To Serve the Russian Empire

This is the self-portrait of one man's journey through life, schooled at two prestigious boarding schools in Saint Petersburg. He was chosen as one of two chamber pages to Princess Alix (Alexandra Feodorovna) at her wedding to Tsar Nicholas II. Commissioned into the elite Egersky Lifeguards Regiment, he paints a vivid picture of regimental life: the officer's mess on Ruzovskaya Street, guard duty at the Anichkov Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress and at the Tsar's coronation, Military manoeuvres at Krasnoe Selo, and life in fashionable Saint Petersburg. In 1901 he attended the General Staff Academy, graduating in 1904 with the General Leontiev Prize for his thesis on strategy. The scene then changes to the Far East where, as a junior staff officer, he took part in the war against Japan. After Russia's defeat, he describes his provincial posting to the divisional HQ in Kiev before being invited to teach tactics at Saint Petersburg's General Staff Academy. After obtaining his professoriate, everything changes with the start of the First World War. He describes his career against the backdrop of Russia's fortunes from the successful Galician campaign through the disastrous retreat and eventual stalemate after the Kerensky Offensive and the Bolshevik takeover.

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