Maj. Gen. Pyotr Kasparovich Mezhak
Maj. Gen. Pyotr Kasparovich Mezhak (Pēteris Mežaks) was born 18 February 1858 in Latvia, graduated from the Riga Infantry Junker School in 1878 and was soon a subaltern in the Siberia-based 115th Vyazemsky Infantry Regiment. From there, he passed into the Border Guards Corps, which was essentially a more full-time frontier mixed cavalry force that was very active in Mongolia and Manchuria– notably becoming fluent in several regional languages. This led to his seeing lots of service during the Boxer Rebellion and Russo-Japanese War. A brigade commander in the 1st Zaamur border infantry division by 1915, he was sent with his border guards to the Caucasian front where, earning the St. George’s Cross, was cashiered in October 1917 in the days immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution. Returning to the Far East, he soon became a high figure with Kolchak’s Siberian White armies and served as the military governor general of Chita. Passing into exile with the Whites in 1922, he became the Latvian consul general until 1939 when he returned to Latvia proper– just in time to be picked up by the invading Soviets and tossed in the gulag, where he passed in 1941, aged 83.