Lavr Kornilov (18 August 1870-13 April 1918) was a general of the Imperial Russian Army and the White Army during the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and the Russian Civil War. Kornilov was once the commander-in-chief of the Russian Provisional Government's forces, but the Kornilov Affair of September 1917 led to his dismissal, as Alexander Kerensky feared that he intended to seize power for himself. He was killed in action by a Bolshevik artillery shell at Ekaterinodar in April 1918 while leading the Don Cossacks during the Russian Civil War.
Biography[]
Lavr Kornilov was born on 18 August 1870 in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Russian Empire, the son of a cossack father and a mother descended from Poles and Oirats. He entered a military school in Omsk in 1885, and Kornilov was promoted to the rank of colonel after the war with Japan from 1904 to 1905. From 1907 to 1911, he served as a military attache in Qing dynasty-era China, and he took command of an infantry division at the start of World War I in 1914. Kornilov was captured by the Austro-Hungarian Army in April 1915, but he was able to escape to Russia in July 1916. After the 1917 Russian Revolution and the failure of the Kerensky Offensive, Kornilov replaced Alexei Brusilov as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Russian Provisional Government. On 1 September 1917, the Germans under Oskar von Hutier used infiltration tactics to seize Riga in just two days, and the Germans began to advance on Petrograd.
Russian Revolution and downfall[]
Kornilov also had to deal with instability on the home front, with strikes in factories, peasants seizing land, and widespread looting. Kornilov sought to put down the uprising, but Alexander Kerensky feared that he was going to launch a coup. He dismissed him on 9 September 1917, and Kornilov and his forces rebelled. Kornilov was arrested before his forces could reach Petrograd, but he was imprisoned in a jail guarded by his supporters. In the weeks after the October Revolution, Kornilov escaped from prison and joined the Don Cossacks in southern Russia, leading them during the fight against the Bolshevik Red Army. In April 1918, he was besieged in Ekaterinodar, and he was killed when a Soviet shell landed on his farmhouse headquarters.