Evgenii Miller

Evgenii Karlovich Miller ( _ru. Евгений Карлович Миллер) (September 25, 1867, Daugavpils, Latvia –May 11, 1939, Moscow) was a Russian general and one of the leaders of counterrevolutionary White movement during and after Russian Civil War.

Biography

Miller was a career officer born in a Russian-German family in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia). After he graduated from the General Staff Academy he served with Russian Imperial Guard. Between 1898 and 1907 he was a Russian military attaché in several European capitals such as Rome, The Hague and Brussels. During the First World War headed Moscow military district and 5th Russian army and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.

Civil War

After the February Revolution of 1917 General Miller opposed "democratization" of the Russian army and was arrested by his own soldiers after he ordered them to remove red arm bands.

After the October Bolshevik coup Miller fled to Archangelsk and declared himself Governor-General of Northern Russia. In May 1919 Admiral Kolchak appointed him to be in charge of the White army in the region. In Archangelsk, Murmansk and Olonets his anti-Bolshevik army was supported by the Entente, mostly British forces. However, after unsuccessful advance against the Red Army along the Northern Dvina in the summer of 1919, British forces withdrew from the region and Miller's men faced the enemy alone.

Exile

In February 1920, General Miller left Archangelsk for Norway. Later he moved to France and together with Grand Duke Nicholas and Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel continued anti-Bolshevik activity. Between 1930 and 1937 Miller was a chairmen of the Russian All-Military Union.

On September 22, 1937, NKVD agent Nikolai Skoblin, working undercover in the Russian All-Military Union, led General Miller to a meeting with two German agents to discuss the beginning of a secret collaboration between the ROVS and the Nazi Government. The agents were not Germans, they were in fact members of the NKVD disguised as Germans. They drugged Miller, placed him in a steamer trunk, smuggled him aboard a Soviet ship in Le Havre. However, Miller left behind a note to be opened if he failed to return from the meeting. In it, he detailed his suspicions about Skoblin. The French police launched a manhunt, but Skoblin hid in the Soviet embassy in Paris and eventually made his escape to Spain.

The NKVD successfully carried General Miller back to Moscow, where he was tortured and finally executed nineteen months later on May 11, 1939. (Copies of letters written by Miller while he was imprisoned in Moscow are in the Dimitri Volkogonov papers at the Library of Congress.)

The kidnapping was the subject of a book, "The Fear". It was also the basis of the French film "Triple Agent" (2004), directed by Éric Rohmer.

See also

* White movement
* North Russia Campaign
* Russian All-Military Union