Ali-Agha Shikhlinski
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Ali-Agha Ismail-Agha oglu Shikhlinski was lieutenant-general of the Russian tsarist army and Deputy Minister of Defense and General of the Artillery of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
Ali-Agha Shikhlinski was born on April 23, 1865 in the village of Kazakhly of Kazakh uyezd. In August 1876 he entered Tiflis military school and graduated in 1883. He then finished Mikhaylovsky Artillery School in Sankt-Petersburg in 1886, received the rank of podporuchik and was assigned to 39th artillery brigade, located in Alexandropol. In the course of military service he was promoted to poruchik, then shtabs-captain and assigned the commander of the training team. In 1900 captain Shikhlinski was transferred to Transbaikal artillery battalion. He took part in China Relief Expedition of the Russian army.
During the Russo-Japanese War Shikhlinski was the commander of an artillery battery. He especially distinguished himself during the siege of Port Arthur, when despite being severely wounded in his leg he personally aimed the guns which lost their guncrews and repulsed attacks of superior Japanese forces. For the services in battle on September 28, 1905 he was decorated with the Order of Saint George of IV degree. He was also awarded a golden sword and conferred the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
In January 1906 Shikhlinski was seconded to Tsarskoye Selo Officer's Artillery College, which he finished with honors in August of the same year and was appointed the instructor of the Artillery College. During his service as the instructor of the college Shikhlinski published a number of works on artillery, including a book titled “Use of Field Artillery in a Battle”, and invented an original target-finding device, which was called “Shiklinski triangle”. In 1908 Shiklinski was promoted to the rank of colonel, and in 1912 he was conferred the rank of major-general and assigned the deputy chief of Officer's Artillery College.
When the World War I started in 1914 Ali-Agha Shikhlinski was appointed the commander of St. Petersburg garrison artillery. In January 1915 Shikhlinski was seconded to the North-Western front to manage the training of heavy artillery guncrews. On May 23, 1915 he was appointed the general for errands at commander-in-chief of North-Western front, and after division of the front into two held the same position at Western front. On October 31, 1915 he was appointed to the position of the general for errands at the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. He was charged with creation of heavy artillery battalions and brigades. From April 1916 16, Shikhlinski was the acting inspector of Western Front artillery. He was in charge of the artillery aspects of operations of the Western Front. On April 2, 1917 Ali-Agha Shikhlinski was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general.
After the February Revolution in Russia Ali-Agha Shikhlinski was appointed the commander of the 10th Russian army in September 1917, but resigned after the October revolution and moved to Tiflis, where he was charged with formation of the Muslim (Azerbaijani) corps. The corps supported the Turkish Army of Islam in the battles for Baku with Bolshevik and British forces. In January 1919 the government of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic appointed Shikhlinski a deputy to the Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan Republic Samedbey Mehmandarov. On June 28, 1919 Ali-Agha Shikhlinski was promoted to the rank of General of the Artillery of the Azerbaijani army. After Red Army invasion to Azerbaijan and establishment of the Soviet rule in Azerbaijan in April 1920 Shikhlinski was arrested, but was released two months later.
In 1920 – 1921 he was seconded to Moscow, where he was an advisor to the artillery inspection department of RKKA and taught in Higher Artillery School. On 18 July 1921 he was transferred back to Baku, where he taught in a military school and became a deputy to the chairman of military science society of Baku garrison. In 1926, Shikhlinsky published Russian-Azerbaijani Concise Military Dictionary. He resigned from military service in 1929 and wrote his memoirs, which were published in 1944.
Ali-Agha Shikhlinski died in Baku on August 18, 1943.
