Aleksandr Kolchak

Petersburg, Russia, in 1874.

His family had a long history of military service (his father was an artillery officer who fought the British in the Battle of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, scene of the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade"), and Kolchak graduated from the Russian Naval Academy in 1894. He was soon posted to the wilds of Vladivostok, spending four years there before returning to Russia and being stationed at the huge Kronstadt naval base. He took part in two expeditions to Russia's Arctic regions, for which he picked up the nickname "Polar Bear".

During the 1905 Russo-Japanese War Kolchak was posted to a cruiser at Port Arthur, and his ship was responsible for sinking a Japanese heavy cruiser. He was then transferred to shore duty at an artillery battery during the Japanese siege of the city. He was seriously wounded and captured by the victorious Japanese forces, but the severity of his wounds resulted in his being returned to Russia by the Japanese shortly before the end of the war. Recuperating from his injuries, he was assigned the task of helping to remake and improve the Russian navy, which had been virtually destroyed by the Japanese during the war. He was posted to the Baltic Fleet upon the outbreak of World War I with the job of planning an attack on the German naval bases at Kiel and Danzig, a task he handled so well that he was promoted to Vice-Admiral and given command of the Black Sea Fleet, which was operating against Turkish forces. Kolchak noticed that there were no railroads between the coal mines in eastern Turkey and the capital, meaning that the country's entire coal supply had to reach the capital by ship. He devised a plan to attack and sink as many Turkish coal ships as possible, and his effectiveness at that task severely damaged the Turkish war effort. Russia's overall military and political situation was deteriorating rapidly, however. Several staggering military defeats, resulting in enormous casualties (100,000+ dead at the Battle of Tannenberg alone), demoralized the Russian army, spawning mutinies, mass desertions and open revolt.

Aleksandr Kolchak, a Czarist admiral who led the military resistance to the Bolshevik government in Russia after the 1917 revolution, was born in St.

The czar was overthrown in 1917 and a new government, headed by Aleksandr Kerensky, took power. Kolchak was sent to Great Britain and the US as an "observer", although many thought it was to remove him as a potential rival to Kerensky. After a tour of Britain and a short visit to the US, Kolchak returned to Russia via Japan.

He was in Manchuria in 1917 when the Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky and seized power. Kolchak joined the opposition to the Bolsheviks, commonly called the "Whites" (the Bolsheviks were commonly called the "Reds"). After a series of coups and countercoups wracked the White government, Kolchak was eventually offered the position of "Supreme Ruler", which he accepted. He was supported by the Allied powers, which wanted Russia to stay in the war against the Germans. Kolchak consolidated his power through some very repressive means, including mass arrests and executions of opponents. Kolchak's forces achieved several impressive victories against the Bolshevik armies in the country's Siberian region, partly due to the money, arms and other supplies he received from the British. In addition, the Red Army's brutal treatment of the population under its control--including rapes, looting, tortures and executions--brought about a series of local uprisings against them. All this resulted in the Reds retreating and Kolchak's forces taking control of a territory of almost 300,000 square miles. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't hold it for very long. Running out of supplies by spring, they were attacked by fresh Red Army forces and pushed back. Also, the authoritarian and somewhat arrogant Kolchak had alienated his political and military allies (he had several thousand Czech and Polish troops in addition to his own forces), as did the widespread corruption in his government and the brutal treatment of civilians by some units in his army, and the British and American governments refused to give him any more aid. The Red Army broke through the White lines in the Ural Mountains and took several important cities. By the end of the year the White forces, hammered by bad weather, running out of supplies and suffering many casualties, retreated towards their Siberian bases in disarray. The Reds attacked and captured the important White city of Omsk, a major setback for the White government, which lost a huge amount of much-needed ammunition and 50,000 of its troops taken prisoner. The Whites' situation continued to deteriorate, and there were several coup attempts against Kolchak by opponents who perceived him as weakened.

In 1920 new leadership took over the White government and dismissed him. He was promised safe passage to the British embassy in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, but instead he was handed over to the Red army, which quickly tried him and sentenced him to death. He was shot by a firing squad on Feb.