Alexander Korsakov

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Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov (August 24, 1753 – May 25, 1840) was a Russian General remembered as an unlucky assistant to Alexander Suvorov during his Swiss expedition of 1799-1800.

Korsakov entered military service early, and fought in the Russo-Turkish War in 1788 and 1789, and then in the Russo-Swedish War. He subsequently became a major-general of the Semenovsky regiment of the Leib Guard, assigned to accompany the Count of Artois to England. From there he went to Flanders to the army commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg, with which he participated in the Battle of Fleurus (1794). Returning to St. Petersburg, he fought under Count Valerian Zubov in an ill-fated expedition against Persia, which Emperor Paul I recalled in 1799 in order to deal with the French Revolutionary Wars.

Paul I gave Korsakov command of an army of 40,000 men to drive the French out of Switzerland. Korsakov took the army to Zürich to join up with the 25,000-man army of Austrian general Friedrich von Hotze; Alexander Suvorov's army was also supposed to meet them, but did not arrive in time. The French under André Masséna attacked on September 25, 1799 in the Second Battle of Zürich, winning a victory and forcing Korsakov to withdraw. He led the remainder of his army towards Lindall and combined it with that of Suvarov, who took over primary command. The combined army turned towards Bohemia, from which Paul I recalled it to Russia for the winter.

With the accession of Emperor Alexander I in 1801, Korsakov was appointed cavalry general. He soon retired from military command, and from 1805 to 1830 served as Governor-General of Lithuania and ordered the reconstruction of the Tuskulėnai Manor in Vilnius, where he lived. He died in 1840 in St. Petersburg as a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia.

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