Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel

Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel (Барон Пётр Николаевич Врангель, Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Vrangel ; August 15, 1878April 22, 1928) was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.

Life

Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire (near present-day Zarasai), Lithuania. The Wrangel family was of the local Baltic German nobility, but Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was only distantly related to the famed Arctic explorer Ferdinand von Wrangel.

After graduating from the Rostov Technical High School in 1896 and the Institute of Mining Engineering in St. Petersburg in 1901, Wrangel volunteered for the prestigious Life Guards cavalry and was commissioned a reserve officer in 1902 after graduating from the Nikolaev Cavalry School. He soon resigned his commission, and travelled to Irkutsk, where he was assigned to special missions by the Governor-General.

At the start of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he re-enlisted and was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Corps. In December 1904, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After the war ended, he was reassigned to the 55th Finnish Dragoon Regiment, which participated in the punitive expedition under General A.N. Orlov in the Baltic region. In 1907, he returned to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. Wrangel graduated from the Mykolayiv......
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