Pyotr Rumyantsev
Russian general
1725 CE to 1796 CE
Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky (15 January 1725 – 19 December 1796) is one of the foremost Russian generals of the 18th century.
He governs Little Russia in the name of Empress Catherine the Great from the abolition of the Cossack Hetmanate in 1764 until Catherine's death 32 years later.
Monuments to his victories include Kagul Obelisk in Tsarskoe Selo (1772), Rumyantsev Obelisk on Basil Island (1798–1801), and a galaxy of Derzhavin's odes.
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Apraksin led a Russian embassy to Persia several years later.
At the Russian court, Apraksin had become one of the keenest opponents of both the pro-Prussian party and of Count Lestocq.
He is one of the few devoted supporters of Chancellor Aleksey Bestuzhev, who had ensured Apraksin's promotion to Field Marshal and appointment to command the Russian army on the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756.
Commanding an army of approximately seventy-five thousand men, Apraksin enters East Prussia in 1756 and after a five-day bombardment captures Memel, which becomes the army's base for an invasion of the rest of Prussia.
Apraksin, cautious and lacking war experience, is reluctant to commit his troops to battle.
He tries to encircle the Prussian army of twenty-five thousand five hundred men with his larger army, which Lehwaldt is able to avoid.
Instead of marching on Wehlau, as is expected, ...
Lehwaldt, deciding to surprise the much larger enemy, attacks a corps of men under General Vasily Lopukhin while it is crossing the Pregel.
The general is bayoneted by the Prussians and dies in the arms of his comrades.
General Pyotr Rumyantsev, on hearing about Lopukhin's plight, scrambles through a thicket and falls upon the right wing of the Prussian infantry.
Another detachment attacks the rear of Lehwaldt's army.
While the Prussians retreat slightly, the center of the Russian army recovers from the shock of the initial assault and counterattacks.
The Kalmyk cavalry and the Don Cossacks on the Prussian left pretend to retreat so as to trap the attacking Prussians under heavy artillery fire.
By the end of the day it becomes clear that the Russians have won the battle and the Prussians have to abandon the battlefield.
The Prussians have lost between four thousand six hundred and five thousand men, the Russians between five thousand four hundred and seven thousand (sources differ).
Although defeated, the Prussians had achieved a surprise attack, seized a number of positions from numerically superior forces and inflicted equivalent losses.
As at Zorndorf, they have proved to be effective against stronger forces in close-quarter fighting.
Apraxin marches on Königsberg but his troops, lacking in supplies, suffer considerable attrition.
Although Lehwaldt had withdrawn his corps from the battle, the Russians are unable to follow up on the victory.
Apraxin retreats from the province after hearing a false report that Empress Elizabeth has died; he withdraws back into Russia, allegedly to support Peter III as heir to the throne.
Another explanation for his retreat is an epidemic of smallpox that strikes the Russian army, especially the Kalmyks.
Advancing within one hundred kilometers (sixty-two miles) of Berlin, the Russians are poised to join the Austrians under Field Marshal Daun.
Frederick understands that the joining of his enemies will spell the fall of Berlin and, deciding to forestall their plans, moves to the Russian rear.
Fermor, who is besieging Küstrin, learns about this maneuver from a Cossack sortie.
He lifts the siege and occupies a position at Zorndorf, ten kilometers (six miles) northeast of Küstrin.
Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had believed her fortunes were taking a turn for the better after the victory at Kolín, having pushed the Prussians out of Bohemia in the summer of 1757, and the cleverly waged campaign in the autumn that saw Lieutenant-General the Duke of Bevern's Prussians defeated at the Battle of Breslau in November.
The situation had soon changed, however, when Frederick II of Prussia defeated, first, the French at Rossbach, then then the Austrians at Leuthen.
However, the Austrian and Russian forces are also heavily depleted and cannot launch a major offensive.
In February 1761 Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick surprises French troops at Langensalza, then advances to besiege Cassel in March.
He is forced to lift the siege and retreat after French forces regroup and capture several thousand of his men at the Battle of Grünberg.
At the Battle of Villinghausen, forces under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick defeat a ninety-two thousand-man French army.
On the eastern front, progress is very slow.
The Russian army is heavily dependent upon its main magazines in Poland, and the Prussian army launches several successful raids against them.
One of them, led by general Platen in September results in the loss of two thousand Russians, mostly captured, and the destruction of five thousand wagons.
Deprived of men, the Prussians have to resort to this new sort of warfare, raiding, to delay the advance of their enemies.
Nonetheless, at the end of the year, they suffer two critical setbacks.
The Russians under Zakhar Chernyshev and Pyotr Rumyantsev storm Kolberg in Pomerania, while the Austrians capture Schweidnitz.
The loss of Kolberg costs Prussia its last port on the Baltic Sea.
A major problem for the Russians throughout the war has always been their weak logistics, which have prevented their generals from following up their victories, and now with the fall of Kolberg, the Russians can at long last supply their armies in Central Europe via the sea.
The fact that the Russians can now supply their armies over the sea, which is considerably faster and safer (Prussian cavalry cannot intercept Russian ships in the Baltic) than over the land threatens to swing the balance of power decisively against Prussia.
In Britain, it is speculated that a total Prussian collapse is now imminent.
Prince Alexander Mikhailovich had been entrusted at the start of the Russo-Turkish War with the command of an army, with which he moved on Khotyn.
Splitting the 40th Corps, he had not dared assault the city and had withdrawn to re-supply his troops and strengthen his rearguard.
He moves on Khotyn again in 1769 and begins to besiege it.
The arrival of fresh Turkish and Tatar troops could bolster the besieged garrison and increase Russian casualties during the final assault, so he decides to raise the siege and leads the army from the Dnieper hoping to draw the enemy garrison out into open battle on ground favorable to him.
In the meantime Russia's Catherine II has decided to replace Golitsyn as general-in-chief with Pyotr Rumyantsev, who she hopes will act more decisively, but before Rumyantsev's arrival Golitsyn succeeds into drawing the Turkish forces onto favorable ground: under the command of Supreme Vizier Moldavanchi, they attack Golitsyn's force on August 29 and are defeated, losing up to seven thousand men, around seventy guns and all their baggage.
Golitsyn had been awarded the Order of Saint Andrew and the title of the Adjutant General on the accession of Catherine in 1762.
By becoming a member of the High Court Council, he has used the empress's influence and his diplomatic and military knowledge.
Its garrison and many residents flee, leaving the city half empty.
Golitsyn now hands the army over to Rumyantsev and returns to Saint Petersburg, where Catherine will welcome him and make him a field marshal on October 20, 1769.
Constantine Mavrocordato, who has ruled as prince of Wallachia six times and of Moldavia four times since 1739, is the only benevolent Phanariote prince.
Mavrocordato has attempted drastic reforms to staunch peasant emigration, abolishing several taxes on the boyars and clergy, freeing certain classes of serfs, and providing the peasants sufficient land, pasturage, and wood for fuel.
He has also published books, established schools, and required priests to be literate.
These reforms, however, had proven ephemeral; discomfited boyars' had undermined Mavrocordato's support at the Porte, and he had been locked away in a Constantinople prison.
Russia's influence waxes in Wallachia and Moldavia as Ottoman power wanes.
Mavrocordato, deposed as price of Wallachia in 1763, becomes Prince of Moldavia in 1769, but is wounded and taken prisoner by the Russian troops of Catherine II, after his resistance in Galaţi during the Fifth Russo-Turkish War, on November 5, 1769.
He is taken to Iaşi where he will die in captivity three weeks later.
Despite the boyars' attempts to have the reforms overturned, they will have to deal with their effects, as successive rulers are to confirm the laws' scope.
The Russians continue their advance south into Wallachia, occupying its capital Bucharest on November 17.