Silvestras Žukauskas
Lithuanian general
Died when: 76 years 330 days (922 months)Star Sign: Capricorn
Silvestras Žukauskas (Polish: Sylwester Żukowski, Russian: Сильвестр Константинович Жуковский, romanized: Silvester Konstantinovich Zhukovsky; 31 December 1860 – 26 November 1937) was a Lithuanian General.
He first served in the Imperial Russian Army, where he distinguished himself during World War I, rising to the rank of major general and ending the war as divisional commander.
Later he joined the Lithuanian Army and was its Chief Commander three times: May–September 1919, February–June 1920, and June 1923 to January 1928.
Žukauskas joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1881, studying at the Vilnius Military School from 1883 to 1887, reaching the rank of polkovnik in 1913.
When World War I started, he commanded the new 314th Novooskolsk Infantry Regiment, fighting at its head in present-day Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
He was demobilized in February 1918, when Germans captured most of the 1st Infantry Division which he commanded.In early 1919, as Chief of the General Staff of the newly created Lithuanian Army, he pushed the invading Soviet forces out of Lithuania by the end of August 1919 with a successful offensive.
However, he was dismissed from command as the organizers of the Polish coup d'état attempt planned to make him a military dictator.
Although Žukauskas was likely unaware of this plot, he was known as a Polish sympathizer, speaking Polish, and generally faced resistance from younger Lithuanian officers.
These tensions forced him out of the command twice more, but he was brought back in February 1920 after communist-inspired soldier's mutiny in Kaunas and in October 1920 following the Lithuanian defeat in the Battle of Sejny.
He commanded Lithuanian forces fighting against Żeligowski's Mutiny in Autumn 1920.He is reputed as a key figure in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence.
He resigned from active military duty in June 1921, being brought back from retirement in June 1923 as the Lithuanian Army's commander until January 1928.
In 1927, on the 40 year anniversary of Žukauskas becoming an officer, the government gifted him the Davalgonys estate near Ramučiai, which was frequently visited by Lithuania's president Antanas Smetona and his wife.
During this final retirement, Žukauskas became a founder of and its nominal manager.The company built bicycles, cars, buses and car garages.
