The Russian Guard has more than 300 years of history, which has included both ups and downs. The guards units reached their greatest prosperity at the beginning of the 20th century. After the fall of the Russian Empire, the Great Patriotic War became the second notable rise of the guards units. Despite its long history, the Day of the Russian Guard appeared in our country quite recently. This memorable date in the history of the Russian armed forces was approved by the decree of the Russian President on December 22, 2000.
Now every year on September 2, our country celebrates the Day of the Russian Guard. The date of the celebration was chosen based on historical prerequisites, it refers to the first years of the reign of Peter I, who is considered the founder of the Russian guard. Today we can say that the first mention of the guards units falls on the very beginning of the 18th century and is contained in the historical annals of the Russian army, describing the campaigns of the troops of Peter I near Azov and Narva, according to the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is on the basis of the Chronicle of the Russian Imperial Army, which was ordered by the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, that on September 2, 1700 (August 22, according to the old style), two regiments of the Russian army, Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky, officially began to be called guards.
Funny shelves
The Russian Guard leads its way from the amusing regiments of the future Russian Emperor Peter I. These military units were specially formed to train and educate the army of the new system in the country, which was to replace the Strelets army. The regiments went down in history as Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky after the names of the villages in which they stood. These two regiments became the basis of the renewed army, as well as the first two infantry guards formations. The shelves were recreated again in 2013, which confirms the adherence to historical traditions.
The combat debut of the Russian guard was the war with Sweden in 1700-1721, which went down in history as the Northern War. In the very first serious and very difficult battle for the entire Russian army near Narva, it was only thanks to the actions of two guards regiments that a complete defeat was avoided. The regiments themselves suffered heavy losses, but did not show cowardice. Until 1740, all the soldiers of the Semenovsky regiment wore red stockings. It was a kind of privilege that emphasized that in the battle of Narva the regiment's soldiers stood "knee-deep in blood," but did not flinch.
In the future, both regiments took part in all significant battles of the Northern War, as well as the Persian campaign of Peter I. At various times, the battalions of the regiments were commanded by prominent people, representatives of the Russian aristocracy, favorites or relatives of the royal family, among whom were Dolgoruky, Golitsyn, Matyushkin, Yusupov and other. At the same time, the regiments stood out in their numbers. So by the beginning of the Northern War, there were 3 infantry battalions in the Semenovsky regiment, and 4 battalions in the Preobrazhensky regiment, while in ordinary infantry regiments there were only two battalions.
Guard spills blood
After the death of Peter I, the guard did not disappear, on the contrary, over time, the number of guards units only increased, reaching its heyday by 1914. For several centuries, Russian guards units took part in the Russian-Turkish wars of 1735-1739 and 1877-1879, the Patriotic War of 1812, the Russian army fought and died on the Austerlitz field in 1805 and the battlefields of the Russian-Swedish war of 1788-1790. The Guard took part in almost all the wars that Russia waged in the 18th-19th centuries, showing examples of courage, heroism and self-sacrifice.
By the beginning of the First World War, the Russian guard had reached its highest power. The Guard consisted of 12 infantry regiments and 4 rifle battalions, the main locations of which were St. Petersburg (1st and 2nd infantry divisions) and Warsaw (3rd infantry division). In addition, the guard consisted of 13 cavalry regiments, three artillery brigades, a naval crew, a sapper battalion and several guards warships.
In 1914, more than 60 thousand soldiers and about 2.5 thousand officers served in the guard. By the end of the first year of the war, the guards units had lost more than 20 thousand people killed and seriously wounded. And in just 1914-1915, the personnel officer corps of the Guard was almost completely destroyed. Despite the losses, the number of military personnel in the guards units only increased. By the summer of 1916, more than 110 thousand people served in the guard. Naturally, this expansion took place at the expense of the quality of the military contingent.
In the same year 1916, during the Battle of Kovel, the Guards suffered enormous losses. The Russian units could not break through the powerful enemy defenses on the Stokhod River, the losses of the guards units amounted to about 50 thousand soldiers and officers, that is, almost half of the entire composition. The guards were no longer able to recover from this disaster. In 1917, it was a faded shadow of those units and subunits that existed at the beginning of the war, primarily in terms of training, quality of the contingent and reliability. The units that were supposed to be the mainstay of the monarchy have lost almost the entire cadre of the last recruits on the battlefields of the First World War. Together with the Russian Empire, after two revolutions in 1917, the Guard also perished, in 1918 it was disbanded along with the tsarist army.
The birth of the Soviet guard
Once again, they returned to the experience of creating guards units in the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. The birth of the Soviet guard took place in the most difficult war year for the country - in the fall of 1941, for the massive courage of personnel and displayed heroism, as well as the high military skill that Soviet units demonstrated during the Battle of Smolensk and the battles of Yelnya, four rifle divisions were given the honorary title guards. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Guards Divisions were the former 100th, 127th, 153rd and 161st Infantry Divisions, respectively. At the same time, in September 1941, the very concept of "guards unit" was officially introduced in the Red Army.
Already in May of the following year, in order to emphasize the belonging of the soldiers and commanders to the guards units in the army, a new badge "Guard" was officially established, and its own badge was established for representatives of the navy. During the war, the rank of guards was received by many hardened units and formations of the Red Army that showed themselves well in battles with the enemy. By the end of the Great Patriotic War, the army and navy already had more than 4, 5 thousand units, ships and associations, which bore the honorary name of the Guards, including 11 combined arms and 6 tank armies.
After the war, the assignment of the guards names was no longer made. At the same time, after the reorganization, they retained the honorary title of the Guards to preserve military traditions. This tradition has been preserved in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, as well as in a number of other countries of the former USSR. At the same time, already in modern Russian history, the rank of guards was awarded to the 22nd separate special-purpose brigade, the special forces received this honorary title in 2001, this is the first such case after the end of the Great Patriotic War. And already in 2018, in honor of the 100th anniversary, the honorary title "Guards" was given to the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School.
