Mikhail Alekseyev

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev (Russian: Михаи́л Васи́льевич Алексе́ев) (15 November [O.S. 3 November] 1857 – 8 October [O.S. 25 September] 1918) was an Imperial Russian Army general during World War I and the Russian Civil War. Between 1915 and 1917 he served as Tsar Nicholas II's Chief of Staff of the Stavka, and after the February Revolution, was its commander-in-chief under the Russian Provisional Government from March to May 1917. He 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.

Alekseyev was born in Vyazma, in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Smolensk Oblast, Russia). His father, Vasili Alekseyev, was an army captain in the 64th Kazan Regiment from a modest background. In 1873 Alekseyev entered as a volunteer in the 2nd Grenadiers Regiment in Rostov. He graduated from the Moscow Infantry School in 1876 and was commissioned an ensign in the same 64th Kazan Regiment. He served as an orderly to General Mikhail Skobelev during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), and was wounded in combat near Pleven, Bulgaria. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1881, and captain in May 1883.

In 1893, Alekseyev entered the Nicholas General Staff Academy, and in 1896 became a lecturer.

In 1890 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was posted as a senior adjutant in the headquarters of the 1st Army Corps in the St. Petersburg Military District. In March 1904, he was promoted to the rank of major general.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, in October 1904 Alekseyev was appointed Quartermaster General of the Russian 3rd Manchurian Army. During the war he was awarded a gold sword, the Order of St. Stanislav, and the Order of St. Anne.

After the war, he returned to the General Staff Academy as a Professor of the history of military science.

In 1908 he was made Chief of Staff of the Kiev military district and promoted to lieutenant general. In 1912 Alekseyev was given command of the 13th Army Corps.

The beginning of World War I saw Alekseyev appointed Chief of Staff to N. I. Ivanov, Commander of the Southwestern Front (which held the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Armies), where he planned the Russian offensive into Galicia with the rank of General-of-Infantry. He was subsequently awarded the Order of St. George (4th class). In March 1915 Alekseyev became the overall commander of the Russian Northwestern Front.