For some reason, many figures of the historical past, especially in Russian history, for some reason are often perceived not entirely, comprehensively, not in an attempt to cover all facets of a person's personality, but through the prism of some separate period of his life (usually negative), which supposedly highlights the shortcomings of this a person, some of his actions, evaluating which critical descendants clap their tongues and shake their heads disapprovingly. This rule, however, applies not only to people, but also to historical epochs, individual stages, which are also conventionally divided into "black" and "white" according to the results of the deeds of certain historical figures.
An example of this kind of subjective approach is Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf, known to most people from the Soviet school bench as a servant of the tyrant and "gendarme of Europe" Nicholas I, the creator of the school of political investigation and the harsh tsarist repressive apparatus.
At the same time, the fact is somehow completely forgotten that Benckendorff was a brilliant Russian military officer, one of the revered heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812, the author of military memoirs "Notes", which are still interesting from a historical point of view.
The Russian family of Benckendorffs descended from a certain Andrei Benckendorff, who migrated from Germany to Livonia in the 16th century. Over time, having passed into Russian citizenship, the descendants of this Benckendorff, for their good service to the Russian tsars, receive the nobility. Benckendorff's grandfather - Johann Michael - was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, being at the same time the military commandant of the Baltic Reval. One of his five sons, Christopher Ivanovich, also chose a military career and proved himself to be a courageous officer, a hero of the Russian-Turkish war. For which he was rightly appointed by Paul I as General of Infantry and Military Commandant of Riga.
Thus, it is clear that Alexander Khristoforovich did not have a special career alternative: he had to continue the dynastic tradition of his military fathers, and serve the Tsar and the Fatherland as brilliantly as his ancestors did. I must say that Alexander Benckendorff coped with this task as well as possible.
The war period of Alexander Benckendorff began in the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment. In 1799, at the age of 16, he already received the rank of ensign and served at the same time as the aide-de-camp of Emperor Paul I.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Alexander Khristoforovich, along with some other young nobles, was enrolled in a group that went on a journey "with inspection" across Russia. Baikal, Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk provinces - on this voyage Benkendorf got acquainted with the life of Russia in the outback.
In Astrakhan, he met M. S. Vorontsov and, having become close friends, young people decide to drastically change their fate, entering the Caucasian Corps as volunteers under the leadership of Prince Tsitsianov. This corps set off on a campaign to the Ganja Khanate (one of the ancient territories of Georgia). In this campaign, Benckendorff showed desperate courage and for his participation in the capture of the fortress of Ganzhi received the Order of Anna, 3rd degree and St. Vladimir, 4th degree.
During the war 1806-1807 Benckendorff took part in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau, again distinguished himself by bravery worthy of the best Russian officers, and received the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree. The end of the entire military campaign finds Benckendorff already in the rank of colonel.
After the end of this war, Alexander Khristoforovich, as part of the P. A. Tolstoy embassy, went to Paris and spent the next couple of years traveling between France and Russia, carrying out important assignments.
In the spring of 1809, relations with Turkey worsened again, and a new war began. Alexander Benckendorf takes part in the battle of Ruschuk, where he also showed remarkable heroism and tactical ingenuity. So, it is documented that, being at the head of the Chuguevsky regiment of lancers, Benkendorf noticed that the enemy bypassed the location of the Russian units and with a lightning attack blocked the enemy's path, breaking him with a swift attack. For his courage during this campaign, Benckendorff was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.
After such a tumultuous life in military campaigns, it would seem, there was nothing left for Benckendorff but to return to the bosom of secular life as the aide-de-camp of Alexander I, but fate again gave him a chance to show himself as a brilliant and brave Russian officer on the battlefield. The year 1812 has come …
Alexander Khristoforovich meets the war as part of the Imperial Headquarters (an institution under the emperor to carry out his personal orders). Alexander I appreciates Benckendorff, entrusting him with sending secret reports to P. I. Bagration, commander of the Second Army. The reports had a really deeply secret status and concerned the emperor's considerations regarding the unification of the First and Second armies. In the summer of 1812, Benckendorff was sent to the "flying squad" of Adjutant General F. F. Wintzengerode, whose task was to serve as a link between the "large army and the army under the command of Count Wittgenstein, to protect the interior of the country from enemy detachments and foragers and to act depending on the circumstances. to the messages of the French army”(as Benckendorff himself writes in his memoirs). It was as part of this detachment on July 27 that he attacked the city of Velizh occupied by French troops, for which he was promoted to the rank of major general.
A little later, Benckendorf with a detachment of 80 Cossacks helps to establish contact between the Wincengerode detachment and the corps of General Wittgenstein, while taking three hundred French prisoners.
After the Battle of Borodino, the Vincengerode detachment on the Zvenigorod road fought the vanguard of the 4th corps of the combined Italian-French troops, managing to detain them and thus ensure the passage of Kutuzov to Moscow. Shortly thereafter, Vincengerode departed for the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief in Fili, transferring control of the "flying detachment" to Alexander Benckendorff.
After the French left Moscow on October 7, the detachment was one of the first to appear in the city, and Benckendorf became the temporary Moscow commandant. And then he had the opportunity to show his administrative capabilities for the first time: having driven a crowd of looters away from the Kremlin, he set up guards at wine cellars and vegetable stores, sealed the Assumption Cathedral and brought relative order in Moscow, agitated by the French.
However, wartime did not allow to sit for a long time in one place, and already on October 23 Benckendorff rejoins the "flying detachment", which is now headed by Major General PV Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Leading an offensive on the fleeing French up to the Niemen, the detachment was the first to cross the river. During this offensive, the Russian units under the command of Benckendorff captured more than 6,000 people, including three generals.
In further hostilities, Alexander Benkendorf commanded his own partisan detachment, consisting of 180 hussars, 150 dragoons and 700-800 daring Cossacks. The battles at Marienwerder, Frankfurt an der Oder, Fürstenwald, Müncherberg and other cities once again showed Benckendorff as an excellent warrior, who boldly acted in the thick of military events, and did not sit out in the rear headquarters.
On February 20, 1813, Benckendorf, together with the detachments of Chernyshev and Tetenborn, entered Berlin, and after a while they were actively operating throughout Saxony. Since September 1813, Alexander Khristoforovich, as part of the vanguard of the Vincennerode corps, fights at Groß-Beeren, and in the landmark Battle of Leipzig he leads the left cavalry corps of the Vincennerode army.
A separate episode in the Patriotic War of 1812, undeservedly "forgotten" by descendants, for Benckendorffw was the liberation of the state of the Netherlands from the French army. Having acted as a vanguard detachment of 7 thousand people allocated to him by Wincendorde, Benckendorff showed a truly commanding talent in the Dutch campaign: he took Amsterdam and Utrecht, captured several fortresses and more than 100 units of military equipment. Later, Benckendorff's detachment successfully operated in Belgium.
From January 1814 Benckendorff's detachment can be seen again as part of the corps of General Wincengerode (as part of the Silesian army). Already in France, during the general offensive of the Allied army on Paris, the Wincengerode corps near Saint-Dizier interfered with the passage of the Napoleonic army to the capital - Benckendorff was also an active participant in those military operations.
During the campaign of 1812 - 1814, Alexander Benckendorff did not receive a single wound, but he received regular military awards: the Order of St. Anne, 1st class with diamond insignia, the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd class, as well as the Great Cross of the Swedish sword and the Pour le merite ". The Russian hero was also awarded by the Dutch king, who granted Benckendorff Dutch citizenship and presented him with a sword with the dedication "Amsterdam and Breda".
All his further life, Count Benckendorff devoted to the sovereign service, seeing in his mission as the head of the gendarme police department not a way to suppress the love of freedom and dissent of Russian citizens by repression, but a way of simple civil (symmetrically military) service to society as a whole and personally to the monarch, who was responsible for managing this society.
I would like to hope that sooner or later the personality of Alexander Khristoforovich Benckendorff will finally be as objectively as possible by historians, and in school textbooks, instead of stamped phrases about him as a "tsarist satrap", at least a few paragraphs will appear, presenting Benckendorff as a wonderful Russian tsarist officer, a real hero of the Patriotic War of 1812.
