Eduard Totleben Eduard Ivanovich Totleben ( , sometimes transliterated as Todleben ) ( 20 May 1818 – 1 July 1884 ) was a Baltic German military engineer and Imperial Russian Army general . He was in charge of fortification and sapping work during a number of important Russian military campaigns . Early life . Totleben was born at Mitau in Courland ( now Jelgava , Latvia ) . His parents were of German descent , belonging to the merchant class , and he himself was intended for commerce , but a strong instinct led him to seek a career as a military engineer . He entered the school of engineers at Saint Petersburg , now Military engineering - technical university ( ) . Military career . Early military career . Totleben joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1836 . He saw active service as captain of engineers in the campaigns against Imam Shamil in the Caucasus , beginning in 1848 for two years . Crimean War . At the outbreak of war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1853 , he took part in the siege of Silistria , and after the siege was raised was transferred to the Crimea . Sevastopol , while strongly fortified toward the sea , was almost unprotected on the land side . Totleben , though still a junior field officer , became the animating genius of the defense . On his advice the fleet was sunk , in order to block the mouth of the harbour , and the deficiency of fortification s on the land side was made good before the allies could take advantage of it . The construction of earthworks and redoubts was carried out in extreme haste and much of the artillery from the warships was transferred to them . It was in the ceaseless improvisation of the defensive works and offensive counterworks to meet every changing phase of the enemy ' s attack that Totleben ' s peculiar strength and originality showed itself . He never commanded a large army in the open field , nor was he the creator of a great permanent system of defence like Vauban . But he may justly be called the originator of the idea that a fortress should be considered not a walled town but an entrenched position , intimately connected with the offensive and defensive capacities of an army and as susceptible of alteration as the formation of troops in battle or manoeuvre . Until 20 June 1855 , Totleben conducted operations for the defense at Sevastopol in person ; he was then wounded in the foot and was not present at the operations which immediately preceded the fall of the fortress . In the course of the siege he had risen from the rank of lieutenant - colonel to that of lieutenant - general , and had also been made aide - de - camp to the tsar . When he recovered he was employed in strengthening the fortifications at the mouth of the Dnieper , and also those of Kronstadt . In 1864 he suggested further improvements of the Brest Fortress that were implemented between then and 1868 . In 1856 he visited England , where his merits were honoured . On 24 March 1854 , the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote him a letter asking for his help in returning to European Russia - the writer had been sentenced to four years of banishment in Siberia . ( Totleben ' s brother Adolf had been Dostoyevsky ' s classmate at the school of military engineering in Saint Petersburg . ) Russo - Turkish War , 1877 - 78 . In 1860 Totleben was appointed assistant to Grand Duke Nicholas , and he subsequently became head of the department of engineers with the full rank of general . He was given no command when another war against the Ottoman Empire began in 1877 . It was not until after the early reverses before Plevna that the hero of Sevastopol was called to the front . Totleben saw that it would be necessary to draw engineering works round Osman Pasha , and cut him off from communication with the other Turkish commanders . In due time Plevna fell . Totleben then undertook the siege of the Bulgarian fortresses . After the conclusion of preliminaries of peace , he was placed in command of the whole Russian army . Later life . After the war Totleben was assigned to be Governor General of Bessarabia and Novorossiya . He also became a hereditary Count . In 1880 Totleben held the post of Governor General of Vilna , and after much suffering he died at Bad Soden near Frankfurt am Main . He is buried in Sevastopol . The village of Totleben in Pordim municipality , Pleven Province , is named after Eduard Totleben , in honour of his decisive role in the Siege of Plevna of 1877 .