Gen. Mikhail Fyodorovich Kvetsinsky
Lt. Gen. Mikhail Fyodorovich Kvetsinsky. Born in 1866 to a field grade officer in the Tsar’s army, he graduated from the Alexandrov’s Institute in 1885 and the Nikolayev General Staff Academy in 1891. Serving in Manchuria as a staff officer of the 1st East-Siberian Rifle Brigade during the Boxer Rebellion, he was chief of Mukden garrison during the Russo-Japanese War. By 1910, he was chief of staff of the wild 3rd Caucasus Army Corps, beginning the Great War in that position on the Galicia front against the Austrians before switching to the chief of staff of the 3rd Army. Cashiered from his position as the commander of the Kiev Military District in October 1917, he was soon part of the staff of the White Northern Army out of Arkhangelsk during the Civil War. Evacuated with that force’s staff aboard the icebreaker Kuzma Minin in February 1920, he spent his final years in Lillehammer, Norway working as a taxi cab driver and bootman. He died in Norway in 1923, aged 57.