Russia under the Old regime

THE PARTIAL DISMANTLING OF THE PATRIMONIAL STATE

of their troops on and off the battlefield; unwieldy armies were broken down into brigades, regiments and battalions; artillery was separated into a distinct arm; special engineering and sapper units were formed to carry out siege operations. The introduction of military uniforms which occurred at diis time symbolized the transition from medieval to modern warfare. Such full-time, professional armies had to be supported year round by the treasury. The cost was immense and in the long run contributed heavily to the ruin and collapse of absolute monarchies throughout Europe.

The Muscovite state had had in the streltsy a regular infantry of sorts, used to guard die tsars and garrison cities. But the streltsy knew nothing of formations or battle tactics either, and presented no match to modern armies, the more so as between campaigns, instead of training, they had to support themselves and their families by trade. After the Time of Troubles, impressed by die performance of foreign forces on its territory, the Russian government began to engage officers from abroad to form and command 'new' regiments of a western type. In 1632-3 a large Russian force, composed partly of these new units (some of them manned by western mercenaries), and partly of old-fashioned cavalry, was sent to capture Smolensk from the Poles. The campaign ended in the defeat and surrender of the Russian army. Subsequent campaigns against the Poles (1654-67) also brought no success, despite the fact that Poland was then also fighting a desperate war against Sweden. Between 1676 and 1681 Moscow undertook several inconclusive campaigns against the Turks and Crimeans, whose armies could hardly be described as modern. Despite diese disappointments, the formation of western-type regiments continued apace and by the 1680s they outnumbered the cavalry. Still, victory proved elusive. In 1681 a boyar commission was appointed to ascertain the reasons for the poor performance of Russian troops. Its principal recommendation was to abolish mestnichestvo (1682), but this measure did little good as in 1687 and 1689 Russian armies suffered new reverses in campaigns against the Crimea. One source of trouble was that the service class, the mainstay of Russia's military force, scorned units fighting on foot and commanded by foreign officers, and insisted on serving in the traditional cavalry. The new regiments, dierefore, were manned either with the poorest dvoriane who could not afford to buy themselves a horse, or with peasants whom the landlords and the government regarded as expendable, i.e. who presumably were as unfit for the sword as for die plough. Furthermore, the new regiments, just like the old, were disbanded every autumn to spare the government the expense of supporting them in idleness during winter months - a practice which made it impossible for foreign officers to train them into disciplined fighting units.