Paul von Rennenkampf

Paul von Rennenkampf
General Paul von Rennenkampf, 1905
Born	(1854-04-17)17 April 1854 Konuvere, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire
Died	1 April 1918(1918-04-01) (aged 63) Taganrog, Russian Empire
Allegiance	Russian Empire
Service/branch	Imperial Russian Army
Years of service	1870–1915
Rank	General of the Cavalry
Commands held	Russian First Army (1914)
Battles/wars	Boxer Rebellion Russo-Japanese War World War I
Awards	see below

Paul von Rennenkampf (or Pavel Karlovich Rennenkampf) (Russian: Павел Карлович фон Ренненкампф) (17 April 1854 – 1 April 1918) was a Russian general who served in the Imperial Russian Army for over 40 years, including during World War I.

Rennenkampf, of Baltic German extraction, was born in 1854 in Konuvere Manor now in Märjamaa Parish, Rapla County, Estonia. He joined the Imperial Russian Army at 19 and attended the Junker Infantry School in Helsinki. He began his military career with the Lithuanian 5th Lancers Regiment. He graduated at the head of his class from the Nikolaevsky Military Academy in St. Petersburg in 1882. He was assigned as a junior officer to the 14th Army Corps until 1884, and to the Warsaw Military District followed by the Kazan Military District to 1886. Rennenkampf was subsequently a senior aide to the headquarters of the Don Cossacks from March 1888, staff officer to the 2nd Army Corps from October 1889, and Chief of Staff of the Osowiec Fortress from March 1890. The same year he was promoted to colonel. From November 1899, Rennenkampf, as chief of staff of the Transbaikalia region, was promoted to major general.

Rennenkampf commanded four infantry battalions, two Cossack sotnias, and two horse batteries, during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900-01, and was responsible for the capture of Tsitsihar and Kirin in Manchuria, thereby removing any Boxer threat to Harbin and the Chinese Eastern Railway. During this campaign, he was decorated with both the 4th degree and 3rd degree Order of St. George for military distinction.