Russia
Alexander Samsonov
1859–1914 Commander, Russian Second Army, 1914
Alexander Samsonov, born in 1859, was a cavalry officer who fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 and commanded cavalry in the Russo-Japanese War. He became Governor-General of Turkestan in 1909. At the start of the First World War he took command of the Russian Second Army for the invasion of East Prussia. Poor communications and the absence of support from Rennenkampf's First Army hindered him, and Hindenburg and Ludendorff attacked with the full German Eighth Army. By 29 August 1914 his army was surrounded and destroyed at Tannenberg, and about 92,000 of its men were taken prisoner. On 30 August Samsonov slipped away into a forest and apparently shot himself. His widow later found his body in Germany and brought it home.