Pierre Thiébaut Charles Maurice Janin was born in
Paris on the 19 October 1862. studied at
Special Military School at Saint-Cyr, which he graduated in 1882. In 1912, He briefly worked as an instructor at the
Saint Petersburg military academy. He then served in the 31st and 123rd Infantry Regiments before and during the first world war. He fought in the
Battle of the Yser in 1914 and was victorious. Shortly after the battle he was made deputy chief of staff at the
French army headquarters. In April 1916, the French
president Poincáre sent him to Russia as the commander of the French military mission. The aims of the mission were to help
Romania join the war on the
Entente's side and to improve the tactical training of the Russian army. Janin met Tsar
Nicholas II and found him to not know much about the state of his own army saying that "He was very poorly informed about current events. He had no opportunity to form his own judgment of the facts. He did not read newspapers, but only excerpts from newspapers. We can compare it to how daily light penetrates a dark cellar through a small window." In March 1917, a
revolution broke out in Russia, the Tsar abdicated and the monarchy was abolished. The
Russian Republic was established and the government decided to continue to fight in the war on the Entente's side. On 7 November,
communists under the leadership of
Vladimir Lenin launched a coup by occupying government buildings in Saint Petersburg and on the 8th they took the
Winter Palace (the seat of the government) beginning a
civil war. Janin left Russia the same day. At the beginning of 1918, Janin was made the minister of war for the
Czechoslovak national council (based in Paris). By July, he was appointed chief of the
Allied military mission in Siberia as part of the
intervention in the Russian Civil War and moved back to Russia. In November there was a
bloodless coup against the
All-Russian Directory (the Allied supported Russian government), several
Social-Revolutionary members of the Directory were arrested and the remaining ministers voted to make
Admiral Alexander Kolchak (The minister of War and Navy) the
supreme leader. By November 1919, the
Red Army began to push the white army into a rapid retreat across Siberia known as the
Great Siberian Ice March. During this long march, Janin detained Supreme Leader Kolchak because Kolchak had refused to give him control of the main gold reserve of the army. In January of 1920, they arrived in the city of
Irkutsk and Janin handed Kolchak over to the local
Social-Revolutionary committee along with a disputed number of wagons of gold to ensure his own safety. Janin said that "Psychologically, we cannot accept responsibility for the safety of the admiral's journey... After I suggested that he transfer the gold reserve under my personal responsibility and he refused to trust me, I can no longer do anything". In February 1920, Kolchak was executed by firing squad. Janin returned home to France shortly after this and defended the accusations that he had personally betrayed Kolchak and the anti-Bolshevik movement by saying that it was "fairy tales" and that people couldn't "imagine the real state of affairs in its true light". He died on 28 April 1946 in France. ==Awards==