Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky (1738-1809), Russian Field Marshal-General, participant in the Seven Years ' War of 1756-1763 and the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1768-1774 and 1787-1791. He commanded a brigade, a separate corps. In the Russo-Prussian-French War of 1806-1807, he was commander-in-chief of the Russian Army.

...This happened during the second Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1791. In the area of the Moldavian village of Gankur, Kamensky's division was attacked by the forces of Mehmet Giray, the son of the Crimean Khan, an ally of the Ottoman Empire. The outcome of the case was decided by a masterful maneuver of the general-in-chief. With a combined blow to the flank and rear, he overturned the enemy, and the Tatars fled. The Russian cavalry gave chase. In the sich, Mehmet Giray fell with a hundred of his soldiers, in addition, the Russians captured prisoners and considerable trophies, including artillery and six banners.

In war as in war. But even the most intense ecstasy of victory is not able to overshadow the noble warrior's compassion for the defeated enemy. At the end of the battle, Kamensky ordered to find the remains of the commander on the battlefield and transfer them to the enemy. Appealing, as they say now, to universal values, in a letter to the khan, he noted that he was transferring the body of his son so that he could be buried according to the Muslim rite, and he was doing this "not as a Russian general, but as a father whose children might suffer the same fate."..

The army biography of Mikhail Kamensky (he was born in 1738, graduated from the land cadet corps) began during the Seven Years ' War. But although he managed to study the Prussian army well both in battle (he participated in the campaigns of 1760 and 1761) and theoretically (in 1765 he served as a military agent under Frederick II), he still gained military fame in battles with the Turks.

By the beginning of the first Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774, 30 - year-old Mikhail Fedotovich was already a major general. "Kamensky's ardent, cool temper, quick, shrewd mind, and exemplary courage," wrote the historian D. M. Bantysh-Kamensky, " even at that time brought him out of the circle of ordinary people." In the 1st army of Prince A. M. Golitsyn, he was given command of a brigade of five infantry regiments. The first real task fell almost immediately, as soon as the army crossed the Dniester and on April 19, 1769, approached the Khotyn fortress. It was defended by the 40-thousandth corps of Karaman Pasha, in turn covered by fortress guns. The Russians, with Kamensky's brigade in the vanguard, attacked the enemy and, despite heavy fire, put them to flight. Part of the infantry corps disappeared behind the fortress gates, thereby strengthening the garrison of Khotyn.

Without siege artillery, it was unthinkable to take it. While waiting for guns and looking for fodder, Golitsyn retreated across the Dniester. This delay caused displeasure in St. Petersburg, and P. A. Rumyantsev was to replace the commander-in-chief. But Golitsyn managed to end his participation in the campaign on a high note, which was paradoxically helped by the supreme vizier's vehemence. On August 29, deceived by the apparent slowness of the Russians, he attacked our army. In the battle that began, Kamensky distinguished himself very much. He, having made a rapid march, promptly transferred the brigade to the left flank at the disposal of General N. I. Saltykov, thanks to which, at the critical moment of the battle, the situation was turned in his favor; Having lost at least seven thousand killed, the Turks fled in disarray. Ten days later Khotyn was captured. For this campaign, Kamensky was awarded the first significant award - the Order of St. John the Baptist. Anna.

In the following year, 1770, he, commanding the same brigade, distinguished himself during the successful assault on Bender, personally leading the attack of the chasseurs. The award for this was the Order of St. George, 4th class.

Kamensky was awarded the Order of the second, 3rd degree and the rank of Lieutenant General for the campaign of 1773, defeating the Turkish corps on the island in front of the fortress of Jurzha. But perhaps the most successful campaign of his entire career was the campaign of 1774. Unfortunately, the personal triumph of the commander did not automatically mean the triumph of the entire army, and the main reason here is Kamensky's exorbitant ambition, his unwillingness to share glory with anyone.

In 1774, his corps first operated together with the detachment of A.V. Suvorov. Army commander Rumyantsev, retaining the possibility of independent actions for each of them, nevertheless gave the right to make a final decision according to seniority to Kamensky. On June 2, Mikhail Fedotovich took the fortress of Bazardzhik and headed for Shumla. Suvorov, who was in the vanguard with 8 thousand bayonets, collided with the 40-thousandth Turkish corps moving towards Kozludzha. Acting according to his commandment - eye, onslaught, speed, the future generalissimo independently, without waiting for Kamensky's corps, got involved in the battle and completely defeated the enemy. There was a hidden conflict: Kamensky, having stayed away from this brilliant victory, deliberately did not take advantage of its fruits and suspended the movement to Shumla. Meanwhile, it, essentially left without a garrison, could be taken relatively easily and thus put an effective end to the war.

Rumyantsev was enraged by this act of the subordinate general. "Not days and hours, but moments in this situation are expensive," he reasonably remarked, giving Kamensky a severe reprimand. A wounded Suvorov, saying that he was ill, asked for leave. "Two heroes... they didn't love each other, " the historian wrote about them. "One envied the glory of a junior comrade, the other, feeling superior, was burdened by subordination."

Having got rid of his rival, Kamensky still moved to Shumla, repelled the Turks ' sortie from there and stopped any communication between the Grand Vizier and Adrianople. But I didn't have time to take the fortress: On July 10, 1774, the Kyuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace was signed. Catherine II ignored the conflict between her generals described above and awarded Kamensky the Orders of St. George, 2nd class, and Alexander Nevsky. But she probably remembered it a few years later, during the second war between Russia and Turkey.

General-in-Chief Kamensky was entrusted with a corps in the army of Field Marshal Rumyantsev, but Mikhail Fedotovich considered it more profitable to serve under the command of the Empress's favorite GA Potemkin. To his horror, the subtle intrigue he had started against the commander was exposed by the very person to whom such obsequiousness was expressed - Potemkin. Kamensky fell greatly in the eyes of Catherine. But by slipping on the parquet floor, the commander seemed to have rehabilitated himself on the battlefield. For the victory at Gancourt, with the description of which we began our story, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st class. However, after 1789, he was still recalled from the active army. Three years later, he finally compromised himself in the eyes of the Empress, and again because of morbid ambition.

Appointed shortly before Potemkin's death, which followed on October 5, 1791, Kamensky committed, in Catherine's words, "strange acts"under his command. Literally over the body of the deceased, he, as the remaining senior, gathered a military council and announced the assumption of the duties of commander-in-chief. However, a few days later, General-in-chief M. V. Kakhovsky arrived at the main headquarters, to whom Potemkin managed to transfer his powers in writing. The conflict between the generals was resolved by Catherine, who found Kamensky's actions arbitrary and incompatible with the law and the possibility of continuing military service. In private letters, her assessments were even more harsh: "Crazy Kamensky is naughty, a meeting of generals for the sake of judging who to command, proves the recklessness of the collector, and after this act it is hardly possible to have a power of attorney to him." The celebration of the soon-concluded Peace of Iasi was held without the disgraced military leader.

Five years later, Mother Catherine also passed away, which allowed Mikhail Fedotovich to interrupt his village seclusion. Emperor Paul I, who took the throne, initially favored him very much. He remembered how thirty years ago Kamensky had presented Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich with an essay in which he spoke enthusiastically about the military arrangements of his idol Frederick the Great, and urged him to choose a military path, to become the successor of the glorious military deeds of his great great-grandfather Peter I. And now it has responded to Kamensky with a waterfall of awards and honors: he became a Field Marshal General and a knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, received the title of count, and was appointed chief of the Ryazan Musketeer Regiment. But a year later, Pavel cooled down to the newly-minted field marshal, dismissed him "because of poor health and sent him back to the village. By the way, the same fate befell Field Marshal Suvorov and General-in-Chief (renamed Paul in the generals of infantry) Kakhovsky.

Kamensky once again had a chance to experience a sharp change of fate. In 1806, on the eve of the war with Napoleon, patriotic circles, with the support of Count A. A. Arakcheev, imposed an elderly field Marshal on Alexander I as commander-in-chief of the Russian army. His popularity in society and at court instantly rose to unprecedented heights, in the capital he was literally accepted as the savior of Russia. It is not entirely clear what this belief in his military genius was based on: after all, even from the first Russo-Turkish war, it was known that despite his undoubted courage and energy, he did not have a bright generalship talent, in fact, he had no experience in managing large formations and showed an inability to conduct independent operations. Suvorov admitted that Kamensky knew only tactics. And only a frenzied ambition, which did not change him at the age of 68, can be explained by agreeing to once again become the head of the troops.

Sober self-esteem, apparently, began to come to the elderly field marshal already on the way to the theater of military operations. He arrived at headquarters on December 7, a full month after receiving the imperial rescript appointing him Commander-in-Chief. He gave a number of vague orders that largely predetermined the defeat of the Russian army in the first battle of Pultusk. Moreover, on the eve of the battle, without the permission of the emperor, he left the army, citing a certain injury, inability to ride, and therefore command the army.

Annoyed by the defeat, Alexander I initially recognized Kamensky as a "fugitive from the army" and intended to put him on trial. But then, apparently, taking into account his considerable years and the loss, as many believed, of the "ability to think", he allowed him to retire to his estate.

After all, this man was original. Even his demise was quite unusual for people of his class and position. The field Marshal fell at the hands of his serf. But it was not oppression, not unfair punishment from the landowner, that caused this. In the person of an old soldier, the assassin eliminated his brother's rival, who was favored by Parasha, Kamensky's yard girl. Well, at least in a soldier's way, one of the last Catherine's eagles fell at the hands of the enemy, and not from vodka and colds.

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