Krymov, Aleksandr

Krymov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich 

Born Oct. 23 (Nov. 4), 1871; died Aug. 31 (Sept. 13), 1917, in Petrograd. Russian lieutenant general (1917). Son of a noble in Warsaw Province.

Krymov graduated from the Pavel Military School and the Academy of the General Staff (1902). He fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and served in the Main Headquarters and the Main Directorate of the General Staff from 1906 to 1911. At the beginning of World War I (1914–18), Krymov served on the staff of the Second Army and took up command of the Ussuri Cavalry Brigade (later, division) in March 1915 and the III Cavalry Corps in April 1917. Krymov was closely linked with the Octobrists’ party and especially with its leader A. I. Guchkov. During the Kornilovshchina he was sent by General Head-quarters to Petrograd at the head of the III Cavalry Corps to suppress the revolutionary forces. When the soldiers refused to attack, he went to Petrograd to explain his actions to A. F. Kerensky, but when he was ordered arrested and when he saw that the Kornilov venture had collapsed, he shot himself.