Rydzevsky, Nikolai Antonovich

Nikolai Antonovich Rydzevsky (1805-1878) - military engineer, lieutenant general, member of the Military Council, builder of the Ivangorod fortress .

Nikolai Antonovich Rydzevsky
General N. A. Rydzevsky
Date of Birth	1805 ( 1805 )
Date of death	March 10, 1878 ( 1878-03-10 )
A place of death	St. Petersburg
Affiliation	Russian empire
Type of army	engineering troops
Rank	lieutenant general
Battles / wars	The Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829 , the Polish campaign of 1831 ,
Awards and prizes	Order of St. Anne , 3rd art. (1828), Order of St. Vladimir , 4th art. (1828), Order of St. Stanislav 3rd art. (1838), Order of St. George , 4th art. (1844), Order of St. Anne , 2nd art. (1853), Order of St. Vladimir , 3rd art. (1856), Order of St. Stanislav 1st Art. (1860), Order of St. Anne , 1st art. (1862), Order of St. Vladimir , 2nd art. (1867), Order of the White Eagle (1869).

He came from the noblemen of the Smolensk province , was born in 1805, the son of the hero of the battle near Preisish-Eylau, Colonel Anton Ivanovich Rydzevsky ; received his initial education in Finland , where his father served, then was appointed a boarder in St. Petersburg , in the 2nd military gymnasium.

On October 30, 1820, after passing the exam, he entered the conductors of the Main Engineering School as a conductor, on November 19, 1822, he was promoted to lieutenant in field engineers and on December 15, 1824, at the end of the course in the officer classes of the Main Engineering School, he was appointed to serve in the fortress of Bobruisk having received the rank of second lieutenant upon transferring to the senior officer class (December 22, 1823).

On March 27, 1825, Rydzevsky was sent to the disposal of the heir to Tsarevich Konstantin Pavlovich to work in the Polish fortresses Modlin and Zamosc and under the guidance of the famous builder of these fortresses, the former engineer general of the Napoleonic troops Mallet , who entered the Polish service under the name Meletsky.

On November 8, 1827, Rydzewski was promoted to lieutenant , and on April 5, 1829 he was sent to the theater of war in European Turkey to correct the position of chief engineer of the 2nd Army and, upon arrival at the place, carried out siege work near the fortress Silistria from May 10 to 23, for which he was awarded the Order of St. July 14, 1829 3rd degree Anna with a bow. Then, on May 24, during the movement of the main forces along the Shumlinskaya road through the village of Kaurgu, Rydzevsky was under the command of the engineers of the 2nd Army, General Leichner, participated in the defeat, on May 30, of the great vizier near Kulevcha, and after the transition, in July, the Russians troops through the Balkans , strengthened the stages and military roads in the mountains with block houses, for which he received the Order of St. August 30, 1829 4th degree Vladimir with a bow. After the Adrianople Peace , on February 24, 1830, he returned to Bobruisk, and he was given, not in offset, in the form of a reward, an annual salary.

With the beginning of the Polish uprising , Rydzewski on April 6, 1831 was seconded to engineer-chief I.I.Den , chief of engineers of the army, with whom he worked to strengthen the cities of Brest-Litovsk , Miedzierzic and Siedlec . On May 11, after the Russian troops crossed the Western Bug , he followed the troops through Sokolovo, Grodno and Vysokomazovetsk to Ostroleka , from where he went with General Den to Lomza to strengthen this city, and on May 26 he was sent to the detachment of General Ridiger , with whom he participated in military operations in the Lublin province . On July 6, he made a crossing across the Veprzh River near Lysoboki, on July 7, he participated in the defeat of the Yankovsky Corps near Buzdisko , and on July 8, during the movement to Kock , and again made a crossing across Veprzh; from July 18 to 26 he worked on the construction of fortifications and crossings across the Vistula at the town of Yuzefova, on July 28 he was in the vanguard business at Hranice, and from August 1 to 6 he again strengthened and arranged the crossing through Vistula at the village of Podgurzi.

With the end of the Polish campaign, Rydzewski’s fighting activity was replaced by peaceful construction. Produced on October 14, 1831 as headquarters captain , on April 22, 1832 he was appointed commander of the engineering team at Zamosc Castle and until 1838 he worked here on rebuilding and strengthening the fortress; On March 28, he was awarded a diamond ring “for work in the Zamost fortress”, on December 6, he was granted the highest favor, on January 1, 1835 he was promoted to captain, and on August 9, 1838 he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 2nd degree.

November 10, 1838 Rydzevsky was entrusted with the engineering team in the designed fortress Ivangorod . Rydzewski came here when only the tavern stood on the site of the fortress when transporting through the Vistula near the confluence of the Boar. In a relatively short period of time, until 1844, he created the entire fortress in its main parts, and for this, in addition to production as lieutenant colonels (May 23, 1840), he received two times - on August 9 and September 27, 1840 - an expression of the highest favor.

On January 13, 1844, Rydzevsky was appointed head of the engineering team at the Novogeorgievsky fortress . Here, before his arrival, the most important fortifications were already completed, but he arranged a number of other structures that had not only practical, but also scientific significance: he arranged a complete countermine system, the first bridge over the Narev River hanging on wire ropes in Russia , the first after Mytishchinsky in Moscow , steam water pumping, steam mill, which was the only one in Russian fortresses for a long time, and so on. Then he undertook extensive work to regulate the course of the Vistula and Narew rivers and to strengthen their banks under the fortress. The work was crowned with complete success, as well as it was very useful subsequently, when the fortress was brought into defensive position in 1854–1855, the spare floating bridges built over it through Wisla and Narew.

December 17, 1844, for the immaculate length of service in the officer ranks of 25 years, Rydzevsky received the Order of St. George 4th degree (No. 7227 according to the list of Grigorovich - Stepanov's cavalier list ), on May 8, 1845 he was granted the highest favor "for work in the Novogeorgievskaya fortress", and a year and a half later - on November 28, 1846, he retired as colonel.

Rydzewski, however, did not resign for long - until May 6, 1848 (returned to duty with the rank of lieutenant colonel) and on May 15, 1848 he again ended up in Novogeorgievsk - the head of the engineering team. Until 1850, he twice received the expression of the highest favor (June 25, 1849 and May 4, 1850) "for the excellent order in the maintenance of military buildings and the tops of the fortress."

Produced as colonel on May 4, 1850, on November 21 he was appointed to the headquarters of the chief of engineers of the army, General K. A. Schilder, and took the position of headquarters officer for special assignments, on which lay the entire design part of the cities and fortresses of the Western Engineering District and verification estimates for annual work. On February 3, 1853, he was awarded the Order of St. for his activities in this difficult position . Anne of the 2nd degree.

During the Eastern War, Rydzewski was entrusted with bringing all the western fortresses into a defensive position and military engineering work in the Kingdom of Poland , in view of the then-expected break with Austria . For the successful completion of this task, he was granted, on May 31, 1855, the imperial crown to the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree, and in the following, 1856, on January 10, he was appointed to be under the inspector for engineering General Den.

August 26, 1856 Rydzewski received the Order of St. 3rd degree Vladimir with swords, and on April 17, 1858 he was promoted to major general and approved as vice director of the Engineering Department (he held this position from February 22, 1857). From 1860 to 1862, Rydzewski was awarded several consecutive awards: on March 8, 1860 he received the Monarchal Benevolence for the successful management of the Engineering Department during the director’s illness, on April 17 he received the Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree, April 27, 1862 - St. Anne 1st degree with swords.

January 26, 1863, with the reorganization of the Engineering Department into the Main Engineering Directorate, he was appointed vice director in it, soon, on April 4, 1865, was promoted to lieutenant general , then in 1867 he assumed the position of member of the Engineering Committee and head of affairs for this committee in the same year received the Order of St. Vladimir 2nd degree, and in 1872 was appointed a member of the Military Council; in 1869 he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle .

He, as the only member of the council at that time - an engineer, lay the consideration of all matters relating to the engineering specialty. “He was not destined to perform the brilliant feats that are written in the stories, he did not build striking monumental buildings, he did not participate in the administrative work with which the names of the participants were forever connected, but he carried out activities that were fruitful for society, which he really needed, requiring thorough knowledge, a solid mind and enormous industriousness, ”said engineer-general Gerstfeld in his speech in 1874, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Rydzevsky’s service in officer ranks.

Rydzevsky died on March 10, 1878 in St. Petersburg , from pneumonia .

His sons: Alexander-Ivan (1841– ?, Major General), George (1837–1885, Major General, cavalier of the Order of St. George 3rd degree for the assault on Kars in 1877), Constantine (1852-1929, general from the cavalry, senator, commander of the Separate Gendarmes Corps ) and Nikolai (1840-1895, major general, chief of the Kiev arsenal).