Aleksey Brusilov

Aleksey Brusilov (1853-1926), Russian soldier. Aleksey Alekseyevich Brusilov was born in K’ut’aisi (now in Georgia) and trained for the army. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878, and by 1906 he had risen to the rank of commanding general. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 he led the Russian Eighth Army to victories in Galicia. In 1916 he was commander on the southwestern front, where he routed the Austrians near Luts’k (now in Ukraine). In 1917 Brusilov was briefly commander in chief of all Russian armies. When the Bolsheviks came to power, they arrested and imprisoned Brusilov, but he was soon again given an army command, and he participated in the Soviet offensive against Poland in 1920.