Samsonov, Alexander Vasilyevich

Born in the family of a retired lieutenant Vasily Vasilyevich Samsonov and his wife Nadezhda Egorovna. Parents owned land in Elisavetgradsky district . He graduated from the Vladimir Military Gymnasium in Kiev (1875), Nikolaev Cavalry School (1877), was released as a cornet to the 12th Hussars of Akhtyrka .

Member of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. In 1884 he graduated from the Academy of the General Staff . From November 8, 1884, Senior Adjutant of the Staff of the 20th Infantry Division , from July 10, 1885 to February 4, 1889 - Senior Adjutant of the Staff of the Caucasus Grenadier Division . In 1887-88, the squadron commander of the 24th Dragoon Lubensky regiment . From February 4, 1889 - head of the Main Directorate of the Cossack troops, from March 11, 1890 - headquarters officer for assignments at the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District. From February 1, 1893 - headquarters officer for special assignments under the commander of the troops of the Warsaw Military District .

From July 25, 1896 - Head of the Elisavetgrad Cavalry Cadet School . About 8 years served as his chief. At the same time, he was a member of the Elisavetgrad district zemstvo and a member of the Elisavetgrad city committee of the Red Cross Society. The school in 1902 increased the level of accreditation, and it became the second most important (after the capital Nikolayevsky ) cavalry school of the Russian Empire. Samsonov was remembered by the cadets as an educated military, exemplary commander and a fair administrator, irreconcilably related to non-statutory relations and other violations of military and Christian ethics.

Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905

At the beginning of the war with Japan, March 15, 1904, Major General Samsonov took command of the Ussurian horse brigade . From his first battle - on May 17 near Yudzyatun - he gained the reputation of an ideal cavalry commander. The Yudzyatun clash went down in history as one of two victorious cavalry battles of the Russian-Japanese war, in which the Cossacks almost completely destroyed the Japanese squadron in a matter of minutes. Lightning success of the Cossacks in this battle contributed to their peaks, against which the Japanese, armed with sabers, were helpless. Under Wafangow, cavalry general Samsonov made a round of the 4th Japanese division, which decided the fate of the battle. Then Samsonov participated in the battles near Senyuchen, under Gaizhou and Tashichao ( raid on Yingkou ), in the battle of Liaoyang . In command of the flank detachment, he repelled the attack of the Japanese Guards Brigade, and during the retreat he took four Siberian Cossack regiments with a horse battery, holding the Yantai position and holding it while the Russian corps retreated to the north in an organized manner. On September 2, 1904, Samsonov led the Siberian Cossack Division. With it, he participated in the bloody battles on the river. Shah , near the village of Sandep , near Mukden . For services in battles Samsonov was awarded the golden weapon, orders of St.. George 4th degree, of sv. Ann 1 st degree with swords, of sv. Stanislav 1st degree with swords and received the rank of lieutenant general .

Peacetime

From September 24, 1905, the Chief of Staff of the Warsaw Military District, from April 3, 1907 - Ataman of the Don Army , from March 17, 1909 - Turkestan Governor-General and the Commander of the Turkestan Military District and the military ataman of the Semirechensky Cossack Army . A talented administrator Samsonov established peaceful relations between the Russian and the local population, intensified educational activities, contributed to the development of cotton growing, water supply and irrigation in the province. In 1910 he was promoted to cavalry generals .

World War I

In the summer of 1914, directly from the Caucasus, where Samsonov and his family were on vacation, he went to Warsaw to take command of the 2nd Army . July 19 (August 1, the new style) in 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. In Warsaw, Samsonov met with the commander of the North-Western Front, Ya. G. Zhilinsky , who dedicated him to the plan of upcoming actions. The 2nd Army was assigned the task, in cooperation with the 1st Army of General P. Rannenkampf, to carry out an offensive East Prussian operation .

The German command realized the perniciousness of the war on two fronts, so Schlieffen’s plan was developed, providing for a lightning defeat of the French troops before the Russian army can mobilize and go on the offensive. In turn, the French and Russian General Staffs developed a plan providing for joint concerted actions in the event of war with Germany.

In the event of a German attack on France, the Russian mobilization schedules No. 19 and No. 20 ordered the North-Western and South-Western fronts to immediately launch an offensive and postpone the war to the territory of Germany and Austria-Hungary, respectively. The direction of the main attack against Germany - from Narev to Allenshteyn - was determined as far back as 1912 at the Zhilinsky and Joffra talks. In the operational-strategic game conducted by the Russian military ministry and the general staff in April 1914, the invasion of East Prussia by the forces of the two armies of the North-Western Front from the east and south was practiced.

On July 23, Samsonov assumed the post of commander of the 2nd Army, with whom he was encircled during the East Prussian operation as a result of the erroneous decisions of the commander of the North-Western Front of Zhilinsky and his own miscalculations. According to the plan of the operation, developed in the Stavka under the leadership of the Supreme Commander Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich , the 1st and 2nd armies were to defeat the German 8th army , concentrated in East Prussia . Samsonov was ordered to move from the Narew River (in Poland) bypassing the Masurian Lakes to the north, Rennenkampfu - from the Neman to the west. The army of Rannenkampf was the first to come into contact with the enemy. On August 4, it defeated the advanced German corps near Stallupenen , on the 7th in the oncoming battle of Gumbinnen-Goldap forced the main forces of the 8th German army to retreat.

The defeat at Gumbinnen created a real threat to the encirclement of the 8th German Army, and in the evening of August 20, Prithvice reported to the General Staff about his decision to withdraw beyond the Vistula and asked for reinforcements to hold the front along this river. ^[1] However, this decision was opposed by the German Stavka and contrary to Schlieffen’s plan, which, under unfavorable developments on the Eastern Front, planned to retreat deep into Germany, but not to withdraw troops from the Western Front in order to defeat France and avoid war on two fronts. , decided not to surrender East Prussia and deploy troops from the Western Front to help the 8th Army (2 corps and an equestrian division).

On August 21, Moltke dismissed Pritvits and his chief of staff, General Waldersee, and appointed Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich von Ludendorff to replace them. They arrived at the headquarters of the 8th Army on August 23 and approved a plan to repel the Russian offensive against East Prussia. The decision was made, leaving 2.5 divisions against the 1st Russian Army of Rennemkampf, quickly, along the rokadnaya railway through Koenigsberg, to transfer the main forces of the 8th Army against the 2nd Russian Army of Samsonov and try to defeat it with parts of the 1st army. However, the implementation of the plan depended entirely on the actions of the Rennenkampf army, whose rapid advance to the west, according to Ludendorff, would make the maneuver unthinkable.

At this time, the command of the North-Western Front, finding a quick retreat of the German forces in front of the 1st Army, decided that the Germans were withdrawing from the Vistula, and found the operation completed, and changed its initial tasks for it. The main forces of the 1st Army of Rennenkampf were sent not to meet the 2nd Army of Samsonov, but to cut off Koenigsberg, where, according to the assumption of the comfront, part of the 8th army was hiding, and to the persecution of the Germans retreating to the Vistula. The commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army, Samsonov, in turn, decided to intercept the Germans "retreating to the Vistula" and insisted before the front command to transfer the main attack of their army from the north to the north-west, which led to the Russian armies attacking directions and between them formed a huge gap of 125 km.

The new command of the 8th German Army decided to take advantage of the gap between the Russian armies to inflict flank attacks on Samsonov's 2nd Army, surround it and destroy it.

Thus, during this period, the Russian headquarters and the commanders of the front and armies made decisions that were not based on the real situation, and allowed the enemy to freely transfer almost all troops against the 2nd army, leaving only a weak barrier against the 1st army.

On August 13, the 2nd Army encountered unexpectedly strong opposition from the Germans. On this day, the right-flank 6th Corps suffered a defeat at Bischofsburg and began a retreat. The next day, the left-flank 1st Corps, almost without a fight, retreated south of Soldau ; Upon learning of this, Samsonov was beside himself with indignation and dismissed the corps commander Artamonov from his post. The position of the 13th , 15th and 23rd corps, who fought with the Germans in the center and were under intense pressure from the enemy, became threatening.

Worrying about their fate, Alexander Vasilyevich on August 15 arrived at the front line - at the headquarters of the 15th Corps of General Martos . He still had hopes for a successful breakthrough of the corps to the north, towards Rennenkampf, and that the 1st Army had already begun active operations in the rear of the stalking Germans, but they were not destined to come true (then Rennenkampf would long pursue a rumor about his criminal unhurriedness ). Arriving at the front line and making sure that the offensive of the enemy could not be stopped, Samsonov had the opportunity to go back, but did not. Throw fought subordinates, he was not allowed a sense of duty and the old traditions of the Russian army.

At 7 o'clock 15 minutes. On the morning of August 15 ( 28 ), 1914, General Samsonov sent a telegram to the commander-in-chief of the front:

“The 1st Corps, badly upset, last night, by order of a gene. Artamonov, retreated to Illov , leaving the rearguard ahead of Soldau. Now I am moving to the headquarters of the 15th Corps of Nadrau to lead the advancing corps. Apparatus Yuza rented. I will temporarily be away from you. ”

This decision led to complete disorganization of command and control of the 2nd Army. General N. Golovin in his study evaluated it this way:

“This decision is a gene. Samsonov can be likened to the decision of the commander of the cavalry regiment, who becomes the head of the squadron group for the personal conduct of the fleeting equestrian attack. As far as this does not meet the requirements for modern army management, it seems to us that we don’t need to be distributed. We repeat that the explanation of such an act is a gene. Samsonov can be found only in the field of his spiritual experiences. But what is difficult to explain is that the departure of the army commander in advance was associated with a communication break (“I’m taking a shot of Yuz, I’ll be temporarily without communication with you”). Apparently, the headquarters of the 2nd Army - for the question of maintaining communications is entirely part of the functions of the headquarters - was an elementary rule unknown: an already operating communications station ceases to operate only after the opening of a new station, more appropriate to the new headquarters. The ignorance of the army headquarters led to the aggravation of the consequences of the decision of the gene. Samsonov go to the XV-th case. With his departure to Nadrau, army management ended. The disaster of the army began from that moment. ”

“Even being in a bag, 100 thousand people could shrink for a powerful blow, but this, alas, did not happen. Parts did not feel each other’s elbow, the spring broke, and an enormous force was cut into fragments. Some parts were demoralized by general confusion even before the immediate contacts with the enemy. They had not been fed for a long time, they were exhausted by a long crossing over rough terrain, they were driven out of themselves by an invisible, retreating, but clearly possessing the situation enemy, taking the initiative ... August twenty-eighth and a British liaison officer at the headquarters of the Russian Second Army, Knox joined Commander Samsonov, who was studying a map of the area in the circle of officers. Suddenly, Samsonov mounted his horse and set off in the direction of the 15th Corps, forbidding Knox to accompany him. The general mood was such that even if the worst happens, it still will not affect the final outcome of the war. The officers around said: “Today, luck is on the side of the enemy, tomorrow it will be ours”

(The General Staff of the Red Army. The collection of documents of World War II on the Russian front. The agile period of 1914: the East Prussian operation, pp. 556-559)

“This fatalism struck Knox no less than anything else. And there was a terrible and irreparable. The worst has come. On August 29, the German battalions began to take prisoner, exhausted and naughty from the misunderstanding of what was happening, Russian officers and soldiers. Even the army headquarters with a Cossack cover had only one map and one compass. And in the calm rear, General илиilinskiy did not understand the full depth of what happened until September 2

( Bogdanovich P.N. “Invasion of East Prussia in August 1914.” Memoirs of General Samsonov, an officer of the General Staff of the Army. Buenos Aires, 1964, p.238)

The retreat of the flanks of the 2nd Army allowed the Germans to cut back the three Russian corps, and soon they were surrounded. The headquarters of the army led by Samsonov, breaking from the encirclement, moved in the direction of Yanov . Alexander Vasilyevich was in the hardest moral condition. According to the testimony of the Chief of Staff, General Postovsky , Samsonov, on the 15th and 16th, said more than once that his life as a military leader was over. As one of his colleagues, Colonel M. N. Gryaznov, recalled:

"At the end of August 1914, I saw not a brave general sitting like a devil on a war horse, but a human wreck"

General Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov was destined to become famous not with a loud victory, but with a crushing defeat. Perhaps fate was not fair to a military leader with a brilliant career, but it was her tragic finale that made him immortal.

According to the Chief of the General Staff Ya. G. Zhilinsky ,

“If the behavior and orders of General Samsonov, as commander, deserve harsh condemnation, then his behavior, as a warrior, was worthy; he personally led the battle under fire and, not wanting to survive the defeat, committed suicide "

Death

При выходе из окружения близ города Вилленберга ( Willenberg ; ныне Вельбарк, Варминско-Мазурское воеводство , Польша) Александр Васильевич Самсонов погиб. Версий о том, как закончились дни генерала Самсонова, существует несколько. Наиболее распространена версия, что он застрелился возле молочной фермы Каролиненгоф в окрестностях Виленберга.

«Обращаясь к своему штабу, Самсонов горестно сказал: „Император верил мне. Как же я смогу посмотреть ему в лицо после такого несчастья?“ Ещё три дня назад в его руках была четверть миллиона элитных войск России. Жестоко страдая от астмы, посерев от несчастья, генерал отошел от сопровождавших его офицеров и застрелился в лесу»

( Уткин А. И. «Первая Мировая война»)

Довольно подробно описывает последние часы жизни Самсонова его начальник штаба генерал Постовский, в своих воспоминаниях:

«Около 12-ти часов дня 16 ( 29 ) августа 1914 генерал Самсонов оставил 2-ю дивизию и поехал к Виленбергу, где рассчитывал найти 6-й корпус . По дороге на всех переправах болотистых речек встречались германские части с пулеметами. В одном из болотистых дефиле Командующий армией приказал своему казачьему конвою атаковать пулеметы. Казаков повел в атаку храбрый полковник генерального штаба Вялов. К сожалению, атака не удалась. Подъехав к Виленбергу, ген. Самсонов нашел город занятым германцами. Казаки конвоя понемногу оставили Командующего армией, который к вечеру остался в лесу близ Виленберга с 7 офицерами Генерального Штаба и одним ординарцем рядовым. Было необходимо ночью выбраться из сферы расположения противника. Верхом это было невозможно. С наступлением полной темноты группа офицеров с командующим армией двинулась пешком болотами и лесами, встречая часто разъезды противника и его стрелков. Ещё подъезжая к Виленбергу ген. Самсонов потребовал от меня не мешать ему покончить с собою и отказался от своего намерения только после горячего протеста со стороны сопровождавших его офицеров. Около часу ночи группа, после короткого отдыха в лесу, двинулась для продолжения пути, но ген. Самсонов скрылся от своих спутников. Вскоре в лесу раздался выстрел. Все поняли, что этим выстрелом покончил жизнь благородный Командующей армией, не пожелавший пережить постигшего его армию несчастья. Вся группа офицеров решила остаться на месте до утра, чтобы при свете дня найти тело начальника и вынести его из вражеского расположения. К сожалению, это не удалось. С первым лучом восходящего солнца подошли германские стрелки и открыли по офицерам огонь. Поиски тела ген. Самсонова пришлось прекратить»

Существует и ещё одна версия смерти Самсонова. Со слов одного из офицеров, выходивших из окружения, он в последний раз видел своего командующего на опушке леса, склонившимся над картой.

«Вдруг громадный столб дыма окутал наш штаб. Один из снарядов ударился в ствол дерева, разорвался и убил генерала на месте…»

Историк Н. Евсеев рисует иную версию последних действий командующего:

«После отдачи приказа об отходе центральных корпусов командующий армией с группой штабных офицеров направился через Мушакен ( de:Muschaken ) в Янов ( de:Janowo (Powiat Nidzicki) ). Последующие действия командующего и его штаба так описаны офицерами штаба армии… При выходе из д. Саддек (Sadde[c]k, ) ехавший впереди разъезд казаков конвоя был обстрелян пулеметами. Конвой командующего армией состоял из донских казаков, частью второй, частью третьей очереди…

Командующий армией со своим штабом оказывался отрезанным: все направления отхода в тыл были заняты противником. Оставалось либо пробиваться силой, либо пробираться скрытно. От первого решения командующий армией отказался, так как, не имея под рукой никаких войск, кроме остатков наполовину разбежавшейся сотни, рассчитывать на успех открытого прорыва было трудно. „С такой ордой мы не пройдем“ — говорил он.

С другой стороны, представлялось сравнительно нетрудным пробраться сквозь неприятельские отряды, расположенные на путях отхода армии, пользуясь темнотой, лесистой местностью, а также и расположением к нам местных жителей-поляков. Командующий армией, остановившись на этом решении, приказал казакам пробираться отдельно от штаба.

В исходе 8-го часа вечера командующий армией со своим штабом, отделившись от казаков, перешел пешком в лесок к югу от шоссе Вилленберг — Канвизен (Kannwiesen, ), где было решено дождаться наступления темноты. Вместе с ген. Самсоновым находились генералы Постовский и Филимонов, полковники Вялов и Лебедев, подполковник Андогский, штабс-капитан Дюсиметьер, пор. Кавершенский, а также есаул Донского войска, фамилия коего неизвестна, и канонир 11-й конной батареи Купчак (Купчик), состоявший при Самсонове вестовым . С наступлением темноты все двинулись в путь в направлении на Хоржеле . Двигаясь гуськом, преимущественно лесом, направление держали по компасу. Во втором часу ночи дошли до леса, что у д. Каролиненгоф ( ); здесь решили сделать привал и отдохнуть. После получасового отдыха все встали и двинулись в путь. Ночь была совершенно темная. Ни луны, ни звезд на небе из-за туч не было видно. Все шли друг другу в затылок, причем ген. Самсонов шел обыкновенно в середине. Вследствие темноты приходилось часто останавливаться для проверки по светящемуся компасу правильности направления, причем все обыкновенно собирались к идущему в голове, где и совещались о дальнейшем движении. Тут же происходила и перекличка. На одной из таких остановок было замечено отсутствие командующего войсками. Немедленно все пошли обратным путём по направлению к месту привала. По пути негромко звали командующего армией, подавали свистки. Таким образом, прошли весь путь обратно до места привала, но ген. Самсонова не нашли. Тогда повернули обратно. Снова прошли весь путь до места последней остановки, а затем вторично вернулись к месту привала, но поиски все оставались безуспешными. Тогда решили остановиться у валежника, находившегося около места привала, и оттуда продолжать искать группами в разных направлениях, но так как при этом чуть не потеряли друг друга, то поиски было решено отложить до рассвета.

At dawn, they began to search again. The fruitless two-hour search was interrupted by enemy fire, which was open from the edge of the forest on both sides. I had to first take refuge in the forest, and then move away, at the direction of the local Poles, in the direction that remained the only one free from German patrols.

Being pursued by fire from one side or another, and fired upon with a machine gun from a car cruising along the highway, the staff headquarters approached the village of Montvitz ( pl: Mącice ), where they met 2 squadrons of the 6th Glukhovsky drag. regiment and 2 hundreds of the 6th kaz. a regiment breaking through with the standards of both regiments to the village of Zaremby ( pl: Zaręby (powiat przasnyski) ). Having joined them, the staff officers continued their further movement. ”

For a long time, the circumstances and place of death of A. V. Samsonov were unknown. Of course, relatives, and especially his wife, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna, did not believe in his death and hoped that he was alive. But in the lists of prisoners received from official sources, Samsonov was not. The first to search for the general, at the request of Yekaterina Alexandrovna, was the former Chairman of the State Duma, A. I. Guchkov . He identified the search site near the town of Gross Pivnits ( de: Groß Piwnitz ), but before the end of his business trip, he did not receive permission from the German authorities to inspect this territory and returned to Russia.

The widow of the deceased general, who remained with his 15-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, was allocated a pension in the amount of 10,645 rubles a year. Ekaterina Alexandrovna Samsonova, like many other noble women, was a sister of mercy . She worked in the hospital of the Elisavetgrad community of the Red Cross and requested permission to go to Germany in order to find a husband. Finally, in August 1915, she received a business trip to Germany to inspect the POW camps as a representative of the International Red Cross Society. For two months, Ekaterina Samsonova carefully carried out the mission of verifying that the Germans observed international agreements in relation to prisoners of war, which caused respect and even German fear. She reported on her work. After fulfilling the official assignment of E. A. Samsonov with the permission of the German authorities, she left Berlin for the town of Gross-Pivnits, in East Prussia, in the vicinity of which, according to Guchkov's assumptions, it was necessary to search for the body of the general. Ekaterina Aleksandrovna, accompanied by a German officer, interviewed local peasants for several days until she learned that, at the end of last summer, the corpse of a Russian officer was found by chance in the forest. The peasants could not describe the signs of the killed man, but they remembered that the lining of his overcoat was red, that is, the general's office, and advised him to contact a local miller who participated in the burial of the found and even removed some things from him.

Ekaterina Aleksandrovna searched for the miller, and he gave her a gold medallion, taken from the body of the general he buried, on which the inscription “Remember us” was engraved, and inside was a group portrait - Ekaterina Aleksandrovna with children Vladimir and Vera. No more doubts remained, the widow of the general immediately hired people and, together with the miller, went to the forest, where after a brief search the grave was found, the remains were exhumed and put in a sealed coffin.

On November 3, the coffin with the body of General Samsonov, accompanied by Catherine Alexandrovna, was sent from Berlin to Stockholm, and from there to Petrograd. On November 21, at 3 pm, a mourning train with a special carriage arrived in Elisavetgrad. He was greeted by the 54th Kherson footguard in full combat gear with his brass band, cadets and teachers of the cavalry school headed by the head major general V.G. Lishin, chairman of the Zemstvo council I.A. Kovalev, mayor G.I. Volokhin and many others. Exactly at 19 o'clock, at the command of “on guard”, a massive oak coffin covered with a silver pedestal was carried out of the car to the orchestra of the Kol Slaven anthem. At 20 o'clock after the memorial service, the coffin under the sounds of the hymn was carried into the carriage, near which a guard of honor was set up.

On November 22, at 6 hours and 20 minutes, the mourning carriage was attached to a train free from passengers, which followed Elisavetgrad to the station Pletyony Tashlyk . From there, on horses, the coffin with the body of A. V. Samsonov was transported to the family estate. The burial took place in the family crypt of Samsonov near the church of Saints Joachim and Anna in the village of Yakivka, which is located across the river from the village of Egorovka ^[2] .

Over time, the crypt was looted, and the coffins of A. Samsonov and his family were broken. Later, the tomb, decorated outside with a marble allegorical sculpture, was completely destroyed and razed to the ground.

On February 13, 2002, on the eve of A. Samsonov's birthday (according to the new style), a memorial sign in the shape of a red granite cross was opened at the burial site, which now turned out to be in the courtyard of the Yakimovsk secondary school. The Yakimovsk rural community and the Kirovograd regional historical and cultural society “Oikumena” initiated and carried out the establishment of a sign.

In historiography, attempts were made to explain the actions of Samsonov. The Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich in his book “My Memories”, in particular, wrote: “The fact that the world community called“ the victory of Joffre on Marne ”was in fact a victim of the 150-thousandth Russian army of General Samsonov, deliberately thrown into the trap set by Ludendorff ” .

According to the historian K. Pahalyuk , the main fault for the defeat in East Prussia lies with Ya. G. Zhilinsky , while Samsonov and Rennenkampf are “really talented officers, and if they had a corps or division in their hands, they would be geniuses. That is, we would talk about them only positively. But being at the head of the armies, they were not in their place ” ^[3] .

• Order of St. Anne IV degree (1877)
• Order of St. Stanislav III degree (1880)
• Order of St. Anne III degree (1885)
• Order of St. Stanislav II degree (1889)
• Order of St. Anne II degree (1892)
• Order of St. Vladimir IV degree (1896)
• Order of St. Vladimir, III degree (1900)
• Order of St. Stanislav I degree with swords (11/18/1904)
• Order of St. Anne I degree with swords (1905)
• Order of the Legion of Honor (1905)
• Golden Weapon (1906)
• Order of St. Vladimir, II degree (1906)
• Order of St. George IV degree (1907)
• Order of the White Eagle (12/06/1909)
• Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (December 6, 1913)

• Samsonov, Alexander Vasilyevich (Neopr.) . // Project "Russian Army in the Great War."
• Pahalyuk K. Burial sites and monuments of the First World War in East Prussia (briefly about the grave of General
• A. Zayonchkovsky. World War. 1914-1918 1 volume
• https://web.archive.org/web/20151001033509/http://gwar.elar.ru/o-voyne/samsonov-av/

• de: Samsonow-Stein (German)

• Samsonov Alexander Vasilievich // Soviet Military Encyclopedia (in 8 m.) / N.V. Ogarkov (prev. Editor-in-chief). - M .: Voenizdat, 1979. - T. 7. - p. 236–237. - 688 s. - 105 000 copies
• A.S. Solzhenitsyn . Site I. August the Fourteenth // Red Wheel / ND Solzhenitsyn (ed.). - M .: Time , 2007. - T. VII / VIII ( PSS ), Vol. I / ii. - 432/536 s. - ISBN 5-94117-166-8 , ISBN 5-94117-167-6 .
• Samsonov Alexander Vasilievich // Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in 30 t.) / A. M. Prokhorov (ch. Red.). - 3rd ed. - M .: Owls. Encyclopedia, 1975. - T. XXII. - S. 551. - 628 p.
• Zalessky K.A. Who was who in the First World War. M., 2003. - P.542-544.
• Cavaliers of the Imperial Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (1725-1917). Bio-bibliographic dictionary in three volumes. V.3. - M., 2009. - P.875-876.
• Russian State Military Historical Archive. F.407, op.1, d.27, l.13-13ob.
• Russian State Historical Archive. F.496, op.3, d.36.