Early Life
Tukhachevsky was born at Alexandrovskoye, Safonovsky District, into a family of impoverished hereditary nobles. After attending the Moscow Military School in 1912 he moved on to the Aleksandrovskoye Military School whence he graduated in 1914. At the outset of the First World War, he joined the Semyenovsky Guards Regiment as a Second Lieutenant declaring,
"I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence... I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then."
After being taken prisoner by the Imperial German Army in February 1915, Tukhachevsky escaped four times from POW camps and was finally held as an incorrigible escapee in Ingolstadt fortress.
His fifth escape was successful, and after crossing the Swiss-German border, he returned to Russia in September 1917. After the October Revolution, Tukhachevsky joined the Bolshevik Party and went on to play a key role in the Red Army in spite of his noble ancestry.
Read more about this topic: Mikhail Tukhachevsky
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