Alexander Korsakov
Encyclopedia
Alexander Mikhailovich Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian: Александр Михайлович Римский-Корсаков) (August 24, 1753May 25, 1840) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 remembered as an unlucky assistant to Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince in Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimo of the Russian Empire.One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle along with the likes of Alexander...

 during his Swiss expedition of 1799–1800
Suvorov's Italian and Swiss expedition
The Italian and Swiss expeditions of 1799 and 1800 were undertaken by the Russian commander Alexander Suvorov against French forces in Piedmont and Switzerland as part of the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars in general and the War of the Second Coalition in particular.-Italian...

.

Korsakov entered military service early, and fought in the Russo-Turkish War in 1788 and 1789, and then in the Russo-Swedish War. He subsequently became a major-general of the Semenovsky regiment
Semenovsky Regiment
Semenovsky Life-Guards Regiment was one of the two oldest guards regiments of the Imperial Russian Army.- History :...

 of the Leib Guard, assigned to accompany the Count of Artois
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...

 to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. From there he went to Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 to the army commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg
Prince Josias of Coburg
Prince Frederick Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was a general in the Austrian service.-Biography:...

, with which he participated in the Battle of Fleurus (1794)
Battle of Fleurus (1794)
In the Battle of Fleurus on 26 June 1794, the army of the First French Republic under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan faced the Coalition Army commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg in the most decisive battle of the Flanders Campaign in the Low Countries during the French Revolutionary Wars...

. Returning to St. Petersburg, he fought under Count Valerian Zubov
Valerian Zubov
Count Valerian Aleksandrovich Zubov was a Russian general who led the Persian Expedition of 1796. His siblings included Platon Zubov and Olga Zherebtsova....

 in an ill-fated expedition against Persia
Persian Expedition of 1796
The Persian Expedition of Catherine the Great, alongside the Persian Expedition of Peter the Great, was one of the Russo-Persian Wars of the 18th century which did not entail any lasting consequences for either belligerent....

, which Emperor Paul I
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...

 recalled in 1799 in order to deal with the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1799
By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the minor German and Italian states...

.

Paul I gave Korsakov command of an army of 40,000 men to drive the French out of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. Korsakov took the army to Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 to join up with the 25,000-man army of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n general Friedrich von Hotze; Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Suvorov
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince in Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimo of the Russian Empire.One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle along with the likes of Alexander...

's army was also supposed to meet them, but did not arrive in time. The French under André Masséna
André Masséna
André Masséna 1st Duc de Rivoli, 1st Prince d'Essling was a French military commander during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....

 attacked on September 25, 1799 in the Second Battle of Zürich
Second Battle of Zürich
The Second Battle of Zurich was a French victory over an Austrian and Russian force near Zurich. It broke the stalemate that had resulted from the First Battle of Zurich three months earlier and led to the withdrawal of Russia from the Second Coalition.After he had been forced out of the city in...

, winning a victory and forcing Korsakov to withdraw. He led the remainder of his army towards Lindall and combined it with that of Suvorov, who took over primary command. The combined army turned towards Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

, from which Paul I recalled it to Russia for the winter.

With the accession of Emperor Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

 in 1801, Korsakov was appointed cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...

 general. He soon retired from military command, and from 1805 to 1830 served as Governor-General of Lithuania and ordered the reconstruction of the Tuskulėnai Manor
Tuskulenai Manor
Tuskulėnai Manor is a neoclassical manor in Žirmūnai elderate of Vilnius, Lithuania.-Structures:The Tuskulėnai Manor is the oldest architectural monument in Žirmūnai. The present manor was built in 1825, following a design by Karol Podczaszyński in the neoclassical style, by the order of the...

 in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, where he lived. He died in 1840 in St. Petersburg as a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia
State Council of Imperial Russia
The State Council was the supreme state advisory body to the Tsar in Imperial Russia.-18th century:Early Tsars' Councils were small and dealt primarily with the external politics....

.
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