Yevgeny Yakovlevich Maximov (; 4 March 1849 – 14 October 1904) was a Russian Empire adventurer, soldier and journalist mostly remembered for his service with the South African Republic during the Second Anglo-Boer War.
Early life Maximov was born in Tsarskoye Selo, an upper class suburb of St. Petersburg, the son of a Russian naval officer father and a Swedish mother. During his youth, he studied at the Institute of Technology and the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. In 1869, Maximov joined the Imperial Russian Army as an officer in His Majesty's Cuirassier Life Guard Regiment after passing the officer's exam. The boring and routine-bound life of an officer in peace-time proved to be difficult for Maximov who had a hyper-active personality which led him to crave action.
In 1875, Maximov attempted to commit suicide, which led to him being dishonourably discharged from the Army. The suicide attempt and the dishonourable discharge created a black mark on Maximov's career, which he spent the rest of his life trying to erase. The British historian R. W. Johnson called Maximov a tragic figure as his dishonourable discharge from the Russian Army owing to his suicide attempt marked him out as a man whose honour could never be redeemed, leading Maximov to volunteer in successive wars in attempts to prove his courage to the world and restore his lost honour.
Adventurer, 1875–1899 In 1875, Maximov volunteered to fight with the Serbs against the Ottoman Empire, showing much bravery under fire. Maximov crossed over to the Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina to take command of a Bosnian Serb Chetnik (guerrilla) band. Though not trained as a guerrilla leader, Maximov had much success leading his Chetniks against the Ottoman forces in Bosnia. During the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878, Maximov was allowed to rejoin the Russian Army as an enlisted man and served in the Russian Army as it advanced into the Balkans, reaching the gates of Constantinople before the Ottomans sued for peace, with the war being ended by the Treaty of San Stefano. In between his bouts as a volunteer, Maximov worked as a newspaper correspondent for St. Petersburg newspapers, mostly in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East, always covering wars.
In 1880, Maximov served with a Flying Medical Company offering medical aid to wounded men during the Russian conquest of Turkmenistan. During this time, Maximov met Mikhail Skobelev, the famous "White General" who led the conquest of Central Asia, who always remained Maximov's role model. Despite his ostensible medical duties, in practice Maximov led an "advance flying squad" of cavalry that fought against the Turkmen as Skobelev led his army deeper and deeper into Central Asia. In 1881 after the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II by Narodnik terrorists, the monarchist Maximov joined the Corps of Gendarmes in order to fight against anarchists as like many other Russian conservatives, Maximov was outraged over the assassination of Alexander II. Maximov served in the Caucasus as a gendarme until his resignation in 1884.
In 1895–96, during the First Italo-Ethiopian War, Maximov served as a volunteer with the Ethiopians against the Italians. He arrived in Ethiopia as a Red Cross volunteer, but his unwillingness to see a fellow Orthodox nation being conquered led Maximov to join one of the feudal hosts raised by the Ethiopian nobility in response to the call from the Emperor Menelik II to resist the Italians (Ethiopia had no standing army in 1895). Maximov had planned to stay in Ethiopia and to mount an expedition to better map out the source of the Blue Nile, but the news that war was brewing between Greece and the Ottoman Empire led him to depart Ethiopia. In the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, Maximov served as a volunteer with the Greeks against the Ottomans. After Greece was defeated, Maximov worked as a journalist in Afghanistan and Iran. Maximov described himself as fascinated with "civilised warfare which attracts men of certain description, and to them a well fought battle is the highest form of exciting amusement".
Boer War In 1899, Maximov went to South Africa as the correspondent of the newspapers Novoie Vremia, Sankt-Peterburgskiie Vedomosti and Rossiia to cover the Boer War. Despite the way his career had ended in disgrace, Maximov was probably sent to South Africa to observe the war for the Russian general staff as he met several officers of the General Staff in St. Petersburg before leaving. The British tried to prevent Maximov from going to South Africa, forcing him to get off his ship in Alexandria, Egypt, saying his presence was not desired in South Africa. Undeterred, Maximov traveled via train from Alexandria to Port Said. Maximov was able to board a ship in Port Said that took him to Djibouti, Zanzibar, Madagascar and finally to Lourenço Marques (modern Maputo, Mozambique). From Portuguese East Africa, Maximov was able to make his way to the Transvaal. Upon arriving, Maximov immediately joined the Transvaal forces, and only filed one newspaper dispatch for the Novoie Vremia about the Boer War, which was published in 1902, two years after he left South Africa.
A conservative nationalist and monarchist, Maximov disliked those Russian volunteers on the left such as Prince Mikhail Yengalychev (later exiled to Siberia for his role in the Revolution of 1905) and Alexander Essen (who later became deputy chairman of the Soviet State Planning Commission in the 1920s). A Belgian woman who served as a nurse with the Transvaal volunteers, Alice Bron, described Maximov: "The colonel, in fact, is a man of action, and his manners savour somewhat of the camp. He is a believer in the poetry of war, and says he likes nothing better than to hear the whistling of bullets and the thunder of cannon; and, in fact, when he indulges in recollections of his service with Skobelev, the handsome 'white cuirassier', his face lights up, and he becomes a poet inspired by the noise of war." Bron also described him: "He is as bold as a lion, though he's as obstinate as a mule."
In March 1900, Maximov become the deputy commander of the European Legion which was commanded by the Frenchman George Henri Anne-Marie Victor de Villebois-Mareuil. On 4 March 1900, Maximov met with President Martinus Theunis Steyn of the Orange Free State and on 13 March 1900 met with President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic. The Russian journalist Yevgeny Augustus who was covering the war wrote about Maximov: "By ways known only to him he earned the confidence of the Transvaal authorities, began to visit President Kruger without ceremony, became quite at home with old Reitz, entered into relations with Steyn...To us ordinary mortals who never even dreamed of the honour to have tea with Kruger or Reitz, his activities seemed highly mysterious." Maximov admired President Steyn, saying he was "the noblest, finest and most disinterested figure" in the entire war and the "incarnation of bravery, self-sacrifice, and stainless honesty...he is a savant, his heart is in the right place, and he is as brave as a lion"
An excellent marksman and horseman, Maximov's skills with guns and horses always impressed the Boers who saw good horsemanship and marksmanship as admirable talents in a man. The Boers generally disliked the foreign volunteers who came to fight with them against the British, and only accepted as equals those who showed exceptional skills and bravery together with an willingness to embrace aspects of Afrikaner culture. Maximov ability to shoot springboks from a moving train at the distance of 800 meters without ever missing as he did several times on a train ride from Pretoria to Bloemfontein was considered to be phenomenal. As several other burghers (Afrikaans for citizens) had also tried during the same train ride to shoot springboks out on the veld and missed, Maximov's marksmanship won him the respect of the Boers. Maximov was one of the few foreign volunteers who were ever truly embraced by the Boers. Maximov's ability to tame and ride horses considered untamable also won him admiration from the Boers, most of whom lived out on the veld and whose culture was deeply centered around horses. Maximov wore a Boer style uniform with a slough hat and a bandolier with the rest of his uniform left to himself to design as was normal with the Boers. Deeply fascinated with South Africa, Maximov took numerous photographs of the South African countryside, cities, and towns together with photographs of Boer commanders and the Zulu people, whom he was interested in, and which were later found to be in the possession of his son Alexander, a retired mining engineer living in Leningrad in the 1970s.
After Villebois-Mareuil was killed, Maximov was considered to be the commander of the European Legion, but his reputation as a harsh disciplinarian ensured that he was instead made the commander of the Hollander Corps. A major problem for the Boers with the foreign volunteers was that the Transvaal had only a tiny professional army consisting entirely of "gunners" (artillerymen), which was a specialised skill that the average Boer farmer lacked while the Orange Free State had no professional army at all. The professional military of the Transvaal consisted of the Staatsartillerie who in 1899 numbered 314 men. In both Boer republics, the military was the kommando militia system under which all able-bodied Boer men were called up from their farms in times of emergency to serve in kommandos with officers elected by themselves. As such, neither Boer republic had the ability to properly train the foreign volunteers lacking to a lack of instructors and as such, Maximov's services as a former Imperial Russian officer in training the volunteers were greatly appreciated by the Boer leaders. Kruger had hopes that the Volunteer Corps would serve as a nucleus for a professional army to be created after the war as the prolonged war with Britain exposed problems with the kommando system. Boer culture was very democratic and almost all burghers were unwilling to give up their right to elect their officers, making the Volunteer Corps ideal as a prototype for a professional army for the South African Republic. The foreign volunteers numbered about 2,700 men with the largest contingent being the Dutch (about 650), followed by the Germans (about 550), the French (about 400), the Americans (about 300), the Russians (about 250), the Italians (about 200), the Irish (also about 200) with the rest coming from various parts of the world.