Alexander Samsonov

Alexander or Aleksandr Vasilyevich Samsonov was a career officer in the cavalry of the Imperial Russian Army and a general during the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. He was the commander of the Russian Second Army which was surrounded and defeated by the German Eighth Army in the Battle of Tannenberg, one of the early battles of World War I. Ashamed by his loss of the army, Samsonov committed suicide while retreating from the battlefield.