Iudenich, Nikolai

Born July 18 (30), 1862, in Moscow; died Oct. 5, 1933, in Cannes. Leader of the counterrevolution in northwestern Russia during the Civil War (1918–20). General of the infantry (1915).

The son of nobility of Minsk Province, Iudenich graduated from the Alexander Military School in 1881 and the Academy of the General Staff in 1887. He commanded a regiment in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. He was named chief of staff of the forces of the Kazan Military District in 1912 and of the Caucasian Military District in 1913. At the outbreak of World War I, Iudenich was chief of staff of the Army of the Caucasus and was promoted to commander in January 1915. He conducted the successful Erzurum and Trabzon operations of 1916 and served as commander in chief of the Caucasian Front in March and April 1917. Thereafter he retired.

Iudenich emigrated to Finland in the autumn of 1918 and later to Estonia. There, in July 1919 he took command of the White Guard Northwestern Army, which was advancing on Petrograd, and became a member of the counterrevolutionary Northwestern Government, which was formed with the cooperation of Great Britain. After the failure of the White Guard advance on Petrograd in October and November 1919, the remainder of Iudenich’s beaten army retreated to Estonia. Iudenich himself emigrated to Great Britain in 1920, but he did not play an active role among White émigrés.