1. Mikhail Alekseyev later played a principal role in founding the Volunteer Army in the Russian Civil War and died in 1918 of heart failure while fighting the Bolsheviks in the Volga region.
19 Facts About Mikhail Alekseyev
1. 2.
Mikhail Alekseyev's father, Vasili Alekseyev, was an army captain in the 64th Kazan Regiment from a modest background.
3.
In 1873 Mikhail Alekseyev entered as a volunteer in the 2nd Grenadiers Regiment in Rostov.
4.
Mikhail Alekseyev graduated from the Moscow Infantry School in 1876 and was commissioned an ensign in the same 64th Kazan Regiment.
5.
Mikhail Alekseyev served as an orderly to General Mikhail Skobelev during the Russo-Turkish War, and was wounded in combat near Pleven, Bulgaria.
6.
Mikhail Alekseyev was promoted to lieutenant in January 1881, and captain in May 1883.
7.
In 1893, Mikhail Alekseyev entered the Nicholas General Staff Academy, and in 1896 became a lecturer.
8.
In 1912 Mikhail Alekseyev was given command of the 13th Army Corps.
9.
The beginning of World War I saw Alekseyev appointed Chief of Staff to N I Ivanov, Commander of the Southwestern Front, where he planned the Russian offensive into Galicia with the rank of General-of-Infantry.
10.
Mikhail Alekseyev was awarded the Order of St George.
11.
In March 1915 Mikhail Alekseyev became the overall commander of the Russian Northwestern Front.
12.
On 5 September 1915, when Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich of Russia stepped down as Russian supreme Commander-in-chief in August 1915 to be replaced by Tsar Nicholas II, Mikhail Alekseyev was appointed as Chief of Staff of the General Headquarters and placed in charge of all military operations.
13.
Mikhail Alekseyev served in this capacity from August 1915 to March 1917.
14.
Mikhail Alekseyev was incapable of changing a political system that allowed the promotion of incompetent commanders through nepotism, patronage and the use of court intrigue.
15.
Mikhail Alekseyev remained committed to the Allied cause of the Entente, which is proved by the undertaking of the summer offensive in 1916.
16.
On 30 August 1917 Mikhail Alekseyev became Chief of Staff of the Stavka under Commander-in-Chief Alexander Kerensky.
17.
Mikhail Alekseyev's goal was to prevent the Kornilov movement from developing into civil war.
18.
That same day, Mikhail Alekseyev arrived at the General Headquarters, arrested General Lavr Kornilov and his men and sent them to prison in Bykhov, from which they would "break away" with the help of General Nikolai Dukhonin.
19.
Mikhail Alekseyev was first buried in the crypt of the Cossack host cathedral, but his family moved his remains to the New Cemetery, Belgrade, where they remain to this day.