Dmitrii Nikolaevich Verderevskii

Born 1873 in St. Petersburg; died 1946 in Paris. Russian rear admiral (1916).

Verderevskii graduated from the Naval School in 1893 and from the Artillery Officers’ Classes in 1898. Between 1906 and 1909, Verderevskii published, in Morskoi sbornik (Naval Collection), demands for progressive changes in the navy administration. During World War I he commanded a cruiser and a cruiser brigade of the Baltic Fleet; in 1916-17 he was commander of a submarine division, in April and May 1917 chief of staff of the Baltic Fleet, and in May commander of a battleship brigade. In June 1917 he was appointed commander of the Baltic Fleet, but on July 7 he was suspended from his command and put on trial for failure to fulfill the counterrevolutionary orders of the Provisional Government during the July Crisis (Verderevskii believed that the navy should fight only against foreign enemies). After the defeat of the Kornilov uprising of August 30 (September 12), he was appointed minister of the navy. He tried unsuccessfully to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas among the navy. On October 24 (November 6) he signed a report of retirement, but he had no time to submit it to Kerensky. After the October Revolution Verderevskii emigrated; he accepted Soviet citizenship shortly before his death.