Ivan Lebedeff Ivan Lebedeff (1894年6月18日)

Lithuanian-born Ivan Lebedeff was educated at the University of St. Petersburg. He was slated for a diplomatic career in the Imperial Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo - a natural progression, since his aristocratic father was a highly-placed advisor to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. However, the outbreak of World War I changed all that. Ivan enlisted as a volunteer in the Third Regiment of the Imperial Dragoons and was soon decorated and promoted after capturing a German general near Pskov, at the small town of Nevel. He was wounded in action on more than one occasion, as well as suffering from the effects of mustard gas. Transferred to the Romanian front, he found himself deserted by nearly everyone under his command as the Russian Revolution took hold.