… for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred and fifty.
2nd Chronicles 17: 1
Military affairs at the turn of the eras. Armies have always cost the state dearly. So Peter I, starting a regular army in Russia, apparently thought a lot of how to make it European and at the same time cheap enough, of course, by his own standards, so that foreigners, God forbid, would not laugh at Peter's troops. And it is clear that he could not do without cavalry, but decided, as far as possible, to make it cheap. Therefore, he did not start any expensive cuirassiers, but limited himself, in general, to the universal dragoon cavalry, which was the "riding infantry", and only gradually, over time, learned to fight not only on foot, but also on horseback.
The tax on the maintenance of the dragoon cavalry was paid separately and was called the dragoon tax, and it was introduced in 1701. First, former spearmen, reitars and noble niggards (at least some kind of elite!), Only 10,012 people, turned up in the dragoon regiments (with a count of nine). From each court they were supposed to collect: from landlords and estates - 20 kopecks, from church and palace departments - 25, from merchants - a tenth of the income. But the number of regiments was constantly increasing and by 1706 reached 28. The budget of the Russian state spent 420,000 rubles a year on their maintenance! And this despite the fact that the Russian dragoons rode on "thin horses", and their uniforms did not differ from the infantry, with the exception of high boots made of hard leather, which are absolutely necessary for action in close formation. Nevertheless, horsemen, partly similar to cuirassiers, nevertheless appeared in Russia under Peter I, albeit in a small number and only for a while.
As already noted here, Peter was a rather thrifty monarch, but, having signed the Decree on the coronation of Empress Catherine in 1723, he decided not to stint on the celebrations on this occasion. Peter himself refused the official ceremony, but decided to legally formalize the status of his wife as his heir. At the coronation, Catherine was to be accompanied by cavalry guards, or trabants (drabants), - knights of the special guard, an honor guard, a live demonstration of the power and glory of the empire. Although it was a "one-time" unit, Peter's closest associates fought for the right to form it. So, Count Tolstoy had already received the order to carry out the final fitting and adjustment of the luxurious uniform and knightly armor, but then he was pushed aside by Menshikov and Yaguzhinsky, who clashed in the last major palace intrigue of the era of Peter's reign. In the end, His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov was unlucky: he did not even become one of the cavalry guards. And Yaguzhinsky became the main cavalry guard, and this despite the fact that formally Peter I appointed himself the captain of the cavalry guard. However, the happiness of Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky was also short-lived. After the coronation, which took place in March 1724, the life campaign was disbanded, and the luxurious uniforms and silver trumpets were handed over to the warehouse. On April 30, 1726, the cavalry guard was restored, but Catherine I herself now became its captain. Anna Ioannovna did not trust the cavalry guards, representatives of noble Russian families, and decided to form the Horse Guards against them, and officers began to be taken into it mainly from foreigners without family tribe. Elizaveta Petrovna did not establish cavalry guards. But Catherine II restored this honorary guard again, and in it "privates, 60 in number, served in the ranks of seconds-majors, captains and lieutenants." True, it is rather difficult to call this part a military unit. She was very small in number. Well, the Cavalier Regiment in the Imperial Russian Army became a full-fledged combat unit only in 1800.
At the coronation of 1724, the cavalry guards were dressed in caftans of green cloth with gilded buttons and with gold laces, red trousers and camisoles, and over the caftan there was also a red supervest (something like the same cuirass or vest, but made of fabric), trimmed with wide gold galloon. A silver star of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called was embroidered on the chest of the supervests, and a golden two-headed eagle was embroidered on the back. They were armed with broadswords with a gilded hilt and a sheath of white leather, with a lanyard of gold threads, as well as a carbine and two pistols, also trimmed with gold. Beautiful, to be sure, and such a guard should have made a strong impression.
Well, the honor of creating proper cuirassier regiments in Russia belongs to Burkhard Christopher Munnich, who was one of the chicks of Petrov's nest and who, after Peter's death, already served his niece, Empress Anna Ioannovna. Another war with Turkey was brewing, and Minich, having carefully studied the Austrian experience of fighting the Turkish cavalry, in 1730 proposed to the empress a project to create a heavy cuirassier cavalry in Russia. The Empress thought, and on December 31, 1730, issued a decree on the creation of the first Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, in which she herself would be a colonel. For the lower ranks, who continued to be called reiters, it was supposed to buy 1111 German horses abroad. The officers should have bought horses at their own expense. In 1732, the cost of purchasing and delivering 1201 horses from Germany for the Horse Guards reached 80 thousand rubles. So the pleasure of having cuirassiers for Russia was not cheap at all.
“For non-commissioned officers, timpani, trumpeters, corporals and cuirassiers, do not put horses less than 36 and more than 38 vershoks so that their breasts and butts are wide; the mouths are separated by wool in the shelf. For horses bought in Russia, pay from 30 to 50 rubles, and for horses bought in Germany from 60 to 80 with a drive for officers. From the German edge, you can contract to deliver from 100 to 200 rubles for each ", - indicated by Anna Ioannovna in the document dated November 18, 1731 "On the establishment of the Cuirassier regiment from the cavalry."
The prices for horses, as you can see, were simply exorbitant, the German horses of the famous Holstein breed were especially expensive.
Here one more subtlety should be noted: in addition to the "storm for the Turks", the empress conceived the new cuirassier regiments as a "counterweight" to the old Peter's guard: the Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments, whose loyalty she doubted, and not without reason. And in order to seduce the young noblemen with the officer service in these cavalry regiments, and not in the old guard, special privileges were invented for them, or, in the then, "avantages". There were several of them, and all of them are very characteristic of that time:
1. They will never be sent to Persia.
2. Except during wartime, the service will be in the capital and the surrounding area, and they will be accommodated in the best apartments.
3. The salary is higher than all other regiments.
4. Both privates and corporals - all higher in rank above other regiments.
5. Even ordinary people will not be beaten for any offenses.
Since in the army at that time they were flogged for any offense, the latter privilege, of course, had a particularly attractive force, although the flogging was looked at differently at that time than it is now. There was even such a saying: “They don’t beat, it’s so well known - they teach poorly!”
However, the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, where the Empress was a colonel, was created so slowly that the first cuirassier regiment was not he, but … the army regiment of Minich. And then, in 1731, the Vyborg Dragoon Regiment was simply renamed into the Cuirassier Regiment. And on November 1, 1732, the Nevsky Dragoon Regiment, which became the Leib Cuirassier Regiment, and the Yaroslavl Dragoon Regiment, which became the 3rd Cuirassier Regiment, became cuirassiers.
By 1740, there were already four cuirassier regiments in the Russian imperial army. According to the states, the regiment should have a strength of 977 people and … 781 combat horses. And again, it should be emphasized that not only the horses in the regiments were originally German, but their composition was also largely … German, since Germans were willingly recruited into cuirassiers, who fought well and had no ties with the Russian aristocracy. The Russian cuirassier, in particular, was Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Minijhausen - the future famous Baron Munchausen. Even with my own uniform, and with that at first there were big problems …
Russian cuirassiers had dark-colored horses, but traditionally light-colored uniforms. Since the tunic and leggings (tight-fitting leggings) were sewn of dressed elk leather (suede), they initially had a yellowish color and only later began to wear a white uniform made of white cloth. The shelves were distinguished by the color of the cuffs and lapels on the uniforms, that is, the colors of the "applied cloth". For example, the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, the very one that was established first, but actually appeared second, cuffs and lining were red.
Cuirassiru, in contrast to the dragoon, in 1732-1742. you had to have two uniforms. One, called every day, consisted of a blue caftan, the same as in the dragoon cavalry, but a red jacket and trousers made of moose leather. The hat had a metal oval crown, called a cassette, with a brim trimmed with gold braid along the edge. On their feet, cuirassiers wore high boots with flaps of hard leather and spurs. The second uniform was a combatant. It included an elk tunic, a paddle jacket and trousers. The tunic was a narrow and short caftan with a turn-down collar, with cuffs and wrapped floors, which were trimmed along the edge with a ribbon of red cloth 2.5 cm wide. Both pricks and padding were fastened with hooks. The underwear was a short sleeveless vest without a collar and sleeves. The "second uniform" was complemented by a black downy hat (cocked hat), a white tie, gloves and high boots with calf-cuffs, and instead of an overcoat there was an epancha made of red cloth. In the ceremonial formation, as well as during hostilities, a cuirass with a suede lining, with metal spikes along the edges, a red cloth (for officers velvet!) Edging and a copper or gilded plaque with a royal monogram on the chest was worn over a moose tunic. The belts, with the help of which the cuirass was attached to the rider on the chest, were reinforced with metal plates, for officers - gilded. The weight of the cuirass was about 10 kg. So people of strong build had to carry such weapons …
The cuirassier's armament was a straight broadsword with a brass guard and a straight handle, two pistols in saddle holsters (olstrakh) and a carbine. However, such a complete set of weapons could hardly be found in at least one of the regiments. Here are broadswords - yes, all cuirassiers had them. They tried to arm them with pikes - longer than those of the lancers, with an inflow of weighted lead.
The cuirasses were used painted black with brass fittings. Cavalier guards, which represented a particularly privileged regiment of the same cuirassiers, cuirass at a certain period of their history were scarlet with gold trim.
Among the cuirassier units of the Russian army, the regiments of His Majesty and Her Majesty stood out, which had competed with each other since the time of Peter the Great. Over the years of their existence, both regiments have changed many names. The emperor's cuirassiers trace their history back to the Dragoon regiment, formed by Prince Gregory Volkonsky in 1702. Only in 1761; during the Seven Years' War, the regiment received its final name, and the guards status was assigned to it by Alexander I in 1813. The barracks were located in Tsarskoye Selo, therefore, in common parlance, they began to call it Tsarskoye Selo. The ancestor of the Empress's cuirassier is the Dragoon Portes regiment, organized by the boyar Tikhon Nikitich Streshnev in 1704. In 1733 the regiment became the Leib cuirassier regiment, in 1762 - the Cuirassier general-in-chief of Korf regiment. In 1796, Empress Maria Feodorovna became the chief of the regiment, and the regiment was renamed in her honor, the name did not change afterwards. True, the Gatchina cuirassiers (they were located in Gatchina) received the right to be called guardsmen much later than the Tsarskoye Selo cuirassiers - in 1856, which increased the rivalry. The poet Athanasius Fet made a choice in favor of the empress's regiment:
“In the meantime, I really wanted to be transformed into a formal cuirassier, and I dreamed of a white sling, a lacquered chest, broadsword, copper cuirass and a helmet with a ponytail crest, towering over the St. George's star.”
Usually the cuirassier of Him and Her Majesties was called "yellow cuirassiers" and "blue cuirassiers" - according to the instrument colors. Collars, cuffs, shoulder straps, edging, edging, rims and horse saddles were yellow for some and blue for others. Most contemporaries believed that the empress's blue cuirassiers looked more impressive.
On the eve of the Seven Years War in Russia there were already five cuirassier regiments, both guards and army. The regiment was supposed to number 946 people, but usually there were slightly fewer. All regiments fought, and the 3rd cuirassier even took part in the capture of Berlin. But … the same Rumyantsev assessed their combat work as unsatisfactory and wrote to the Empress-Empress Catherine the following:
“Cuirassier and carabinieri regiments are planted on both expensive and delicate and heavy horses, which are more for the parade than they are capable of doing. Throughout the campaign, they had to store up dry fodder, since they are exhausted in the field feed. For this, in the past operations and it was impossible to produce our cavalry, to which it could have had a chance …"
That is, the cuirassier horses required special food and careful care, and for some reason it turned out to be difficult to arrange all this for them in our army. Although Rumyantsev noted that for some reason the Prussian cuirassiers do not experience such difficulties …
Peter III decided to increase the number of cuirassier regiments to 12, Catherine II, during whose reign this war was completed, the decision was canceled, and Russia remained with five regiments of heavy cavalry: the Life Cuirassier Regiment, the Cuirassier Regiment of the Heir to the Tsarevich, the Regiment of the Military Order (former Minich regiment), Yekaterinoslavsky (former Novotroitsky), and Kazan regiment.
Subsequently, the number of cuirassier regiments in Russia was constantly changing. New monarch, new whim - new shelves. It was only in 1801 that Alexander I, for some reason, canceled cuirassiers in the cuirassier regiments. And it turned out … big losses in these regiments in the wars with Napoleon in 1805-1807. But later, either the sovereign himself thought of this, or someone suggested to him, the cuirasses were returned to them in 1811. Literally a year before the start of "thunderstorm 12". However, why be surprised? In the Russian army of that time, such "eccentricities" happened all the time. For example, when we brought in a regiment of lancers, they exactly borrowed its uniform from the Poles, but … they forgot about the main weapon of the uhlans - lances, which this regiment again received only on the eve of 1812!
