Nikolai Essen

Nikolai Ottovich (von) Essen (Russian: Николай Оттович фон Эссен) (11(23) December 1860, Saint Petersburg – 7(20) May 1915, Reval) was a Russian naval commander and admiral from the Baltic German Essen family. For more than two centuries his ancestors had served in the Imperial Russian Navy, and seven had been awarded the Order of St. George, the highest military award of the Russian Empire.

Biography

Essen graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1880 and after a two year foreign cruise, attended the engineering department of the Nikolayev Naval Academy from 1883 to 1886. He was commissioned as lieutenant in 1891, and served with the Russian Pacific Fleet from 1892 to 1896, and with the Russian Mediterranean Squadron from 1897.

In the early part of his career he commanded the Minesweeper no 120 (1897–98), the gunboat Grozyachiy (1898–1900), the steamship Slavianka (1901–1902) in the Black Sea. After a brief assignment as an instructor at the Naval Cadet Corps, he was appointed captain of the cruiser Novik (1902–1904), which was stationed at Vladivostok.