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Comment by username332211 | Hacker News Reader

It's a lot less interesting once you look trough the names of senior Russian officers - de Tolly, Bagration, von Benningsen, Wittgenstein, Osterman-Tolstoy.

One begins to suspect that the reason Kutuzov replaced Barkley was for a sort of reverse-DEI reasons.

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And if you look at the people behind those names, you'll find that most of them were either born in the Russian Empire or moved there at a young age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Andreas_Barclay_de_Tol... - moved to St Petersburg around the age of 3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Bagration - born in Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wittgenstein - born near Kyiv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ivanovich_Ostermann-... - part of Russian nobility; the Ostermann name came from his great-uncles.

I remember reading one of Peter the Great's orders regarding creating 10 new units in the army. Out of names of the commanders only 3-4 were Russian. So hiring foreign talent was also part of westernization.

To add - there’s also an Austrian general named O’Reilly, and a famously subpar Macdonald for the French.

The French at the time were busy inventing nationalism. Someone suitably aristocratic could find a place as an officer basically anywhere.

> Austrian general named O’Reilly,

No contribution to military logistics or motor pool related just in case anyone else is tempted to read up on him to find out.

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