Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
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Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (Пётр Николаевич Врангель) (August 15, 1878, Zarasai, Lithuania (then Imperial Russia) — April 25, 1928, Brussels, Belgium), was one of the leaders of the White movement in Southern Russia, Lieutenant General (1917).
He was a Russian descendant of the Baltic German Wrangel family. After graduating from the Institute of Mining Engineering (1901), Wrangel volunteered for the Cavalry Regiment and in 1902 he was promoted to an officer's rank. Wrangel took part in the Russo-Japanese War. In 1906, he became a member of the punitive expedition forces under General A.N.Orlov in the Baltic region. In 1910, Wrangel graduated from the General Staff Academy. He was a commander of a cavalry unit during the World War I. After the October Revolution Wrangel moved to Crimea and in August of 1918 became a member of the White Volunteer Army. First, he commanded a Cavalry Division, then in spring of 1919 - the Caucasus Army, and then in December, 1919 and January, 1920 - the whole Volunteer Army.
After a conflict with Anton Denikin, Wrangel was forced to go abroad. On April 4, 1920 he was elected Commander-in-Chief of the White forces in Crimea which he renamed as the Russian Army. Together with a coalition government he instituted sweeping reforms (including desperately needed land reforms), and as a result the Crimea became economically more prosperous than any region of Russia at the time. He established federal relations with newly independent republics such as Ukraine and Georgia, who were also fighting the Bolsheviks.
After losing half of his army and facing defeat in Northern Tavria and the Crimea, Wrangel organized an evacuation of his army. Wrangel gave every officer, soldier, and civilian a free choice: evacuate and go with him into the unknown, or stay behind and risk Soviet occupation. The last military forces and civilians left Russia along with Wrangel on November 14, 1920. Wrangel went via Turkey and Tunisia to Yugoslavia as the head of all Russian refugees. In 1924, he established the so called Russian All-Military Union (Русский общевоинский союз), an organization which fought to preserve the unity of all White forces living abroad, and conducted anti-Soviet guerilla warfare in the USSR. Wrangel wrote memoirs called "Notes" (Записки), published in the White Cause magazine Белое дело and in Berlin in 1928.
Some (including Wrangel's family) believe that the general was poisoned by the brother of his butler, who lived in the Wrangel household briefly and was allegedly a Soviet agent. Soon after the butler's brother left, Wrangel became ill and died. Wrangel's funeral and burial took place in Serbia. He is buried in an Orthodox church in Kalemegdan. The town of Sremski Karlovci which served as his headquarters and the location of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile has a monument erected in his honor by his White Russian followers.
See also
eo:Pjotr Vrangel fr:Piotr Nicolaïevitch Wrangel nds:Pjotr Nikolajewitsch Wrangel pl:Piotr Wrangel ru:Врангель, Пётр Николаевич fi:Pjotr Wrangel tr:Pyotr Nikolayeviç Vrangel