Mikhail Vasiliyevich Alekseyev was an Imperial Russian Army general during World War I and the Russian Civil War. He served as Tsar Nicholas II's Chief of Staff of the Stavka, and after the February Revolution, was its commander-in-chief under the Russian Provisional Government.. He later played a principal role in founding the Volunteer Army in the Russian Civil War and died of heart failure while fighting the Bolsheviks in the Volga region.