10 Facts About Nikolai Yanushkevich

Nikolai Yanushkevich graduated from the Nikolaevskii General Staff Academy in 1896.

Nikolai Yanushkevich briefly served as a staff officer in the provinces before returning to the Life Guards as a company commander.

Nikolai Yanushkevich was appointed Chief of the General Staff in March 1914 and became Chief of Staff to the Supreme Commander in Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, at the outset of the war.

Nikolai Yanushkevich was poorly qualified for the post of chief of staff.

Nikolai Yanushkevich had spent most of his career occupied by administrative duties in the Ministry of War.

Nikolai Yanushkevich had never held a field commission and his command experience was extremely limited, being confined to a short period as a company commander.

The British military attache to the Russian Army during the war claims that Nikolai Yanushkevich owed his high position largely to his skills as a courtier and was rumoured to have found favour with the tsar when serving as a captain of the palace guard.

Nikolai Yanushkevich apparently played only a minor role in the opening campaigns of the war.

Danilov was supported by a staff of fifteen whereas Nikolai Yanushkevich had a single adjutant and spent part of his time developing his taste for pornography.

The deeply anti-Semitic Nikolai Yanushkevich played a leading role in the savage pogroms and deportations to Siberia of Jews, Muslims, and ethnic Germans that accompanied the so-called "Great Retreat" of 1915.