Aleksey Alekseyevich Brusilov

Aleksey Alekseyevich Brusilov , 1853-1926, Russian general. As a commander in World War I, he won victories in Galicia. In 1916 he organized the Russian offensive against Austria, which relieved the pressure on the Allies. The offensive, successful at first, cost Russia at least a million lives. Brusilov was briefly commander in chief under the Kerensky provisional government set up after the Russian Revolution (1917), and in 1920 he joined the Soviet army's staff in directing the war against Poland.

Brusilov, Aleksey Alekseevich (b. 31 Aug. 1853, d. 17 Mar. 1926). Russian general Born in Tiflis, he was commissioned as a cavalry officer into the Russian Imperial Army, and fought against Turkey and Japan before World War I. In June 1916 he launched an offensive against Austria-Hungary between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians, capturing some 250,000 prisoners at Lutsk. The offensive cost even more Russian lives and came to a halt because of a failure of Russian supply lines. Yet it forced the Germans to withdraw men from the Somme and prompted Romania to enter the war on the Allied side. One of the frontline generals to convince Nicholas II to abdicate, he became the Supreme Commander of the Russian army after the Russian Revolution of February 1917, though he was replaced in July 1917. He stayed loyal to the Bolsheviks after they took power, serving as an adviser to the Red Army in the Russo-Polish War (1919–21), and becoming an inspector of the cavalry.