Alexander Wilhelm Andreas Freiherr von Kaulbars was a Baltic German military leader who served in the Imperial Russian Army during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A noted explorer of Central Asia, he was also regarded as one of the original organisers of the Russian Air Force.

Baltic German nobility was a privileged social class in the territories of today's Estonia and Latvia. It has existed continuously since the Northern Crusades and the medieval foundation of Terra Mariana. Most of the nobility were Baltic Germans, but with the changing political landscape over the centuries, Polish, Swedish and Russian families also became part of the nobility, just as Baltic German families re-settled in locations such as the Swedish and Russian Empires. The nobility of Lithuania is for historical, social and ethnic reasons separated from the German-dominated nobility of Estonia and Latvia.