him to conclude a peace agreement with the Hittites. Al-
though he then warred against the Libyans in northern
Africa, historians believe that most of his later years were
free of warfare. Married several times, Ramses allegedly
had up to 200 children during his lifetime.
Following his death, Ramses was ceremonially
mummified and laid to rest in his tomb. His mummy
was discovered in Deir-al-Bahari in Egypt in 1881 and
was moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where it
remains to this day.
References: Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson, Pharaoh Tri-
umphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt
(Warminster, U.K.: Aris & Phillips, 1983); Lanoye, Ferdi-
nand de, Rameses the Great; or, Egypt 3300 Years Ago (New
York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1870); Schmidt,
John D., Ramesses II: A Chronological Structure for his
Reign (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973); Suhr, Robert Collins, “Ambush at Kadesh,” Mili-
tary History 12, no. 3 (August 1995): 46–53; Seele, Keith
Cedric, The Coregency of Ramses II with Seti I and the Date
of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak (Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1940); Ferrill, Arthur, “History,
Ancient Military,” in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Military
History and Biography, edited by Franklin D. Margiotta
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), 432–433; Weeks,
Kent R., The Lost Tomb: The Greatest Discovery at the Val-
ley of the Kings since Tutankhamen (London: Weidenfeld
& Nicolson, 1998).
Reggio, duc de See oudinot, nicolas charles,
duc de reggio.
Rennenkampf, Pavel-Georges Karlovich von
(1854–1918) Russian general
Born in Estonia on 17 April 1854, the son of a Ger-
man noble, Pavel-Georges von Rennenkampf received
a military education at the Helsingfors Cadet School in
what is now Helsinki, Finland. After graduating from
the Nikolaevsky Military Academy, St. Petersburg, in
1882, he was appointed to the Russian General Staff.
He rose to the rank of colonel in 1890, and in 1900
he became a major general. That same year, he was at-
tached to Russian forces in China and became involved
in the revolt to eject foreigners from China, known as
the Boxer Rebellion.
Rennenkampf ’s name was made during the Russo-
Japanese War (1904–05), when he served as the com-
mander of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division. He was
promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in July 1904
and saw action in the battles of Liao-Yang (24 August–4
August 1904), the Sha Ho River (9–16 October 1904),
and Mukden (21 February 1905). In the latter battle, he
replaced Major General Alexiev in control of the Rus-
sian left flank. With the war’s conclusion, Rennenkampf
took control of the III Siberian Corps and assisted in the
suppression of several mutinies in Siberia. In the years
leading up to the First World War, he was given the com-
mand of the III Army Corps and promoted to general.
With the outbreak of the First World War in Au-
gust 1914, Rennenkampf was given the command of
the Russian First Army and took part in the Russian
advance into east Prussia—the Tannenberg campaign.
On 26–31 August, General Alexander samsonoV’s
army was surrounded and completely destroyed at
Tannenberg. The Russian lost 100,000 killed, and
Samsonov committed suicide. Rennenkampf should
have supported Samsonov but failed to do so and was
accused of negligence. He had also lost men at the
Battle of Gumbinnen (20 August), and he was deci-
sively beaten by Paul von hindenburg at the Battle
of Masurian Lakes (9–14 September) and again at Lodz
(11–25 November). Rennenkampf was then dismissed
from his command and did not see action for the re-
mainder of the war, retiring to his private home on the
coast of the Black Sea.
The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 led to the col-
lapse of the Russian war effort. However, the Bolshevik
leaders approached Rennenkampf and offered him the
command of the Russian army, which he refused. He
was therefore arrested, tried for treason, found guilty,
and executed about May 1918 near the city of Taganrog;
he was buried in an unmarked grave.
The refusal of the Russian government to adapt
to changing military attitudes and ways of fighting,
as well as its sending a woefully unprepared army into
battle against the Germans at Tannenberg and Masurian
Lakes, are not to be blamed on Rennenkampf. But he
was certainly culpable for failing to support Samsonov,
perhaps because of the strongly held personal enmity
between them.References: Tuchman, Barbara, The Guns of August (New
York: Macmillan, 1962); Donat, Karl von, The Russo-RennenkAmpF, pAvel-geoRgeS kARlovich von