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Gen. Vladimir Nikolaevich Gorbatovsky. Born in 1851, by 1870 he was a second lieutenant in the 5th Kiev Grenadier Regiment. Decorated as a captain and company commander in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, he would rise to be the colonel commander of the 44th Kamchatka Infantry Rgt by 1899 and would serve in Manchuria during the Boxer Rebellion. When the Japanese besieged Port Arthur, he was a brigade commander in the 7th East Siberian Rifle Division and, unlike the base’s overall commandant, distinguished himself during the long siege, earning the St. George post-war for “excellent courage and bravery shown” By 1909, he was commander of the 3rd Grenadier Division and opened the Great War as a Lt. Gen. in charge of the XIX Army Corps against the Austrians in Galacia. A competent general who displayed a knack for smashing Austrian lines and escaping German encirclements with the bulk of his troops, he went on to lead the 13th Army in 1915 and the 28-division strong oversized 10th Army in 1916. Cashiered in April 1917 after the Tsar’s adbication, the 66-year-old cooled his heels in Finland then threw in with Yudenich during the Civil War and remained in Estonia after the collapse of that White Army. He died in exile there in 1924, aged 73.

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