On June 4, 1777, Alexei Ermolov, Russian military leader and statesman, was born
The government, without waiting for parcels with cut off ears and fingers, preferred to ransom high-ranking officers.
During the appointment of General Yermolov as governor of the Caucasus, an incident occurred that shook the Chechens' confidence in the benefits of the hostage trade. Major Shvetsov was kidnapped on the way from Khaziyurt to Kizlyar. The Chechens, not understanding the officers' distinctions, mistook the major for a person of special state importance. And to celebrate, they demanded a ransom from his relatives - ten arb of a silver coin.
The Russian government simply did not know how to respond to such an exorbitant price! And there was nowhere to take this amount. Then Shvetsov's colleagues announced a collection of donations throughout the country to ransom him from captivity.
While the Russians were collecting money, Ermolov appeared in the North Caucasus. And the first thing he did was forbid paying the ransom for Shvetsov …
Instead of paying, he ordered to put in the fortress all the Kumyk princes and owners, through whose lands the Russian officer was brought, and announced that if they did not find a way to free him, he would hang everyone.
The arrested princes immediately agreed to reduce the ransom to 10 thousand rubles.
But Ermolov again refused to pay.
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Then the Avar khan arose very opportunely (at the secret request of the general) and ransomed the prisoner.
The general caught the peculiarities of the national mentality instantly. If you pay money to the local population, then you are afraid, you pay off. Therefore, Ermolov urged to follow the logic of the enemy: “I want my name to guard our borders with fear stronger than chains and fortifications, so that my word would be the law, or rather, inevitable death.
Condescension in their eyes is a sign of weakness, and straight out of humanity I am strict and inexorable. One execution will save hundreds of Russians from death and thousands of Muslims from treason. " The general used to back up his words with deeds. So the abduction of high officials and wealthy merchants was temporarily deleted from the register of "profitable".
The name of the outstanding Russian commander and statesman, Alexei Petrovich Ermolov, is inextricably linked with the fate of our Fatherland in the 19th century. The study of the life and work of A. P. Ermolov on the basis of author's monographs and numerous publications, the general's own notes arouses among independent-minded modern historians more and more interest in the fate of this glorious commander, his feats of arms to the glory of Russian weapons, his military and administrative measures in the Caucasus for strengthening the power of our native country.
The unjust disgrace of the commander on the part of the authorities during his lifetime, and then the total suppression of the role of General Ermolov's personality in Russian military history during the Soviet era and in the modern Russian Federation, cannot but leave bitterness and resentment in the soul. There is a desire to remind, at least briefly, the current generation of life and its great services to Russia.
Alexey Petrovich was born in the very heart of our Motherland, the city of Moscow, came from an old, but poor noble family of the Oryol province. In an effort to give his son a good education, his father sent him from the age of seven to a university noble boarding school. On January 5, 1787, in the tenth year of his life, Aleksey Ermolov was enlisted as a non-commissioned officer in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment.
In September of the following year, he was promoted to sergeant, and soon to an officer, and by 1791 he already had the rank of lieutenant. Having been appointed to the post of senior adjutant to the Prosecutor General in St. Petersburg, whose office was ruled by his father, the young officer continued to stubbornly improve his education, studied under the guidance of the famous St. Petersburg mathematician Lyaskovsky. Having brilliantly passed the exam, in August 1793 he was transferred to the captain of the artillery with the assignment of a junior teacher to the Artillery Engineering Gentry Corps.
He received his baptism of fire under the command of the legendary Russian commander Suvorov. From the first days of the Polish campaign in 1794, the young man was constantly looking for an opportunity to distinguish himself, to show skill and courage. It was these qualities that Captain Ermolov showed, commanding his battery during the assault on the outskirts of Warsaw, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George the Victorious of the fourth class.
Then he was only 18 years old. Yermolov received the second military award in the Caucasus in the war with Persia for excellent diligence and services during the siege of the fortress of Derbent in August 1796, where he commanded a battery. He was awarded the Order of Prince Vladimir of the fourth degree with a bow. He earned his second military order at the age of 19.
In the battles of the Russian army with Napoleon in 1805-1807, the commanding talent of the artillery officer Ermolov was tempered. For valor in the war with Napoleon in 1805, he was awarded the Order of St. Anna, II degree. In the second war with Napoleon, in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau in 1807, the brilliant actions of Colonel Yermolov, where he commanded dozens of horse artillery guns, which provided a turning point in the battle in favor of the Russian army, attracted the attention of Russian military leaders.
After the war of 1806-1807, Yermolov returned to Russia with a reputation as one of the first gunners of the Russian army. He was appreciated by such generals as Kutuzov and Bagration, other prominent military leaders. While after the military campaign on vacation with his parents in Orel, A. P. Yermolov received news of the promotion to major general and the appointment of an inspector of horse guard companies. In this new rank, he went in 1809 to inspect the mounted artillery in the Moldovan army. In 1811, Yermolov assumed command of the Guards Artillery Brigade in St. Petersburg, and in March 1812, on his way to the western borders of Russia, he received the highest command to be the commander of the Guards Infantry Division. Thus, by the beginning of the Patriotic War with Napoleon, 25-year-old Ermolov is already a brilliant military general, holder of many well-deserved military awards.
In the Battle of Borodino, the general was at Kutuzov himself. He received the adjutants with reports and reported on all the most important to the commander-in-chief. At the critical, decisive moment of the battle, he performed an outstanding feat. Having discovered on the way with a reserve to the 2nd Army that the French had gained the upper hand at Kurgan Heights and captured the Raevsky redoubt, Ermolov instantly decided to restore order here, to knock the enemy out of the redoubt, dominating the entire battlefield and rightly called the key of the Borodino position. He deployed the units retreating from a height and himself personally led the attack, with a raised saber he was the first to run on the steepness. Many soldiers, overtaking Yermolov, rushed up into a bayonet attack. Raevsky's battery was repulsed. The loss of strategic heights shaken the entire offensive power of the enemy. After the Battle of Borodino, Aleksey Petrovich was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 1st degree. According to Yermolov's apt expression, in the battle of Borodino "the French army crashed against the Russian." He believed with conviction that in the Battle of Borodino all the Russian army crowned themselves with immortal glory. Ermolov played a decisive role in stopping Napoleon's attempts to retreat to Kaluga. After three days of fierce battles for Maloyaroslavets, the French army had no choice but to turn from the Kaluga road and retreat to Mozhaisk, Vyazma, through the ashes of burnt cities and villages of the old Smolensk road, where famine and Russian partisan detachments awaited him. Accepting the proposal of the chief of the army chief of staff Ermolov, Kutuzov began his famous parallel pursuit, which led the French army to disaster. After the battle at Krasnoy, Ermolov received the rank of lieutenant general.
Lieutenant-General Ermolov displayed brilliant abilities and military prowess in the foreign campaigns of the allied forces. For some time Ermolov commanded artillery in all armies. In the campaign of 1813 he took part in the battles of Dresden, Lutzen, Bautzen, Kulm. The campaign of 1814 began already beyond the Rhine, within France. Ermolov especially distinguished himself in the battle for Paris.
A. P. Ermolov left for the Caucasus with the powers of the commander of a separate Georgian corps, managing the civilian unit in Georgia, the Astrakhan and Caucasian provinces, and also as an extraordinary ambassador to Persia. Ermolov's difficult diplomatic mission consisted in the fact that in response to the territorial claims of the Persians, the Russian emperor, tired of long wars in Europe, in order to preserve peace, admitted the possibility of Persia returning something from the recent conquests in Transcaucasia. Yermolov decided to head the embassy himself in order to prevent any concessions. As a result of his principled and flexible position, the diplomatic four-month mission ended with the fact that on August 16 he received a document where it was announced that the shah preferred the Russian sovereign's affection to the benefit that he could get from the acquisition of lands. Diplomatic relations were established between Russia and Persia. On February 8, 1818, by an extremely gracious rescript, Yermolov was promoted to general from infantry for the successful fulfillment of the diplomatic mission entrusted to him.
He did not start the Caucasian War, he did not end it, but still the name of Yermolov turned out to be the most brilliant here. An explanation for this can be found in the book of the remarkable Russian historian, Lieutenant General V. A. Potto “The Caucasian War”: “The Ermolov era was for the Caucasus, first of all, the era of a complete change in domestic policy. Our traditional relations with the conquered khanates and mountain peoples were false in their very foundations … All our relations with small Caucasian possessions were in the nature of some kind of peace negotiations and treaties, and Russia has always been a kind of tributary. Most of not only Dagestan and other khans, but even Chechen foremen, simple and rude robbers, Russia paid salaries,thus supporting greed in them and arousing envy in others and the desire to force Russia to pay tribute to them by raids … With the appearance of Ermolov in the Caucasus, all this stopped.
“The Caucasus,” he said, looking at the mountains rising in front of him, “is a huge fortress, protected by a numerous half-million garrison. We must storm it or take possession of the trenches. The assault will be expensive, so let us lead the siege. And in these words is the whole essence of Yermolov's leadership. There is no doubt that many of the postulates of the Yermolov doctrine do not lose their significance even in our difficult days.
In 1839, he insisted on his return from the capital to Moscow and did not take part in the meetings of the State Council any more. During his 30-year stay in Moscow, which Ermolov called his "Moscow sitting", he devoted much time to putting in order his notes about the wars with Napoleon, about the Patriotic War of 1812 and foreign campaigns, about the time spent in the Caucasus. From these materials, he compiled a coherent account of his life.
In connection with the difficult situation in Crimea during the Crimean War, in January 1855, a manifesto was issued on the general state militia. And already in February 1855 Muscovites elected the honored commander Ermolov as the head of the militia of their province, the same honor was given to him in six more provinces. Until his death, Ermolov was keenly interested in the events taking place in the world.
A. P. Ermolov died on April 11, 1861 at the age of 85. He bequeathed to bury him in Oryol, next to his father's grave, "as easy as possible." Moscow saw him off for two days, and the inhabitants of Orel, upon the arrival of the body to their homeland, staged a grandiose memorial service for the hero-countryman. He was buried with all the honors at the church wall at the Trinity cemetery, next to his father's grave. Streets in Moscow, Orel, Pyatigorsk were named after Ermolov.
The heroic biography of A. P. Ermolov is an example of selfless service to the Motherland and his people, a worthy example for the education of patriotism and the best human qualities among our contemporaries.