cities honoured Rodney with their Freedom, in-
cluding Huntingdon, at which ceremony Sand-
wich made reference to the fact that Rodney’s
record was unsurpassed in that he had taken or
destroyed sixteen ships of the line and capturing
the commanding admiral of each of the nations
with which England was at war.References: Hannay, David, Rodney (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1891); Mundy, Godfrey B, The Life and Cor-
respondence of Admiral Lord Rodney, 2 vols. (London: J.
Murray, 1830); Charnock, John, “Rodney, George Bry-
dges, 1st Baron Rodney of Stoke-Rodney,” in Biographia
Navalis; or, Impartial Memoirs of the Lives and Characters
of Officers of the Navy of Great Britain, From the Year 1660
to the Present Time;.. ., 6 vols. (London: Printed for R.
Faulder, Bond-Street, 1794–98); V:204–228; Breen,
Kenneth, “George Bridges, Lord Rodney, 1718?–1792,”
in Precursors of Nelson: British Admirals of the Eighteenth
Century, edited by Peter Le Fevre and Richard Hard-
ing (London: Chatham Publishing, 2000), 225–248;
Bruce, George, “Dominica,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars
(Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 75;
“Rodney, George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron,” in A Dic-
tionary of Military History and the Art of War edited by
André Corvisier (London: Blackwell, 1994), 703.
Rokossovsky, Konstantin Konstantinovich
(Konstantin Rokossovskii) (1896–1968)
Soviet general
Little is known of Konstantin Rokossovsky, whose name
is also spelled Rokossovskii by some sources. He was
born in the village of Velikiye Luki, Russia, on 21 De-
cember 1896 (or 9 December 1896 [O.S.]), the son of a
railroad engineer. He joined the Russian army as a youth
and saw action on the eastern front as a noncommis-
sioned officer during the First World War. In 1917, fol-
lowing the overthrow of the czarist regime, Rokossovsky
threw his support behind the new Communist govern-
ment and served with the Red forces during the Russian
civil war. He won a series of promotions through the
ranks of the Soviet army.
In 1938, at the height of Joseph Stalin’s purges of
the Soviet military and society, Rokossovsky, despite his
unblemished record, was arrested and accused of anti-
Soviet behavior. For some reason—never ascertained—
he was released in 1939. Although this system of purges
claimed upward of 60 million people, most of whom
were never heard from again, Rokossovsky spoke out
against his superiors, denouncing the commissar system
in 1941. That same year, however, he was spared any
further punishment when the Germans invaded the So-
viet Union in what was called Operation Barbarossa, and
Stalin found himself without many experienced military
officers because of his purges. Rokossovsky was placed in
command of forces to resist the Germans advancing to
attack Moscow. His troops, the Soviet Sixteenth Army,
defended the capital city, and his devastating counterat-
tack, which came as his forces were encircled by the Nazi
shock troops, led to a much-needed victory just as So-
viet forces were being defeated everywhere else in Russia.
Rokossovsky’s attack was so decisive that he immediately
asked his superiors if he could march on Warsaw and
take it from the Germans. Instead, he was ordered to
withdraw and consolidate his forces.
Although he went on to command forces at Smo-
lensk and Omsk, Rokossovsky is best known for his
leadership of Russian forces at Stalingrad (November
1942–February 1943). The German Sixth Army, com-
manded by Field Marshal Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Pau-
lus, had taken this important Russian city, but they had
extended themselves far from their supply lines just as
winter was setting in. Rokossovsky decided that a siege
of the Germans at Stalingrad was the best method of
attack. He initially offered Paulus terms of surrender
in early January 1943, after the siege had lasted some
weeks, but Paulus rejected these conditions. Two days
later, under Rokossovsky’s command, the Russian offen-
sive began, pounding the German forces inside the city.
As he later explained in his memoirs, published in 1985,
“The High Command kept pressing on, demanding
that we advance [against Stalingrad] in December, later
pushing the date back to the end of December. We were
not ready yet and remained to be so in early January, too.
On January 10th we were more or less prepared to hit
out. To cut through the enemy’s defenses, we amassed a
formidable artillery force there. The might of that initial
barrage was absolutely devastating. Our troops followed
up on that initial success, dashing whatever hopes the
Germans had for any protracted defense in Stalingrad.”
On 12 January, at a cost of approximately 26,000
men, the Russian forces captured the western section of
the city. On 27 January, Rokossovsky, seeing that the
Germans were weakened by lack of supplies and the
horrific Russian winter, led a massive full-scale attack, RokoSSovSky, konStAntin konStAntinovich