Alexey Maksimovich Kaledin (24 October 1861 – 11 February 1918) was a Don Cossack cavalry general of the Russian Empire and the White movement during World War I and the Russian Civil War.
Biography[]
Alexey Maksimovich Kaledin was born in Ust' Khoperskaya, Saratov Governorate, Russian Empire on 24 October 1861, and he graduated from artillery school in 1882 and the General Staff Academy in 1889. He served in the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War before taking command of the Russian 8th Army during World War I, fighting in Ukraine and the Southwestern Front. He did not accept the 1917 February Revolution and was recalled for refusing to accept the Russian Provisional Government's orders to democratize his army, and, on 17 June 1917, he was appointed Ataman of the Don Cossack Host by the Cossack community. In August 1917, he proposed the suppression of the revolutionary movement amid the Kornilov Affair, and, following the loss of Rostov-on-Don and the ensuing Bolshevik Ice March, a despondent Kaledin shot himself in Novocherkassk in February 1918.