SKOBELEV, MIKHAIL DIMITRIEVICH Russian general, was born near Moscow on Sept. 29, 1843. Af ter graduating as a staff officer at St. Petersburg he was sent to Turkestan in 1868 and, with the exception of an interval of two years, during which he was on the staff of the grand duke Michael in the Caucasus, remained in Central Asia until 1877. He com manded the advanced guard of General Lomakine's column from Kinderly Bay, in the Caspian, to join General Verefkin, from Orenburg, in the expedition to Khiva in 1874, and, after great suffering on the desert march, took a prominent part in the cap ture of the Khivan capital. Dressed as a Turkoman, he intrepidly explored in a hostile country the route from Khiva to Igdy, and also the old bed of the Oxus. In 1875 he was given a command in the expedition against Khokand under General Kaufmann. For his great services he was promoted to be major-general and appointed the first governor of Fergana. In the Turkish War of 1877 he seized the bridge over the Sereth at Barborchi in April, and in June crossed the Danube with the 8th corps. He com manded the Caucasian Cossack Brigade in the attack of the Green Hills at the second battle of Plevna. He captured Lovtcha on Sept. 3, and distinguished himself again in the desperate fight ing on the Green Hills in the third battle of Plevna. In command
of the 16th Division, he took part in the investment of Plevna and also in the fight of Dec. 9, when Osman Pasha surrendered, with his army. In January 1878 he crossed the Balkans in a severe snowstorm, defeating the Turks at Senova, near Schipka, and capturing 36,00o men and 90 guns. Dressed in white uniform and mounted on a white horse, and always in the thickest of the fray, he was known and adored by his soldiers as the "White General." He returned to Turkestan after the war, and in 188o and 1881 further distinguished himself in retrieving the disasters inflicted by the Tekke Turkomans, captured Geok-Tepe, and, after much slaughter, reduced the Akhal-Tekke country to sub mission. He was advancing on Askabad and Kalat i-Nadiri when he was disavowed and recalled. He was given the command at Minsk. In the last years of his short life he engaged actively in politics, and made speeches in Paris and in Moscow in the begin ning of 1882 in favour of a militant Panslavism, predicting a desperate strife between Teuton and Slay. He was at once re called to St. Petersburg. He was staying at a Moscow hotel, on his way from Minsk to his estate close by, when he died suddenly of heart disease on July 7, 1882.