Leaders, Alexander Nikolaevich

Portrait of Alexander Nikolaevich Leaders (artist E. I. Botman )

Born on January 14, 1790. ^[1] in a noble family .

Parents: father - Nikolai Ivanovich Luders (1760-1823, major general, chief of the Okhotsk regiment , commandant Khotina ), mother - Sofya Ivanovna nee Faskil (? —1822).

Brothers and sister: Catherine (1792-1864, married to the commander of the Nizhyn equestrian ranger Yakov Fedorovich Gordeev), Nikolai (1793-1816), George (1801-1816), Konstantin (1802-1861, major general, commander of the Zhytomyr jaeger regiment ), Orestes (1803—?).

In the house of his father, Leaders grew up in a purely military atmosphere, among the associates of Suvorov and other Catherine heroes. Written in 1805 to serve in the Bryansk Infantry Regiment (from 1810 - the 39th Jaeger Regiment ), consisting of his father’s brigade, Liders received his first baptism of fire in the battle of Austerlitz . The following year, Leaders was transferred as a warrant officer to the Okhotsk regiment, and on May 24, 1807 he was promoted to ensign, and on March 12, 1809, to lieutenant .

In the Turkish war of 1806-1812. , under the command of Count N. M. Kamensky , took part in the blockade of Silistria , in affairs near Shumla and in the assault on Ruschuk ; for distinction near Batin, was awarded on November 30, 1811, with a gold sword with the inscription "For courage . "

June 19, 1811 promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment . In the ranks of this regiment, he took part in the Patriotic Wars and was in the battles near Smolensk , at Borodino (on December 19 he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree), Tarutino , Maloyaroslavets , Krasnoye ; for the difference in the last battle, Leaders again received on November 6 a golden sword with the inscription "For courage."

On January 20, 1813, he was promoted to headquarters captain and took part in the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen in the campaign of 1813 and was awarded the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree. Produced on May 26 as a major, Leaders was transferred to the 4th Jaeger Regiment , with whom he was in battle under the Königstein fortress and then near Kulm , where he was wounded in the right leg with crushing bones and was eliminated from the army.

On April 19, 1815, Leaders was transferred to the 57th Jaeger Regiment , and a year and a half later to the 28th Jaeger Regiment , but served there for only a month and from mid-November 1816 was on a six-month vacation, after returning from which on April 23, 1818 Mr. received the rank of lieutenant colonel.

On January 8, 1823 he was appointed commander of the 37th Jäger Regiment, and on November 26 he was promoted to colonel. At the head of his regiment, Leaders took part in the Turkish campaign of 1828-1829. , distinguished himself in the siege of Brailov , the blockade of Shumly and in the battles of Chiflik led by F.V. Ridiger . In the case under Kyustenji, he was shell-shocked on the right side with buckshot, but remained in service. The ability of Leaders to inspire subordinates, to educate them in the spirit of selfless duty is characterized by the following episode: at the beginning of the war of 1828, the 37th Jäger Regiment consisted mainly of recruits; one of the battalions of the regiment had to be shot for the first time in the absence of its regimental commander; the battalion was unstable. When they reported back to the returning Leaders, the next day he personally brought out the next battalion and, building a front, kept the people under the cores for about an hour, remaining himself on a horse in front of the battalion. After making sure that people can endure the enemy fire steadily, and having lost his dead horse, Leaders took the battalion to the place of work and thanked the young rangers. Since then, the 37th Jaeger Regiment has acquired an honorable reputation in the army. The head of the detachment Count Ridiger often used to say: "Where the 37th regiment, there is no need for a division."

At the beginning of 1829, Leaders was entrusted with a separate expedition to the village of Chaly-Mali, which was crowned with complete success. Sent to reinforce the detachment of General P. Ya. Kupriyanov , besieged in the city of Pravody by the army of the great vizier, the 37th Jäger Regiment, under the command of Leaders, throwing his knapsacks, made his way into the city along a mountain trail that was considered impassable. After the defeat of the great vizier under Pravody Leaders, in the head of the detachment of Count Ridiger , the first with his regiment crossed the river. Kamchik took possession of the fortifications of the village of Keprikoy, having beaten off 4 guns from the enemy. When crossing the Balkans, the 37th Jäger Regiment recaptured from the villages. Kashager Turkish flag, participated in the assault on the mountains. Aydosa, in the battle of Slivno and, having entered one of the first in Adrianople , stopped in the town of Jeserman-Mustafa Pasha, in the sight of Constantinople . This war delivered Leaders the rank of Major General (August 6, 1829), Order of St. Vladimir 3rd degree (August 21, 1828, for the capture of Brailov), and George 4th degree (for the distinction under Adrianople), as well as diamond signs for the Order of St. Annas of the 2nd degree (for distinction under Kyustenji). Handing over the order of St. Aydos George , Count Ridiger said: "You have earned this award twenty times." At the very end of the war, September 22, 1829, Leaders was appointed commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 19th Infantry Division.

On February 28, 1831, Leaders was appointed commander of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. With her, he participated in various affairs of the Polish campaign of 1831 ; near Ostrolenka he was in command of the 1st Infantry Division, replacing its wounded chief, Major General K. E. Mandershtern ; For this bloody battle, Leaders received the Order of St. August 22, 1831 . Anna of the 1st degree. During the assault on Warsaw, Leaders, commanding a convoy directed against Freedom, took control of the advanced lunette and the five guns protecting it, and, at the head of the marine corps battalions, burst into the main fortification. For the assault on Will, he was promoted to lieutenant general on October 18, 1831, and for the entire campaign he received a pension of 2,000 rubles from invalid capital and a 2nd degree Virtuti militari badge.

At the end of the Polish war, Leaders was appointed chief of staff of the 2nd Infantry Corps, and on September 19, 1837, commander of the 5th Infantry Corps. Accessibility and ease of use of Leaders went against the then customs, but gained the love and respect of subordinates, and the training of the 5th Corps was carried out in the spirit of preparing them for purely combat activities. On October 10, 1843, Leaders was promoted to general from infantry .

The chance to show their combat training soon presented itself to the troops of this corps; in 1840, his 1st division was sent by landing on the eastern shore of the Black Sea , and at the end of 1843 they were moved to the Caucasus and the rest, except for the cavalry; Leaders, despite the disease, took command of the troops of Northern and Nagorno- Dagestan . Under his command, these troops captured the crossing at Akhatli , subjugated central Dagestan, defeated the mountaineers from Tsudahar and took Gergebil . In 1845, commanding the Chechen detachment, Leaders, under the command of Prince Vorontsov , participated in the campaign to Dargo .

For military service in the Caucasus he was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (August 5, 1844, diamond signs for this order were granted on September 19, 1847) and St. Vladimir 1st degree (August 6, 1845). In 1848, he was appointed commander of the troops in the Danube principalities, occupied on the occasion of the revolutionary unrest that arose there, and, despite the delicacy of his position, he managed to maintain the best relations with the local population for more than 2 years.

In 1849, when the Russian government decided to provide assistance to Austria , the 5th Leaders Corps was moved to Transylvania . The plan of this campaign, presented by Leaders, received the highest approval to the smallest detail. During this war, Leaders showed the extraordinary talent of the commander, as can be seen from his desire to provide a line of action by creating a solid base. Having entered Transylvania in Kronstadt and thus possessing the basis for action, he did not dare to move inland to Segeshvar and Marosvasharhei , but set himself the task of preliminarily lengthening the basis of actions by occupying Germanstadt and Carlsburg . He succeeded only in the first, since the demonstration of General Böhm to Fogarash forced Leaders to rush inside the country. The brilliant actions of the 5th Corps in the occupation of the battle of the Rotten Turm Gorge, which was considered almost impassable, in the battle of Segeshwar with the enemy, twice as strong, the truly Suvorov transition to Germanstadt and the battle won immediately after the transition covered Leaders with new glory. All parts of the 5th Corps for the campaign in Transylvania were showered with awards, and Leaders was granted the rank of Adjutant General on June 28, and the Order of St. August 4 . George 2nd degree at number 68 and then several foreign orders.

October 16, 1852 Leaders received the Order of St. St. Andrew the First-Called . The following year, part of the 5th corps ( 13th division with artillery) was sent by landing to the Caucasus, one brigade of the 14th division remained in Sevastopol , and the rest, under the leadership of Leaders, went to the Danube .

Upon arriving in Moldova and Wallachia , the Leaders squad first had to exchange shots with the enemy at Satunov , while passing our Danube flotilla past the Isakchi fortification. After 5 months, the detachment crossed the Danube at Galati ; and Leaders was March 30, 1854 awarded the diamond signs to the Order of St. St. Andrew the First-Called . After the crossing, parts of the 5th corps quickly moved towards Girsov, but in the future Leaders had to play a passive role, since his advice, which tended to move forward and take possession of the assault by Silistria , was not accepted. On the retreat from Silistria and the return of troops to Russia, Leaders was entrusted with a detachment located in southern Budzhak. With the accession to the throne of Emperor Alexander II, Leaders was entrusted with commanding the Southern Army, whose task was to assist the Crimean Army in all possible ways, and Leaders carried out this task with complete selflessness. On December 27, 1856, he was appointed commander in chief of the Crimean Army, and his activities in this post consisted mainly in streamlining severely neglected food and hospital matters. At the end of the war, the Minister of War, at the Highest Command, made a request to Leaders if he would consider it possible to return to command of the 5th Corps, that is, to accept the lowest against his current position. Leaders replied that he considered himself obligated to fulfill, in any case, implicitly the will of His Majesty. Notifying him subsequently of his appointment as commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army, the Minister of War, Prince Dolgorukov , in view of the then difficult financial situation, asked Leaders if he would consider it possible to reduce the content defined by the state by his new rank. Leaders replied that half of this content was enough for him. The unspoken Highest gift of 30 thousand rubles followed this statement.

On September 8, 1856, Leaders was fired due to illness on foreign leave with expulsion from the rank of commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army, with which he was awarded the Highest Rescript, and in 1857 he was appointed chief of the 58th Prague Infantry Regiment . Returning from abroad, Liders until 1861 lived as a private man in Odessa and on his estate in Podolsk province . However, in 1861, due to unrest in Poland , by the Highest Will, he was unexpectedly summoned to a new activity - to correct the duties of the Viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland and the Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Army. In Warsaw, the cheerful, sociable Alexander Nikolayevich enjoyed the location of society, boldly walked around the city on foot, without a convoy, and pursued a firm Russian policy. Fearing the influence of Leaders on Polish society, the Warsaw archbishop Felinsky and the Marquis Velepolsky were intriguing against him in St. Petersburg and secured his dismissal from the post of governor. Believing, however, that in St. Petersburg Leaders would be dangerous, the rebels decided to kill him. On June 15, 1862, while walking in the Saxon Garden, Leaders was wounded by A. A. Potebney in the neck. “The scoundrel shoots from behind!” Leaders shouted to him and, holding his wound with his hand, returned to the palace. When he was dismissed as governor on May 27, 1862, Leaders was elevated to the rank of count , appointed a member of the State Council and chief of the Azov Infantry Regiment .

Among other awards, Leaders had the Order of St. Vladimir of the 2nd degree (April 17, 1836) and the White Eagle (April 16, 1841).

The last years he lived in Odessa and died there on February 1, 1874, was buried in the chapel of the tomb in the parish cemetery with. Markovites of Letichevsky district of Podolsk province.

Leaders was married to his cousin Maria, daughter of the head of the 18th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Alexander Borisovich von Bock and Maria Ivanovna nee Liders. They had two daughters: Eve (1835–1843) and Nadezhda (1838–1895). Since Leaders did not leave male offspring, his son-in-law, Colonel Alexander Alexandrovich Weimarn, was allowed to accept the title of Count Leaders-Weimarn.

P.K. Menkov gives the following characteristic of Alexander Nikolaevich: “Something incomprehensibly attractive was in the whole essence of Leaders. Always calm, always and polite with everyone, Leaders acquired the common love of everyone, from general to soldier. ” Many accused Leaders of excessive attachment to relatives, who commanded various units in his corps, and of love for women. But Menkov calls these relatives “decent people,” and the women “did not stop Leaders from loving the soldier and leading him into battle.” M. Ya. Olshevsky , who served with him in the Caucasus, spoke highly of military capabilities. Историк кавказских походов Б. М. Колюбакин , напротив, скептически оценивает Александра Николаевича, и считает Лидерса одним из виновников провала Даргинской экспедиции, как человека незнакомого с Кавказом и не умевшего воевать в горах.

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