On March 30, 1856, the Crimean War ended, unsuccessful for the state, it became an example of selfless courage and heroism of the Russian people
In the history of Russia, the people's militias of the era of the Time of Troubles and the invasion of Bonaparte are widely known. The heroic militias of 1941 are not forgotten. But few people remember another people's militia - about 350 thousand Russian peasants who came out to defend the borders of the Fatherland during the Crimean War, which was unsuccessful for us.
War against Europe
In March 1854, England and France, then the strongest colonial powers on the planet, declared war on the Russian Empire. The armies of Paris and London became allies of the Ottoman Empire, which had fought against Russia for six months.
In the same 1854, an alliance against Russia was concluded by the Austrian Empire and Prussia - the two strongest states in the center of Europe, then second in power only to England and France. Berlin and Vienna agreed that they will start a war against Russia if it does not abandon an active foreign policy and expand its influence in Europe.
As a result, by the spring of 1854, of the five largest powers in Europe, three (England, Turkey and France) fought against Russia, and two (Austria and Prussia) mobilized their armies and were ready at any time to join the war against us. The situation in our country was complicated by the fact that England and France were then the leading industrial giants of the planet, so their army and navy were technically ahead of the Russian ones.
Although the Russian fleet brilliantly crushed the Turks, it could not protect the shores of Russia from British and French ships. Enemy steamers at different times attacked the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea and the Black Sea Odessa, Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka and Russian settlements on the Kola Peninsula, Vyborg in the Baltic and Mariupol in the Azov Sea.
"Marine militia"
Sailing ships of the Baltic Fleet of Russia, yielding to British steam battleships, hid the whole war behind the forts of Kronstadt. Therefore, to counteract enemy landings on the vast coast of the Baltic from Riga to Finland, they began to build small gunboats. In just three months, 154 such ships were built. There were not enough professional sailors for them, there was no time to train recruits - thousands of people familiar with shipbuilding were required.
Therefore, the royal decree of April 2, 1854 ordered the formation of the "State Naval Militia". The naval militias were supposed to serve as rowers in gunboats - 32 people for each boat, equipped with two "bomb" cannons that fired explosive shells. These small ships, hiding from British steamers in numerous bays in the Baltic States and Finland, proved to be effective against attempts by the British to carry out sabotage raids on our shores.
Volunteers familiar with sea and river affairs from St. Petersburg, Tver, Olonets and Novgorod provinces were admitted to the "Marine Militia" - there were many waterways in these regions and part of the population was engaged in river crafts, having experience of working on ships.
In less than two months, 7132 people joined the "naval militia". Money was collected for gunboats for the "sea militia" all over Russia. Petersburg merchant Vasily Gromov built 10 gunboats at his own expense.
In 1855, the rowing gunboats of the militia more than once distinguished themselves in battles with the enemy fleet. On June 7, at the mouth of the Narva River, four gunboats repelled an attack by two steam frigates. On July 1 of the same year, the British 84-gun battleship Hawke and the corvette Desperate appeared at the mouth of the Western Dvina. The British planned to destroy the port of Riga, but unexpectedly 12 small gunboats of the Sea Militia set off on a large steam battleship to attack. In an hour and a half skirmish, one of them was sunk, but the British battleship was hit in the side at the waterline and was forced to retreat.
"Mobile militia"
At the beginning of the Crimean War, the Russian army numbered 1,397,169 soldiers and officers. For three years of fighting, another 799 thousand recruits were drafted into the army. Formally, this was more than the 900 thousand troops that England, France and Turkey had at their disposal. But due to the hostility of the "neutral" Austria and Prussia, which had 800 thousand soldiers together, Russia was forced to keep numerous troops along the entire western border, in the Baltic States and Poland.
Thanks to the numerous steamers, the British and French could quickly concentrate their troops on the chosen direction of attack. Whereas Russia, not yet covered by a network of railways (at the beginning of the war, only one Moscow-Petersburg highway was built), was forced to move its troops on foot throughout the 1500-kilometer space between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Only on the Baltic, Black and Azov Seas, the total length of the shores that required protection and defense from enemy landings exceeded 5 thousand kilometers.
When the Anglo-French army landed in the Crimea and laid siege to Sevastopol, one and a half million Russian troops were scattered throughout the vast empire, covering its sea shores and all western borders. As a result, our forces in Crimea did not have a noticeable numerical superiority over the enemy and were seriously inferior to him in technical equipment.
Emperor Nicholas I had to recall the emergency measures to strengthen the army, which were last used during the invasion of Napoleon. On January 29 (February 10, new style), 1855, the tsarist manifesto "On the call to the State militia" was published: "In order to build a solid, powerful bulwark against all attacks hostile to Russia, against all plans for her security and greatness … we appeal to all estates of the state, commanding to start a general State Militia”.
The militias had to fight not at their place of residence, but to move out of the inner provinces to the battle areas, as well as to the threatened sections of the country's border and sea coast, so the new militia was called "mobile". The tsar entrusted the organization of the militia and the collection of funds for it to the local noble self-government.
The governors convened a general meeting of the nobles, at which the head of the militia of the province and officers of the militia squads were elected from among them by voting. Usually, each county formed one squad - according to the state, it was supposed to have 19 noble commanders and 1069 "warriors", as ordinary militia fighters were called.
The battle on the Malakhov Kurgan in Sevastopol in 1855 (fragment). Artist: Grigory Shukaev
"For Faith and the Tsar"
By the summer of 1855, 198 militia "squads" were formed in the central provinces of Russia, which consisted of 203 thousand "warriors". The squads were named by numbers and place of creation, each squad received its own banner - a green silk cloth with a gold cross and the inscription: "For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland."
79 squads from the Kursk, Kaluga, Orel, Tula, Ryazan and Penza provinces immediately marched on foot to the Crimea to help the besieged Sevastopol. 17 squads of the Tambov province were intended to protect the coast of the Azov Sea. 64 squads from the Smolensk, Moscow, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod provinces moved to the West to reinforce our troops in Poland, on the border with Austria and Prussia. 38 squads of the Petersburg, Novgorod, Tver, Olonets and Vologda provinces were sent to reinforce the troops and protect the coast in the Baltic.
The creation of the militia did not stop there. By the decree of the emperor, they began to form "squads of warriors" of the second and third order in the Pskov, Chernigov, Poltava, Kharkov, Voronezh, Saratov, Simbirsk, Vyatka, Perm, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Samara and Orenburg provinces. Thus, in the fall of 1855, another 137 squads for 150 thousand "warriors" were formed.
The rank-and-file "warriors of the mobile militia" recruited men from 20 to 45 years old. According to surviving statistics, 94% of the militias were peasants. Each ordinary warrior, at the expense of funds collected in the provinces, received a gray cloth uniform and a special sign on his cap - a brass cross with an imperial monogram and the inscription: "For the Faith and the Tsar." Since the militia were auxiliary troops, and even the regular army lacked new rifles, only two-thirds of the warriors were armed with old flintlocks.
"Bearded men" in battle
In early August 1855, the first militias approached Sevastopol. In total, 12 squads of the Kursk province took part in the defense of the city. From Kursk to Sevastopol, they had to walk over a thousand miles on foot. By the end of August, by the time the southern part of Sevastopol was abandoned, the militia made up more than 10% of the garrison.
Unlike regular army soldiers, the militia did not shave their beards, and the British and French nicknamed these units in plain gray uniforms "bearded men." Despite their little military experience, many of the "bearded" militias distinguished themselves in the defense of Sevastopol.
On August 27, 1855, during the decisive attack of the enemy, squad number 49 (from the Graivoronsky district of the Kursk province) participated in the defense of the Malakhov kurgan, a key point of defense. On that day, the Kursk warriors fought hand-to-hand with the Zouaves, the best professional mercenary soldiers that France then had. The militias lost a third of their composition, 16 warriors for that battle were awarded the St. George's Crosses.
Detachment No. 47 (from the peasants of the Oboyansk district of the Kursk province) that day fought in another key point of defense - on the Third Bastion of Sevastopol, which was attacked by the Scottish Guards. General Nikolai Dubrovin, a leading military historian of the 19th century, based on archival documents, described that battle as follows: hand-to-hand combat destroyed almost the entire column. But out of the thousand-strong squad, about 350 people remained …"
The Crimean War was not successful for Russia, and the warriors of the "Mobile Militia" are almost forgotten by their descendants. But the failures of our historical memory do not lessen the feat of ordinary Russian peasants who bravely fought 160 years ago against the elite military units of England and France.
