BENNIGSEN, LEVIN AUGUST, COUNT VON (1745 1826), Russian general, of Hanoverian family, was born Feb. I o, in Brunswick, and served in the Hanoverian Army until 1764. In 1773 he entered the Russian service as a field officer. He fought against the Turks in '774 and in '778, becoming lieutenant colonel in the latter year. He distinguished himself repeatedly in the Polish War of 1793-94 and in the Persian War of 1796. The part played by Bennigsen in the actual assassination of the tsar Paul I. is not fully known, but he took a most active share in the formation and conduct of the conspiracy. Alexander I. made him governor-general of Lithuania in 18o1, and in 1802 a general of cavalry. In 18o6 he was in command of one of the Russian armies operating against Napoleon, when he fought the battle of Pultusk and met the emperor in person in the sanguinary battle of Eylau (Feb. 8, 1807). Here he could claim to have inflicted the first re verse suffered by Napoleon, but six months later Bennigsen met with the crushing defeat of Friedland (June 14, 1807), the direct consequence of which was the Treaty of Tilsit. Bennigsen now re tired for some years, but in the campaign of 1812 he fought at Borodino, and defeated Murat in the engagement of Tarutino, but on account of a quarrel with Marshal Kutusov he was compelled to retire. After the death of Kutusov he was recalled and placed at the head of an army. Bennigsen led one of the columns which made the decisive attack on the last day of the battle of Leipzig (Oct. 16-19, 1813) . On the same evening he was made a count by the emperor Alexander I., and he afterwards commanded the forces which operated against Marshal Devout in North Germany. He retired from active service in 1818, and settled on his Han overian estate of Banteln near Hildesheim. Count Bennigsen died on Dec. 3, 1826. His son, ALEXANDER LEVIN, count von Bennigsen (1809-93), was a distinguished Hanoverian statesman.