walls of the General Staff Academy, which he would graduate together in 1887. Twice classmates will continue to go on a par until a certain time. Staff work in the headquarters of the corps, districts. In 1902, Saranchev, like Yudenich, will receive command of the regiment - the Apsheron Infantry. By the way, in the Caucasus, where Yudenich will then have a long service. And then their service path diverges. Yudenich goes to the Russo-Japanese War, and Saranchev goes to military education as the director of the Sumy Cadet Corps. In this field, he will rise to the rank of lieutenant general, holder of many Russian orders, and head of all military educational institutions of the armies of Denikin and Wrangel. Then emigration, Paris, where he died in 1935, having outlived his twice classmate for two years. He was buried in the famous cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois, I saw his grave personally. We are also interested in him because he remained in history the only person who remembered Yudenich as a young man, a cadet of the Alexander Military School and spoke about this at the General’s Anniversary Evening: “Nikolai Nikolayevich was then a thin, thin young man with blond curly hair, cheerful and cheerful. Together we listened to the lectures of Klyuchevsky and other excellent teachers in the audience. And again before us, as in the memoirs of the Survey Institute, a slender blond appears.

Major-General of the Russian Army Artur-Oskar Napoleonovich Klembovsky, like Yudenich, left the Junker belt for the Guards, only the Izmailovsky Regiment. He went to the regiment in the footsteps of a more famous older brother, about whom we will say a few words. And Yudenich's classmate is curious about some unusual turns in his career. After serving in the regiment, the Academy of the General, he unexpectedly leaves for the Military Medical Academy, where he rises to the rank of Major General with his dismissal from service in 1914. But the war will again call him into the army ranks. At the front, he will command a brigade, a division, and will retire for the second time in the revolution. He will settle peacefully in the Crimea in Yalta, where in 1920, together with hundreds of officers, he will be shot by the Bolsheviks after Wrangel left. He did not participate in the Civil War, had an older brother in the ranks of the Red Army, and yet ... Fate.

There were no more particularly remarkable people among Yudenich's classmates, but over the long years of its existence, the Alexander Military School has released from its walls more than a dozen famous officers throughout the country and the whole world. I will allow myself to very briefly recall some of them, only because often their fate very much resembled the fate of Yudenich, or was closely intertwined with him.

I'll start with such a very colorful figure as the well-known ataman of the Siberian and Semirechensk Cossack troops, Major General Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov. Originally from the Siberian Cossacks, he graduated from college in 1908 and joined the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment, with whom he got involved in a real rebellion in 1914, was brought to court-martial and spent a year and a half in the fortress. In 1915, he nevertheless escaped to the front and soon became famous as a dashing cavalry officer - one of the first commanders of partisan detachments. Awarded for bravery with the St. George Arms, the French Legion of Honor and the British Medal of Bravery, this former revolutionary in the Civil War would become such a sworn enemy of Soviet power that she would pursue him after the defeat of the White troops abroad. By fraudulent means, the Chinese will seize it, hand it over to the Chekists already in 1924. Three years later, at the age of 38, by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, they will be shot in Semipalatinsk, where the townsfolk will long remember the operetta form of the Annenkovites, their dashing and atrocities.

Another remarkable victim of the revolution among the Alexandrovites was Lieutenant General Nikolai Nikolaevich Dukhonin. He left the school, like Yudenich, from the harness-junkers in the 1st category in the Life Guards Lithuanian Regiment, but in 1896, and went to work, repeating Yudenich's career. The famous "red count" cavalry guard and general A.A. Ignatiev, a classmate of Dukhonin at the Academy of the General Staff, recalled him as a well-behaved quiet man, with a weeping intonation in his voice. But this "quiet man" in the world war already in 1914 will receive the St. George's weapon for bravery and further in the course of the war, the Order of St. George 4th and 3rd class, rise to the rank of Chief of Staff of the Southwestern and Western Fronts. Finally, he will become the last commander-in-chief of the Russian army and will be martyred. The Baltic brothers would first shoot him in the head, and then finish him off with bayonets and rifle butts.

In the same year as Annenkov, another hero of the White movement, Colonel Mitrofan Osipovich Nezhentsev, graduated from college. Hero of the World War, Knight of St. George, the first commander of the volunteer Kornilov detachment in the Russian army with a special status and uniform, after a heroic deed on June 26, 1917, he was deployed to the 4th battalion Kornilov regiment. Almost in full strength, the remnants of this regiment in 1918 will become the backbone of the nascent White Volunteer Army. In the 1st Kuban "Ice Campaign" Nezhentsev will be killed during the storming of Yekaterinodar on the same day as his idol, General Kornilov.

It is impossible not to recall other school graduates who remained loyal to the Russian imperial army. The military minister of the empire, General of Infantry Viktor Viktorovich Sakharov, who graduated from college when Yudenich was only 4 years old. Perhaps the first victim of the revolution. He was killed during the pacification of the rebellious peasants of the Samara and Saratov provinces back in 1905. Another infantry general, a major military leader Alexei Ermolaevich Evert, graduated from college in 1876, when Yudenich had not yet dreamed of a military career. He has accomplished a lot in life. Like Yudenich, he began serving in the Guards, but Volynsky regiment, the Academy of the General Staff, serving in headquarters and commanding units and formations. Also a participant in the Russo-Japanese War, Knight of St. George. During the World War, like our hero, he rose to the rank of command of the front and was a personality no less famous. During the revolution, he was dismissed from service with a uniform and a pension. It is still not known for sure whether he was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918, or died a natural death while doing beekeeping in the small county town of Vireya.

It is time to say a few words about the Alexandrovites, who, by the will of fate, ended up in the ranks of the Red Army after the revolution. I want to start with a little-famous painter, but the undoubted hero of the 1st World War, General of Infantry Vladislav Napoleonovich Klembovsky, also because, being the brother of a classmate Yudenich, he will extremely accurately repeat the life path of our hero. Of course, before the revolutionary events of 1917. He graduated from the cadet harness school in 1879 as the third on the list, joining the Izmailovsky Life Guards Regiment. After serving in the regiment, the Academy of the General Staff and various staff positions, like Yudenich. Also, before the Russo-Japanese War, the command of the 122nd Tambov Infantry Regiment, with which he will go to war, will also be wounded twice and marked along with Yudenich as the best regimental commander. He will become a major general a year earlier, and they will receive a lieutenant general in one year. Yudenich will go along the headquarters line, and Klembovsky will go into operation, commanding successively the 9th Infantry Division, the 10th Army Corps, with which he will enter the world war. At the end of 1914, he, like Yudenich, the corps commander, also received the Order of St. George 4th class for a brilliant victory over the Austrians. In 1915, both generals from infantry. Further, Yudenich commands the army, the front, having glorified himself with victories in the Caucasus, and Klembovsky is the chief of staff with Brusilov and one of the authors and organizers of the famous breakthrough. Both receive the Order of St. George 3rd class. Further, Klembovsky commands the 5th, 11th armies, after the revolution, the Northern Front and in the Riga operation he will save Petrograd. Both will be removed from their posts by Kerensky's personal order. Unlike Yudenich, Klembovsky did not fight in the Civil War, but served in the Red Army in the military-historical commission, taught and was even listed as a member of the Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief of the RVSR. In 1920, he will end up in Butyrka, allegedly for ties with the Poles, where he will die after a 14-day hunger strike, declared in protest against the absurd accusation. In essence, like his brother, he will die at the hands of the Bolsheviks. Amazing fate.

I cannot pass by the Alexandrovites, who voluntarily joined the Red Army and reached significant heights in it. We have already spoken about Bonch-Bruevich. But he was far from the colonel of the imperial army and commander of the 1st rank of the Red Army Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev, who graduated from college in the 1st category in 1900. Regimental life, the Academy of the General Staff, during the World War the command of the 30th Infantry Regiment and the headquarters of the 15th Army Corps and the 3rd Army. In the Red Army voluntarily since April 1918. He commanded the detachments of the curtain, the Eastern Front. From July 1919 to April 1924 - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic. Then the inspector and chief of staff of the Red Army. Died of a heart attack in 1936. He was buried in Red Square, near the Kremlin wall. He earned several royal orders, the Order of the Red Banner of War and the Honorary Revolutionary Weapon.

Another Alexandrovite, Major General of the Imperial Army and Commander of the 1st Rank of the Red Army, Pavel Pavlovich Lebedev, is a match for him. This one graduated from college in 1892, like Yudenich, in the 1st category and was released in the Life Guards Moscow Regiment. Academy of the General Staff with honors. During World War II, he rose to the rank of Quartermaster General of the headquarters of the Western Front. In 1918, he refused to join the White movement and voluntarily joined the Red Army at the personal invitation of V.I. Lenin himself. It was worth it. He commanded the Eastern Front, and from 1919 to 1924 he was the head of the Field Headquarters of the Red Army. By the way, he was directly involved in the preparation of the operation and the defeat of Yudenich's troops near Petrograd. After the Civil War, he led the armed forces of Ukraine and died in Kharkov in 1933. Like Kamenev, he is a holder of tsarist and Soviet orders.

And one can’t forget the Alexandrovite, one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, who graduated from the school in the Life Guards Semenovsky Regiment in 1914 and rose to the rank of lieutenant in the imperial army, but, unlike his older classmates, he was much more successful in Red Army. True, again, unlike them, he will receive his own bullet from the authorities and the party, which he served more than zealously. I think there is no need to clarify the well-known pages of the biography of this, without any doubt, a talented military leader, a handsome man, a lover of violins and women, but perhaps the most ambitious graduate of the Alexander Military School. We only note that it was the first and last marshal of the graduates of the school.

Among the Alexandrovites there were also famous people who showed themselves not in the military field. The great Russian writer - classic Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, graduated from college in 1890. Unlike Yudenich, only 137 out of 199 graduates graduated. Of course, instead of the guards in the provincial 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment. He did not become a famous military man, he rose only to the rank of second lieutenant, but he became a famous writer who told us so well about the Alexander Military School. And fate will bring him to Yudenich in 1919, when Kuprin, who lived in Gatchina, again puts on an officer's overcoat and volunteers to join the general's army, which is storming red Petrograd. He will lead the propaganda of the North-Western Army and the editorial office of the newspaper "Prinevsky Kray". An accelerated course during the World War II was held at the Alexander Military School by the famous Soviet artist Boris Vasilyevich Shchukin, the legendary performer of the roles of V.I. Lenin in theater and cinema. The figure of a school graduate, the famous Chekist Andrei Pavlovich Fedorov, who lured to Russia and neutralized such hardened anti-Soviet people as Boris Savinkov and British intelligence legend Sidney Reilly, is also curious. Many still remember the popular television series "Operation Trust", which told about this. By the way, during that operation, Fedorov also arrested Savinkov's close friend, Colonel Sergei Eduardovich Pavlovsky. This former Pavlograd hussar was in the team of Bulak-Balakhovich, who arrested Yudenich after he left the post of commander of the North-Western Army. The world is still small.

There were other famous people among the graduates of the Alexander Military School, but Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich not only did not get lost among them, but, in my opinion, became the first of the first. In the meantime, we note once again that on August 8, 1881, a young lieutenant Yudenich left the walls of the school, who will have a long service in the ranks of the Russian imperial army. The first step has been taken on the path to future glory.

NOTES

Bonch-Bruevich M.D. "All Power to the Soviets" M. Military Publishing House. 1958 p.21.

Astrov N.I. "Memories. v.I.” Paris. YMCA PRESS. 1941 pp.33-35.

See ibid p.37.

Dostoevsky F.M. “P.S.S. v.19" M. Terra. 1999 p.264.

"Record of the District Quartermaster General of the Headquarters of the Caucasian Military District, Major General Yudenich 1908". RGVIA. F. 409. OP. 2. D. 34023. P / S 348-333.

Kuprin A.I. "Junkers" M. Military Publishing, 2002, pp. 40.42.

See ibid p.51.

See paragraph 5 of this note.

“General from infantry N.N. Yudenich. To the 50th anniversary of the officer ranks. Paris. Ed. Paris Jubilee Committee 1931 p.60.

Colonel Sergei Kulichkin

His parents predicted a civil career for Nikolai, but for the young man there was no doubt: his vocation was military craft. He entered the 3rd Alexander Military School and certainly received the highest marks in all disciplines. This was not the end of Yudenich's education: he received a referral to the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff.

In 1892, Yudenich was appointed senior adjutant of the headquarters of the Turkestan military district. After 4 years, he becomes a colonel, which he owes solely to his talent and ability to work - no patronage was provided to Nikolai Nikolaevich. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Yudenich was simple in communication, there was not even a shadow of arrogance in him. He never raised his voice to his subordinates and was distinguished by hospitality: colleagues gathered in his apartment almost every evening.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Yudenich made a brilliant reputation for himself. So, he distinguished himself in the battle of Mukden, repulsing several massive enemy attacks and personally leading the counterattack. It became clear to the leadership that Yudenich was capable of making bold tactical decisions based on a specific situation - a very valuable quality for a military leader. For his success, Nikolai Nikolaevich was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir 3rd class with swords, Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree with swords. During the hostilities, he was seriously wounded and was in the hospital until 1907.

During the First World War, Yudenich commanded the Caucasian army. For the capture of the Turkish fortress of Erzurum, he received the Order of St. George.

General Nikolai Yudenich. (wikipedia.org)

After the February Revolution, Yudenich was appointed commander of the Caucasian Front, but he held this position for only a month. Nikolai Nikolaevich stood up in opposition to the Provisional Government, and he was recalled to Petrograd. Clouds were gathering over him: it was clear what disagreement with the official course would lead to.

Once Yudenich went to the bank; the staff recognized him and advised him to withdraw all his savings and sell the property immediately. He followed this advice, which enabled him to provide for his family during his impending disgrace.

General Nikolai Yudenich. (wikipedia.org)

The October Revolution broke out, and now Yudenich lived in Petrograd illegally. He managed to go abroad only in 1919 - together with his family he went to Finland on forged documents.

The military leader categorically did not accept the new government. He saw the expulsion of the Bolsheviks as his main goal. Members of the "Russian Committee" in Helsinki offered Yudenich to become the leader of the white movement in northwestern Russia. He went to Estonia, where he began to form troops, trying to enlist the support (including financial support) of foreign allies. However, he was well aware that it was not necessary to rely on these allies especially. “The matter is not Russian; the comrades have nothing to do with Russia, with its borders: it only seems that they are restoring Russia. If they win, Russia will perish,” said Nikolai Nikolaevich. The strategic goals of the parties were different: for example, the Estonian army sought to drive the Red Army units out of the country, the Russians wanted to defeat the Bolsheviks who had seized power.

In May 1919, Yudenich led the offensive of the White units (including Finnish and Estonian detachments) against Petrograd, which ended in failure. In September, he led the second campaign, which was doomed to failure due to friction with the allies - Estonians, British, Finns. Yudenich was forced to withdraw the troops back; on the territory of Estonia they were interned by the allies. The general was arrested, but then released at the request of the Entente.

He went to England, where he avoided the attention of journalists and lived as a recluse. Yudenich spent the last years of his life in France: during this period he moved away from politics and took part in the work of Russian educational organizations.

Sources

1. Images for the announcement of the material on the main page and for the lead: wikipedia.org

YUDENICH NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH

General of Infantry

Born July 18, 1862 in the family of a collegiate adviser, director of the Moscow Land Surveying School. Mother - nee Dal, was a cousin of the famous compiler of the Explanatory Dictionary and collections of Russian proverbs and sayings, Vladimir Ivanovich Dal. Yudenich grew up in the atmosphere of a deeply Russian intelligent Moscow family, in which there was not a single military man before him.

In 1879, having received a secondary education, he, contrary to family traditions, decided to take an exam at the 3rd Alexander Military School in Moscow. “Nikolai Nikolayevich was then a thin, thin young man with blond curly hair, cheerful and cheerful. We ... together listened to the lectures of Klyuchevsky and other excellent teachers in the audience, ”recalled his classmate, Lieutenant General A.M. Saranchev(~1~).

On August 8, 1880, Yudenich was promoted for distinction in the Junker harness, and a year later, on August 8, 1881, he was released as a second lieutenant with a secondment to the Life Guards of the Lithuanian Regiment stationed in Warsaw (~ 2 ~). On September 10, he was transferred to this regiment as a guards ensign. On August 30, 1884, he was promoted to second lieutenant of the guard and then brilliantly passed the entrance exams to the Academy of the General Staff.

At the Academy, on August 30, 1885, he was promoted to lieutenant "For excellent success in the sciences" and on April 7, 1887, for the successful completion of the Academy of the General Staff in the 1st category, to the staff captains of the guard. Began service on the General Staff and. d. senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 14th army corps, with the renaming of captains. So young N.N. Yudenich, without any family support or patronage, at the age of 25 became the captain of the General Staff (for comparison, for example, we recall: the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander in World War I, and then the Supreme Commander M.V. Alekseev, having served for more than 10 years in the ranks, became the captain of the General Staff only at the age of 33).

From October 23, 1889 to November 23, 1890, Yudenich served as a qualified command of a company in his Life Guards Lithuanian Regiment. On April 9, 1891, he returned to the headquarters of the 14th Army Corps, but already as a chief officer for special assignments.

In January 1892 he was appointed senior adjutant of the headquarters of the Turkestan military district and on April 2, 1892 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

In 1894, he took part in the Pamir expedition as chief of staff of the Pamir detachment. Soon after the campaign, the Pamirs were formally annexed to Russia. Yudenich was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 2nd class (previously he received the orders of St. Stanislav and St. Anna, 3rd class).

On March 24, 1896, he was promoted to colonel and, on March 6 of the same year, he accepted the post of headquarters officer in the management of the Turkestan rifle brigade, renamed in 1900 into the 1st Turkestan brigade. Serving in the same years in Turkestan, Lieutenant General D.V. Filatiev later emphasized: "... Then it was already impossible not to notice and not evaluate the main character traits of Nikolai Nikolayevich: directness and even sharpness of judgments, certainty of decisions, skill and firmness in defending one's opinion ..." (~ 3 ~)

On July 16, 1902, Colonel Yudenich was appointed commander of the 18th Rifle Regiment, and shortly before that he was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 2nd degree. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, he was offered to take the high post of general on duty in the Turkestan military district, which meant the right promotion to major general. But he refused this appointment, seeking to take part in military operations in Manchuria, where the 5th rifle brigade, which included the 18th regiment, was sent. The brigade commander, General M. Churin, fell off his horse and injured his arm. Colonel Yudenich, as a senior, took command of the brigade and led it into the first battle with the Japanese.

This battle went down in history as the battle of Sandepa. In it, on January 13–17, 1905, Russian troops successfully took the initiative. After the 14th division from General Grippenberg's Russian 2nd Army unsuccessfully attacked Sandepa on January 13, it was replaced by the 5th Rifle Brigade under the command of Colonel Yudenich. His chief of staff was then Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Alexander Vladimirovich Gerua, later a well-known military leader and military writer, who already in exile described the beginning of the military activities of Colonel Yudenich (~ 4 ~).

The Japanese, encouraged by the retreat of the 14th Russian division, launched a furious attack, inflicting the main blow on the right flank, where the 17th rifle regiment fought. Colonel Yudenich decided to launch a counterattack and ordered his chief of staff to bring the 20th regiment to the threatened sector. Already at night, he himself arrived on the right flank and called the hunters from the 20th regiment to move forward. There were none in the dark. Then, exclaiming: “I myself will command the hunters,” Colonel Yudenich took out a revolver and moved forward, striding broadly in his black hat. The example worked. Behind him moved the officers of the headquarters of the brigade, and then the soldiers-hunters. The 20th and 18th rifle regiments, having turned around, unanimously went on the offensive. The Japanese could not stand it and began to retreat. When no more than 600 steps were left to Sandepa, a categorical order came from the corps commander to retreat to their original positions, and Colonel Yudenich, summoned to the corps headquarters, received a "dressing" for an unlawful "impulse".

A personal example, combined with Suvorov's speed and onslaught, played a decisive role a few days later, on January 20, 1905, in an attack on an important Japanese stronghold on the bend of the Hun-Khe River. The 1st Rifle Brigade (Chief of Staff, then Lieutenant Colonel L.G. Kornilov, future Commander-in-Chief and leader of the Volunteer Army) skillfully advanced along a sheltered approach-ravine, and Colonel Yudenich's 5th Brigade was to advance across an open field. After waiting for the 1st brigade to flank the Japanese, Colonel Yudenich ordered: "Forward." He himself led the attackers. The village was taken on a whim, despite the gun, machine-gun and rifle fire (~5~). February 4, 1905 Colonel Yudenich was wounded in the left hand, but remained in the ranks.

During the Battle of Mukden on February 18, 1905, the heavily depleted 18th Infantry Regiment, which Yudenich again took over (upon General Churin's return to duty), was supposed to defend the redoubt on the approach to the station. The 5th Japanese division rushed to the railroad, trying to cut off the retreating Russian troops. On the night of February 21-22, numerous Japanese infantry began to flow around the redoubt. The frequent rifle fire of the shooters could not stop the Japanese. Then, at night, the regiment commander led his shooters with hostility against the Japanese. In the fight, Yudenich, along with his subordinates, also worked with a rifle with a bayonet. The Japanese were driven back. After the second bayonet attack, they fled. The redoubt was held. Yudenich was wounded in the neck (the bullet passed, fortunately, without hitting the carotid artery). But, as General Gerua wrote, he "hit and won."

On June 19, 1905, Colonel Yudenich was promoted to major general and, after recovering from his wounds, was appointed commander of the 2nd brigade of the 5th rifle division. The combat path of Colonel Yudenich in the Russo-Japanese War was marked by high awards. Already on May 5, 1905, he received a golden weapon with the inscription "For Bravery" and since then has worn the St. George lanyard on a saber. On September 25, 1905, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class with swords, and on February 11, 1906, the Order of St. Stanislav, 1st class, with swords. From November 21, 1905 to March 23, 1906, he temporarily commanded the 2nd Rifle Division and again from March 23 to April 3 - the 2nd Rifle Brigade (former division).

Upon his return from Manchuria, Major General Yudenich was appointed on February 10, 1907 as quartermaster general of the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District and since then "became the head of the body in charge of preparing for war in a separate Caucasian theater" (~ 6 ~).

In Tiflis, on Baryatinsky Street, where Yudenich and his wife Alexandra Nikolaevna (nee Zhemchuzhnikova) settled, they often hosted colleagues. Yudenich was cordial and widely hospitable. As the former Duty General of the Headquarters of the Caucasian Military District recalls, Major General B.P. Veselovzorov: “Going to the Yudenichs was not a serving of a number, but became a sincere pleasure for everyone who warmly received them” (~ 7 ~).

This also enabled the Quartermaster General, and later the Chief of Staff of the District, to get to know his assistants better and to prepare from the young officers of the General Staff reliable, energetic employees, accustomed to the methods of making his decisions and at the same time possessing full initiative in the execution of orders on the spot.

Promoted on December 6, 1912 to lieutenant general, N.N. Yudenich, after a short tenure as chief of staff of the Kazan Military District, returned on February 23, 1913 to Tiflis as chief of staff of "his" Caucasian district. On April 24, 1913, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree (in 1909, his activities were awarded the Order of St. Anna, 1st degree).

Having become the chief of staff of the district, General Yudenich, in particular, obtained in the spring of 1914 in Petrograd permission to create an independent operational department at his headquarters under the command of the quartermaster general (~ 8 ~).

He entrusted the leadership of this department to the young 38-year-old colonel Yevgeny Vasilyevich Maslovsky, whom he managed to appreciate while still being quartermaster general. Among others, young captain of the General Staff Karaulov and staff captain Kocherzhevsky were appointed to the department. In July 1914, all of them took part in a field trip to Sarykamysh, during which, at the direction of General Yudenich, an operation was developed, according to which the Turkish army through the Bardus pass went to the rear of the Russian army group in the Erzurum direction and cut it off from communications with Kars and Tiflis.

Looking ahead, let's say that when in December 1914 the commander of the Caucasian Army, General Myshlaevsky, "losing his nerves", abandoned Sarykamysh and ordered a general retreat, Captain Karaulov and Staff Captain Kocherzhevsky remained in Sarykamysh on their own initiative. Becoming chiefs of staff of improvised detachments from local rear units, they organized defense in the first, most critical days, when the Turkish commander-in-chief Enver Pasha was ready to celebrate victory.

In addition to the operational branch of the district headquarters, General Yudenich carefully selected young officers of the General Staff for the intelligence branch. Shortly before the start of the war, he appointed a young lieutenant colonel D.P. Dratsenko. During the days of the Sarykamysh battle, Yudenich sent him to the headquarters of the 1st Caucasian Corps with a demand to stop the retreat, contrary to the orders of both the army commander and the commander of the 1st Caucasian Corps, Infantry General G.E. Berkhman.

Several distinguished officers passed through the intelligence section as assistants to the chief. Among them were the then young 33-year-old captains P.N. Shatilov and B.A. Shtefon. All of them - assistants and students of General Yudenich - became famous military leaders in the White armies during the Civil War.

Major General, who graduated from the World War, E.V. Maslovsky after her served as chief of staff of the Commander-in-Chief and commander of the troops of the Terek-Dagestan Territory, General Erdeli, and then in the Crimea, under General Wrangel, chief of staff of the 2nd Russian Army.

Having become a major general in 1917, D.P. Dratsenko was the chief of staff of the landing detachment of General Ulagay during the landing from the Crimea to the Kuban in 1920, and then for some time the commander of the 2nd Russian Army in Northern Tavria under General Wrangel.

Colonel B.A. Shteifon commanded the Belozersky regiment in the Volunteer Army, then he was the chief of staff of the group of troops of General Bredov, who retreated from Odessa to the Dniester and joined the Polish army. In Gallipoli he was the commandant of the famous camp, promoted by General Wrangel to major general.

P.N. Shatilov, as a major general, commanded the 4th cavalry corps in the Volunteer Army and was promoted to lieutenant general by General Denikin for successful battles near Velikoknyazheskaya; then - the permanent chief of staff of General Wrangel in both the Caucasian Volunteer Army and the Russian Army in the Crimea.

There is no doubt that General Yudenich spent a lot of time and effort to recruit these then unknown young colonels and captains of the General Staff to serve in his headquarters. He prepared the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District for war in conditions in which the situation itself forced them to fight not by numbers, but by skill.

And this was very significant, because with the outbreak of the First World War in July (old style) 1914, the High Command, taking advantage of the fact that Turkey had not yet opposed Russia, ordered to transfer two of the three Caucasian corps to the Western Front, leaving the future Turkish front, one priority 1st Caucasian Corps, supported by two plastun brigades and Cossack units. True, after mobilization, the 2nd Turkestan Corps arrived in the Caucasus from Turkestan as part of two incomplete brigades with two-battalion regiments.

At the same time, preparing to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers, the Turkish command concentrated three army corps against the Caucasian army (9th, 10th and 11th), each consisting of three divisions, two separate divisions, as well as divisions formed from gendarmes and other units. All these formations, supported by the Kurdish cavalry, were consolidated into the 3rd Turkish army.

With the beginning of the war in the Caucasus (after the shelling on October 20 - according to the old style - by the ships of the German and Turkish fleets of the Russian ports on the Black Sea), the Turkish commander-in-chief, energetic, courageous and self-confident Enver Pasha brought the number of the 3rd Army to 150,000 and in early December 1914 Mr.. took command of it together with his chief of staff, Colonel of the German General Staff Bronsard von Schellendorf. With the participation of the former chief of staff of the 3rd Turkish army, Major Gyuse, they developed an operation plan, according to which the 11th corps was to attack the Russian army group in the Erzurum direction from the front, linking it with battles, and the 9th and 10th Turkish corps had the task of bypassing the right flank of the Russians through the Bardus Pass and reaching Sarykamysh, blocking the Russians' retreat along the railway and highway from Sarykamysh to Kara. After the encirclement and destruction of the main Russian forces, Enver Pasha hoped to move to the Caucasus, occupy Baku and raise an uprising in the Caucasus under the Islamic green banner.

On December 12, 1914, the vanguard of the 9th Turkish Corps, having knocked down the militias from the Bardus pass, launched an attack on Sarykamysh. The main forces of the Separate Caucasian Army - the 1st Caucasian and 2nd Turkestan Corps, having crossed the border, advanced two crossings in the Erzurum direction.

In Sarykamysh there was only a militia squad. The terminal station of the railway from Tiflis was the main base of the Russian troops that crossed the border and reached the Keprikey positions on the Araks. From the warehouses near the Sarykamysh railway station, the troops received ammunition and food.

The chief of staff of the 2nd Kuban Plastun Brigade, Colonel Nikolai Adrianovich Bukretov (the future Kuban ataman), who, before his appointment to the headquarters of the 2nd Kuban Plastun Brigade, was a senior adjutant at the headquarters of General Yudenich, who turned out to be a traveler from vacation, organized the defense of Sarykamysh, using personnel platoons of the Turkestan regiments sent from the front to form the 4th Turkestan regiment of the 5th Turkestan brigade. The arrival from Tiflis with the last train of 100 graduates of the Tiflis military school going to the front allowed him to strengthen the militia and rear units. And when on December 13, the commander of the 9th Turkish corps, Islam Pasha, saw that his advanced 29th division ran into an organized defense and came under well-aimed fire from the Turkestan semi-battery (also sent to form), he decided to postpone the attack on Sarykamysh until the concentration of all corps troops.

Meanwhile, in Tiflis, in the Russian command, there were disputes. The chief of staff, General Yudenich, ardently insisted on the departure of the entire army headquarters to the front, to Sarykamysh, and the actual commander of the army, assistant to the Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, General of Infantry A.Z. Myshlaevsky (former ordinary professor at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff and chief of the General Staff in 1909) strongly opposed and hampered the departure of the army headquarters, considering it possible to exercise control from Tiflis. Only on December 10, the headquarters left by an emergency train to the border village of Medgingert, twenty kilometers from Sarykamysh, where the headquarters of the 1st Caucasian Corps of Infantry General Berkhman was located. Here, having learned that in the 2nd Turkestan Corps there was neither a commander (gen. Slyusarenko fell ill), nor a departed chief of staff, General Myshlaevsky, after the persistent requests of Generals Yudenich and Quartermaster General L.M. Bolkhovitinov took command of all Russian troops in the Sarykamysh-Erzurum direction. One of the first orders of General Myshlaevsky was the appointment of General Yudenich as temporary commander of the 2nd Turkestan Corps, while retaining his duties as chief of staff of the Separate Caucasian Army (~ 9 ~).

“December 11, 1914,” recalls General B.A. The shteifon, who then held the post of headquarters officer of the 2nd Turkestan Corps, became completely dark when Yudenich arrived, accompanied by his valiant assistants, Colonel Maslovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Dratsenko. Covered with snow, severely frozen, they went down to the saklya-headquarters. With hands naughty from the frost, Yudenich immediately pushed a map to the fire, sat down and, without even untying his hood, briefly ordered: "Report the situation." His figure, voice, face - all testified to the enormous inner strength. Cheerful faces of Maslovsky and Dratsenko, glowing with fighting excitement, completed the picture. Having approved our decision not to retreat, Yudenich immediately issued directives to continue resistance at the front and organize the defense of Sarykamysh in the rear ”(~ 10 ~). One of the regiments of the Turkestan Corps was immediately sent to Sarykamysh by a forced march. His leading battalion followed on wagons and was just in time for the first big Turkish attack.

On the morning of December 15, 1914, General Myshlaevsky, having learned about the Turks’ withdrawal to Novo-Selim, which finally cut off Sarykamysh, and considering the situation in Sarykamysh itself hopeless, ordered through the commander of the 1st Caucasian Corps, General Berkhman, a general retreat along the last remaining free patrol road along the border. After that, he left for Tiflis along it in order to collect the remaining forces for the defense of the capital of Transcaucasia.

The decision to retreat became known to General Yudenich from the commander of the 1st Caucasian Corps, who had already begun to withdraw his troops from the position. Yudenich immediately demanded the cancellation of the order to retreat (~ 11 ~). He pointed out that the withdrawal along the only patrol road meant the need to abandon artillery and carts, because it was pack, and also that if the infantry of the 1st Caucasian Corps managed to break away from the Turks, then the 2nd Turkestan Corps would inevitably be surrounded by all parts assigned to it. Retreat under these conditions meant the death of the main forces of the Separate Caucasian Army with inevitable catastrophic consequences, since there were no significant reserves in the rear.

Considering himself senior in rank, General of Infantry Berkhman continued to carry out the order of General Myshlaevsky, withdrawing his troops to the border. Then, on December 17, 1914, General Yudenich sent Lieutenant Colonel Dratsenko to the headquarters of General Berkhman in order to convince him of the need to stop the retreat at the front and gather all his forces to push the Turks back from Sarykamysh into the icy and snow-covered mountains.

He ordered Dratsenko, in case of General Berkhman's refusal, to inform him that, according to the "Regulations on the field command of the troops" (~ 12 ~), he, as the chief of staff of the army, takes command of the troops of the group and gives the order to stop the withdrawal. It worked. Parts of the 1st Caucasian and 2nd Turkestan corps took up strong positions on the very border and did not move from them, despite the fierce attacks of the 11th Turkish corps of Abdul-Kerim Pasha.

And at the same time, on the evening of December 15, the 1st Plastun brigade of the valiant Major General M.A. arrived in Sarykamysh to support the reinforcements sent by General Yudenich. Przhevalsky, as well as the 154th Derbent and 155th Cuban regiments of the invincible 39th Infantry Division. The furious and persistent attacks of the 9th and 10th Turkish corps, which approached, were repulsed, albeit with difficulty. Until the very night there was a heavy bayonet fight. General Przhevalsky, who took over the overall command, skillfully maneuvering reserves, managed to keep the Sarykamysh railway station.

By the evening of December 20, the 1st Caucasian Cossack division and the 2nd Kuban plastun brigade approached the Sarykamysh group of Russians. General Yudenich personally sent the 17th Turkestan Regiment of Colonel Dovgird to the rear of the Turks on the Bardus Pass. At the same time, at the request of Yudenich, the commandant of Kars sent units of the 3rd Caucasian Rifle Brigade to Novo-Selim, thus ensuring communication by rail with Sarykamysh. On December 21, by order of General Yudenich, all the troops of the Sarykamysh region went on the offensive, forcing the Turks to retreat along the icy mountains through distant passes. Enver Pasha hastened to give the order to retreat. But if parts of the 10th Turkish corps, pursued by General Przhevalsky, incurring huge losses in prisoners and frostbite, still managed to leave, then the 9th Turkish corps was completely destroyed. The 14th company of the Derbent regiment, attacking, captured 4 guns and went to the camp, where they captured the commander of the 9th corps, Islam Pasha, with all his headquarters, as well as the chiefs and headquarters of the 17th, 28th and 29th Turkish divisions, capturing 1070 officers and more than 2000 soldiers - all that remained of the 9th Turkish Corps.

Of the 90,000 Turks who participated in the Sarykamysh operation, 12,100 returned. All artillery and convoys of two corps were lost. Russian losses were also heavy. Of the 40,000–45,000 combatants, 20,000 left killed and wounded. But if the Turkish wounded died in the icy mountains, then many Russians were saved in hospitals that heroically worked under fire in Sarykamysh.

The commander-in-chief and viceroy, cavalry general Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, already on December 25, by telegram, finally assigned the command of the Sarykamysh group of troops to Yudenich. He admitted that in an exceptionally difficult situation, General Yudenich saved the situation and, contrary to the order of General Myshlaevsky, achieved it with his strong-willed desire for victory, despite the more than double superiority of the Turks. General Yudenich showed exceptional civic courage, taking on the entire risk of an extremely difficult operation, which he stubbornly carried out according to his plan, despite the open resistance of the commander of the best 1st Caucasian Corps, General Berkhman ... The way out of the encirclement, despite the superior enemy forces, was carried out masterfully and developed into a counterattack on the flank and partly in the rear of the Turkish troops, who suffered a crushing defeat.

Generals Myshlaevsky and Berkhman were removed from command. On January 24, 1915, Lieutenant General Yudenich was promoted to general of infantry and appointed commander of the Caucasian Separate Army.

Even earlier, by the Highest Order of January 13, 1915, General N.N. Yudenich was awarded the Order of St. George of the 4th degree for the fact that “on December 12, assuming command of the 2nd Turkestan Corps and having received a very difficult and difficult task - to keep at all costs the pressure of the excellent Turkish forces operating in the direction Sonamer-Zivin-Karaurgan, and to allocate sufficient forces for the offensive from Syrbasan to Bardus, in order to hold back the growing onslaught of the Turks advancing from Bardus to Sarykamysh, performed this task brilliantly, showing firm determination, personal courage, calmness, composure and the art of leading troops, moreover, the result of all the orders and measures of the named general was a complete victory near the city of Sarykamysh.

Having become the commander of the Caucasian Army, General Yudenich received not only great rights, but also complete independence, for the governor-general in the Caucasus and the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Separate Army, Adjutant General Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, who had extensive state experience, not only petitioned the Sovereign Emperor to appoint the winner in Sarykamysh battle, but gave him complete independence and refused any interference in his operational decisions.

General Yudenich not only got the opportunity to exert a decisive influence on all appointments and, consequently, to choose subordinates in all major command posts. Not wanting to create another headquarters to control the army besides the one under the Commander-in-Chief, he decided to move his small field headquarters from Tiflis closer to the front, where all the responsible positions were occupied by his young comrades-in-arms, who played a prominent role in the Sarykamysh battle.

So, the post of quartermaster general was actually performed by the head of the operational department, Colonel E.V. Maslovsky. Lieutenant colonel, soon a colonel, Dratsenko and his assistant Captain Shteifon were in charge of intelligence. Other positions in the field headquarters were held by several officers who participated in this battle.

With a trained field headquarters close to him in service, reliable troops, Yudenich’s path began from victory to victory in the fight against a numerous enemy led by experienced officers of the German general staff (later we will see how acutely he lacked in the Petrograd operation precisely efficient, energetic headquarters).

The Euphrates operation was the first such brilliant victory... It must be said that while the Turks did everything to quickly restore their 3rd Army, creating consolidated divisions by isolating entire units from the capital's military district, the Supreme Commander demanded that General Yudenich transfer to the western front of a significant part of the Caucasian army, including the newly formed 5th Caucasian Corps and the 20th division. As a result, the new 4th Caucasian Rifle Division, which had barely completed its formation, remained in reserve.

Therefore, it is natural that the main forces of the Caucasian army were concentrated in the main Sarykamysh-Erzurum direction. On its left flank, the space between Lake Van and the upper reaches of the Euphrates was occupied by the 4th Caucasian Corps, most of which consisted of cavalry. It was on him, in order to reach the rear of the Russian Sarykamysh group of troops and threaten Aleksadropol, which was even further away, that the new commander of the 3rd Turkish army, Mahmud-Kemil Pasha, decided to strike with his chief of staff, Colonel Gyuze.

On July 9, 1915, the Turks, with a strength of about 80 battalions, launched an offensive on the Euphrates from Melezgert and reached the then Russian border, pushing back the troops of the 4th Rifle Corps. Its commander, General Oganovsky, persistently demanded reinforcements from General Yudenich, pointing out that the Turks were striving to overcome the border Agri-Dag ridge and reach the Akhtinsky pass.

But General Yudenich refused him reinforcements, knowing that they could only delay the Turks, and instead secretly concentrated on the left flank of the advancing Turkish grouping in Dayar the shock group of General Baratov from the 4th Caucasian division, to which he attached the 17th Turkestan regiment and glorious for its exploits, the 153rd Baku Regiment from the "invincible" 39th division.

However, having aimed the strike group at the flank and rear of the troops of Mahmud-Kemil Pasha, General Yudenich, despite the alarm that had reached Tiflis, waited until the Turks rose to the height of the Agridag ridge. Only then, having accurately calculated the pace of the operation, on July 23, 1915, he ordered General Baratov to immediately "advance in the direction along which the best retreat route of the Turks passed" (~ 13 ~).

The Turks hastily rushed back from the heights of Agri-Dag. Meanwhile, the 2nd Cossack division of General Abatsiev from the 4th Caucasian Corps went on the offensive from the Akhtinsky Pass. Trying to break through, bypassing the group of General Baratov, the Turks fled to the mountains. Over 10,000 prisoners were captured, including 300 young Turkish lieutenants who arrived from Constantinople, dressed to the nines. The 3rd army of Mahmud-Kemil Pasha again lost its combat capability for a long time. General Yudenich "hit - won" in Suvorov's way. For this, he was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd degree, as well as the Order of the White Eagle with swords.

At the end of 1915, two new factors created a threatening situation for the Caucasian army. In September 1915, the Bulgarians took the side of Germany and Turkey, which immediately affected the supply of the Turkish army with artillery and shells from Germany. At the same time, in early October 1915, the Allies decided to abandon the fight for the Dardanelles and clear Gallipoli. Thanks to this, the elite troops of the 5th Turkish army were liberated, most of which had to be used to strengthen the 3rd Turkish army, which without this was numerically superior to the Russian Caucasian army.

As always, in an effort to preempt the enemy, General Yudenich decided to suddenly go on the offensive in the Erzurum direction, inflict a decisive defeat on the 3rd Turkish army and take its main positions on both sides of the village of Keprikey with its only bridge across the Araks River.

True, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov was no longer in Tiflis. In his place came from the Headquarters (after the decision of the Sovereign to take over the Supreme Command) Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. He gave Yudenich complete independence, and yet, before starting each operation, it was required to seek his permission.

Having prepared the offensive in complete secrecy, General Yudenich gave the order to start it on December 29, 1915. The 2nd Turkestan Corps of General M.A. was the first to attack. Przhevalsky. Its units with difficulty captured the defensive knot of the Turks on Mount Gey-Dag. And on the night of December 30, the main forces of the 1st Caucasian Corps launched an offensive against the Keprikey positions of the enemy. Fierce fighting took place here.

In an effort to keep the Azankey plateau, along which the shortest route to Erzerum went, the Turks, suffering huge losses, used up all their reserves. This was what General Yudenich was waiting for. He threw the shock group of General Vorobyov with the 4th Caucasian Rifle Division, reinforced by the 263rd Gunibsky Regiment, into a breakthrough through a hard-to-reach mountainous area near the town of Meslagat, where the enemy did not expect an offensive. Having gone to the flank and rear of the 11th Turkish army corps, the strike group put the Turkish army to flight along the entire front. Caprikey positions were occupied. Thus, the planned operational goal was achieved - to defeat the 3rd Turkish army before the approach of the victorious Turkish divisions from the Gallipoli Peninsula. Yudenich was awarded a rather rare award - the Order of Alexander Nevsky with swords.

Having destroyed a significant part of the enemy’s manpower and, as General Maslovsky writes, “observing the high morale of the troops” (~ 14 ~), Yudenich made a bold decision: to use the current favorable situation to storm Erzerum. He followed the behest of Suvorov - to pursue the enemy to the end, to bring victory to perfection.

But the army spent almost all of its ammunition in the Battle of Azankei, and General Yudenich asked Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich to take the necessary cartridges and shells from the emergency reserve of the Kars fortress. And got rejected. The Grand Duke not only rejected this petition, but categorically ordered to immediately stop further actions and withdraw the troops to the Caprikey positions, where to spend the winter and settle down (~ 15 ~).

As during the Sarykamysh operation, General Yudenich insisted on his decision. On January 8, 1916, he sent his closest employees for reconnaissance - the head of the operational department, Colonel Maslovskiy, and the assistant to the head of the intelligence department, Lieutenant Colonel Shteifon. Those, when questioning the prisoners, immediately noticed how, due to the defeat, the Turkish units were mixed at the front, and, having driven forward to the famous Deva-Boyne position covering Erzerum, they drew attention to the fact that the approaches to the key fort Choban-dede were not yet occupied by the Turks .

Deciding not to carry out the instructions to select positions on Keprikey, both officers, on their own initiative, immediately returned to headquarters and reported their data on the situation, also pointing out the high combat mood of the troops. General Yudenich, as General Maslovsky writes, “with an instinct inherent only in a great commander ... immediately grabbed the whole essence of the unique twice so favorable situation for us and realized that the most decisive minute of the war had come, which would never happen again” (~ 16 ~).

He immediately contacted the chief of staff of the army, General Bolkhovitinov, by telephone and ordered him to report to the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, his urgent request to cancel the order to withdraw the army to the Keprikey positions and allow him to storm Erzurum. According to General Maslovsky, who was present at these telephone conversations, General Yudenich warned that he would wait for an answer from the apparatus. The Grand Duke again refused and demanded that his original order be carried out. Only after a new insistent request, transmitted through General Bolkhovitinov, did the Grand Duke, probably realizing that Yudenich would rather resign than give in, gave permission with a threatening condition: in case of failure, all responsibility would fall on General Yudenich. So in the question of the storming of Erzerum, General Yudenich insisted on his decision.

True, a few days later, the former Chief of the General Staff, General F.F., who was under the Grand Duke, arrived at Yudenich’s headquarters from Tiflis. Palitsyn, with his characteristic thoroughness and erudition, began to prove in writing and orally the impossibility of taking by storm, without long preparation, such a powerful fortified stronghold as Erzurum. Later, in exile, in a letter to Admiral V.K. Pilkin dated June 4, 1921, Yudenich wrote about General Palitsyn: “In the Caucasus, when I went to Erzerum, he reported to the Grand Duke about the impossibility of a winter campaign in the Caucasus, and he sent me notes with a detailed analysis of the situation in pencil and finely written, I I didn’t read them, I passed them on to my chief of staff, who didn’t read them either and, in turn, passed them on to someone ”(~ 17 ~).

The path to Erzurum was blocked by the Deveboin mountain range, over 2000 meters high. It had 11 powerful forts with heavy artillery built by British engineers during and after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. In the south, the bypass of the Deveboine position was covered by a group of forts built by the Germans. General Yudenich decided to concentrate his best 39th Infantry Division on the northern flank of the Deveboin position, having previously taken Kara-Bazar, from where the approaches to the Choban-dede fort opened. He himself in mid-January, accompanied by his field headquarters, inspected the positions at Deve-Bojna.

After a long preparation and the arrival of heavy artillery from the fortress of Kare, General Yudenich appointed an assault on January 29, 1916. The fact that more than 80% of the troops from the Caucasian army were concentrated in the Erzurum direction before the start of the offensive and that other sectors of the front were exposed was without a doubt risky. But as a true commander, he did not suffer from "risk fear". Yudenich counted on the valor of the troops, that valor that was supposed to provide him with the maximum pace of the operation and surprise, which did not allow the Turkish command to prepare and organize a counterattack on other, extremely weakened sectors of the Russian front.

And General Yudenich was not mistaken. Despite the snowstorms on the mountain plateaus and the icy rocks, along which they had to make their way to the Turkish forts in a 20-degree frost, the troops completed their tasks within 5 days. Of course, the matter was not without cruel crisis situations, such as, for example, the heroic defense by several companies of the Baku regiment under the command of Colonel Pirumov of the Fort Delanguez they captured from the fierce counterattacks of the Turks. When the last attack of the Turks was repulsed, 300 soldiers and officers remained in the ranks of 1400 soldiers and officers, along with the wounded.

By the evening of February 1, the 4th Caucasian Rifle Division broke through the front south of Fort Taft and entered the Erzerum valley with a fight. On February 2, the valiant pilot Lieutenant Meiser personally reported to Yudenich's headquarters that he had observed a large number of wagons leaving Erzurum to the west, which apparently meant the evacuation of the rear. Having received this information, as well as reports from the 4th Infantry Division, Yudenich ordered an immediate general assault. He succeeded. At dawn on February 3, 1916, on the fifth day of the operation, the troops of the Caucasian army approached the Karsky gates of the city. The first to enter the city with a Cossack hundred was Yesaul Medvedev, senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 1st Caucasian Corps. During the assault, 235 Turkish officers and about 13,000 soldiers were captured. 323 guns were taken.

On the morning of the same day, General Yudenich drove by car to Erzerum and, having reseeded from the passing Cossack unit due to deep snow on the Deve-Boyna pass, arrived in Erzurum, where he gave orders for the pursuit. As a result of the energetic actions of the Siberian Cossack brigade, the remnants of the 34th Turkish division were captured, not counting several thousand prisoners and numerous guns.

A week later, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich arrived in Erzerum. “He,” writes General Shteifon, “approached the lined up troops, took off his hat with both hands and bowed to the ground. Then he hugged and kissed Yudenich.

In connection with the issue of rewarding General Yudenich, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alekseev, immediately after the assault on Erzerum, asked Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich: “In case the Sovereign Emperor deigns to contact me, I most devotedly ask for instructions from Your Imperial Highness for a report on this and how could be edited the merits of this general in the Highest Order ”(~ 18 ~).

To this question, the Grand Duke telegraphed to Emperor Nicholas II his opinion about General Yudenich:

His merit is great before you and Russia. The Lord God showed us special help with amazing clarity. But, on the other hand, everything that depends on a person has been done. Deve Boina and Erzerum fell by skillful maneuver combined with an assault on terrain deemed impassable. By difficulty in all respects and by results, the capture of Erzerum, in its significance, is no less [important] than the operations for which Adjutant General Ivanov and Adjutant General Ruzsky were awarded the Order of St. George 2nd degree.

It is my sacred duty to report this to Your Imperial Majesty. I have no right to ask.

The reply telegram read:

Thank you very much for your letter. I was waiting for your initiative. I am awarding the Commander of the Caucasian Army, General Yudenich, with the Order of St. George, 2nd class. Nikolay(~19~).

On the 15th day of this February, the Sovereign-Emperor, on the 15th day of this February, most graciously deigned to welcome the Commander of the Caucasian Army, Infantry General Nikolai Yudenich, the Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George, 2nd degree, in retribution for excellent performance in an exceptional situation of a military operation that ended with the storming of the Virgin -Boyne position and Erzurum fortress.

Signed - General from Infantry Alekseev. Bonded - Lieutenant General Kondzerovsky (~ 20 ~).

Russia's allies attached exceptional importance to the assault on Erzurum. For this victory, General Yudenich received from the British government the Order of St. George and Michael, and from the French government the highest military award - the Order Star of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

The assault on Erzerum, like the assault on Ishmael, was not only a brilliant victory. It caused very significant strategic and political consequences. In strategic terms, the fall of the main stronghold of Asian Turkey and the final defeat of its 3rd Army ensured the successful conduct of a number of operations: the occupation of the key Mush region in the Euphrates Valley, the landing and capture of Trebizond on the Black Sea coast, the Erzinjano-Haraut operation in June-July 1916. , which opened the gates to Central Anatolia, and, finally, defensive - on the Ognost sector of the front, where the 2nd Turkish army, which arrived from the Dardanelles, was bled and stopped in fierce battles, which included the 16th Turkish corps of Mustafa Kemal Pasha - the future founder of the modern Turkish state.

In political terms, the transfer by General Yudenich of military operations to enemy territory and occupying it more than 300 km in depth allowed Foreign Minister S.D. Sazonov to formally consolidate and obtain the final consent of England and France to his formulation in the Memorandum of February 19, 1916, of Russia's demand that "the city of Constantinople, the western shore of the Bosporus, the Sea of ​​​​Marmara and the Dardanelles, as well as southern Thrace to the Enos-Media line will henceforth be included in the Russian Empire ”(~ 21 ~).

In February 1916, immediately after the storming of Erzurum, secret negotiations began between Russia, Britain and France on the western borders of the new Russian possessions in Transcaucasia. As a result of these negotiations, an agreement was reached, formulated in the Memorandum of S.D. Sazonov to the French Ambassador in Petrograd Paleolog dated April 13, 1916, where the first section said: “Russia will annex the regions of Erzurum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis to the point to be determined on the Black Sea coast west of Trebizond” (~ 22 ~). Thus, in particular, the whole of Western Armenia was liberated from Turkish rule.

The manifesto on the abdication of the throne of Emperor Nicholas II was received on March 2, 1917, and immediately after it, the order to appoint Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich as Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who immediately left Tiflis for Mogilev, at Headquarters.

On March 5, 1917, General of Infantry N.N. was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Front. Yudenich. He believed that all the main operational goals on the Caucasian front had been achieved. In the heavy snowy winter of 1917, the problem of supplying troops who had gone far from their rear bases was solved with great difficulty. The narrow-gauge railways under construction were far from being completed. Of course, the occupation of Trebizond facilitated the situation, thanks to the supply by sea, dominated by the Russian Black Sea Fleet under the command of Admiral Kolchak. But still, before putting the rear in order, General Yudenich considered it necessary to go on the defensive in order to withdraw his best troops, including the 1st Caucasian Corps with his now famous 39th division, to the rear, where there were better conditions for their supplies.

But in the spring of 1917, the Provisional Government demanded not only preparations for a general offensive, but also the immediate advance of the corps of General Baratov in Persia in the Kermanshah direction, towards Mosul, to help the British army.

In the report (compiled by General E.V. Maslovsky, who knew well the conditions in which the troops were in Persia from pre-war service), General Yudenich insisted on strategic defense. Therefore, immediately after leaving the post of Minister of War A.I. Guchkov On May 2 (15), 1917, General Yudenich was dismissed from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Front by the new Minister of War A.F. Kerensky.

After leaving Tiflis, General Yudenich settled in Petrograd, in the apartment of Admiral Khomenko (who commanded the naval forces during the landing of troops in Trebizond) on Kronverksky Prospekt of the Petrograd Side. During the June offensive on the Southwestern and Western fronts, he came to Headquarters, to Mogilev, but was only a witness to the collapse at the front and the retreat from Galicia. In Petrograd, according to the recollections of his wife Alexandra Nikolaevna (~23~), Yudenich somehow went to the bank to take some amount from his savings. Bank employees, having learned, warmly welcomed the general and advised him to take all the money in his hands and sell his own house in Tiflis, which the general did, providing himself with funds for some time in advance (capturing the beginning of emigration).

During the October Revolution, General Yudenich was in Moscow. Soon he returned to Petrograd and, according to some reports, tested the possibility of creating an underground officer organization, based on the presence of old officer cadres in some regiments of the Petrograd garrison, descending from the former reserve regiments (battalions) of the 1st and 2nd guards divisions. However, in the spring of 1918, all the former guards regiments were demobilized and only one Life Guards Semenovsky regiment was preserved under the name "Regiment for the protection of the city of Petrograd." Communication with the officer organization of this regiment was maintained through couriers even after the departure of General Yudenich to Finland (see the biography of Colonel V.A. Zaitsov).

It is characteristic that, while already in Finland and negotiating with General Mannerheim, General Yudenich sent a directive to the regiment, charging the officers of the regiment "to remain as far as possible in Petrograd, so that when the White armies arrive, important state institutions are preserved and at the last minute seize power in their hands"(~24~). In this activity, General Yudenich was assisted by Colonel G.A. Danilevsky and his faithful adjutant lieutenant (in 1919 captain) N.A. Pokotilo, a relative of his wife.

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Nikolai Nikolaevich

Battles and victories

A prominent Russian military leader, infantry general (1915), one of the best generals in Russia during the First World War. During the Civil War, he led the forces of the Whites in the North-West direction.

A hero of the Russo-Japanese War, during the First World War, he earned himself the fame of the “new Suvorov”, without losing a single major battle. But General Yudenich is known to us, first of all, as the organizer of two unsuccessful campaigns against Petrograd during the years of the Civil ...

The son of a Collegiate Counselor seemed to have to go through the civilian line. He even entered the Land Survey Institute, but soon left it and went to the Alexander Military School, after which (1881) he was assigned to the "Warsaw Guard" - the Life Guards of the Lithuanian Regiment. Already in 1884, Yudenich passed the exams for the elite Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, from which he was released "in the first category" (and with the rank of staff captain), which gave serious career advantages. Then there was service in staff positions in the Warsaw and Turkestan military districts, and in 1896 - promotion to the rank of colonel.

As a colleague D.V. Filatiev, Nikolai Nikolaevich was distinguished by "directness and even sharpness of judgments, certainty of decisions, firmness in defending his opinion and a complete lack of inclination to any compromise." With such a character (yes, in the absence of serious connections at the very “tops”), it was hard to make a career, but the war sets its own criteria, different from peacetime.

Yudenich met the Russo-Japanese War as the commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment (5th Infantry Brigade). Managed to score a few times. In the battle at Sandepu, he personally led the retreating troops into a bayonet battle and managed to push the enemy back. In the battle of Mukden, he also led troops into battle, actively led the defense of the sector entrusted to him, and as a result was seriously wounded. For distinction, he was awarded the St. George weapon with the inscription "For Courage".

Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Army

General N.N. Yudenich. 1916

An unsuccessful war, as a rule, leads to "mass purges" of commanding officials and, at the same time, to the promotion of those who have distinguished themselves. N.N. Yudenich, who was promoted to major general, and in 1907 was appointed quartermaster general of the Caucasian Military District. Five years later, he received a lieutenant general and a promotion - the post of chief of staff of the Kazan Military District. In 1913 - chief of staff of the district in the Caucasus.

As General B.P. Veselorezov: “In the shortest possible time, he became both close and understandable to Caucasians. He has always been with us for sure. Surprisingly simple, in which there was no poison called "generalin", indulgent, he quickly won hearts. Always cordial, he was widely hospitable. His cozy apartment saw numerous comrades in the service, military commanders and their families, joyfully hurrying to the affectionate invitation of the general and his wife.

There were many stories about the special army simplicity of Yudenich. So, already during the First World War, he served at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander M.K. Lemke left the following lines in his diaries: “Yes, Alekseev was not given a pose, just as, according to general opinion, it was not given to Joffre and Yudenich. The latter is literally the same with everyone. As a quartermaster general and then chief of staff of the Caucasian military. district, he spoke in the same way with Count Vorontsov-Dashkov and with the second lieutenant of his headquarters.

The motto is N.N. Yudenich was as follows:

Only he is worthy of this life who is always ready for death.

With the beginning of World War I, Turkey took a wait-and-see position, finally taking the side of Germany only on October 17, 1914, preceded by a treacherous raid of the German-Turkish squadron on our Black Sea ports. The elderly I.I. was appointed commander-in-chief of the Caucasian army. Vorontsov-Dashkov, in fact, his assistant A.Z. began to perform duties. Myshlaevsky, and N.N. became the chief of staff. Yudenich. The order to go on the offensive was signed by him on the night of October 31.

The main forces (Sarykamysh detachment, located in the center) quickly reached the strategically significant Turkish village of Kyopri-key, but as a result of a series of battles in mid-November, they were forced to retreat to the border. At the same time, the Turks (3rd Army), due to a number of failures, failed to develop success. However, in general, following the results of these battles, the Turkish authorities overestimated their own forces.

Under the influence of initial successes, Enver Pasha (Minister of War, one of the members of the triumvirate who then led the country) wanted to defeat the main Russian forces at Sarykamysh (the most important stronghold of our Caucasian army). Overcoming the objections of some generals, he took command of the 3rd Army and developed a very bold - reeking of adventure - plan, which involved pinning down the Russians at Sarykamysh from the front, while two corps were to bypass the enemy's right flank and cut off the escape route. However, Enver did not take into account either the peculiarities of the terrain or the season. As a result, during the offensive, the Turkish troops suffered from the disorder of the rear and communications, the lack of proper uniforms (given the winter conditions), as well as the lack of coordination between the advancing units.

But the Turkish offensive, initially launched in the second half of December, developed successfully. The Turks managed to reach the Russian flank, putting the Sarykamysh detachment (two corps), led by General Berkhman, in a difficult situation. December 24 A.Z. Myshlaevsky and N.N. Yudenich went to the front. The first took over the overall command of the operation, and Nikolai Nikolaevich temporarily headed one of the corps.

However, the situation continued to deteriorate. The enemy broke through to Sarykamysh, and his defense had to be hastily organized from spare parts. Moreover, the railway connecting the combat area with Kars was blown up. As a result, Myshlaevsky on the evening of December 27 generally ordered to make his way back, and he left for Tiflis (under the pretext of forming a new army), transferring command to Berkhman. Under his command, Yudenich organized the defense, receiving reinforcements and repulsing the attacks of the advancing enemy. However, the Turks themselves did not act actively enough, suffering from snow blizzards. Soon they suffered a number of local failures from the Russian troops, which put an end to their grandiose plans. On January 2, Russian detachments occupied the strategic Bardus Pass and thereby cut off the retreat for the 9th Turkish Corps. And two days later, a counteroffensive began, during which this enemy formation was destroyed. The pursuit of the defeated enemy forces was stopped only on January 18. The total losses of the Turks amounted to 70 thousand people (including 30 thousand frostbitten), ours - 20 thousand. The successes of the Russian army in the Caucasus somewhat eased the position of the allies in Iraq and the Suez region.

Thus, a major victory was won near Sarykamysh. And although it should hardly be attributed solely to the talent of Yudenich (who took command of the Sarykamysh detachment instead of Berkhman only on January 5, when the turning point had already happened), he played a significant role in its success. The general directly led the troops in the most difficult conditions, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George 4th class. Soon he was promoted to general of infantry, and in February 1915 he became commander in chief of the Caucasian army.

General Yudenich was appointed commander of the army; troops gained confidence in themselves and their superiority over the enemy.

Major General E.V. Maslovsky

The spring of 1915 was spent on the reorganization of the army troops, as well as their replenishment. True, the Headquarters, considering this front as a secondary one, sent practically untrained recruits to the Caucasus, who as a result made up more than half of the entire personnel. However, this did not prevent Nikolai Nikolaevich from successfully operating in the summer of 1915. The victories he achieved in this theater of operations looked especially bright against the backdrop of the Great Retreat on the European front.

In May, the left flank of the Caucasian army went on the offensive in the area of ​​Lake Van and thereby saved thousands of Armenians from death during the genocide organized by the Turks. And in June, the Turks suffered a final defeat in Azerbaijan.

However, attempts in July to develop an offensive north of Lake Van met with a serious rebuff. The enemy managed to concentrate large forces, which unexpectedly defeated the 4th Caucasian Corps and forced it to retreat. The Turks went deep into our rear: again a critical situation arose, which was corrected by the art of generalship of the army commander in chief.

Despite the growing panic and alarming reports of the commander of the 4th Caucasian Corps, Yudenich remained completely calm: it became the key to further success. He created a combined detachment under the command of General N.N. Baratov, who in early August delivered an accurate and powerful flank attack on the broken Turks. The enemy faltered and retreated, but it was not possible to achieve his complete defeat (primarily due to the weak work of our rear). Due to the serious fatigue of the troops, the pursuit was stopped in mid-August. The most important guarantee of success was the firmness of General Yudenich, his ability to build a reliable communication system. Let us also note that he tried to keep the size of his headquarters relatively small, not allowing it to be excessively inflated. For success during the summer operation (known as Alashkert) Yudenich was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd class.

At the same time, major changes took place in the leadership of all the Russian Armed Forces. In early September, Emperor Nicholas II became the Supreme Commander, and his uncle Vl.kn. Nikolai Nikolaevich, together with the chief of staff Yanushkevich (by the way, also Nikolai Nikolaevich) was sent to the Caucasus, where he headed the Caucasian front (which was called the “front of three Nikolaev Nikolaevich”). Despite the fact that Yudenich had another boss, in reality he retained a certain autonomy in the leadership of the troops.

In the autumn-winter of 1915, relative calm was established on the Caucasian front. The largest event was the dispatch in November of the corps of General N.N. Baratov to western Persia. Russian troops (namely 2 battalions, 2 squads, 39 hundreds with 20 guns) defeated the anti-Russian paramilitary formations formed by the Turks and Germans, thereby preventing Tehran from taking the side of the enemy.

At the end of the year, another important event took place, namely the defeat of the allied forces in the course of their attempts to seize the Turkish straits of the Dardanelles. The Russian command was worried that at the expense of the released troops, Turkey would strengthen its 3rd army operating in the Caucasus. Thus, a plan was born to break through the enemy front in the Erzurum region and capture this largest fortress.

It is worth recognizing that N.N. Yudenich masterfully prepared the operation and took into account the shortcomings identified in previous battles. He managed to organize the work of the rear in the most worthy way, create new lines of communication and prepare a system of road communications. Particular attention was paid to the supply of soldiers: they were all provided with warm camouflage clothing, special goggles (which protected from the glare of snow), as well as a supply of firewood. They even created a meteorological station for operational monitoring of weather changes.

Unprecedented were the measures to keep the training of the troops a secret: Yudenich resorted to large-scale misinformation of the enemy. In an unencrypted telegram, he transmitted the order to the 4th division to transfer it to Persia and removed it from the front. Moreover, he began to distribute vacations to officers from the front, as well as to massively allow officer wives to arrive at the theater of operations on the occasion of the New Year. The purchase of animals was initiated in order to convince the enemy that an offensive was planned in the Baghdad direction. Until recently, the content of the planned operation was not disclosed to the lower headquarters. And a few days before it began, the exit for all persons from the front line was completely closed, which prevented the Turkish intelligence officers from reporting the final preparations of the Russians. All this had an impact on the enemy. Shortly before our offensive, the commander of the 3rd Turkish Army left for Istanbul altogether.

The offensive unfolded in mid-January 1916. First, Yudenich delivered a distracting blow in the Passinskaya Valley, and then led the main offensive in the Olta and Erzerum directions. The Siberian Cossack brigade was promptly sent to the broken section of the front. At the same time, Nikolai Nikolayevich himself successfully maneuvered the reserves, establishing strict command and control of the troops and keeping the situation under control. As a result, the Turks fled. Only on January 18, the indicated Cossack brigade took 1,500 prisoners from 14 (!) Different regiments. A major success was achieved, and vl. book. Nikolai Nikolaevich already wanted to order a retreat to the starting lines, but Yudenich convinced him of the need to take the seemingly impregnable fortress of Erzerum. He took full responsibility. Of course, it was a risk, but a calculated risk.

As Lieutenant Colonel B.A. Shteifon: “In fact, every bold maneuver of General Yudenich was the result of a deeply thought-out and absolutely accurately predicted situation. And mostly spiritual environment.

The risk of General Yudenich is the courage of creative imagination, the courage that is inherent only in great commanders.

On February 11, the assault began, which was completed five days later. In our hands were 9 banners, 327 guns and about 13 thousand prisoners. In the course of further pursuit, the enemy was driven back 70-100 km west of the fortress. The total losses of the Russian army amounted to approximately 17 thousand people, i.e. approximately 10% of its population, among the Turks they reached 66%.

This was one of the biggest victories of the Russian army, which forced the enemy to hastily transfer troops from other fronts, thereby easing pressure on the British in Mesopotamia and Iraq (although they never took full advantage of the Russian successes). Thus, the new 2nd Turkish Army began to deploy against our front. As the Soviet military historian N.G. Korsun: “In general, the Erzurum offensive operation, carried out in the difficult winter conditions of the mountain theater, is one example of a complex operation brought to an end, consisting of several stages following one from the other, ending in the defeat of the enemy, who lost his main base in the advanced theater - fortress of Erzurum.

Under the influence of this victory, an agreement was signed between Russia, Great Britain and France "On the objectives of the Russian war in Asia Minor", in particular, it delineated spheres of influence in Turkey. The allies finally recognized that the Straits and the North of Turkish Armenia were ceded to Russia.

For the capture of the Erzurum fortress, Yudenich was awarded the highest award - the Order of St. George, 2nd degree: "In retribution for the excellent performance, under exceptional conditions, of a brilliant military operation that ended with the storming of the Deve-Boynskaya position and the fortress of Erzerum on February 2, 1916." It seems that to the "exceptional situation" in which Yudenich prepared and carried out the operation, one should add the intrigues that N.N. Yanushkevich, as well as General Khan Nakhichevansky seconded to the headquarters of the front. In this context, it would be interesting to give the following characterization of the general's personality, which was reproduced in his diary by M.K. Lemke: “Unfortunately, Yudenich is not a typical figure in our army, but one of the exceptions that attracts wide sympathy ... With a great purely military education, he showed many military administrative abilities that the Caucasian army appreciated as soon as he entered the business ... The efficiency of this person is not inferior to Alekseev's, simplicity and modesty make them even more related. At court, he is not particularly liked, knowing his completely independent character and organic inability to bow.

At the same time, the Turkish army was not completely defeated (the spring thaw did not allow the winter successes to be fully realized), and large reinforcements were still expected in the coming months. Yudenich was concerned about giving stability to his troops. Here his eyes were turned to the Black Sea port of Trebizond, the capture of which would facilitate the position of the right flank and interrupt the closest connection of the 3rd Army with the capital.

The operation began in early April, when the Primorsky detachment launched a methodical offensive, advancing with battles up to 5 km per day. At the same time, thanks to the efforts of the Black Sea Fleet, two plastun brigades were transferred from the Eastern Front. And although the enemy learned about it, the German ships and submarines could not interfere. As a result, on April 15, the city was taken, and Russian troops continued to fortify in the area.

The Turks made an attempt to turn the tide in June 1916, when they tried to strike at the junction between the 5th Caucasian and 2nd Turkestan corps. Their first successes were liquidated in time, and in the second half of July Yudenich himself went on the offensive, again defeating the enemy and capturing the city of Erzinjan. As the German General Liman von Sanders (head of the German military mission in Turkey) wrote: “After the Russian cavalry broke through the front in two places, the retreat turned into a rout. Panicked, thousands of soldiers fled. So, the Russians warned the intentions of the Turkish command and inflicted a complete defeat on the 3rd Army before the end of the concentration of the 2nd Army.

Similarly, in August, a powerful flank attack nullified the initial successes of the 2nd Turkish army against our left flank. Turkish attempts to take revenge led to the next individual victories of Yudenich's troops.

By the beginning of 1917, the Caucasian army was the undisputed winner, attracting most of the Turkish forces. Of course, the situation of our troops was not ideal (due to difficult natural conditions, illnesses and difficulties with replenishment), but they held the front primarily thanks to their superiors, among whom the figure of General Yudenich stood out. Perhaps he would have won a number of other major victories, but everything changed with the February Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent disintegration of the army. Although Yudenich became Commander-in-Chief of the Front for some time, he was unable (like all other military men, however) to cope with the fall in discipline. Opposing the liberal reforms in the army, which objectively led to its collapse, he became a fierce opposition to the Provisional Government, and in mid-May was removed for disobeying his orders.

The further fate of Yudenich will be sad. After the October Revolution, Nikolai Nikolayevich will go into hiding. Living in Petrograd, he will try to create an underground military organization. At first, he will join the pro-German monarchist circles, but after the defeat of Germany in the war, he will begin to build relations with the allies. At the beginning of 1919, he became the leader of the White movement in the North-West, and later he received recognition of his powers from A.V. Kolchak. For the most part, Yudenich deals with political and organizational issues, while in May-June, General A.P. Rodzianko develops the first unsuccessful attack on Petrograd. Only during the autumn attempt to take the former imperial capital Yudenich directly commands the units, but again the Whites failed. At the end of January 1920, he will issue an order to liquidate the North-Western Army, and he will emigrate. N.N. died. Yudenich in 1933 in a foreign land - in Cannes in France.

Pakhalyuk K., Head of the Internet project "Heroes of the First World War", member of the Russian Association of Historians of the First World War

Literature

Andolenko S. Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich. Renaissance. 1962. No. 132

Lemke M.K. 250 days at the royal headquarters. Minsk, 2003

Korsun N. The First World War on the Caucasian front. M., 1946

Internet

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Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. Under his leadership, the Red Army crushed fascism.

Rokhlin Lev Yakovlevich

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Dzhugashvili Joseph Vissarionovich

Gathered and coordinated a team of talented military leaders

Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich

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Platov Matvei Ivanovich

Ataman of the Great Don Army (since 1801), cavalry general (1809), who took part in all the wars of the Russian Empire in the late 18th - early 19th centuries.
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Govorov Leonid Alexandrovich

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Perhaps the most talented commander of the entire Civil War, even if compared with the commanders of all its sides. A man of powerful military talent, fighting spirit and Christian noble qualities is a real White Knight. Kappel's talent and personal qualities were noticed and respected even by his opponents. The author of many military operations and exploits - including the capture of Kazan, the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, etc. Many of his calculations, which were not evaluated in time and missed through no fault of his own, later turned out to be the most correct, which was shown by the course of the Civil War.

Kappel Vladimir Oskarovich

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Donskoy Dmitry Ivanovich

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Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich

Certainly worthy, explanations and proofs, in my opinion, are not required. It's amazing that his name isn't on the list. was the list prepared by representatives of the USE generation?

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Khvorostinin Dmitry Ivanovich

Outstanding commander of the second half of the XVI century. Oprichnik.
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Chichagov Vasily Yakovlevich

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Russian oceanographer, polar explorer, shipbuilder, vice admiral. Developed the Russian semaphore alphabet. A worthy person, on the list of worthy ones!

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Gagen Nikolai Alexandrovich

On June 22, trains with units of the 153rd Infantry Division arrived in Vitebsk. Covering the city from the west, the Hagen division (together with the heavy artillery regiment attached to the division) occupied a 40 km long defense zone, it was opposed by the 39th German motorized corps.

After 7 days of fierce fighting, the battle formations of the division were not broken through. The Germans no longer contacted the division, bypassed it and continued the offensive. The division flashed in the message of the German radio as destroyed. Meanwhile, the 153rd Rifle Division, without ammunition and fuel, began to break through the ring. Hagen led the division out of the encirclement with heavy weapons.

For the steadfastness and heroism shown during the Yelninskaya operation on September 18, 1941, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 308, the division received the honorary name "Guards".
From 01/31/1942 to 09/12/1942 and from 10/21/1942 to 04/25/1943 - commander of the 4th Guards Rifle Corps,
from May 1943 to October 1944 - commander of the 57th Army,
from January 1945 - the 26th Army.

The troops under the leadership of N. A. Hagen participated in the Sinyavino operation (moreover, the general managed to break out of the encirclement with weapons in his hands for the second time), the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, battles in the Left-Bank and Right-Bank Ukraine, in the liberation of Bulgaria, in Iasi-Kishinev, Belgrade, Budapest, Balaton and Vienna operations. Member of the Victory Parade.

Skobelev Mikhail Dmitrievich

A man of great courage, a great tactician, organizer. M.D. Skobelev possessed strategic thinking, saw the situation, both in real time and in perspective

Rurik Svyatoslav Igorevich

Year of birth 942 date of death 972 Expansion of the borders of the state. 965 the conquest of the Khazars, 963 the campaign to the south to the Kuban region the capture of Tmutarakan, 969 the conquest of the Volga Bulgars, 971 the conquest of the Bulgarian kingdom, 968 the foundation of Pereyaslavets on the Danube (the new capital of Rus'), 969 the defeat of the Pechenegs in the defense of Kiev.

Chuikov Vasily Ivanovich

"There is a city in vast Russia to which my heart is given, it went down in history as STALINGRAD ..." V.I. Chuikov

One of the most successful Russian generals during the First World War. The Erzerum and Sarakamysh operations carried out by him on the Caucasian front, carried out in extremely unfavorable conditions for the Russian troops, and ending in victories, I believe, deserve to be included in a row with the brightest victories of Russian weapons. In addition, Nikolai Nikolayevich, distinguished by modesty and decency, lived and died an honest Russian officer, remained faithful to the oath to the end.

Margelov Vasily Filippovich

Creator of the modern Airborne Forces. When for the first time the BMD parachuted with the crew, the commander in it was his son. In my opinion, this fact speaks of such a remarkable person as V.F. Margelov, everyone. About his devotion to the Airborne Forces!

Rokossovsky Konstantin Konstantinovich

Because it inspires many by personal example.

Olsufiev Zakhar Dmitrievich

One of the most famous commanders of Bagrationov's 2nd Western Army. He always fought with exemplary courage. He was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd degree for heroic participation in the Battle of Borodino. He distinguished himself in the battle on the Chernishna (or Tarutinsky) River. The award to him for participating in the defeat of the vanguard of Napoleon's army was the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree. He was called "general with talents". When Olsufiev was captured and was delivered to Napoleon, he said to his entourage the famous words in history: "Only Russians know how to fight like that!"

Monomakh Vladimir Vsevolodovich

Dolgorukov Yury Alekseevich

An outstanding statesman and military leader of the era of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, prince. Commanding the Russian army in Lithuania, in 1658 he defeated hetman V. Gonsevsky in the battle of Verki, taking him prisoner. This was the first time after 1500 when a Russian governor captured the hetman. In 1660, at the head of an army sent under Mogilev, besieged by the Polish-Lithuanian troops, he won a strategic victory over the enemy on the Basya River near the village of Gubarevo, forcing hetmans P. Sapega and S. Czarnetsky to retreat from the city. Thanks to the actions of Dolgorukov, the "front line" in Belarus along the Dnieper was preserved until the end of the war of 1654-1667. In 1670, he led an army sent to fight against the Cossacks of Stenka Razin, in the shortest possible time suppressed the Cossack rebellion, which later led to the Don Cossacks swearing allegiance to the tsar and turning the Cossacks from robbers into "sovereign servants".

Outstanding Russian commander, one of Ivan the Terrible's associates, drafter of the charter of the guard and border service

Dovmont, Prince of Pskov

On the famous Novgorod monument to the Millennium of Russia, he stands in the section "military people and heroes."
Dovmont, Prince of Pskov, lived in the 13th century (he died in 1299).
Descended from the family of Lithuanian princes. After the assassination of the Lithuanian prince Mindovg, he fled to Pskov, where he was baptized under the name of Timothy, after which the Pskovites elected him their prince.
Soon Dovmont showed the qualities of a brilliant commander. In 1266 he utterly defeated the Lithuanians on the banks of the Dvina.
Dovmont participated in the famous Rakovor battle with the crusaders (1268), where he commanded the Pskov regiments as part of the united Russian army. When the Livonian knights besieged Pskov, Dovmont, with the help of the Novgorodians who came to the rescue, managed to defend the city, and the Grand Master, wounded in a duel by Dovmont himself, was forced to make peace.
To protect against attacks, Dovmont fortified Pskov with a new stone wall, which until the 16th century was called Dovmontova.
In 1299, the Livonian knights unexpectedly invaded the Pskov land and devastated it, but were again defeated by Dovmont, who soon fell ill and died.
None of the Pskov princes enjoyed such love among the Pskovites as Dovmont.
The Russian Orthodox Church canonized him as a saint in the 16th century after the Batory invasion on the occasion of some miraculous phenomenon. The local memory of Dovmont is celebrated on May 25. His body was buried in the Trinity Cathedral in Pskov, where his sword and clothes were kept at the beginning of the 20th century.

We continue our regular column "Unknown Generals of Russia". Today Vladimir Gennadievich talks about General Yudenich.

The hero of the Russo-Japanese War, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, is one of the most talented generals of Russia during the First World War, during which he did not lose a single battle. He earned himself the fame of the "new Suvorov". However, we know him as the organizer of two unsuccessful campaigns against Petrograd during the Civil War.

The son of a collegiate adviser, he went to the Alexander Military School, becoming a regular military man. In 1884, Yudenich passed the exams for the elite Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, from which he was released "in the first category" (and with the rank of staff captain), which gave serious career advantages. Then there was service in staff positions in the Warsaw and Turkestan military districts, and in 1896 - promotion to the rank of colonel.

As a colleague D.V. Filatiev, Nikolai Nikolaevich was distinguished " directness and even sharpness of judgments, certainty of decisions, firmness in defending one’s opinion and a complete lack of inclination to any compromises".

Yudenich met the Russo-Japanese War as the commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment (5th Infantry Brigade). Managed to score a few times. In the battle at Sandepu, he personally led the retreating troops into a bayonet battle and managed to push the enemy back. In the battle of Mukden, he also led troops into battle, actively led the defense of the sector entrusted to him, and as a result was seriously wounded. For distinction, he was awarded the St. George weapon with the inscription "For Courage".

At the end of the Russo-Japanese War, he was promoted to major general, and in 1907 he was appointed quartermaster general of the Caucasian Military District. Five years later, he received a lieutenant general and a promotion - the post of chief of staff of the Kazan Military District. In 1913 - chief of staff of the district in the Caucasus.

Many stories were told about the special army simplicity and straightforwardness of Yudenich. So, already during the First World War, he served at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander M.K. Lemke left the following lines in his diaries: As a quartermaster general and then chief of staff of the Caucasian military. district, he spoke in the same way with Count Vorontsov-Dashkov and with the second lieutenant of his headquarters".

With the beginning of the First World War, N.N. Yudenich was appointed Chief of Staff of the Caucasian Army. The largest battle between Russian and Turkish troops took place near Sarykamysh in January 1915, ending in the complete defeat of the Turkish troops. The losses of the enemy amounted to over 70 thousand people, the losses of the Russian army amounted to about 20 thousand people. N.N. played an important role in the success of the operation. Yudenich. The general directly led the troops in the most difficult conditions, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George 4th class. Soon he was promoted to general of infantry, and in February 1915 he became commander in chief of the Caucasian army.

In the spring of 1915, the Headquarters, considering this front to be of secondary importance, sent to the Caucasus practically untrained military recruits, who as a result made up more than half of the entire personnel. However, this did not prevent Nikolai Nikolaevich from successfully operating in the summer of 1915.

In May, the left flank of the Caucasian army went on the offensive in the area of ​​Lake Van and thereby saved thousands of Armenians from death during the genocide organized by the Turks. And in June, the Turks suffered a final defeat in Azerbaijan.

However, attempts in July to develop an offensive north of Lake Van met with a serious rebuff. The enemy managed to concentrate large forces, which unexpectedly defeated the 4th Caucasian Corps and forced it to retreat. Despite the growing panic and alarming reports of the commander of the 4th Caucasian Corps, Yudenich remained completely calm: it became the key to further success. He created a combined detachment under the command of General N.N. Baratov, who in early August delivered an accurate and powerful flank attack on the broken Turks. The most important condition for success was the firmness of General Yudenich, his ability to build a reliable communication system. For success during the summer operation (known as Alashkert) Yudenich was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd class.

At the end of 1915, another important event took place, namely the defeat of the allied forces in the course of their attempts to capture the Turkish straits of the Dardanelles. The Russian command was worried that at the expense of the released troops, Turkey would strengthen its 3rd army operating in the Caucasus. Thus, a plan was born to break through the enemy front in the Erzurum region and capture this largest fortress.

N.N. Yudenich masterfully prepared the operation and took into account the shortcomings identified in previous battles. He managed to organize the work of the rear, create new lines of communication and prepare a system of road communications.

Yudenich resorted to large-scale disinformation of the enemy. In an unencrypted telegram, he transmitted the order to the 4th division to transfer it to Persia and removed it from the front. Moreover, he began to distribute holidays to officers from the front. The purchase of animals was initiated in order to convince the enemy that an offensive was planned in the Baghdad direction. The content of the planned operation was not disclosed to the lower headquarters until the last moment. And a few days before it began, the exit for all persons from the front line was completely closed, which prevented the Turkish intelligence officers from reporting the final preparations of the Russians. All these actions had the expected effect. Shortly before our offensive, the commander of the 3rd Turkish Army left for Istanbul altogether.

Behind the development of the Erzerum operation

The offensive unfolded in mid-January 1916. First, Yudenich delivered a distracting blow in the Passinskaya Valley, and then led the main offensive in the Olta and Erzerum directions. The Siberian Cossack brigade was promptly sent to the broken section of the front. At the same time, Nikolai Nikolayevich himself successfully maneuvered the reserves, establishing strict command and control of the troops and keeping the situation under control. As a result, the Turks fled. Only on January 18, the indicated Cossack brigade took 1,500 prisoners from 14 (!) Different regiments. As a result, the impregnable fortress of Erzurum was taken.

Captured Turkish gun in Erzurum taken by Russian troops. Early 1916

It was one of the biggest victories of the Russian army, which forced the enemy to hastily transfer troops from other fronts, thereby easing pressure on the British in Mesopotamia and Iraq. For the capture of the Erzerum fortress, Yudenich was awarded the highest award - the Order of St. George, 2nd degree.

In the second half of July 1916, Yudenich himself went on the offensive, again defeating the enemy and capturing the city of Erzinjan.

By the beginning of 1917, the Caucasian army was the undisputed winner, attracting most of the Turkish forces. The Russian troops held the front primarily thanks to their commanders, among whom the figure of General Yudenich stood out. Perhaps he would have won a number of other major victories, but everything changed with the February Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent disintegration of the army. Speaking out against liberal reforms in the army, he became a fierce opposition to the Provisional Government, and in mid-May was removed for disobeying his orders.

Northwestern Army. 1919

The further fate of Yudenich will be sad. After the October Revolution, Nikolai Nikolayevich will go into hiding. At the beginning of 1919, he became the leader of the White movement in the North-West, and later he received recognition of his powers from A.V. Kolchak. For the most part, Yudenich deals with political and organizational issues. Only during the autumn attempt to take the former imperial capital Yudenich directly commands the units, but again the Whites failed. At the end of January 1920, he will issue an order to liquidate the North-Western Army, and he will emigrate. N.N. died. Yudenich in 1933 in a foreign land - in Cannes in France.

Sources used in the preparation of the material: 100.histrf.ru

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