Sollogub, Vasily Ustinovich

Sollogub was born on August 23, 1848, came from the nobility of the Minsk province and was the son of the court adviser Ustin Antonovich Sollogub. Entering the 2nd Military Konstantinovsky School on June 19, 1864, on August 8, 1866 he was released into the 44th Kamchatka Infantry Regiment with the rank of second lieutenant . Produced on May 1, 1867 as a lieutenant , on October 10 of the same year he was transferred to the rank of second lieutenant in the Life Guards Volyn Regiment .

Having received the ranks of lieutenant (April 8, 1873) and staff captain (April 4, 1875) in the Life Guards Volyn Regiment, Sollogub in 1875 graduated from the 1st rank Nikolaev General Staff Academy ^[1] , on April 8, 1875 he was ranked to the General Staff , and on November 2, 1976 he was transferred to the General Staff with renaming as captains .

During the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 he was an assistant to the senior adjutant (from November 2, 1876), senior adjutant (from June 24, 1877) of the field headquarters of the army, and then he was for special assignments under the chief of staff of the army (from 22 May to August 2, 1878), was promoted to lieutenant colonel (July 14, 1877). After the war, he served as senior adjutant to the headquarters of the Guards Corps (from October 8, 1878), and then from May 28, 1879 he was on assignments at the headquarters of the Guards and the St. Petersburg Military District , received the rank of colonel (August 30, 1880).

On March 3, 1881, Sollogub entered the service of the General Headquarters , successively holding the positions of the junior, and from April 11, 1883, the senior clerk of the office of the Military Scientific Committee of the General Staff, the head of the department of the General Staff (from May 19, 1884 to April 14, 1890) consisting of 4 generals appointed by the state under the General Headquarters and, finally, managing the affairs of the Military Scientific Committee of the General Staff (from November 5, 1896 to November 25, 1900), having received the rank of Major General (August 30, 1890 years) and Lieutenant General (December 6 I am 1897), The highest favor (in 1888) and repeatedly The highest gratitude (in 1890, 1894, 1898, 1900). Simultaneously from December 3, 1894 to November 24, 1900 he was an ordinary professor at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff.

As manager of the Military Scientific Committee of the General Staff, Sollogub was in charge of military intelligence. According to A.F. Rediger , his activity in this capacity was not particularly successful:

Sollogub, managing the affairs of the Military Scientific Committee, had at his disposal our military agents abroad, including a special one in South Africa , and delivered only belated information, while Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich , without agents, delivered the latest information to the emperor and maps of the theater of war ; all this poorly characterized our military intelligence and was unpleasant to Kuropatkin , but Sollogub remained completely indifferent to this state of affairs ^[2]

On November 25, 1900, Sollogub was dismissed from his post with the appointment of being at the disposal of the Minister of War, being a member of the board of the China-East Railway on October 3 of the same year. Since May 24, 1901, an honorary member of the Conference of the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. A.F. Rediger described Sollogub as follows:

Very well-read, witty, well-mannered, he gave the impression of a smart and self-confident person, laughing at the whole environment. In the work, he turned out to be somehow fruitless: critically witty, he did not die creating anything. Therefore, in 1900, Kuropatkin took him at his disposal and appointed him a representative from the Ministry of War on the board of the Chinese Railway. Both posts gave him very little work and up to twenty thousand rubles of maintenance ... It should be attributed to his direct fault that Kuropatkin did not know about the size of the Dalniy port, which was being built by the Chinese railway ^[2]

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Sollogub from March 23 to October 25, 1905 was at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Forces acting against Japan, then was reappointed to be at the disposal of the Minister of War, and on December 4 of that year - temporary Baltic Governor General on the proposal of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Count S. Yu. Witte , with whom he was familiar on the board of the CER. On October 17, 1906, he was replaced by General Baron A.N. Meller-Zakomelsky and re-appointed to be at the disposal of the Minister of War and (October 28) as a member of the CER board, having received the order of the White Eagle shortly after leaving his post.

The activities of Sollogub as governor-general were assessed in higher circles ambiguously. If A. F. Rediger objected to his appointment, believing that he “was not suitable for any practical activity ” and in Riga “ proved to be as worthless as in all his previous posts ” ^[3] , then S. Yu Witte was convinced of the opposite, emphasizing:

During my chairmanship, I was pleased with the actions of Lieutenant General Sollogub, since he was not afraid, did not hide, and, on the other hand, did not allow reckless manifestations of cruelty to be played out of an often drunken reaction

S. Yu. Witte gave Sollogub the following characteristic:

Gene. Sollogub is a highly decent person, balanced and remarkable as a military man, especially in the theoretical sense. I think that at present, of all our military in the sense of theoretical knowledge, in the sense of, so to speak, military culture, General Sollogub is the first issue. He was appointed to the Baltic region at my request, because, knowing General Sollogub, I considered him to be a very intelligent, firm and balanced person. He fully justified all my expectations.

I must say that in 1905, both before October 17 and after October 17, the Baltic provinces were one of those provinces in which the turmoil manifested itself with the greatest force.

Stolypin wanted General Sollogub to take measures against the population that were not in accordance with his convictions, so there were disagreements between Stolypin and Sollogub that led to the dismissal of Sollogub, and he wished to completely resign ^[4]

On May 16, 1909, Sollogub was promoted to general from infantry with dismissal from service with a uniform and pension and spent the last years of his life in St. Petersburg (at Bolshaya Moskovskaya, 9), while remaining a member of the board of the China-East Railway. He died in Petrograd on February 1, 1917, at the 69th year of his life ^[5] .

Sollogub was single and had no children. His brothers were also in military service: Andrei Ustinovich was an officer, Vladimir Ustinovich, with the rank of Major General, served as the head of the 3rd Rifle Brigade

Sollogub had a distinction for XL years of immaculate service (1907) and was awarded many Russian and foreign orders, including:

• Order of St. Stanislav 2nd degree with swords (November 6, 1877)
• Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree with swords and bow (April 30, 1878)
• Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree (May 15, 1883)
• Order of St. Vladimir 3rd degree (August 30, 1886)
• Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree (August 30, 1893)
• Order of St. Anne 1st degree (May 14, 1896)
• Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree (December 6, 1903)
• Order of the White Eagle (December 6, 1906)

Foreign:

• Serbian Order of the Cross (November 29, 1878)
• Turkish Order of Medgidius 2nd degree (May 21, 1883)
• Swedish Commander's Cross of the Order of St. Olav (January 2, 1885)
• Montenegrin Order of Prince Daniel I of the 2nd degree (September 16, 1885)
• Prussian Order of the Crown of the 2nd degree (May 15, 1889)
• Austrian Order of Franz Joseph 1st Class (April 23, 1897)
• Prussian Order of the Crown of the 1st degree (October 12, 1897)
• Commander's Cross of the Legion of Honor (1897)
• Persian Order of Leo and the Sun of the 1st degree (July 16, 1898)
• Bukhara Order of the Golden Star with Diamonds (1898)
• Romanian Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (September 1, 1899)
• Japanese Order of the Holy Treasure (August 5, 1902)
• Japanese Order of the Rising Sun (May 31, 1907)

• Volkov S.V. Generality of the Russian Empire. Encyclopedic dictionary of generals and admirals from Peter I to Nicholas II. - T. 2. L - Ya. - M. , 2009. - S. 513. - ISBN 978-5-9524-4167-5 .
• Centenary of the War Ministry. - T. III. Division 5. - St. Petersburg. , 1909. - S. 724-726.
• A list of seniority generals . Done on July 1, 1906. - SPb. , 1906. - S. 174.
• Glinotsky N.P. Historical outline of the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. - SPb. , 1882. - Applications. S. 169.