Platon Lechitskii

Born Nov. 18 (30), 1856, in Grodno Province; died Feb. 18, 1923, in Moscow. Russian general of the infantry (1913). Son of a priest.

Lechitskii graduated from the Warsaw Infantry Junker School in 1879. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 he commanded an infantry regiment and was promoted to major general for distinction in combat. He was appointed chief of the 1st Guards Infantry Division in 1906, corps commander in 1908, and commander of the troops of the Amur Military District in 1910. In World War I (1914–18), Lechitskii in August 1914 was placed in command of the Ninth Army, which won a great victory during the offensive of the Southwestern Front in 1916 by routing the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army in Bukovina. On Mar. 11,1917, Lechitskii was appointed commander of the troops of the Western Front, but on May 7 he was relieved of this post upon his own request. After the Great October Socialist Revolution he served in the Red Army as military specialist on the staff of the Petrograd Military District.