Gustav Mannerheim - (1867-1951) President of the Republic, Regent, Marshal of Finland. Carl Gustav Mannerheim

“History shows that the strong rarely have a sense of proportion and a talent for seeing the long term,” the man wrote.

The idea, perhaps, is not new: something similar is read by Plutarch. But the valiant knights of antiquity hardly suffered it as much as the knight of the twentieth century - Carl Gustav Emil von Mannerheim.

True, for the sake of historical justice, it must be clarified that, unlike genuine knights, for example, those who went to Palestine for Barbarossa and the Lionheart in search of adventure and prey, knightly qualities recent history suggest just the opposite: the absence of self-interest and a personal idea that defines and builds life. Can such a "knight" become and remain a politician? Mannerheim could.

He served two states - Russia and Finland - approximately equally: for thirty years, if, of course, you count the years of study in the cadet corps and the Nikolaev Cavalry School in St. Petersburg. In the service of the Russian Empire, he fought with Japan, then in 1906-1908, on the instructions of the military command, he was engaged in compiling maps of Central Asia, Mongolia and China, having traveled 10 thousand kilometers with the Cossacks. He was an honorary member of the Russian Geographical Society. World War I - battles in Galicia and Romania, the rank of lieutenant general, almost all Russian orders ...

In 1917 Finland declared independence. The Soviet government recognized it. Mannerheim as regent, addressing the nation, sets out the program for the construction of the Finnish state. According to Mannerheim, the state of Finland is "national unanimity" plus powerful defensive lines.

Carl Gustav Mannerheim served two states - Russia and Finland

The essence of the regent's relationship with the White Guard movement should be clarified. Having cleared Finland of the Finnish Red Guards and units of the Red Army, Mannerheim did not support Yudenich against the Bolshevik Petrograd. This is evidenced by the documents that were presented in the Hermitage. Guess why? Yes, because the statehood of the Finns was not included in the plans of the White Guard.

The thirties were a tense period in the life of the marshal and chairman of the Finnish Defense Council. In his memoirs (published with us in 2003), he calls them "eight years of competition with the storm." Little Finland is building its defensive lines - the Mannerheim Line, a hundred kilometers wide, now no less famous than the Great Wall of China.

The documents also show that Mannerheim, who knew perfectly well the powerful inertia of any Russian offensive, urged his prime minister to agree to Stalin's proposal to move the border away from Leningrad, but the government refused. Well, to fight means to fight according to Mannerheim, that is, it’s good!

It is a paradox, but Mannerheim's strategic talent did contribute to the future defeat of his ally, Nazi Germany. According to Churchill, after the Finnish campaign, Hitler considered the Russians unable to fight with dignity and, headlong, rushed into a blitzkrieg against Russia.

In 1941, Hitler demanded from Mannerheim full-fledged military operations against the USSR and, above all, to lead Finnish troops to Leningrad. General Jodl came and urged them to at least start bombing Leningrad. “Resisting the participation of our troops in the attack on Leningrad, I proceeded from political considerations, which, in my opinion, were more significant than military ones,” Mannerheim writes in his memoirs.

Stalin personally crossed out Mannerheim's name from the list of war criminals

Perhaps these are only emotions, but it is hard to imagine that a man like Mannerheim would give the order to bomb Peter, the city of his youth. Read his memoirs. How they differ from Speer's memoirs, littered with empty details and primitive judgments, or from Goebbels's flat-pompous fiction...

And the last. A small country can hardly learn from a great power. Therefore, the following words of Mannerheim seem to be taken out of context: “Twice I saw with my own eyes how disastrous for Russia were the consequences of the fact that she entered the war unprepared,” he writes.

Again emotions, probably... But it seems to me that this iron Finnish knight... loved Russia.

When Carl Gustav was 13 years old, his father went bankrupt, and leaving his family, he went to Paris. In January of the following year, his mother died.

In 1882, 15-year-old Gustav entered the Finnish cadet corps in the city of Hamina. In the spring of 1886 he was expelled from the corps for unauthorized absence.

Entering the cavalry school in 1887, two years later, in 1889, 22-year-old Gustav Mannerheim graduated with honors. He was also promoted to the rank of officer.

At the end of May 1918, Mannerheim resigned from the post of commander in chief, possibly due to disagreement with the government's German-oriented policy. On March 7, 1918, he received the rank of cavalry general (Finland), and in December 1918, after the defeat of Germany in World War I and the change in Finland's foreign policy from pro-German to pro-Entante, he was proclaimed regent - the temporary head of the Finnish state and achieved international recognition of independent Finland.

Mannerheim assumed that the victory of the Whites in Finland could be part of an all-Russian anti-Bolshevik campaign and considered the possibility of an offensive by the Finnish army on red Petrograd.

In the years 1920-1930, Mannerheim was engaged in a wide variety of activities: he visited France, Poland and other European countries, India with semi-official visits, took part in the management of commercial banks, social activities, holds the position of Chairman of the Red Cross of Finland. In 1931 he accepted an offer to become president of the State Defense Committee of Finland, in 1933 Mannerheim was awarded the honorary military rank of Field Marshal of Finland.

Before 1930s foreign policy The Soviet Union achieved quite a lot of success: European countries recognized the USSR and established diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations. This circumstance led to the widespread spread of pacifist sentiments in all strata. European society who began to believe in the advent of an era of peace.

Mannerheim is actively negotiating with a number of European countries seeking help in a possible confrontation with Soviet Union. At the same time, together with Paasikivi, he is trying to find a compromise between the demands of the USSR and the patriotic public in Finland. At these negotiations, Paasikivi told Stalin that "Finland wants to live in peace and stay out of conflicts", to which the latter replied: "I understand, but I assure you that this is impossible - the great powers will not allow it."

facts

In the autumn of 1918, the Kingdom of Finland was created for a while. Finland was ruled by two regents and an elected monarch. On May 18, 1918, the Finnish Parliament gave its consent to the appointment of Per Evind Svinhufvud, chairman of the Senate (government), as regent. On December 12 of the same year, the parliament accepted his resignation and approved Karl Mannerheim as the new regent. On October 9, 1918, the parliament elected the German Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse-Kassel (Fredrik Kaarle in Finnish transcription) to the throne of Finland under the name of Väinö I, who abdicated on December 14 of the same year, after the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

Until the end of his life, Mannerheim always had a portrait with a photograph and a personal signature of Emperor Nicholas II on his desktop.

In 2009, the creation of the biopic Mannerheim began.

On September 28, 2012 in Helsinki, as part of the Love and Anarchy Film Festival (Rakkautta & Anarkiaa), the premiere of the film Marshal of Finland, which tells about Mannerheim's personal life and love affairs, took place. The fact that Kenyan black actor Talley Savalos Ochieno played the lead role caused a public discussion.

On the monument to K. G. E. Mannerheim erected in Helsinki, he is depicted in an army winter hat of a pre-revolutionary Russian pattern.

Mannerheim spoke Swedish, Russian, Finnish, English, French, German and Polish.

In Finland, there is the Marshal Mannerheim Heritage Foundation, the main purpose of which is to preserve the memory of Mannerheim, as well as financially support research in the field of Finnish military history.

Monuments to Mannerheim:
equestrian monument in Helsinki (opened in 1960),
monument in Turku,
monument in Tampere,
equestrian monument in Lahti,
Museum of the Headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim and a monument in Mikkeli,
museum in the Louhisaari family castle.
On June 14, 2007, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth of K. G. Mannerheim, a bust of the Cavalier Guard Mannerheim was erected in St. Petersburg and an exposition dedicated to his life and work was opened (Shpalernaya street, house 41, Marshal hotel).

Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim(Swedish and Finnish Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, IPA (Swedish): [ˈkɑːrl ˈɡɵsˌtɑf ˈeːmil ˈmanːərˌheim]; June 4, 1867, Askainen, Abo-Bjørneborg Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire - January 27, 1951, Lausanne) - Baron, Finnish military and statesman of Swedish origin, cavalry general (March 7, 1918) of the Finnish Army, field marshal (May 19, 1933), Marshal of Finland (only as an honorary title) (June 4, 1942), regent of the Kingdom of Finland from December 12, 1918 to June 26, 1919, president Finland from August 4, 1944 to March 11, 1946; Russian military leader, Lieutenant General of the Russian Army (April 25, 1917).

As a personal name, they used the second name, Gustav; while serving in the Russian army, he was called Gustav Karlovich; sometimes he was called in the Finnish manner - Kustaa.

Field Marshal Mannerheim was tall, slender and muscular body, noble bearing, confident demeanor and clear features. He belonged to that type of great historical figures who were so rich in the 18th and 19th centuries, as if specially created for the fulfillment of their mission, but now almost completely extinct. He was endowed with personal traits characteristic of all the great historical characters who lived before him. In addition, he was an excellent rider and shooter, a gallant cavalier, an interesting conversationalist and an outstanding connoisseur of the culinary arts, and made an equally magnificent impression in the salons, as well as at the races, in clubs and at parades.

Wipert von Blücher (German), German envoy to Finland from 1934 to 1944.

Origin

Until the early 2000s, the Mannerheims were thought to have moved to Sweden from Holland. However, a Finnish-Dutch group of researchers in early 2007 published a message that they had found a church book in the archives of Hamburg, according to which the oldest known ancestors of Gustav Mannerheim, Hinrich Margain ( Hinrich Marhein), was baptized in St. Jakob's Church in Hamburg on December 28, 1618. From the record of his birth it follows that his father was a certain Hönning Margain ( Henning Marhein), who was granted the citizenship of the city of Hamburg in 1607.

There is a document from which it follows that Hinrich Margein, who after moving to Sweden became known as Heinrich, founded an ironworks here. His son was raised to the Swedish nobility in 1693, and he changed his surname to Mannerheim. In 1768, the Mannerheims were raised to the baronial rank, and in 1825, Karl Erik Mannerheim (Fin.) (1759-1837), Gustav Mannerheim's great-grandfather, was elevated to the rank of count, after which the eldest son in the family became a count, and the younger brothers of the eldest a member of the family (to which Gustav Mannerheim belonged), as well as representatives of the younger genealogical branches, remained barons.

After the victory of Russia over Sweden in the war of 1808-1809, Karl Erik Mannerheim was the head of the delegation received by Alexander I, and contributed to the success of the negotiations, which ended with the approval of the Constitution and the autonomous status of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Since then, all the Mannerheims have become distinguished by a clear pro-Russian orientation, since Alexander I repeatedly reminded: “Finland is not a province. Finland is a state." Mannerheim's grandfather, Carl Gustav, after whom he got his name, was the president of the court court (Hofgericht - appellate instance) in Vyborg and a well-known entomologist, and his father was an industrialist, conducting major business throughout Russia, and a great connoisseur of literature.

early years

Gustav Mannerheim was born in the family of Baron Karl Robert Mannerheim (1835-1914) and Countess Hedwig Charlotte Helena von Yulin. The place of birth is the Louhisaari estate in the municipality of Askainen, not far from Turku, which at one time was acquired by Count Karl Erik Mannerheim.

When Carl Gustav was 13 years old, his father went bankrupt and, leaving his family, went to Paris. In January of the following year, his mother died.

In 1882, 15-year-old Gustav entered the Finnish cadet corps in the city of Hamina. In the spring of 1886 he was expelled from the corps for unauthorized absence.

He decided to enter the Nikolaev Cavalry School in St. Petersburg and become a cavalry guard. However, in order to enter the school, it was necessary to pass a university exam. During the year, Gustav studied privately at the Böka Lyceum (Private Gymnasium) (Fin. Böökin yksityiskymnaasi) in Helsinki and in the spring of 1887 he passed the exams at the University of Helsingfors. Among other things, a good knowledge of the Russian language was also required, so in the summer of that year Gustav went to his relative E. F. Bergenheim, who worked as an engineer in Kharkov. There he studied the language with a teacher for several months.

Nikolaev Cavalry School

Entering the cavalry school in 1887, two years later, in 1889, 22-year-old Gustav Mannerheim graduated with honors. He was also promoted to an officer's rank.

Russian army

He served in the Russian army in 1887-1917, starting with the rank of cornet and ending with a lieutenant general.

1889-1890 - served in the 15th Alexander Dragoon Regiment, in Kalisz (Poland).

Cavalier Guard Regiment

On January 20, 1891, he entered the service in the Cavalier Guard Regiment, where strict discipline was maintained.

On May 2, 1892, he married Anastasia Nikolaevna Arapova (1872-1936), daughter of the Moscow police chief General Nikolai Ustinovich Arapov, with a rich dowry. Gustav starts thoroughbred horses, which begin to take prizes at races and shows, often Mannerheim himself acts as a rider. Usually the first prize was about 1,000 rubles (at the same time, renting an apartment for a family in a prestigious building cost 50-70 rubles a month).

In July 1894, a newborn son dies during childbirth. Discord appears in the relationship of the spouses.

On March 24, 1895, Gustav met the 40-year-old Countess Elizaveta Shuvalova (Baryatinsky), with whom he would maintain a romantic relationship for a long time. On July 1, 1895, Lieutenant Mannerheim was awarded the first foreign order in his life - the Cavalier's Cross of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph. July 7, 1895, Monday, daughter Sophia was born (she died in Paris in 1963).

On May 14, 1896, as a junior assistant, he participates in the coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. After the coronation, Nicholas II expressed gratitude to the officers of the Cavalier Guard Regiment. On May 16, 1896, a reception was given at the Kremlin Palace for the officers of the regiment, where Mannerheim had a lengthy conversation with the emperor.

Court stables

On August 7, 1897, the brigade commander Arthur Greenwald announced that, at the request of the emperor, he would soon head the Court stables and that he would like to see Mannerheim in his assistants. On September 14, 1897, by the Highest Decree, Gustav was transferred to the Court Stables, remaining on the lists of the Cavalier Guard Regiment, with a salary of 300 rubles and two state-owned apartments: in the capital and in Tsarskoye Selo. On behalf of Greenwald, Staff Officer Mannerheim draws up a report on the state of affairs in the Konyushennaya part, as a result of which the general began to restore order "in the part entrusted to him". At the end of November, Mannerheim selects horses for Valentin Serov, from which the artist makes sketches - the royal horses were the best in Russia.

From March 27 to April 10, 1898, Mannerheim was a member of the judging panel of the Mikhailovsky Manege, after which he went on a long business trip to stud farms - equipping the stable with horses was his main task. In early June, Mannerheim met Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov. In November, on a business trip in Berlin, while examining horses, a three-year-old mare crushed Gustav's kneecap (in total, there were 14 fractures of varying severity in Mannerheim's life). Professor Ernst Bergman (1836-1907), a famous surgeon, operated during Russian-Turkish war 1877 was a consultant surgeon in the Russian Danube army.

In mid-January 1899, Mannerheim finally began to get out of bed and move around with crutches. In addition to severe pain in the knee, he was haunted by the thought that he would not be able to participate in the anniversary (100 years) celebrations of the Cavalry Guards Regiment, scheduled for January 11, 1899. However, Gustav was not forgotten. He received several telegrams from St. Petersburg, including from the chief of the regiment - the Dowager Empress, congratulations from the officers of the regiment and the Stables, from the Kaiser of Germany. On February 12, the lieutenant and his wife were invited to dinner at the Imperial Palace on the Opera Square in Berlin. Wilhelm II did not make an impression on Mannerheim: "sergeant major". The upbringing of Gustav in the high society of the court aristocracy had an effect.

On June 22, 1899, Mannerheim went (together with Countess Shuvalova) to heal his knee at the Gapsal (Haapsalu) mud resort, where he was ordered to be promoted to the rank of captain.

On August 12, the staff captain was already in the capital in the affairs of himself a wide range: from equipping the Stables with horses to selling manure for the estate of the maid of honor of EIV Vasilchikova.

In January 1900, the officer spent a lot of time at the training ground, where new (armored) carriages for the royal family were tested. The carriages turned out to be too heavy, the wheels broke under the weight of the armor. The center of gravity turned out to be too high - even from a small explosion, the carriages turned over. Mannerheim's proposal to put the carriages on pneumatic tires was not used.

April 12, 1900 Gustav received the first Russian order - the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree. The injury continued to make itself felt, and on May 24, Mannerheim headed (temporarily) the office of the Stables, which worked, for the most part, the wives of officers of the same Stables. The cavalry guard correctly and clearly organized the work of the office, which Greenwald later noted in his order and appointed him to the post of head of the harness department. This branch was the leader in the unit and was under special control of the Minister of the Court, Count Fredericks. Here, Gustav also reorganized the unit and put things in order, including personally shoeing the horse, giving a lesson to negligent blacksmiths.

The whole year passed in family scandals, as Gustav continued novels with both Countess Shuvalova and actress Vera Mikhailovna Shuvalova, while her wife staged terrible scenes of jealousy. This had a detrimental effect on the children.

At the beginning of February 1901, Mannerheim was abroad. Horse show in London, from there to the stud farms of the Oppenheimer brothers in Germany. Upon his return, he worked hard, putting things in order in the pension stable, in the horse infirmary. Often visited the hippodrome.

In the summer, the Mannerheim couple acquired an estate in the Courland province (Anastasia issued the bill of sale for herself), and in early August 1901, the whole family left for Aprikken (Apriki, Lazhskaya volost, Latvia). There, having settled in an old house (built in 1765), Gustav developed a vigorous activity (fish farming, farm). But all his undertakings went to dust and the family returned to the capital. The wife, realizing that the family idyll was no longer worth waiting for, enrolled in the courses of nurses from the community of St. boxers."

In October, Mannerheim was elected the 80th full member of the society. Imperial trotting races on Semyonovsky parade ground and a member of the referee commission.

In February 1902, the baroness returned to St. Petersburg. Her impressions of the experience Far East(she was awarded the medal "For the campaign in China 1900 - 1901") made a strong impression on Mannerheim. For a while, he became the "ideal husband."

In mid-March 1902, Mannerheim, who began to be weary of his “paper” work in the Konyushennaya unit, agreed with Brusilov to transfer to his officer cavalry school. In May, when the racing season began, Count Muravyov introduced Gustav to the rising ballet star Tamara Karsavina, with whom Mannerheim later maintained friendly relations for a long time. Mannerheim spent his next vacation separately from his family, in Finland.

1903 Now the couple did not talk to each other, the apartment on Konyushennaya Square was divided into two parts. However, in the morning they politely greeted each other. The baroness sold her estates, transferred money to Parisian banks, said goodbye to her inner circle (without informing her husband), and, taking her daughters and documents to Aprikken, left for France, on the Cote d'Azur. In April 1904 she settled in Paris.

The baron was left alone with an officer's salary and a very large number of debts (including card debts). Gustav's older brother participated in the struggle to change the imperial laws in Finland, because of which he was exiled to Sweden. In the spring, a decree was signed on secondment of Mannerheim to Brusilov's cavalry school.

Officer Cavalry School

The captain is intensively preparing for the "parfors" hunt (Brusilov's innovation for "education of real cavalrymen"). In early August 1903, in the village of Postavy, Vilna province, Gustav showed excellent driving qualities on a par with Brusilov.

Starting from September, business days begin: every day at 8 am an officer in the officer cavalry school on Shpalernaya Street. General Brusilov, knowing that Mannerheim was a supporter of the horse dressage system of James Phillis, appointed him as an assistant to the famous English rider.

January 15, 1904 Gustav meets New Year in the Winter Palace, at the emperor's ball. It was the last New Year's ball in the history of the Romanovs. Already on January 27, Mannerheim is present at the ceremony of officially declaring war with Japan by Nicholas II. Since the guards were not sent to the front, Mannerheim continued to serve in the capital.

At the end of February 1904, he handed over the affairs of the draft department to Colonel Kamenev. In April he was awarded two foreign orders, in the summer he received his fourth foreign order - the officer's cross of the Greek Order of the Savior. On August 31, 1904, by order of the emperor, the baron was enrolled in the staff of the Cavalry Officer School, leaving the Cavalier Guard Regiment on the lists. On September 15, after a detailed consultation with Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, General Brusilov appointed Mannerheim commander of the training squadron and a member of the school's training committee. At school, this squadron was the standard of everything new and best in cavalry science. Such an appointment was not very liked by the officers of the permanent staff of the school, among themselves they called the baron "guards upstart". However, Mannerheim's skill was at its best, and with the skillful and tactful help of Brusilov, Gustav was quickly able to begin to "manage the processes" at school in the direction he needed. The baron was also warmly received in the Brusilovs' house.

As for personal affairs, they were in complete disarray. A bunch of debts (and they grew), problems with his wife (they were not officially divorced), plus everything, Countess Shuvalova, whose husband had suddenly died by this time, insisted on a “civil marriage” with the baron. However, Gustav clearly imagined all the consequences of such a step - the capital's high society did not forgive such actions.

In the current situation, Mannerheim decides to go to the front. Shuvalova, realizing this, gives up everything (without even leaving for Ukraine, where a monument to her husband was opened) and leaves for Vladivostok at the head of a field hospital. Brusilov tried to dissuade Gustav, but, in the end, realizing the futility of his efforts, he agreed with Mannerheim and promised to petition for the inclusion of the captain in the 52nd Nezhinsky Regiment.

Handing over the affairs of the training squadron to Lieutenant Colonel Lishin, Mannerheim began to prepare for shipment to Manchuria. A huge number of things had accumulated, some of which had to be transferred to other persons upon arrival at the front. To cover the huge expenses associated with the preparation, the captain received a large loan from the bank (under two insurance policies). Having chosen three horses, Mannerheim sent them separately to Harbin, although no one could say even approximately when they would arrive there.

On Saturday evening, October 9, 1904, Lieutenant Colonel of the 52nd Nezhinsky Dragoon Regiment, Baron Mannerheim, set off for Manchuria by courier train, stopping in Moscow on the way and visiting his wife's relatives.

Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905

On the way, Gustav began to keep diary entries.

On October 24, 1904, the train arrived in Harbin, the station commandant informed him that the horses would not arrive earlier than in two weeks. Gustav sent a telegram to Countess Shuvalova to Vladivostok and went there himself. Returning to Harbin on November 3, he leaves for Mukden. On November 9, having arrived in Mukden, Mannerheim searches for his horses and departs with them to the place of his new service. Already on the spot, the baron learns that the 2nd Separate Cavalry Brigade, consisting of the 51st and 52nd Dragoon Regiments, is not participating in hostilities, since the command is afraid to set independent tasks for the brigade commander, General Stepanov. The lieutenant colonel had to sit in the reserve. He notes this period in his diary as extremely dull and monotonous.

1905 - On January 8, an order was signed to appoint Lieutenant Colonel Mannerheim as an assistant regiment commander for combat units.

After the fall of Port Arthur, the 3rd Army was freed from Japan, in connection with which the commander-in-chief, General A.N. Kuropatkin, wanting to delay the arrival of these Japanese forces at the main theater of operations, decided on a cavalry raid on Yingkou. Mannerheim wrote:

In the period from December 25, 1904 to January 8, 1905, as commander of two separate squadrons, I took part in a cavalry operation conducted by General Mishchenko with the forces of 77 squadrons. The purpose of the operation was to break through to the coast, capture the Japanese port of Yingkou with ships and, by blowing up the bridge, cut off the railway connection between Port Arthur and Mukden ...

The Mannerheim division was part of the consolidated dragoon division under the command of Major General A.V. Samsonov. During this raid, Mannerheim, at a halt near the village of Takaukhen, met a colleague at the Cavalry School Semyon Budyonny from the 26th Don Cossack Regiment, also a future marshal (the title of Marshal of Finland was awarded to Mannerheim on June 4, 1942). The very same attack on Yingkou, for a variety of reasons (from incorrect goal setting to tactical miscalculations such as an incorrectly chosen attack time) led to the defeat of the Russian army. Mannerheim's division did not take part in the attack on Yingkou.

On February 19, 1905, during one of the skirmishes with a detachment of Japanese cavalry, Mannerheim's orderly young Count Kankrin, a seventeen-year-old boy who volunteered for war, died. Mannerheim was carried out of the shelling by his prize stallion Talisman, already wounded and fallen after that.

On February 23, 1905, Mannerheim received an order from the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Manchurian Army, Lieutenant General Martson, to conduct an operation in the eastern Impeni area to rescue the 3rd Infantry Division, which fell into the "bag". The dragoons, under the cover of fog, entered the rear of the Japanese and, having carried out a swift attack, put them to flight. For skillful leadership and personal courage, the baron was awarded the rank of colonel, which, among other things, meant an increase of 200 rubles in salary. At the end of the operation, Mannerheim's division was assigned to rest (4 days), after which he arrived at the location of his regiment, at the Chantufu station.

The headquarters of the 3rd Manchurian Army instructed the baron to carry out a deep reconnaissance of the Mongolian territory in order to identify Japanese troops there. In order to avoid diplomatic scandals with Mongolia, intelligence is carried out by the so-called "local police" in the amount of three hundred Chinese.

My detachment is just hunghuzi, that is, local robbers from the main road ... These bandits ... know nothing but a Russian magazine rifle and cartridges ... My detachment is assembled on hastily from the waste. There is neither order nor unity in it ... although they cannot be blamed for lack of courage. They managed to break out of the encirclement where the Japanese cavalry drove us ... The army headquarters was very satisfied with our work - we managed to map about 400 miles and give information about Japanese positions throughout the territory of our activity.

This was his last operation in the Russo-Japanese War. On September 5, in Portsmouth, S. Yu. Witte signed a peace treaty with Japan.

In November 1905, the colonel left for St. Petersburg. Arriving in the capital at the end of December, he learned that his position, as a headquarters one, was excluded from the staff of the 52nd Nezhinsky Dragoon Regiment. Family affairs had not been arranged before the departure, and now looked like a complete disaster. We can say that all this, taken together, turned the court cavalry guard into a tough military officer.

In early January 1906, the colonel departed for his homeland, on a two-month leave for the treatment of rheumatism. There he participated in the estate representative assembly of the noble branch of the Mannerheims. This was the last such meeting.

Expedition to China

On March 29, 1906, Palitsyn reported: “ The Chinese reforms have turned the Celestial Empire into a dangerous factor of power... Gustav Karlovich, you have to make a strictly secret trip from Tashkent to Western China, the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi. Think over the route and coordinate it with Vasiliev, contact Colonel Zeil for organizational issues ...».

Colonel Baron K. G.-E. Mannerheim at the Russian consulate. Kashgar, September 1906

Preparations began immediately. Gustav studied in the library of the General Staff reports on expeditions in Central Asia N. M. Przhevalsky and M. V. Pevtsov. Mannerheim also received an order from the Finno-Ugric Society to collect archaeological and ethnographic collections for the National Museum of Finland, which was being created in Helsingfors.

On June 10, 1906, Gustav was included in the expedition of the French sociologist Paul Pelliot, but then, at his request, Nicholas II gave Mannerheim an independent status.

On June 19, the colonel, with 490 kg of luggage, including a Kodak camera and two thousand glass photographic plates with chemical reagents for their processing, leaves the capital. On July 29, 1906, the expedition set off from Tashkent. In May, Mannerheim meets with the 13th Dalai Lama in Utaishan. On July 12, 1908, the expedition arrived in Beijing.

Before leaving for Russia, Mannerheim made another "mission", to Japan. The purpose of the assignment was to find out the military capabilities of the port of Shimonoseki. Having completed the task, the colonel arrived in Vladivostok on September 24.

Expedition results

• The map shows 3087 km of the expedition's route
• A military-topographic description of the Kashgar-Turfan region was compiled.
• The Taushkan-Darya river has been studied from its exit from the mountains to its confluence with the Orken-Darya.
• Plans were drawn up for 20 Chinese garrison towns.
• The description of the city of Lanzhou as a possible future Russian military base in China is given.
• The state of the troops, industry and mining of China was assessed.
• The construction of railways is estimated.
• The actions of the Chinese government to combat opium consumption in the country were assessed.
• Collected 1200 different interesting items related to the culture of China.
• About 2000 ancient Chinese manuscripts were brought from the sands of Turfan.
• A rare collection of Chinese sketches from Lanzhou has been brought, giving an idea of ​​420 characters from different religions.
• A phonetic dictionary of the languages ​​of the peoples living in northern China has been compiled.
• Anthropometric measurements of the Kalmyks, Kirghiz, little-known Abdal tribes, Yellow Tanguts, Torgouts were carried out.
• 1353 photographs were brought, as well as a large number of diary entries.

Mannerheim rode about 14,000 km on horseback. His account is one of the last noteworthy diaries compiled by travelers in this way.

The results of Mannerheim's "Asian campaign": he was accepted as an honorary member of the Russian Geographical Society. When in 1937 it was published on English language the full text of the traveler's diary, the entire second volume of the publication consisted of articles written by other scientists based on the materials of this expedition.

Poland

On January 10, 1909, at the end of his vacation, Mannerheim returned to St. Petersburg, where he received an order to appoint him commander of the 13th Uhlan Vladimir His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich Regiment. On February 11, after a short trip to Finland, Gustav went to the city of Novominsk (now Minsk-Mazowiecki), located 40 km from Warsaw.

The preparation of the regiment (he received it from Colonel David Dieterichs) turned out to be weak, and Mannerheim began to correct it, as he had done before with his other units. Service, training on the parade ground and "in the field" for 12 hours a year made the regiment one of the best in the district, and the ability to work with people and personal example allowed Gustav to get most of the regiment's officers as allies. Summer camps were held in the village of Kaloshino, not far from Novominsk.

In Warsaw, Mannerheim entered the Polish secular society, became close, among other things, with the Zamoyski, Potocki, Krasinski and Radziwills. His best friends were Count Moritz and Adam Zamoyski, as well as Prince Zdzisław Lubomirski and his wife Maria Lubomirska. He also repeatedly met with his friend and colleague A. Brusilov, who commanded the 14th Army Corps, while the Mannerheim regiment was part of this corps as part of the 13th Corps Cavalry Division, Brusilov's headquarters was stationed in Lublin. The wife of Alexei Alekseevich died, relations with his son did not develop very well. On one of Brusilov's visits to the Vladimir regiment, the major general solemnly presented the colonel with the Order of St. Vladimir - an award for the Asian campaign.

At the end of 1910, Gustav attended a friend's wedding, which was very modest. Brusilov remarried.

When meeting with Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Brusilov constantly told him about Gustav and his achievements in the regiment. After a conversation between the Grand Duke and Emperor Mannerheim on January 1, 1911, he was appointed commander of the Life Guards of His Majesty's Lancers Regiment. On February 19, 1911 he was granted the rank of major general, in 1912 he was enrolled in His Majesty's retinue.

On February 17, 1911, the baron took over the regiment from Pavel Stakhovich (his former commander). The regiment's barracks were located in Warsaw, behind the old Lazienki park. It was a guards regiment, in which the orders laid down back in the early 1880s by the commander of the district troops, Field Marshal I.V. Gurko, were preserved.

The private life of officers before the arrival of Mannerheim was not very diverse. Horses and women, there were few contacts with the Polish population, with the exception of three officers - Holovatsky, Przhdetsky and Bibikov, who maintained contacts in the highest Polish society. Mannerheim wrote much later: "There were very few personal contacts between Russians and Poles, and during my communication with the Poles they looked at me incredulously." But the commander abruptly changed the situation, taking equestrian sport as a basis. He became vice-president of the race society of the Separate Guards Cavalry Brigade and a member of the Warsaw Race Society, joined an elite hunting club.

The major-general was accepted into the family milieu of the Radziwills, Zamoyskis, Velepolskys, and Pototskys. In the house of Countess Lubomirskaya, he has been accepted for a long time. Poles haunted the officers of the regiment, and Gustav was no exception. Rumors of high-society ladies visiting Mannerheim's apartment quickly spread throughout the city. Countess Lubomirskaya wrote in her memoirs about the "friend of the heart": "Gustav was a man who was carried away, he never knew how to value anything." Mannerheim, on the other hand, understood that it was impossible to break off relations with the countess - this would immediately affect his position in society.

Life in secular Warsaw required a lot of money, and Mannerheim periodically visited the hippodrome, where he exhibited his horses incognito for competitions (there was a ban on senior officers of the guard to exhibit their horses in competitions). The prizes were large: the Warsaw derby - 10,000 rubles, the Imperial Prize - 5,000 rubles.

In 1912, commanding a regiment, Mannerheim felt very confident. He refused the very prestigious post of commander of the 2nd Cuirassier Brigade stationed in Tsarskoe Selo - he was waiting for the post of commander of the Separate Guards Cavalry Brigade to be vacated in Warsaw.

The summer maneuvers carried out near Ivangorod turned out to be very successful for Mannerheim - his regiment was the only one that did not receive a single penalty point, and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the uncle of the emperor, called Gustav "a magnificent commander." After these maneuvers, Mannerheim's long-term friendship with Prince Georgy Tumanov began. In the same year, the baron met with an officer of the General Staff, an intern at his regiment, Dukhonin, who did not like Mannerheim and subsequently had a negative impact on Gustav's military career.

In the autumn, as usual, the uhlans guarded the royal hunting area near Spala - one of the summer residences of the imperial family, which is about 21 km from the Skierniewice railway station. Apparently, there Mannerheim also saw Nicholas II.

In the autumn of 1913, Mannerheim spent more than a month in France, on Russian-French exercises. On December 24, Gustav Karlovich Mannerheim, Major General of His Majesty's retinue, was appointed to the long-awaited position of commander of the Separate Guards Cavalry Brigade, headquartered in Warsaw.

The brigade commander spends the first half of the summer of 1914 at a resort in Wiesbaden (an chronic rheumatism makes itself felt). Returning from treatment, he looked in Berlin to Woltmann, a horse dealer, from whom he once bought horses for the Court stables. But the merchant's stables were empty - on the eve of all the horses were purchased for the needs of the German army. When asked by Gustav how the German military got so much money for very expensive horses (with the cost of one horse at 1200 marks, the army paid Woltmann 5000 each), the merchant narrowed his eyes: "Whoever wants to fight must pay". And on July 22, 1914, having met with Countess Lubomirskaya, he told her that he expected war. “On the morning of July 31, 1914, General Mannerheim came to say goodbye to me ... He asked me to guide him on the road ...”- so Countess Lubomirskaya wrote in her diary.

World War I

On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. On August 2, the Separate Guards Cavalry Brigade concentrated near Lublin, from where the Life Guards Lancers proceeded on horseback to the city of Krasnik, and on the night of August 6-7, a telegram arrived that Austria-Hungary had also declared war on Russia.

On August 17, Mannerheim received an order to hold the city of Krasnik, which was a strategically important hub lying south of the Ivangorod (Demblin) - Lublin - Chelm (Holm) railway, and, if possible, to conduct reconnaissance of enemy forces. Having withstood the first blow of superior enemy forces (the Austrians powerfully attacked the positions of the dismounted Life Lancers regiment for several hours), Mannerheim, with the help of reinforcements that came to the rescue in the form of two rifle regiments, carried out a swift attack with his cavalry, putting the enemy to flight. Only about 250 soldiers and 6 officers of the enemy were captured. The Lancers lost 48 people in this battle, seven of them officers, including their commander, General Alabeshev. For this battle at Krasnik, Major General Mannerheim, by order of the commander of the 4th Army, was awarded the golden St. George weapon.

After the defeat at Krasnik, the Austrians mobilized and organized an extremely dense defense in front of the right flank of the 4th Army, in connection with which the raids of the Russian cavalry behind enemy lines practically ceased. Each reconnaissance operation turned into a protracted battle. A good characteristic of Mannerheim's commanding qualities is the way out of the encirclement near the village of Grabowka. At nightfall, Mannerheim gathered senior officers and divided the encirclement ring into 20 sectors on the map, appointing an officer responsible for each sector. Then he set the task to get in each sector of the "language". Around midnight, Mannerheim had at his disposal one captured Austrian from each sector. After analyzing the situation, at about two in the morning, the guardsmen broke through the encirclement in the very weak spot and by morning joined the 13th Cavalry Division.

In August 1914, for successful actions, Major General Mannerheim was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree with swords and received swords to the already existing Order of St. Vladimir 3rd degree.

On August 22, Gustav met with his former lover, Countess Shuvalova (she headed the Red Cross hospital in Przemysl). The meeting left an unpleasant aftertaste.

In one of the battles, for the city of Janow, which is 75 km from Lublin, Mannerheim, assessing the situation, carried out the so-called "star attack" on the city. He "showed" the Austrians that he was slowly and thoroughly advancing on the city large forces from several sides at once. The misled, fussy enemy, who hastily began to regroup to organize the defense, "blipped" the attack of the Mannerheim guards, who broke through the defenses in places where the offensive was not shown. The cavalrymen who flew into the city sowed panic in the defensive orders of the Austrians, who hastily left the city. In excitement, pursuing the retreating enemy, the uhlans came under heavy fire, suffering significant losses. Among them was the death of Captain Bibikov, a favorite of the higher women's society in Warsaw. When the news of Bibikov's death reached Warsaw, Countess Lubomirskaya wrote an angry letter to Gustav, in which she accused the general of neglecting the lives of officers, knowingly dooming them to death with her "rash orders." Separate senior officers from various kinds of headquarters, on the contrary, believed that Mannerheim was avoiding battles with the enemy. As for the subordinates of Gustav Karlovich themselves, they had their own opinion on this matter, different from “female” and “high-ranking”. When Mannerheim was awarded the 4th degree St. George Cross on December 18, the guards composed verses on this occasion:

St. George's cross whiteDecorates your chest;There is something for you, cruel, braveCommemorate the battle with enemies.

We are talking about forcing the San River by the 9th Army, where, thanks to the initiative shown by Mannerheim, the crossing of troops to the right bank of the river was ensured. When the officers asked him why he was invulnerable to bullets and shells, the baron replied that he had a silver talisman and touched his left breast pocket: there lay silver 1896 medal, coronation medal his imperial majesty Nicholas II.

On October 11, 1914, Russian troops unexpectedly launched an operation that went down in history as the Warsaw-Ivangorod operation, as a result of which the Austrian-German troops suffered a serious defeat. At the end of autumn, the Mannerheim brigade occupied positions along the Nida River, where they celebrated the New Year. The officers of the brigade presented as a gift to their commander silver cigarette case, "for luck".

In 1915, the German command, concerned about the major successes of Russia in Galicia, undertook a serious regrouping of its forces in favor of the Eastern Front. General Staff german army also moved his headquarters to Silesia, near the border with Austria (the city of Pless). Command Russian army in the person of the commanders of the Southwestern Front, the redeployment of troops began, and the Separate Guards Cavalry Brigade of Mannerheim advanced to Eastern Galicia and at the end of February became part of the 8th Army, located 60 km south-west of Sambir, under the command of his old friend A. Brusilov, who appointed Gustav Karlovich as interim commander of the 12th Cavalry Division instead of General Kaledin, who was out of action due to injury. When Gustav was appointed to this post, Brusilov had to overcome some resistance from the officers of the General Staff, who called Mannerheim a "horse face". Despite all this, the Supreme Decree on the appointment of Mannerheim as division commander was received on June 24. Mannerheim, who took command of the division, at the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, located in the Stanislav area, was brought into the situation by the commander of the corps, General Khan Nakhichevansky. The 2nd Corps, in addition to Mannerheim's 12th Cavalry Division, included a separate formation of six Caucasian regiments, which was called the "Wild Division", and was commanded by the Emperor's brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.

The 12th Cavalry Division consisted of two brigades, each with two regiments, according to Mannerheim, "splendid regiments with rich traditions". The Akhtyrsky Hussars led their history from 1651, the Belgorod Lancers - from 1701, the Starodubovsky Dragoon Regiment - from 1783, the Cossack regiment consisted of Orenburg Cossacks. “Although I had to give up a good military unit, I was inclined to believe that the new one I received was no worse; in my opinion, it was absolutely prepared for military action», - Gustav Karlovich noted in his memoirs. The division headquarters had an excellent reputation and never lost their presence of mind. The tone in the work was set by the chief of staff Ivan Polyakov, who demanded real dedication from subordinate officers in the performance of tasks.

On March 12, 1915, in the evening, Mannerheim received an order from the commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps to change the 1st Don Cossack Division, which was holding defenses near the city of Zalishchyky, which was 45 km from the city of Chernivtsi. Here, the commander of the 9th Army, General Lechitsky and General Khan-Nakhichevan, tried to “suddenly visit” Mannerheim, but the Austrians, having discovered the commander’s car, opened artillery fire, as a result of which the car was smashed, and Khan-Nakhichevan received a shell shock. Near this village, parts of Mannerheim held the defense until March 15, after which they were replaced by the 37th Infantry Division.

On March 17, in the evening, a telegram was received from the army headquarters, according to which Mannerheim should cross the Dniester near the village of Ustye and join the corps of General Count Keller there. On March 22, parts of Mannerheim, having already crossed the Dniester and captured the villages of Schloss and Folvarok, were forced to withdraw under the enemy's hurricane counterattacks. The day before, in response to a polite reminder from Officer Mannerheim to Officer Keller about the order of battle, about joint actions, the count replied: “I remember the task assigned to us”. When Mannerheim, seeing that the enemy's forces exceeded his strength by more than twice, turned to Keller with a request for support, he received a strange answer: "I'm sorry, but the mudslide prevents me from helping you". Mannerheim had to retreat back to the left bank of the Dniester and burn the pontoon crossing. The baron sent a report about what had happened (report No. 1407) to the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, where he described in detail both this operation and Keller's actions. But General Georgy Raukh, apparently, let everything go “on the brakes”. After all, once George Raukh was the best man at Gustav's wedding, and his sister Olga maintained close ties with Gustav's wife Arina Arapova. After Mannerheim's break with his wife, Rauch and his sister ended their relationship with Gustav. Apparently, for General Rauch, the opinion of a woman at that moment outweighed the duty of an officer and commander. This is how some Russian generals fought in the First World War. In his memoirs, Mannerheim noted this episode extremely sparingly, practically "without surnames."

From March 26 to April 25, 1915, Mannerheim's division was on vacation in the village of Shuparka. There were few training sessions, but the baron himself repeatedly showed the highest class in shooting competitions from various types of small arms.

On April 25, the baron was temporarily appointed commander of the consolidated cavalry corps, made up of the 12th division of Mannerheim, the Separate Guards Cavalry Division and the brigade of the Trans-Amur Border Guard, which was tasked with crossing the Dniester and, together with the Siberian Corps, attacking the city of Kolomyya. During the offensive, parts of Mannerheim took the city of Zabolotov on the Prut River, in which they stood for a long time.

On May 18, 1915, the baron received the following telegram: “To the General of the EIV retinue, Baron Gustav Mannerheim. I want to see my Akhtyrs. I will be on May 18 at 16.00 by train. Olga". The guard of honor led by Mannerheim was at the Snyatyn station waiting for the military hospital train No. 164/14 with Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna for several hours, but the train never arrived. It was decided to start the celebrations - festive tables were laid in one of the barns. At the height of the feast, a woman in the dress of a sister of mercy quietly entered the barn and sat down at the table next to Mannerheim, fortunately, one of the officers recognized her in time and offered a chair. The princess leaned over to Gustav: “Baron, you know that I do not like ceremonies. Continue dinner and do not forget to pour me wine, because I know that you are a gallant gentleman, unlike our mutual friends ... And I apologize for being late - my train was not allowed to pass because of the fear of German raids. I got on a horse - you know me as a rider - and here you are with my unnecessary escort ... And order to invite my guardians to the table. The gala dinner proceeded and quite well. The first couple in the first polonaise were Gustav and Olga. The next day, a solemn parade of Akhtyrs took place. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was one of those women whom no one forgot. A photograph presented to Gustav with a commemorative inscription of the princess has been preserved: “... I am sending you a card taken during the war, when we met more and when, as the beloved head of the 12th cavalry division, you were with us. It reminds me of the past…”

On May 20, 1915, a new order: "In connection with the general retreat of the armies of the Southwestern Front, you should move to the area of ​​​​the city of Voynilova, where you will join the 11th Army Corps." Having covered the crossing of our troops across the Dniester, Mannerheim's 12th division began to cover the retreat of the 22nd Army Corps towards the Rotten Lipa River. “The June battles clearly demonstrated how disorganized the army was: during all this time, eleven battalions were subordinate to me in turn, and their combat effectiveness decreased from time to time, and most of the soldiers did not have rifles”, - Gustav Karlovich recalls in his memoirs.

On June 28, the baron receives an order to organize defenses in the area of ​​​​the village of Zazulintse. Mannerheim's division was reinforced by two "wild brigades" from the Khan-Nakhichevan economy. One of these cavalry brigades was commanded by Pyotr Krasnov, the other by Pyotr Polovtsev. During the battle, Krasnov's brigade simply did not follow Mannerheim's order to attack the enemy. According to the baron himself, Krasnov simply “protected” his highlanders, according to another, the highlanders did not want to attack on foot. In any case, at the end of the battle, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich condemned Krasnov's actions.

The retreat was difficult, the morale of the troops fell, here and there there were cases of looting, spurred on by the order of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich to use the scorched earth tactics.

At the end of August 1916, "Manchurian rheumatism" finally twisted the general, and he was sent for treatment to Odessa for a period of five weeks, leaving the 12th Cavalry Division under the command of Major General Baron Nikolai Disterlo.

In September 1916 he was transferred to the reserve as a military leader, unacceptable under the circumstances. In January 1917, he sent a letter of resignation and went home to Finland.

February Revolution (1917)

Leaving Helsinki back to the army on February 24, 1917, Mannerheim witnessed the revolution in Petrograd; on February 27-28, he was even forced to hide, fearing that he would be arrested as an officer. The news of the emperor's abdication found him in Moscow. Mannerheim, who remained a monarchist until the end of his life, met the revolution extremely negatively. Upon returning to the front, according to his memoirs, Mannerheim visited the commander of the Southern (Romanian) front, General Sakharov. “I told him about my impressions of the events in Petrograd and Moscow and tried to persuade the general to lead the resistance. However, Sakharov believed that the time for such actions had not yet come.

In March 1917, Generals Mannerheim and Wrangel decided to speak on behalf of the cavalry units entrusted to them with an appeal to the Provisional Government on the day of the oath and demand from it more energetic efforts in the fight against the decay of the army. On March 16 or 17, Mannerheim left Chisinau for Orhei, where the headquarters of the 3rd Cavalry Corps was located, in order to persuade its commander, Count Keller, who announced his refusal to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government, to sacrifice his political convictions for the good of the army, or at least not to influence on the body. Count Keller informed Mannerheim that he personally, as a Christian, would not change his oath, but he was not going to influence his troops either.

By the autumn of 1917, the progressive collapse of the army led Mannerheim to think about leaving military service. The last straw, according to his recollections, was the following circumstances: several soldiers arrested his officer, who was conducting monarchist conversations in the officers' club. Mannerheim appealed to the Commissar of the Provisional Government; the commissar released the officer and announced the "punishment" of the soldiers who illegally arrested him, which, however, amounted only to the fact that the soldiers were temporarily transferred to another unit, but, the commissar added, "after being punished, they will have the right to return to the regiment." “I finally became convinced that a commander who cannot protect his officers from violence cannot remain in the Russian army,” Mannerheim recalled. The dislocation of his leg that followed shortly after falling off his horse gave Mannerheim a convenient excuse to leave the army and return to Finland under the guise of necessary medical treatment. In Odessa, Mannerheim received news of the Bolshevik revolution that had taken place in Petrograd. According to his recollections, both in Odessa and then in Petrograd, he talked among representatives of high Russian society about the need to organize resistance, but, to his extreme surprise and disappointment, he met only complaints about the impossibility of countering the Bolsheviks. And he went to Finland to maintain her newfound independence.

Commander and Regent of Finland

On December 18, 1917, he returned to Finland, in which, shortly before, on December 6, independence was proclaimed.

Mannerheim also found Finland in a state of revolutionary ferment and acute antagonism between the Senate and the government (led by P. E. Svinhufvud), on the one hand, and the Social Democrats, who relied on the Red Guard and the Russian military units stationed in Finland with their soldiers' councils , with another. Although on December 31, 1917 V.I. Lenin officially recognized the independence of Finland, Russian troops were not withdrawn from it, and the Social Democrats were preparing to seize power. Mannerheim joined the Military Committee, which tried to organize military support for the government, but soon left it, realizing its incapacity. On January 12, 1918, Parliament authorized the Senate to take tough measures to restore order, and on January 16, Svinhufvud appointed Mannerheim commander in chief of a virtually non-existent army. Mannerheim immediately left the south of Finland with his Social Democratic workers and Russian troops and went north to the city of Vaasa, where he intended to organize the base of his forces. There, with the help of the Shutskor, he began to prepare a counter-revolutionary uprising, which was to be accompanied by the disarmament of the Russian units and the Red Guard. On the night of January 28, 1918, Mannerheim's forces, mainly shutskor (self-defense forces), disarmed the Russian garrisons in Vaasa and a number of other northern cities. On the same day, in Helsinki, the Social Democrats carried out a coup, relying on the Red Guard and the support of Russian soldiers.

Thus began the Finnish Civil War. By March, Mannerheim managed to form a combat-ready 70,000-strong army, which he led with the rank of cavalry general (produced on March 7, 1918). On February 18, he introduced military service. For two months, the Finnish army under the command of Mannerheim, with the help of the German corps of Von der Goltz, who landed in Finland, defeated the detachments of the Finnish Red Guard located in southern Finland. Going on the offensive on March 15, Mannerheim captured Tampere on April 6 after a fierce multi-day battle and began to rapidly move south. On April 11-12, 1918, the Germans took Helsinki, on April 26, Mannerheim occupied Vyborg, from where the revolutionary government evacuated from Helsinki fled. After that, white terror began in the city: mass executions of Finnish Red Guards and civilians suspected of having links with the communists were carried out. On May 15, 1918, the Whites captured the last stronghold of the Reds: Fort Ino on the southern coast of the Karelian Isthmus. The civil war was over. On May 16, 1918, a victory parade took place in Helsinki, Mannerheim himself proceeded at the head of a squadron of the Nyland Dragoon Regiment.

However, the victory soon brought disappointment to Mannerheim. It should be noted that Mannerheim initially opposed the German (and supposedly Swedish) intervention on the side of the Whites, hoping to cope with the Red internal forces, and upon learning of the conclusion of an agreement with Germany, demanded that the participation of the Germans be limited and they obey his orders. Nevertheless, the government concluded a number of enslaving treaties with Germany that actually deprived the country of sovereignty. When Mannerheim was told that he should form new army with the help of German officers and in fact in subordination to the Germans, Mannerheim indignantly resigned and left for Sweden. In October, in view of the emerging defeat of Germany in the war, at the request of the government, he goes to London and Paris with a diplomatic goal - to establish (in the case of France, restore) relations with the Entente countries and achieve international recognition of the young state.

In November, Germany capitulated, and the Svinhufvud government, which had unilaterally tied itself to Berlin, had to resign (December 12). Mannerheim, who was in London at that time, was declared the interim head of state (the regent of the kingdom, as it was called in accordance with the constitution of 1772 in force at that time).

Mannerheim assumed that the victory of the Whites in Finland could be part of an all-Russian anti-Bolshevik campaign and considered the possibility of an offensive by the Finnish army on red Petrograd. Mannerheim's opinion did not coincide with the position of the nationalistic Finnish elements, who did not want the restoration of a strong Russian state and therefore considered it beneficial for Finland to maintain Bolshevik power in Russia.

In May-April 1919, during negotiations with the British about a possible intervention, as conditions for the start of the Finnish offensive against the Bolsheviks, Mannerheim asked for official approval of the intervention from Britain, a loan of 15 million pounds, recognition of Finnish independence by the future non-Bolshevik government of Russia, and a plebiscite on accession to Finland in Eastern Karelia, the autonomy of the Arkhangelsk and Olonets provinces and the demilitarization of the Baltic Sea.

Lieutenant General, former commander of the Guards Cavalry Corps E. K. Arseniev, reported on his negotiations with Mannerheim on May 8, 1919:

... he [Mannerheim] thinks of a campaign [on Petrograd] only "as a joint friendly action of the Finnish and Russian forces", but for the campaign "it is necessary that some authoritative Russian government recognize the independence of Finland." Mannerheim is already Finnish national hero. But this does not satisfy him. He would like to play a big historical role in Russia, where he served for 30 years and with which he is connected by thousands of threads.

On the eve of the elections, taking advantage of the vague position of Kolchak and Sazonov regarding the recognition of Finland's independence, the Finnish Social Democratic press tried in every possible way to emphasize Mannerheim's friendship with representatives of "White Russia", drawing conclusions about the danger that Mannerheim poses to Finnish independence if his "white friends" win. ". Mannerheim was forced to withdraw his direct and public statements of support armed struggle with the Bolsheviks in Russia and made such statements only in private conversations. But they still lost the election.

On June 18, 1919, Mannerheim concluded a secret agreement with General Yudenich, who was in Finland, from which, however, no practical results followed.

Having lost the presidential election on July 25, 1919, Mannerheim left Finland. He lived in London, Paris and Scandinavian cities. Mannerheim acted as an unofficial, and subsequently official representative Finland in France and Great Britain, since in London and Paris he was regarded as the only person with sufficient political capital for negotiations.

During Yudenich's advance on Petrograd in October 1919, Mannerheim wrote:

The liberation of Petrograd is not a purely Finnish-Russian question, it is a worldwide question of final peace ... If the white troops now fighting near Petrograd are defeated, then we will be to blame. Already now there are voices that Finland has avoided the invasion of the Bolsheviks only due to the fact that the Russian White armies are fighting far in the south and east.

Interwar years

In the years 1920-1930, Mannerheim was engaged in a wide variety of activities: he visited France, Poland and other European countries, India with semi-official visits, took part in the leadership of the shutskor, in the management of commercial banks, social activities, and held the position of chairman of the Red Cross of Finland. In 1931, he accepted the offer to become president of the State Defense Committee of Finland, in 1933 Mannerheim was awarded the honorary military rank of Field Marshal of Finland.

Until the 1930s, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union achieved great success: European countries recognized the USSR and established diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations. This circumstance led to the widespread spread of pacifist sentiments in all sections of European society, which began to believe in the onset of an era of peace.

In Finland, the government and most members of parliament have systematically disrupted defense financing programs. So, in the budget of 1934, the article on the construction of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus was completely crossed out. “What is the use of providing the military department with such large sums if war is not expected,” said the then manager of the Finnish Bank, and later President Risto Ryti, to Mannerheim's demand for financing the military program of Finland. And Tanner, head of the Social Democratic faction in parliament, said that his faction believes:

... an indispensable condition for maintaining the independence of the country is such progress in the well-being of the people and the general conditions of their life, under which every citizen understands that this is worth all the costs of defense.

Due to cost savings, starting from 1927, no combat exercises were conducted. The allocated funds were only enough for the maintenance of the army, but practically no funds were allocated for armaments. Modern weapons, there were no tanks and planes at all.

On July 10, 1931, Mannerheim became the head of the newly created Defense Council, but only in 1938 did he achieve the creation of his own headquarters as part of the intelligence and operational departments.

Mannerheim understood that in the context of the sharpening of the confrontation between the Anglo-French bloc and Germany, Finland could find itself in possible conflict with the USSR face to face, without help from Western states. At the same time, like his great-grandfather, he believed that the long-standing border between Finland and Russia was too close to Petersburg. In his opinion, this border should be moved further, receiving appropriate and acceptable compensation for this.

Having headed the Finnish Defense Committee, Mannerheim reformed the ground forces and the schützkor, which significantly increased their combat effectiveness.

On June 27, 1939, the State Council finally approves appropriations for the modernization of the fortification system built in the 1920s (“Enckel Line”) on the Karelian Isthmus, which, according to the results of the audit, turned out to be unusable.

At the same time, in the summer of that year, a popular movement for the construction of defensive structures on a voluntary basis was born in the country. Within 4 summer months Due to vacations, the Finns in the most threatened areas in the event of aggression built mainly anti-tank obstacles in the form of gouges and scarps. It was also possible to create about two dozen long-term machine-gun nests, which all together later received the unofficial name "Mannerheim Line".

As a result of the activity shown in prewar years Soviet diplomacy, a key point was identified, which consisted in demanding the right to enter the territory of neighboring states (the Baltic countries and Finland) of Soviet troops, regardless of the request of the governments of these states, which by this time could be under strong pressure from Germany.

Mannerheim is actively negotiating with a number of European countries, seeking help in a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union. At the same time, together with Paasikivi, he is trying to find a compromise between the demands of the USSR and the patriotic public in Finland. At these negotiations, Paasikivi told Stalin that "Finland wants to live in peace and stay out of conflicts", to which the latter replied: "I understand, but I assure you that this is impossible - the great powers will not allow it."

From the spring of 1938 to the autumn of 1939, negotiations were underway between the USSR and Finland on the delimitation of the border through the exchange of territories. The Soviet Union wanted to secure Leningrad by pushing further the border, which was only 20 km from the city, and in exchange offered three times as much territory in Karelia. Negotiations reached an impasse, and on November 26, 1939, the Mainilsky incident occurred, which served as a pretext for the start of the war. Each side blamed the other for the incident. Regarding these events, Mannerheim wrote:

... And now the provocation that I have been expecting since mid-October has come true. When I personally visited the Karelian Isthmus on October 26, 1939, General Nenonen assured me that the artillery was completely withdrawn beyond the line of fortifications, from where not a single battery could fire a shot beyond the borders ... On November 26, the Soviet Union organized a provocation, now known as " Shots in Mainila”… During the war of 1941-1944, captured Russians described in detail how the clumsy provocation was organized…

On November 30, 1939, Marshal Mannerheim was appointed Supreme Commander of the Finnish Army. On the fourth day, he left for Mikkeli, where he organized the headquarters of the supreme commander.

Under the leadership of Gustav Mannerheim, the Finnish troops were able to withstand the first blow of the Red Army and successfully conduct military operations against the enemy, who had a numerical superiority. At the same time, Mannerheim actively corresponded with the heads of European states, trying to get military or at least material support from them. This activity did not reach its goal - for various reasons, Great Britain, France, and even Sweden refused to provide any assistance to the Finns.

In 70% of cases Soviet troops were stopped on the Karelian Isthmus on the Enkel Line. Well-placed reinforced concrete pillboxes built in 1936-1939, the number of which, due to the high cost, did not exceed a dozen, turned out to be a big obstacle for the attackers.

In February 1940, Soviet troops broke through the first strip of the "line of defensive fortifications", and parts of the Finnish army were forced to retreat.

... The Russians, even during the war, set in motion the myth of the "Mannerheim Line". It was asserted that our defense on the Karelian Isthmus was based on an unusually strong and state-of-the-art defensive wall, which can be compared with the Maginot and Siegfried lines and which no army has ever broken through. The breakthrough of the Russians was “a feat that has not been equaled in the history of all wars” ... All this is nonsense; in reality, the situation looks completely different ... Of course, there was a defensive line, but it was formed only by rare long-term machine-gun nests and two dozen new pillboxes built at my suggestion, between which trenches were laid. Yes, the defensive line existed, but it lacked depth. The people called this position the Mannerheim Line. Its strength was the result of the stamina and courage of our soldiers, and not the result of the strength of the structures.

- Carl Gustav Mannerheim. Memoirs.

On March 13, a peace agreement was signed in Moscow on the conditions put forward by the USSR. Finland transferred 12% of its territory to the Soviet Union.

Martial law in Finland was not abolished. Mannerheim during this period was engaged in the renewal of the army; construction of a new line of fortifications was begun - now on the new border. Hitler turned to Mannerheim as an ally with a request to allow German troops to settle on Finnish territory, such permission was given, while Mannerheim opposed the creation of a joint Finnish-German command. Unification of command over the troops of both countries was practiced only in the north of Finland.

I assumed the duties of commander-in-chief on the condition that we would not launch an attack on Leningrad.

Mannerheim assessed the situation by the summer of 1941 as follows:

..The concluded agreement on the through transportation of goods prevented the attack from Russia. To denounce it meant, on the one hand, to rise up against the Germans, on relations with which the existence of Finland as an independent state depended. On the other hand - to transfer fate into the hands of the Russians. Stopping the importation of goods from any direction would lead to a severe crisis, which would immediately be exploited by both Germans and Russians. We were pinned to the wall.

In his offensive order, Mannerheim clearly outlined the goal of not only "reclaiming" all the territories captured by the USSR during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, but also expanding its borders to the White Sea, annexing the Kola Peninsula. However, this did not prevent him from criticizing the Germans in the future and preventing him from concentrating control of the Finnish troops in their hands.

In 1941, the Finnish units reached the old border and crossed it in eastern Karelia and on the Karelian Isthmus. By the morning of September 7, the advanced units of the Finnish army reached the Svir River.

The border of the maximum advance of the Finnish army during the war 1941-1944. The map also shows the borders before and after the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940.

On October 1, the Soviet units left Petrozavodsk. In early December, the Finns cut the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Further, after unsuccessful attempts to break through the Karelian fortified area, Mannerheim orders to stop the offensive, the front stabilizes for a long time. Mannerheim outlined the version that since the security of Leningrad was the main motive of the USSR for starting the Winter War, then to cross old border meant indirectly admitting the validity of these fears (the border was crossed everywhere). Mannerheim refused to give in to German pressure and ordered the troops to go on the defensive along the line of the historic Russian-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus. At the same time, it was the Finnish troops that ensured the blockade of Leningrad from the north. For services to Germany, he was awarded the Knight's Cross (1942) and Oak Branches to the Knight's Cross (1944).

During this time, about 24 thousand people of the local population from among ethnic Russians were placed in Finnish concentration camps, of which, according to Finnish data, about 4 thousand died of starvation. According to various sources, from 4,000 to 14,000 civilians.

On June 9, 1944, the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation began. Soviet troops, due to the massive use of artillery, aircraft and tanks, as well as with the active support of the Baltic Fleet, hacked one after another the Finnish defense lines on the Karelian Isthmus and stormed Vyborg on June 20.

Finnish troops withdrew to the third defensive line of Vyborg-Kuparsaari-Taipale (also known as the “VKT line”) and, due to the transfer of all available reserves from eastern Karelia, were able to take up a strong defense there. This weakened the Finnish grouping in eastern Karelia, where on June 21, Soviet troops also went on the offensive and took Petrozavodsk on June 28.

On June 19, Marshal Mannerheim appealed to the troops with an appeal to hold the third line of defense at all costs. “Breaking through this position,” he emphasized, “can decisively weaken our defense capabilities.”

On the Karelian Isthmus and in Karelia, Finnish troops were forced to retreat. At first, Germany transferred part of the troops from Estonia to Karelia, but was subsequently forced to take them back. Finland began to look for ways to get out of the war. Certain successes have already been achieved in negotiations with the Soviet Union.

Upon learning of the protest expressed by the German envoy against Mannerheim's intentions to withdraw from the war, the latter replied harshly:

... He once convinced us that with German help we would defeat Russia. That did not happen. Now Russia is strong and Finland is very weak. So let him now disentangle the brewed porridge ...

Lapland War

Among other things, the Soviet-Finnish agreement provided that Finland would seek the withdrawal of German troops from its territory. If the troops were not withdrawn, the Finns were obliged to expel them or disarm and intern them. Mannerheim negotiated with the commander of the German contingent, Colonel-General Rendulich, about his retreat from Finland, who stated that the proposed period was unrealistic and he would not have time to withdraw his troops in time. At the same time, he added that he would strongly resist forceful attempts to hasten his departure. The Germans began vigorous activity: they blew up bridges and tried to capture one of the Finnish islands. On September 22, 1944, Mannerheim ordered the Finnish troops to prepare for the internment of the Germans.

On October 1, 1944, Finnish troops landed on the territory occupied by the Germans - the war against Germany began. Until the spring of 1945, the Finnish army was gradually moving north, pushing German troops out of Finnish Lapland into Norway. In these battles, 950 German and about 1000 (including missing) Finnish soldiers were killed.

Last years

In 1945, Mannerheim's health deteriorated significantly. On March 3, 1946, he resigned as President of Finland. Unlike many political figures in Finland, recognized as war criminals, Mannerheim escaped prosecution.

Guided by the advice of doctors, Mannerheim traveled around Southern Europe, lived for a long time in Switzerland, Italy, and France. While in Finland, he lived in the countryside, from 1948 he began to work on memoirs. At the beginning of 1951, the two-volume memoirs were completely finished.

On January 19, 1951, in connection with a stomach ulcer, the marshal was forced to undergo an operation for the umpteenth time. The operation went well, for some time Mannerheim felt better. But after a few days, his health deteriorated rapidly. Carl Gustav Mannerheim died on January 27, 1951.

Mannerheim was buried at the Hietaniemi military cemetery in Helsinki on February 4, 1951.

Facts

• In the autumn of 1918, the Kingdom of Finland was created for a while. Finland was ruled by two regents and an elected monarch. On May 18, 1918, the Finnish Parliament gave its consent to the appointment of Per Evind Svinhufvud, chairman of the Senate (government), as regent. On December 12 of the same year, the parliament accepted his resignation and approved Karl Mannerheim as the new regent. On October 9, 1918, the parliament elected the German Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse-Kassel (Fredrik Kaarle in Finnish transcription) to the throne of Finland, who abdicated on December 14 of the same year, after the defeat of Germany in the First World War.
• Until the end of his life, Mannerheim always had a portrait with a photograph and a personal signature of Emperor Nicholas II on his desktop.
• In 2009, the creation of the biopic Mannerheim began.
• On September 28, 2012 in Helsinki, as part of the Love and Anarchy Film Festival (Rakkautta & Anarkiaa), the premiere of the film Marshal of Finland, which tells about personal life and love affairs of Mannerheim. The fact that Kenyan black actor Talley Savalos Ochieno played the lead role caused a public discussion.
• Mannerheim spoke Swedish, Russian, Finnish, English, French, German and Polish.

Memory

Finland

In Finland, there is the Marshal Mannerheim Heritage Foundation ( Suomen Marsalkka Mannerheimin perinnesäätiö), the main purpose of which is to preserve the memory of Mannerheim, as well as financial support for research in the field of military history Finland.

• Mannerheim Avenue in Helsinki

monuments

• equestrian monument in Helsinki (sculptor Aimo Tukiainen), opened in 1960,
• monument in Turku
• monument in Tampere,
• equestrian monument in Lahti,
• Museum of the Headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim and a monument in Mikkeli,
• museum in the Louhisaari family castle.

Russia, St.Peterburg

• On June 14, 2007, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth of K. G. Mannerheim, a bust of the Cavalry Guard Mannerheim (sculptor Aidyn Aliev) was erected in St. Petersburg and an exposition dedicated to his life and work was opened (Shpalernaya street, house 41, hotel " Marshall").
• In 2015, it was assumed that on the facade of house 31 on Galernaya Street, where up to October revolution located military intelligence Russian Empire, a memorial plaque to K. G. Mannerheim will be opened. The plans caused a public outcry, on the eve of the planned grand opening ceremony, the board disappeared.
• On June 16, 2016, on the facade of house No. 22 on Zakharyevskaya Street, where the building of the Military Engineering and Technical University is located (until 1948, the Church of Saints and Righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth of the Life Guards of the Cavalier Guard Regiment in which Mannerheim served) was located on this site) a memorial was erected to him board. After public protests, lawsuits and acts of vandalism against the board, on October 13 of the same year it was dismantled and transferred to the Tsarskoye Selo Museum-Reserve.

Bibliography

• Mannerheim K. G. Memoirs. - M.: Vagrius, 1999. - 508 p.
• Mannerheim K. G. Memories. - Minsk: Potpourri LLC, 2004. - 512 p.
• Mannerheim K. G. Life line. How I separated from Russia. - M.: Algorithm, 2013. - 204 p.

Baron, Finnish military and statesman, Lieutenant General of the Russian Imperial Army (April 25, 1917), Cavalry General (March 7, 1918) of the Finnish Army, Field Marshal (May 19, 1933), Marshal of Finland (only as an honorary title) (June 4, 1942 ), President of Finland from August 4, 1944 to March 11, 1946.

Gustav Mannerheim came from an old Swedish family. After the victory over the Swedes, one of his ancestors was the head of the delegation received by Alexander I and contributed to the success of the negotiations, which ended with the approval of the constitution and the autonomous status of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Since then, all the Mannerheims have become distinguished by a clear pro-Russian orientation, since Alexander I repeatedly reminded: “Finland is not a province. Finland is a state." Mannerheim's grandfather was the President of the Supreme Court in Vyborg and a well-known entomologist, and his father was an industrialist, conducting large-scale business throughout Russia and a great connoisseur of literature.

Born in the family of a Swedish aristocrat, Baron Karl Rubert Mannerheim. Place of birth - Louhisaari estate, near Turku, southwest Finland. When Carl Gustav was 13 years old, his father went bankrupt and, leaving his family, went to Paris. The following January, his mother, Countess Hedwig Charlotte Helena Mannerheim, died. In 1882-1886 he studied at the Finnish Cadet Corps, but was expelled for hooligan behavior and violations of discipline. After graduating from a private lyceum in Helsinki, he passed the entrance exams to the University of Helsingfors (1887). This allowed him to enter the Nikolaev Cavalry School in St. Petersburg, where he trained in 1887-1889.

Russian army

In the Russian army he served in 1887-1917, starting with the rank of cornet and ending with a lieutenant general.

1889-1890 - served in the 15th Alexander Dragoon Regiment, in Kalisz (Poland).

Cavalier Guard Regiment

1891 - in January, on the 20th, he enters the service in the Cavalier Guard Regiment, where strict discipline is maintained. Mannerheim lives on a salary that is very meager.

1892 - On May 2, he married Anastasia Nikolaevna Arapova, daughter of the cavalry guard General Nikolai Arapov, with a rich dowry. Now Gustav starts thoroughbred horses, which begin to take prizes at races and shows, often Mannerheim himself acts as a rider. Usually the first prize was about 1,000 rubles (at the same time, renting an apartment for a family in a prestigious building cost 50-70 rubles a month).

1895 - On March 24, Gustav meets 40-year-old Countess Elizaveta Shuvalova (Baryatinsky), with whom he will maintain a romantic relationship for a long time. On July 1, Lieutenant Mannerheim was awarded the first foreign order in his life - the Cavalry Cross of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph. July 7, Monday, daughter Sophia was born (she died in 1963 in Paris in terrible poverty - there was not even money for a separate grave cross).

1896 - May 14 participates in the coronation of Nicholas II as a junior assistant. After the coronation, Nicholas II expressed gratitude to the officers of the Cavalier Guard Regiment, the regiment commander became the general of His Imperial Majesty's retinue. On May 16, a reception was given at the Kremlin Palace for the officers of the regiment, where Mannerheim had a lengthy conversation with the emperor. After that, Mannerheim forever had "his emperor."

Court stables

1897 - On August 7, the brigade commander Arthur Greenwald announced that, at the request of the emperor, he would soon head the Court stables and that he would like to see Mannerheim in his assistants. On September 14, by the Highest Decree, Gustav was transferred to the Court Stables, remaining on the lists of the Cavalier Guard Regiment, with a salary of 300 rubles and two state-owned apartments: in the capital and in Tsarskoye Selo. On behalf of Greenwald, staff officer Mannerheim draws up a statement on the state of affairs in the Konyushennaya unit, as a result of which the general began to restore order "in the unit entrusted to him." At the end of November, Mannerheim selects horses for Valentin Serov, from which the artist makes sketches - the royal horses were the best in Russia.

1898 - from March 27 to April 10, Mannerheim was a member of the judging panel of the Mikhailovsky Manege, after which he went on a long business trip to stud farms - equipping the stable with horses was his main task. In early June, Mannerheim met Brusilov. In November, on a business trip in Berlin, while examining horses, a three-year-old mare crushed Gustav's kneecap (in total, there were 14 fractures of varying severity in Mannerheim's life). The operation was performed by Professor Ernst Bergman (1836-1907), a famous surgeon, during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 he was a consultant surgeon in the Russian Danube army.

1899 - In mid-January, Mannerheim finally began to get out of bed and move around with crutches. In addition to severe pain in the knee, he was haunted by the thought that he would not be able to participate in the anniversary (100 years) celebrations of the Cavalry Guards Regiment, scheduled for January 11th. However, Gustav was not forgotten. He received several telegrams from St. Petersburg, including from the chief of the regiment - the Dowager Empress, congratulations from the officers of the regiment and the Stables, from the Kaiser of Germany. On February 12, the lieutenant and his wife were invited to dinner at the Imperial Palace on the Opera Square in Berlin. Wilhelm II did not make an impression on Mannerheim: "sergeant major". The upbringing of Gustav in the high society of the court aristocracy had an effect.

On June 22, Mannerheim went (together with Countess Shuvalova) to heal his knee to the mud resort Gapsal (Haapsalu), where he was in a good mood and found his order to confer the rank of staff captain.

On August 12, the staff captain is already in the capital on a wide range of business: from equipping the Stables with horses to selling manure for the estate of the maid of honor of the EIV Vasilchikova.

1900 - in January, the officer spent a lot of time at the training ground, where new (armored) carriages for the royal family were tested. The carriages turned out to be too heavy, the wheels broke under the weight of the armor. The center of gravity turned out to be too high - even from a small explosion, the carriages turned over. Mannerheim's proposal to put the carriages on pneumatic tires was not used.

April 12 Gustav receives the first Russian order - the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree. The injury continues to make itself felt, and on May 24, Mannerheim heads (temporarily) the office of the Stables, which worked, for the most part, the wives of officers of the same Stables. The cavalry guard correctly and clearly organized the work of the office, which Greenwald later noted in his order and appointed him to the post of head of the harness department. This branch was the leader in the unit and was under special control of the Minister of the Court, Count Fredericks. Here, Gustav also reorganized the unit and put things in order, including personally shoeing the horse, giving a lesson to negligent blacksmiths.

The whole year passed in family scandals, as Gustav continued novels with both Countess Shuvalova and actress Vera Mikhailovna Shuvalova, while her wife staged terrible scenes of jealousy. As a result, this had a detrimental effect on the children: daughter Anastasia went to the monastery at the age of 22.

1901 - in early February Mannerheim abroad. Horse show in London, from there to the stud farms of the Oppenheimer brothers in Germany. Upon his return, he works a lot, putting things in order in the pension stable, in the horse infirmary. It often happens at the hippodrome, not forgetting to visit other hot spots.

In the summer, the Mannerheim couple acquires an estate in Courland (Anastasia issued the bill of sale for herself), and in early August the whole family leaves for Aprikken. There, housed in an old house (built in 1765), Gustav develops a vigorous activity. But all his undertakings go to waste (fish farming, a farm), the family returns to the capital, and the baron is taken "for the old". The wife, realizing that the family idyll was no longer worth waiting for, signed up for the courses of nurses of the community of St. George and in early September, Baroness Mannerheim, as part of an ambulance train, leaves for the Far East (Khabarovsk, Harbin, Qiqihar) - the famous “Boxer Rebellion” was going on in China .

In October, Mannerheim was elected the 80th full member of the Imperial Trotting Society on Semyonovsky Square and a member of the refereeing commission.

1902 - the baroness returns to St. Petersburg in February. Her impressions of her experience in the Far East (she was awarded the medal "For the trip to China 1900 - 1901") make a strong impression on Mannerheim. For a while, he becomes an "ideal husband."

In mid-March, Mannerheim, who began to be weary of his "paper" work in the Konyushennaya, agreed with Brusilov to transfer to his officer's cavalry school. In May, when the racing season began, Count Muravyov introduced Gustav to the rising ballet star Tamara Karsavina, with whom Mannerheim later maintained friendly relations for a long time. Mannerheim spent his next vacation separately from his family, in Finland. On December 20, he was awarded the rank of captain.

1903 - the life of the empire was slowly changing, family too. Now the couple did not talk to each other, the apartment on Konyushennaya Square was divided into two parts. However, in the morning they politely greeted each other. The baroness sells her estates, transfers money to Parisian banks, says goodbye to her inner circle (without informing her husband), and, having taken her daughters and documents to Aprikken, leaves for France, on the Cote d'Azur. In April of the following year, she settled in Paris.

The baron is left alone with an officer's salary and a very large number of debts (including card debts). Gustav's older brother is involved in the struggle to change the imperial laws in Finland, in connection with which he is expelled to Sweden. In the spring, a decree was signed on secondment of Mannerheim to Brusilov's cavalry school.

Officer Cavalry School

The captain is intensively preparing for the "parfors" hunt (Brusilov's invention for the "education of real cavalrymen"). In early August, in the village of Postavy, Vilna province, Gustav shows excellent driving qualities on a par with Brusilov.

Starting from September, business days begin: every day at 8 am an officer in the officer cavalry school on Shpalernaya Street. General Brusilov, knowing that Mannerheim was a supporter of the horse dressage system of James Phillis, appointed him as an assistant to the famous English rider.

1904 - On January 15, Gustav celebrates the New Year in the Winter Palace, at the emperor's ball. It was the last New Year's ball in the history of the Romanovs. Already on January 27, Mannerheim is present at the ceremony of officially declaring war with Japan by Nicholas II. Since the guards were not sent to the front, Mannerheim continued to serve in the capital.

At the end of February, he handed over the affairs of the draft department to Colonel Kamenev. In April he was awarded two foreign orders, in the summer he received his fourth foreign order - the officer's cross of the Greek Order of the Savior. On August 31, by order of the emperor, the baron was enrolled in the staff of the officer cavalry school, leaving the cavalry regiment on the lists. On September 15, after a detailed consultation with Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, General Brusilov appointed Mannerheim commander of the training squadron and a member of the school's training committee. At school, this squadron was the standard of everything new and best in cavalry science. Such an appointment was not very liked by the officers of the permanent staff of the school, among themselves they called the baron "guards upstart". However, Mannerheim's skill was at its best, and with the skillful and tactful help of Brusilov, Gustav was quickly able to begin to "manage the processes" at school in the direction he needed. The baron was also warmly received in the Brusilovs' house.

As for personal affairs, they were in complete disarray. A bunch of debts (and they grew), problems with his wife (they were not officially divorced), plus everything, Countess Shuvalova, whose husband had died suddenly by this time, insisted on a “civil marriage” with the baron. However, Gustav clearly imagined all the consequences of such a step - the capital's high society did not forgive such actions.

In the current situation, there was only one thing left - the front. Shuvalova, realizing this, gives up everything (without even leaving for Ukraine, where a monument to her husband was opened) and leaves for Vladivostok at the head of a field hospital. Brusilov tried to dissuade Gustav, but, in the end, realizing the futility of his efforts, he agreed with Mannerheim and promised to petition for the inclusion of the captain in the 52nd Nezhinsky Regiment.

Handing over the affairs of the training squadron to Lieutenant Colonel Lishin, Mannerheim began to prepare for shipment to Manchuria. A huge number of things had accumulated, some of which had to be transferred to other persons upon arrival at the front. To cover the huge expenses associated with the preparation, the captain received a large loan from the bank (under two insurance policies). Having chosen three horses, Mannerheim sent them separately to Harbin, although no one could say even approximately when they would arrive there.

On Saturday evening, October 9, 1904, Lieutenant Colonel of the 52nd Nezhinsky Dragoon Regiment, Baron Mannerheim, set off for Manchuria by courier train, stopping in Moscow on the way and visiting his wife's relatives.

Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905

On the way, Gustav began to keep diary entries.

On October 24, the train arrived in Harbin, the station commandant informed him that the horses would not arrive earlier than in two weeks. Gustav sent a telegram to Countess Shuvalova to Vladivostok and went there himself. Returning to Harbin on November 3, he leaves for Mukden. On November 9, having arrived in Mukden, Mannerheim searches for his horses and departs with them to the place of his new service. Already on the spot, the baron learns that the brigade, consisting of the 51st and 52nd dragoon regiments, is not participating in hostilities, since the command is afraid to set independent tasks for the brigade commander, General Stepanov. The lieutenant colonel had to sit in the reserve. He notes this period in his diary as extremely dull and monotonous.

1905 - On January 8, an order was signed appointing Lieutenant Colonel Mannerheim as an assistant regiment commander for combat units.

After the fall of Port Arthur, the 3rd Army was freed from Japan, in connection with which the commander-in-chief, General Kuropatkin A.N., wishing to delay the arrival of these Japanese forces at the main theater of operations, decided on a cavalry raid on Yingkou. Mannerheim wrote: “In the period from December 25, 1904 to January 8, 1905, I, as commander of two separate squadrons, took part in a cavalry operation conducted by General Mishchenko with the forces of 77 squadrons. The purpose of the operation was to break through to the coast, capture the Japanese port of Yingkou with ships and, by blowing up the bridge, cut off the railway connection between Port Arthur and Mukden ... ". The Mannerheim division was part of the consolidated dragoon division under the command of Major General A.V. Samsonov. During this raid, Mannerheim, at a halt near the village of Takaukhen, met a colleague at the Cavalry School Semyon Budyonny from the 26th Don Cossack Regiment, also a future marshal (the title of Marshal of Finland of the Year was awarded to Mannerheim on June 4, 1942). The very same attack on Yingkou for a variety of reasons (from incorrect goal setting to tactical miscalculations such as an incorrectly chosen attack time) led to the shameful defeat of the Russian army. Mannerheim's division did not take part in the attack on Yingkou.

On February 19, during one of the skirmishes with a detachment of Japanese cavalry, Mannerheim's orderly, Count Kankrin, was killed. Mannerheim was carried out of the shelling by his prize stallion Talisman, already wounded and fallen after that.

On February 23, Mannerheim received an order from the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Martson, to conduct an operation in the eastern Impeni area to rescue the 3rd Infantry Division, which fell into the "bag". The dragoons, under the cover of fog, entered the rear of the Japanese and, having carried out a swift attack, put them to flight. For skillful leadership and personal courage, the baron was awarded the rank of colonel, which, among other things, meant an increase of 200 rubles in salary. At the end of the operation, Mannerheim's division was assigned to rest (4 days), after which he arrived at the location of his regiment, at the Chantufu station.

The headquarters of the 3rd Manchurian Army instructed the baron to carry out a deep reconnaissance of the Mongolian territory in order to identify Japanese troops there. In order to avoid diplomatic scandals with Mongolia, reconnaissance is carried out by the so-called "local police" in the amount of three hundred Chinese. “My detachment is just hunghuzi, that is, local robbers from the main road ... These bandits ... know nothing but a Russian magazine rifle and cartridges ... My detachment has been assembled in haste from garbage. There is neither order nor unity in it ... although they cannot be blamed for lack of courage. They managed to break out of the encirclement where the Japanese cavalry drove us ... The army headquarters was very satisfied with our work - they managed to map about 400 miles and give information about Japanese positions throughout the territory of our activity, ”wrote Mannerheim. This was his last operation in the Russo-Japanese War. On September 5, in Portsmouth, S. Yu. Witte signed a peace treaty with Japan.

In November, the colonel left for St. Petersburg. Arriving in the capital at the end of December, he learned that his position, as a headquarters one, was excluded from the staff of the 52nd Nezhinsky Dragoon Regiment. A front-line soldier, he now saw differently " high society capital", which, it turns out, did not care about distant war, to her victims, yes, and in fact, to Gustav himself too. Family affairs had not been arranged before the departure, and now looked like a complete disaster. We can say that all this, taken together, turned the court cavalry guard into a tough military officer.

1906 - in early January, the colonel departs for his homeland, on a two-month leave for the treatment of rheumatism. There he participated in the estate representative assembly of the noble branch of the Mannerheims. This was the last such meeting.

Last years

In 1945, Mannerheim's health deteriorated significantly. On March 3, 1946, he resigned.

It is now possible for the former president to give proper attention to health. Guided by the advice of doctors, Mannerheim travels around Southern Europe, lives for a long time in Switzerland, Italy, and France. While in Finland, he lives in the countryside, from 1948 begins to work on his memoirs. At the beginning of 1951, the two-volume memoirs were completely completed.

On January 19, 1951, in connection with a stomach ulcer, the marshal was forced to undergo an operation for the umpteenth time. The operation went well, for some time Mannerheim felt better. But a few days later, his health deteriorated rapidly, on January 27, 1951, Carl Gustav Mannerheim died.

In the autumn of 1918, the Kingdom of Finland was created for a while. Finland was ruled by two regents and an elected monarch. On May 18, 1918, the Finnish Parliament gave its consent to the appointment of Evind Svinhufvud, speaker of the Senate of Per, as regent. On December 12 of the same year, the parliament accepted his resignation and approved Karl Mannerheim as the new regent. On October 9, 1918, the parliament elected the German Prince Friedrich Karl von Hesse (Fredrik Kaarle in Finnish transcription) to the throne of Finland under the name Väinö I, who abdicated on December 14 of the same year, after the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

Editorial response

A memorial plaque in honor of the Russian commander Karl Mannerheim.

“As they say, you can’t throw words out of a song. No one is going to whitewash Mannerheim's actions after 1918, but until 1918 he served Russia, and to be completely frank, he lived and served in Russia longer than he served and lived in Finland, ”said Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov at the opening ceremony.

In turn, as stated at the ceremony Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, monuments to the heroes of the First World War, which then ended up on opposite sides of the barricades, is an attempt to overcome the tragic split in society.

AiF.ru tells about what Karl Mannerheim became famous for.

Carl Mannerheim. Photo: Public Domain

Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim was born on June 4, 1867 in the family estate of Louhisaari, near Turku (Finland) in the family Count Carl Robert Mannerheim and Countess Helene Mannerheim, nee von Yulin.

In 1882-1886, Karl studied at the Finnish Cadet Corps, but was expelled for violations of discipline. After graduating from a private lyceum in Helsinki, in 1887 he entered the Nikolaev Cavalry School in St. Petersburg.

In 1889-1890 he served in the 15th Alexandria Dragoon Regiment stationed in Poland, since 1891 - in the Cavalier Guard Regiment. In 1893 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1901 to staff captain. In 1897-1903 he served at the imperial court in St. Petersburg.

Mannerheim participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1903-1905, fought as part of the 52nd Nezhinsky Dragoon Regiment. During the year of hostilities in Manchuria, he was awarded military decorations three times and promoted to colonel (1905). In 1906-1908 he led a reconnaissance expedition on the Russian-Chinese border. During the expedition, Mannerheim also conducted scientific work.

In 1908, Mannerheim was appointed commander of the 13th Vladimirsky Lancers Regiment, and in 1910 he was promoted to major general and appointed commander of the Life Guards of His Majesty's Lancers, stationed in Warsaw.

During the First World War, Mannerheim commanded various units of the active Russian army, from 1915 - the 12th Cavalry Division. For battles at the end of 1914 he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. Since 1917 - lieutenant general. In May 1917 he was appointed commander of the VI Cavalry Corps, which operated as part of the 6th Army.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Mannerheim left for Finland, which in December 1917 declared independence from Russia. Mannerheim became one of the leaders of the movement for Finland to gain state independence and the armed struggle against leftist forces in this country.

On January 16, 1918, the Senate appointed Mannerheim commander-in-chief of the Finnish army. In January - May 1918, he commanded troops during civil war in Finland. After the failure to elect the king of Finland, the German Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse Mannerheim from December 1918 to July 1919 acted as regent (temporary ruler). On July 17, 1919, Finland was proclaimed a republic; on July 25, 1919, Mannerheim transferred state power to Kaarlo Stolberg, elected president of the Republic of Finland, remaining commander-in-chief of the army. In 1920, Mannerheim resigned as a sign of protest against the reform of the army according to the German model.

In 1931, Mannerheim became chairman of the Finnish Defense Council. He carried out the reorganization and rearmament of the army (in 1937, on his initiative, a 7-year rearmament plan was adopted), in fact, he created the Finnish Air Force. Convinced of the inevitability of war with the USSR, Mannerheim secured funding for the construction of the "Mannerheim Line" - a deeply echeloned system of defensive fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. Based on this system of fortifications during the so-called Winter War (Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940), being the commander-in-chief of the Finnish armed forces, he developed a successful defensive strategy.

In 1941-1944, Karl Mannerheim led the Finnish armed forces in the war against the USSR. From 1942 he was Marshal of Finland.

On August 4, 1944, the Finnish parliament elected Mannerheim as president of the country. On his initiative, Finland signed a truce with the USSR and began military operations against Germany in Northern Finland.

Mannerheim retired in 1946. Last years lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Karl Mannerheim died on January 27, 1951, and was buried at the Hietaniemi military cemetery in Helsinki. A monument to Mannerheim was erected in the center of Helsinki in 1960. His birthday, June 4, is celebrated as a holiday in armed forces Finland.

Memory

Finland

In Finland, there is the Marshal Mannerheim Heritage Foundation (Suomen Marsalkka Mannerheimin perinnesäätiö), the main purpose of which is to preserve the memory of Mannerheim, as well as financially support research in the field of Finnish military history.

monuments

equestrian monument in Helsinki (sculptor Aimo Tukiainen), opened in 1960,

Monument in Turku

a monument in Tampere,

equestrian monument in Lahti,

Museum of the headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim and a monument in Mikkeli,

Museum in Louhisaari's family castle.

Russia

On June 14, 2007, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth of K. G. Mannerheim, a bust of the “Cavalier Guard Mannerheim” was erected in St. Petersburg ( sculptor Aydin Aliyev) and an exposition dedicated to his life and work was opened (Shpalernaya Street, 41, Marshal Hotel).

In 2015, it was assumed that a memorial plaque to K. G. Mannerheim would be opened on the facade of house 31 on Galernaya Street, where the military intelligence of the Russian Empire was located before the revolution. The plans caused a public outcry, on the eve of the planned grand opening ceremony, the board disappeared.

On June 16, 2016, a memorial plaque was installed on the facade of house No. 22 on Zakharyevskaya Street, in this building, which now houses the building of the Military Engineering and Technical University, before the revolution there was the Church of Saints and Righteous Zacharias and Elizabeth, the Life Guards of the Cavalier Guard Regiment. Mannerheim served in this regiment.