Bagration, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich (Petr
Ivanovitsch Bagration, Peter Bagration) (1765–
1812) Russian general
Born in Kizlyar, Georgia, sometime in 1765, Prince
Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration was the scion of a famed
Georgian family; he was distantly related to King David
IV of Georgia. His grandfather, Aleksander Bagration,
was a noted military officer, as was his father, Ivan
Bagration. Pyotr (also Peter or Petr) Bagration entered
the Russian army in 1782 when he was 17; he served
for several years in the Caucasus region of Russia, fight-
ing forces of the Ottoman Empire trying to control the
region. In 1788, he saw major military action when he
participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–88 and,
under the command of the Russian generals Gregory Po-
tyemkin and Aleksander Suvorov, assisted in the attack
on the Turkish fort Ochakov on the coast of the Black
Sea. He then returned to the Caucusus, where he served
until 1794, rising to the rank of premier major.
In 1794, Bagration was transferred to the Sofia
Carabineers Regiment, and during the Russo-Polish War
of 1792–94 he was present at the capture of Warsaw and
promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1798,
he was promoted to colonel and placed in charge of
the 6th Russian regiment. In 1799, he served under Su-
vorov in Italy against the French, leading the attack on
Brescia (10 April 1799), at Milan (16 April 1799), and
at Lecco (26–28 April 1799), where he was wounded
in the leg.
When Napoleon and the French army invaded
Austria in 1805, Bagration proved himself to be even
more of a key commander for the allied Russian army.
To protect the army’s retreat, he fought a series of battles
to slow down the French advance. These included ac-
tions at Amshteten and Krems, but the most notable was
against Jean Lannes at Oberlollabrünn (16 November
1805), a disastrous defeat that cost Bagration some 3,500
men—half his force of 7,000. The sacrifice achieved its
purpose, however, as it enabled the mainforce under
Mikhail kutuzoV to withdraw unharmed. For his “de-
feat” at Oberlollabrünn (now Hollabrünn), Bagration
was promoted to lieutenant general. He joined forces
with Kutuzov and, being able to push back the French
on the way to Austerlitz, defeated them in two battles at
Wischau (25 November 1805) and Raustnitsa (Decem-
ber 1805). The two armies met at Austerlitz on 2 Decem-
ber 1805, when 60,000 Russians and 25,000 Austrians
faced 73,000 French under Napoleon. Historian George
Bruce writes of the clash: “An attempt to turn the French
flank failed, and led to the allies’ left being cut off from
their center. Their left and center were thus beaten in
detail, and the right, which had at first held its own,
was surrounded, and driven in disorder across a partially
frozen lake, where many perished. The allies lost 27,000