Military history of the Russian Empire
The military history of the Russian Empire encompasses the history of armed conflict in which the
Imperial Russia
Historians have long marked the importance of Peter the Great's reign in Russian history. Peter came of age in a vast but technologically and socially backward country. Upon taking control of Russia in 1682, the tsar energetically redressed every aspect of Russian government, society, and military to more closely match its western neighbors. He fought expansive wars against his neighbors, squeezing every resource at his disposal to power his war machine, and send large numbers of young men west, to learn the trades and skills that Russia would need in the future. Peter founded a new Russia by shattering the old.
The epoch of Russian history that Peter created has been variously known as the Imperial Age, because of the new connection between the ruler and land; the St. Petersburg Era, as the capital was moved to the newly built Saint Petersburg during his reign; and the All-Russian Period, which stresses the greater hegemony founded in the previously xenophobic country. The period from the time of his rule to the October Revolution (and dissolution of the Russian Empire) in 1917 is also sometimes called the Petrine era, in tribute to his importance. However, the Russian Empire proper was not founded until Peter took the title of imperator (emperor), at the end of the Great Northern War.[1][2]
Peter the Great
Early years and accession to the throne
As a child, Peter, though intelligent[
As Peter grew older, Sophia realized the insecurity of her throne in the face of a fledging male heir. In 1689, she incited her supporters in the streltsy to rebel again and put her firmly in power again. Frightened by rumors of a plot, Peter fled Moscow. In the critical days that followed, the
Early rule and military reforms
Peter personally studied soldiers and sailors from the bottom up, serving in the rank and file before promoting himself into the officer corps. Thus, Peter did not become a full general until after his victory at Poltava in 1709, and did not become full admiral until the conclusion of the Great Northern War more than a decade later. As early as 1694, he established a dockyard in Archangel and built an entire ship by himself. Russia suffered from an acute lack of expertise, a problem Peter mitigated by going to the foreign quarters in Moscow; there, in a relaxed environment far removed from the throne, he learned the particulars of such things as shipbuilding, navigation, military formation, and the erection of fortifications. Peter wanted to be everywhere at once, and see everything for himself. Not taking his role as tsar very seriously, he and his noble friends often staged elaborate drinking rituals and other forms of horseplay, displays of personal excess that helped unite his circle of friends through talk and drink. However, at the same time, he could be cruel, not flinching from the application of force to put down rebellions and sometimes beating his own friends if he thought it necessary.[5][8]
Once he took over the governmental machinery, Peter found a distinct lack of skilled specialists with which to run his government. Never placing much importance in rank or origin, Peter began recruiting skilled specialists out of every corner of the Russian empire, including serfs, foreigners, clergymen, and foreign specialists along with the usual boyars. Thus his administration consisted of men from across the social gamut. Most prominent among them was a one
With the head of the Russian governance now firmly in place, Peter began a sweeping modernization of his army. Peter inherited a partially Westernized military, and he sought to consolidate the reforms of his predecessors. The army dissolved annually during harvest seasons, and the only regular forces in the Russian army were the streltsy, a formally elite unit that had, by Peter's time, become a hereditary, ill-trained, ill-equipped force that garrisoned in Moscow and played more of a role in politics then in actual fighting.[11]
Peter started by firmly placing the nobility into the officer corps. Drawing on his personal experiences, he made young nobles serve as rank-and-file soldiers before ascending to the officer corps; commoners who distinguished themselves could achieve officer rank as well. Peter believed in lifelong servitude to the state, whether it was growing crops or fighting wars. Thus he offered serfs escape from their lifelong servitude on the farm in return for lifelong servitude in the army. Older and disabled veterans were transferred to positions in administration and the reserves, and thus, once they joined, Peter's troops were bound to the army for life.[12]
Peter established new schools and training grounds for the officer elite that was to lead the Russian army, and dispatched large numbers of men abroad to learn under foreign masters. Finding promises of release from serfdom insufficient, Peter began
Peter stressed evolution away from the
Siege of Azov, the Grand Embassy, and the Streltsy rebellion
In 1695, Peter conducted his first major operation with his fledgling military. Having assumed control in 1694, Peter inherited the
Russian forces first had to take a pair of watchtowers guarding heavy chains restricting Russian movements on the water, during which a successful sortie was launched by the Turks that captured many of the Russian siege engines. The Russians accepted the losses and laid down a steady bombardment onto the fort. However, the fort was constantly receiving supplies by water, and the attrition was hurting Peter's forces more than the Turks. After three months, Peter was forced to withdraw.[13]
Although his first attack on Azov proved to be a farce, Peter was tenacious. He understood that the reason he had lost the first battle was Turkish control of the sea, so Peter commissioned the construction of a large fleet at Voronezh on the upper Don. He worked vigilantly himself, using the shipbuilding skills he had learned earlier in his life to great effect. Thus, he was able to launch a fleet of 30 seagoing vessels and over 1,000 transports north of Azov in April 1696. This fleet accompanied a force of 70,000 infantry, twice that which Peter had brought with him during the first siege, and successfully cut off the flow of Turkish supplies. After a month of attrition, a force of 2,000 cossacks stormed the fort and, although rebuffed, captured part of its outer workings. The Turks, accepting defeat, ceded the fort to the Russians on July 18, 1696.[13][14]
The events at Azov proved to Peter the value of a sea-borne fleet. Although his predecessors had built primitive fleets on an as-needed basis, the second siege of Azov was their first successful application. Thus, with a need for shipbuilding knowledge and a desire to develop a mighty
Peter returned to Moscow to find that the rebellion had already been dealt with. He proceeded to interrogate the streltsy, torturing many into revealing that they sympathized with his half-sister and former tsarina Sophia. Thousands of streltsy were executed and hung in public, and Sophia, who had been exiled to a monastery near Moscow, was now forced to become a nun. Peter had the bodies of hundreds of streltsy hung outside her window to remind her of the consequences of confronting him. He also ended his marriage with Eudoxia Lopukhina, who sympathized with the streltsy, and forced her to become a nun as well.[13][15][17]
Great Northern War
Although Peter's "grand coalition" against the Turks had failed to develop, new political developments quickly brought his military attention to the north. 1697 marked the death of
Initial losses and the Battle of Narva
By the time Peter became involved, the coalition was already falling apart. Charles XII proved to be an unprecedented military genius and far superior a commander then his foes had expected. With utmost daring, in July 1700 Charles crossed the straits to Denmark with 15,000 men, carrying the fighting into the heart of their territory; the Danes, utterly defeated, surrendered within a month. Unaware of this, Peter declared war on Sweden in August 1700. Peter led an army of 35,000 men, and quickly laid siege to the city of
The Russians, enjoying a 3 to 1 numerical advantage, expected Charles XII to wait for reinforcements before attacking; but in another daring move, the Swedish forces, under cover of a blizzard, opted instead for a surprise attack on the Russian line. Caught off-guard, thinly stretched, and vulnerable to penetration by the skilled Swedish army, the ensuing battle quickly turned into a rout, with the panicked Russian troops attempting to swim over the frigid
Rebuilding his army, the Livonian campaign, and Polish defeat
Following the battle, with the Russian army broken, Charles XII reasoned that the Russians were no longer a threat to him and turned south to deal with Poland instead of pursuing Russia. Historians still argue as to whether or not Charles should have pressed his pursuit of the broken Russian enemy; had he chosen to pursue Peter, he might vary well have forced a quick victory and changed the outcome of the war. Regardless, after breaking a
The six year respite proved critical for Peter the Great. With characteristic energy, he quickly rebuilt his army. New officers were pulled out of the nobility in Russia and hired from abroad, and the replacement of soldiers lost at Narva was accomplished through heavy-handed
Peter tempered this new army in attacks on the Swedish holdings of
Sheremetev's success continued into 1704. The major inland city of
Charles XII elected his own candidate to the Polish throne in 1704, and spent the next three years chasing down Augustus II, now fleeing west towards his native
Domestic revolts and the Ukrainian detour
With only 50,000 soldiers, Charles XII could not dream of conquering all of Russia. Instead, he reasoned that the great wartime pressure that Peter had placed on his country, coupled with the discontent of the boyar nobility, would hand him the victory he desired. Charles had a strong base for this decision, for Peter's heavy-handed taxation had raised discontent against the crown. In the summer of 1705, an unknown monk and a member of the streltsy started a rebellion in Astrakhan against what they saw as the destructive influence of the nobility and foreign influence. The rebellion was bloodily suppressed in March 1707. Similarly, 1705 also marked the rebellion of the Turkish Bashkirs, for parallel reasons; this rebellion was not put down until 1711.[18][19]
More serious was the
Regardless, by the summer of 1708, Charles was positioned in
Historians still argue over whether or not a direct attack could have succeeded, but the Ukrainian diversion turned out to be a disaster for Charles. Charles's long
Battle of Poltava
Charles was running out of both time and options. Winter 1708–09 was a miserable one for the Swedes encamped in Ukraine, and in the following spring Charles was bogged down in a siege of the small Russian fortress of Poltava. Peter, still wary of engaging the Swedes in a pitched battle, slowly moved his troops through fortified positions to relieve the small fort. Charles foresaw that he could not take Poltava in time to avoid the Russians, but was confident that his 25,000 veteran troops, despite dwindling numbers, lack of supplies, and exhaustion, could defeat the 40,000 Russians in battle and finally end the war with Swedish victory. Peter, meanwhile, could afford to be patient; the Swedes were marooned far from support or reinforcements, and were losing numbers every day. The most direct path between the Russian camp to the north and Poltava was through treacherous forest and marsh, and thus Peter foresaw that any Swedish attack would double around the left, heading west before turning north through open ground towards the Russian army. Peter built six earthen redoubts in a line facing this probable Swedish charge, later augmenting them with four more, extending south in a "T".[26][27]
In late June, while preparing for the attack, Charles XII was shot in the foot. Thus, once the charge was made on the morning of 8 July 1709 (
Meanwhile, Peter prepared as well, moving his cavalry north to move on the Swedish left flank and also arranging his troops into a line. Charles took on the burden of attack, once again counting on the steadiness and experience of his troops to break the Russian lines. The Swedish right wing led the ensuing attack; as in earlier battles, the veteran troops outfought the Russians, collapsing them back and seizing supporting cannon as well. However, the weight of massed Russian fire opened a hole in the middle of the Swedish line, and the Russians, now fully able to make full use of such an event, poured through it and broke the Swedish column in half. The Swedish line broke and scattered, and 10,000 Swedes were killed or captured; most of the rest were captured on the banks of the Dnieper by Menshikov. Only a few hundred, including Charles himself, escaped south to Turkish exile.[26][28]
The Battle of Poltava was one of the most decisive victory in Russian history. The result of the Battle of Poltava, and of the following surrender, was that the bulk of the Swedish army was simply annihilated, leaving Sweden wide open for attack. At home, the victory gave Peter the political capital, and the war lull, he needed to crush ongoing domestic issues; in fact, if Peter had lost the battle, opposition to the tsar's reforms could have become active support for a new tsar. Poltava demonstrates how far the Russian army had come; after all, just nine years earlier, the Russians had been almost destroyed fighting the Swedes with an even greater numerical advantage. Peter the Great fully appreciated the importance of the battle's outcome, and made sure to thank the captured Swedes for their "lessons". However, the battle did not win the war, which was not yet even half over.[18][26][27]
Ottoman detour
The Ottomans had been apprehensive of Peter's militaristic gains, but had stayed out of the war. However, edged on by France and by Charles XII, the Ottomans, at the time harboring an exiled Charles XII, declared war on Peter by 1710. Now enjoying a temporary lull in the Great Northern War thanks to Poltava, Peter was quick, indeed eager, to move south. He pulled many of his troops, as well as Sheremetev, his most reliable general, south across the whole length of Russia to fight this new war. This was not the first time that Russia had fought against the Ottomans, and it would not be the last; however, like in earlier wars, Peter underestimated the distances involved and the stress of having to fight two wars simultaneously. Peter was the first to actively encourage Wallachia and Moldavia, mostly Christian areas under Turkish control, to revolt against their Ottoman rulers.[29]
By spring 1711 Peter was ready. He moved his army from Kyiv down through Poland, skirting wide of the
Final Swedish defeat and aftermath
With the issue with the Ottomans now settled, Peter turned his attention back to the north, and to the dismantling of the Swedish Empire on the
Even while he was dismantling the Swedish Empire, Peter continued to reform and refine his army. Russia's administration system at the time, the prikazy, was an antiquated, jumbled form of governance, with overlapping jurisdictions and lacking separation of powers. In 1717 he began replacing these instead with collegias, or "colleges", based on the Swedish model. As a rule Peter employed equal parts native Russians and foreign servitors. Unlike the prikazy they replaced, colleges could not make a decision without a consensus of their members, so-called "governance by board" that helped stifle wayward decisions as well as corruption. Among the first two colleges created were the College of War, which controlled the army and was led by Menshikov, and the Admiralty Board, which controlled the navy and was led by admiral Fyodor Apraksin.[31][32]
The sudden rise of Russia to power, and its protracted success in the war, triggered waves of concern across Europe. To help quell these waves, Peter traveled to Paris in 1717. Although his trip was inconclusive—France only promised to avoid involvement—once again, it gave Peter an opportunity to study Western Europe. In late 1718, Charles XII himself was shot through the head in a minor battle, possibly by his own soldiers. A broken Sweden sought allies against the Russian juggernaut, but the search proved fruitless, and with Russian troops regularly crossing the Baltic and raiding mainland Sweden, even reaching the suburbs of Stockholm, the Swedes finally admitted ultimate defeat.[29]
In the resultant Treaty of Nystad, Peter was extremely lenient[according to whom?] with the Swedes, keeping Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and part of southern Finland (especially Saint Petersburg) in exchange for the return of most of Finland to the Swedes and the payment of 2 million silver riksdaler. Peter could afford to be lenient, as the war was a decisive shift in the European balance of power. The Swedish Empire was carved up, and its position as a great power was taken by Russia. Celebrating these victories, Peter took the title of imperator, and the Russian Empire was thus founded. The Northern War left Russia as the dominant power in Northern Europe, and gave it firm control over the Baltic and thus a "window to the west". The war had also bettered Russia's position with respect to its Polish rival, which came to a head much later under Catherine the Great with the First Partition of Poland. Finally, it put Russia into direct contact with another of the great powers of Europe, Germany. Peter himself emerged a national hero; scripts at the time compared him to Hercules, Samson, and David.[18]
Persian campaign and final military reforms
The marathon Great Northern War was not the last war during Peter's tsardom, which saw one last short
In November 1719, the Treaty of Stockholm was made between Sweden and Hanover. Sweden handed over Bremen and Verden to Holstein in return for financial and naval support. The Elector of Hanover was George I. Later, in January and February 1720, another Treaty of Stockholm was signed between Sweden and Brandenburg. Sweden ceded Stettin, South Pomerania, the islands of Usedom and Wollin in return for money. Before the end of the Great Northern War, the Treaty of Fredriksborg was signed between Sweden and Denmark for Sweden to give up her exception from paying taxes to use the military service, the Sound. She also gave up Holstein-Gottorp. Finally, proceeding the War, in August and September 1721, the Treaty of Nyastad was signed between Sweden and Russia. Sweden ceded Livonia, Estonia and Ingria while Russia returned Finland, excluding Kexholm and parts of Karelia.[33]
Domestically, Peter contributed one last major element to Russia before his death in 1725: his Table of Ranks. Introduced in 1722, the Table organized the four major governmental branches, the army, navy, civil service, and court, into 14 major ranks. This standardized government positions and allowed officers to accurately gauge their relative importance; there was no table for common men. The Table was Peter's way of handling the appointment of nobility, as well as organizing Russian military positions; Peter had not appointed any new boyars, and the old honor code of mestnichestvo, which placed more stress on hereditary origins then on actual skill, had been rightfully abolished in 1682. He had resorted to the ad-hoc appointment before, but by the time of the Great Northern War this was quickly proving tedious, necessitating the change. Those that reached a certain level on the table were granted personal nobility, and for those that reached rank 12 or 8, depending on the service, hereditary nobility was granted, thus both rewarding merit and satisfying Peter's nobility. The Table, with minor changes, continued to find use until it was finally abolished in 1917.[32][34][35]
Catherine I and Peter II
Peter's death left no clear candidate for succession to the throne. His son, Aleksei, was a shy, bookish man with little interest in the throne, as well as a constant target for revolts aimed at undermining Peter's rule. Alexei had renounced his interest in the throne in 1714, an action that made Peter furious; Aleksei was captured and tortured, and died of his injuries in 1718. None of Peter's other male children survived into adulthood. In addition, in 1722 he had declared that the naming of an heir was the tsar's choice, not a matter of genealogy.[36][37]
Peter had crowned his second wife,
Catherine did not rule long, and died in 1727. Although she had two surviving daughters, Menshikov engineered the crowning of Peter's grandson,
The short reigns of both Catherine and Peter II were marked by the slow degradation of the Russian army and navy. Peter's draconian taxes were reduced, military units disbanded, and the navy was left to rot at anchor. The army would again be strengthened for various small actions in the 1730s and 1740s, but the declining trend of the Russian navy was not reversed for centuries.[36][37]
Anna I
The next leading candidate to the throne, as chosen by the Privy Council, was
Anna had few friends in the Russian government due to her time in
Münnich's reforms
Münnich, a tireless and power-hungry figure, had accumulated experience fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession before traveling to Russia and fighting during Peter's campaigns as an engineer. As a German delegate independent from the Russian nobility, he appealed to Anna, an appeal that Münnich used to ascend to presidency of the War College in 1732. Münnich worked to develop a smaller, stronger military. He disbanded superfluous units and introduced numerous improvements in financial management, whilst continuing the status quo of letting the navy rot at anchor. He established Cadet Corps to train young nobles for military service, effectively replacing Peter's requirement that they serve in the ranks first, as well as reducing the military service requirement to 25 years—still a draconian demand, but considerably better than Peter's theoretically lifelong model.[37]
Münnich also worked towards making the Russian army more flexible and efficient. He increased the number of artillery pieces per infantry units, and redistributed
War of Polish Succession
The first test of the Russian military strength in the post-Peter era, although not a very difficult one, was the War of the Polish Succession in 1733–1734. Following the death of Peter's old ally Augustus II of Poland, an election to throne a new king. Russia had expected Augustus III, Augustus's son, to succeed to his father's throne; however, in the fall of 1733 the election was decided instead in favor of the French-backed Stanisław Leszczyński, the same man that had been Charles XII's puppet king during the Great Northern War. Russia and the Austrian Empire both agreed that a French-backed king of the Polish throne was unacceptable, and thus intervened to replace Stanisław with the younger Augustus.[38][39]
Thus, in 1733, a Russian force under the exiled Irish general
Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739
After his troops returned from Poland, Münnich quickly began planning for an
The war opened with a failed Russian raid on the Crimea in 1735, but the first major campaign did not come until 1736. Münnich divided the Russian troops into two groups, a main army under his command aiming to attack
Encouraged and somewhat alarmed by the sudden Russian gains, Austria joined the war in 1736, aiming to seize control of a part of the Turkish
1738 proved inconclusive for the Russians. Lacy once again invaded Crimea for the third time, and once again produced no lasting results. Münnich marched down the west coast of the Black Sea and crossed the
Still, the battle was a hollow victory. Austria signed peace with the Ottomans that year, and without an ally and unsure of further gains, Russia was decided to sign the Treaty of Niš and end its war. The army had suffered enormously from disease, and for all the men and money that the war cost Russia only gained some sparsely populated steppe north of the Black Sea, and the old prize of Azov, under the condition that it would remain unfortified. Still, the war did demonstrate two things. Firstly, it showed how much the Russian army had advanced, as it easily beat back larger Ottoman forces during the war; Münnich had been overly ambitious, but his assumptions on the superiority of his troops were not misplaced. Secondly, it established and maintained the pattern that would develop in future wars between the Turks and the Russians: early Russian gains on river fortresses were to be nullified by the impact of disease, and deeper attacks cut off from their supply train by fast-moving Turkish and Tatar cavalry.[40][41]
Elizabeth
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Anna I died in autumn 1740. Shortly before her death, she had appointed her infant grandnephew, son of her niece, Princess of Mecklenburg,
Elizabeth had been brought up in relative quiet, and from early childhood had been praised for her beauty. Her interests were clothes, shopping, dancing, and men, and throughout her reign she had an extremely public and extremely long[clarification needed] list of suitors. Nonetheless, she did much to reincarnate Peter's reign; upon gaining the throne, she immediately restored the Senate and scattered Anna's German administration, sentencing both Münnich and Ostermann to death (a sentence commuted to exile at the scaffold). By scattering the hated Germans and projecting an image of beauty and affection, Elizabeth maintained one of the most popular public images among the Russian populace at the time. She entrusted much of her administration to Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a man she personally disliked, but whose skills she shrewdly understood were needed by the state.[36][43]
Russo–Swedish War of 1741–1743
The political turmoil of 1741 had given Sweden hopes of retribution for its losses in the Great Northern War. Sweden had additionally been egged on by French diplomats aiming to keep Russia out of the
Peter Lacy led the invasion of Finland, defended by only a tiny force, in the fall of 1741. He aimed specifically to destroy as much of the countryside as he could, skillfully using cossacks to the best of their raiding abilities. Seeing that its ally would be crushed, France tried to mediate peace, but to no avail. Lacy coordinated a second march in 1742, keeping along the coast of Finland so as to pin down the 17,000 Swedish troops, an objective he achieved at
Seven Years' War
Prelude
The 1740s and 1750s marked growing tensions across Europe. A key event in this instability was the sudden and meteoric rise of
The sudden growth of Prussia shifted the
With the dismissal of Münnich, Elizabeth entrusted control of the Russian military to
1756–1757 and the battle of Gross-Jägersdorf
The armed peace that Europe fell into did not last. Fredrick anticipated an attack against him, something he preempted by occupying Saxony in the summer of 1756, thereby removing the threat of a direct Austro-Russian attack against his capital of Berlin. The war began in earnest in 1757, and immediately split into two theaters: a power struggle in continental Europe between Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and a colonial war in North America between France and Britain (known in American history as the French and Indian War). Britain concentrated on using its naval superiority and relatively small army in fighting its colonial war, a move that France mirrored. Thus, the bulk of continental fighting was taken up by the Austrian-Russian alliance against Prussia.[44][50][51]
Despite enormous differences in land area, Prussia's position was not as hopeless as it might have seemed. Russian and Austrian strategic goals differed, with Russia concerned mainly with East Prussia and Austria, Silesia. The two countries often attempted to pass the burden of battle to one another. Thus Fredrick's strategy of constantly shifting his army, although tiresome for the troops, successfully keep both of his enemies at bay. British financial contributions and the overall superiority of the Prussian army further alleviated the Austrian-Russian size advantage.[44][50][51]
The war intensified in 1757 with an Austrian invasion of Prussia. Fredrick countered this army by organizing his own, 100,000 strong, and invading the Austrian Bohemia in four columns. The Austrians abandoned their invasion plans in favor of defense, organizing their army into a long brittle column along the border. After a fairly easy breakthrough, the Austrians fell into a disorderly retreat, and Fredrick began to advance on the Austrian capital of Prague, while also diverting forces to harass the French. Fredrick defeated the main Austrian army outside Prague in a bloody and close fought battle and laid siege to the Austrian capital. However, in June, an equally bloody battle at Kolín forced Fredrick to withdraw back north. While his southern operations were going sour, a French army invaded Germany from the west, defeating Prussia's British and Hanoverian allies along the way.[50][52]
While war was intensifying in Europe, the sluggish Russian army was still slowly advancing towards its target, the militarily isolated East Prussia. East Prussia was lightly garrisoned, and should not have been a significant threat to the 100,000 strong Russian force, led by Stepan Fyodorovich Apraksin. Apraksin was a well-connected diplomat in the tsarina's court with little true military experience. He moved his forces cautiously, at a pace that nearly proved disastrous. On 19/30 August 1757, a Prussian force caught the Russians marching off-guard at the small village of Gross-Jägersdorf. In the ensuing battle, the Prussian force, outnumbered 2 to 1, encircled both flanks of the Russian column (which stretched for over 2 miles) with cavalry, and Prussian infantry marched through the woods to attack the Russians in the center. The Prussians threatened to do what the Swedes had done at Narva, roll through the frantically redeploying Russians and then crush their individual units.[50][52]
The situation was salvaged only by a one Pyotr Rumyantsev, later to become Catherine the Great's foremost general; he rallied the Russian forces in the center, driving the Prussians back and ending the threat of a decisive breakthrough and defeat. With the Russian columns, particularly the artillery, now grinding back at their attackers, the Prussians were forced to retreat from battle. Losses had been roughly even, but the small Prussian force could ill afford its casualties. Apraksin, horrified by the losses, lacked the stomach to make good on his victory, and retreated to winter quarters, making the battle one of the most casual victories in Russian history. He was later relieved of command and put on trial for his heinous lack of initiative, dying in prison the next year.[48][50][52]
Overall, 1757 was a grim year for Fredrick. Prussia's lightning attack on Austria, which had meant to knock Austria out of the war while the other nations mobilized, had failed. He now faced confrontation with three great powers with an empty treasury, and a monetary toll that the small Prussian population could ill afford. Austrian forces were quickly recapturing Silesian fortresses, and the region capitulated into Austrian hands. Austrian raids even reached Fredrick's capital city, Berlin.[50]
1758 and the battle of Zorndorf
1758 brought new campaigns in Europe, and for Prussia, new hope. Fredrick coordinated a spectacular victory over the French at Rossbach, one he followed with costlier but equally decisive victory over the Austrians at Leuthen. His position on his western and southern flanks was now temporarily secure, and British funds, impressed by the Prussian victories, were now pouring in again.[44][53][54]
Following Apraksin's removal, command of the Russian field forces was transferred to William Fermor. Fermor, a clean-cut and intelligent Baltic German and a student of Lacy and Münnich, made his soldiers' welfare one of his primary concerns. Fermor's troops made quick work of the East Prussian providences that Apraskin had found so vexing. Seeing that he was unable to reclaim East Prussia, Fredrick turned his attention to the Austrians, invading the providence of Moravia. However, the Austrians refused to engage him in battle, and therefore he could not land any of the spectacular victories that had salvaged his strategic nightmare so far. Realizing that further advances were futile, by late summer Fredrick had turned his attention squarely back towards the Russians.[52][53][54]
Frederick met Fermor's troops on the marshes outside the hamlet of
Fermor withdrew east (in fact fleeing long before his army withdrew from Zorndorf), leaving the Prussians with the chance to move south and meet the Austrian offensive once again. Frederick once again nearly met disaster when his army, encamped at Hochkirch, was nearly overrun by the Austrians. Although he escaped with the majority of his forces intact, by the end of the year it was clear that the Prussian's military situation had not improved; rather, Frederick had lost many of his best troops, and the Russians and Austrians had demonstrated a newfound ability to nullify his tactics.[53]
Later campaigns
Russia continued its alliance with Austria, but Austria shifted to an alliance with France against
Aftermath
The Seven Years' War was the first war that Russia, previously embroiled in conflicts with its neighbors, fought against a first-class European army since Peter the Great, and the results were mixed. Russian troops demonstrated immense personal courage and bravado, standing before withering volleys of fire without flinching. The command structure did not fare nearly so well; overall coordination fell to Bestuzhev-Riumin and a court conference, which quickly proved to be inefficient, spending much of time engrossed in micromanaging the army. The Russian officer corps had been fashioned into an elite force during Peter the Great's reign, but his policies had been abolished and command corps had fallen into disrepair. The result was that, although Russia won several important victories against the Prussians, it never fully capitalized on its success. This problem was compounded by the insufficiency of the Russian supply line, which forced the Russians to withdraw every winter.[48][50]
Peter III
Peter III had a short and unpopular reign. Although he was a grandson of Peter the Great, his father was the duke of
Russian imperial expansion and maturation
Partition of Poland
Russia's westward expansion under Catherine resulted from the
Although the partitioning of Poland greatly added to Russia's territory and prestige, it also created new difficulties. Having lost Poland as a buffer, Russia now had to share borders with both Prussia and Austria. In addition, the empire became more ethnically heterogeneous as it absorbed large numbers of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and
Pugachev Revolt and Alexander Suvorov
During the 1768–1774 war with the
The history of the Russian army in this era was linked to the name of Alexander Suvorov a Russian general, reckoned one of a few great generals in history who never lost a battle. From 1777 to 1783 Suvorov served in the Crimea and in the Caucasus, becoming a lieutenant-general in 1780, and general of infantry in 1783, on the conclusion of his work there. From 1787 to 1791 he again fought the Turks during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 and won many victories, such as Izmail and Rymnik. Suvorov's leadership also played a key role in Russian victory over Poles during the Kościuszko Uprising.[57]
After Catherine
Catherine II died in 1796, and her son
During the early nineteenth century, Russia's population, resources, international diplomacy, and military forces made it one of the most powerful states in the world. Its
Napoleonic Wars
As a major European power, Russia could not escape the wars involving revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Paul became an adamant opponent of France, and Russia joined Britain and Austria in a war against France. Paul's support for the ideals of the Knights Hospitaller (and his acceptance of the position of Grand Master) alienated many members of his court. Along with his liberal policies towards the lower classes, and his discovery of corruption in the treasury, his zeal for reform sealed his fate. In March 1801, Paul was assassinated by a handful of nobles and disgruntled officers. The new tsar, Alexander I of Russia (r. 1801–1825), came to the throne as the result of his father's murder, in which he was rumored to be implicated.
Alexander's primary focus was not on domestic policy but on foreign affairs, and particularly on Napoleon. Fearing Napoleon's expansionist ambitions and the growth of French power, Alexander joined Britain and Austria against Napoleon. Napoleon defeated the Russians and Austrians at
The Russo-French alliance gradually became strained. Napoleon was concerned about Russia's intentions in the strategically vital
In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia to compel Emperor
As the French retreated, the Russians pursued them into Central and Western Europe and to the gates of Paris. After the allies defeated Napoleon, Alexander became known as the savior of Europe, and he played a prominent role in the redrawing of the map of Europe at the
See also
- Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov
- Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly
- Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov
1815–1856
Decembrists' Revolt
At the same time, Russia continued its expansion. The Congress of Vienna created the
Historians have generally agreed that a revolutionary movement was born during the reign of Alexander I. Young officers who had pursued Napoleon into Western Europe came back to Russia with revolutionary ideas. The intellectual modernization that had been fostered in the 18th century by a paternalistic, autocratic Russian state now included opposition to
Weakness of the army
Tsar Nicholas I (reigned 1825–1855) lavished attention on his very large army; with a population of 60–70 million people, the army included a million men. They had outdated equipment and tactics, but the tsar, who dressed like a soldier and surrounded himself with officers, gloried in the victory over Napoleon in 1812 and took enormous pride in its smartness on parade. The cavalry horses, for example, were only trained in parade formations, and did poorly in battle. The glitter and braid masked profound weaknesses that he did not see. He put generals in charge of most of his civilian agencies regardless of their qualifications. An agnostic who won fame in cavalry charges was made supervisor of Church affairs. The Army became the vehicle of upward social mobility for noble youths from non-Russian areas, such as Poland, the Baltic, Finland and Georgia. On the other hand, many miscreants, petty criminals and undesirables were punished by local officials by enlisting them for life in the Army. The conscription system was highly unpopular with people, as was the practice of forcing peasants to house the soldiers for six months of the year. Curtiss finds that "The pedantry of Nicholas' military system, which stressed unthinking obedience and parade ground evolutions rather than combat training, produced ineffective commanders in time of war." His commanders in the Crimean War were old and incompetent, and indeed so were his muskets as the colonels sold the best equipment and the best food.[63]
Finally the Crimean war at the end of his reign demonstrated to the world what no one had previously realized: Russia was militarily weak, technologically backward, and administratively incompetent. Despite his grand ambitions toward the south and Turkey, Russia had not built its railroad network in that direction, and communications were bad. The bureaucracy was riddled with graft, corruption and inefficiency and was unprepared for war. The Navy was weak and technologically backward; the Army, although very large, was good only for parades, suffered from colonels who pocketed their men's pay, poor morale, and was even more out of touch with the latest technology as developed by Britain and France. As Fuller notes, "Russia had been beaten on the Crimean peninsula, and the military feared that it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were taken to surmount its military weakness."[64][65][66]
History and service
Crimean War
See main article on Crimean War
Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878
See main article on Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)
Russo-Japanese War
See main article on Russo-Japanese War
The war between Russia and the
World War I
See main article on
Russian Revolution of 1917
See main article on
See also
Citations
References
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 211–212
- ^ Clarkson, pp. 187–188
- ^ a b Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 212–215
- ^ Hughes, pp. 9–17
- ^ a b Stone, pp. 44–46
- ^ Hughes, pp. 22–23
- ^ Hughes, pp. 24–26
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 215–217
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 217–218
- ^ Hughes, pp. 34–37
- ^ a b Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 226–227
- ^ a b c Stone, pp. 46–48
- ^ a b c d Stone, pp. 48–50
- ^ a b Hughes, pp. 37–39
- ^ a b Riasanovsky and Steinberg, 218–220
- ^ Hughes, pp. 40–50
- ^ a b Hughes, pp. 50–57
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 220–224
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Stone, pp. 50–54
- ^ a b c Hughes, pp. 58–65
- ^ Angus Konstam, Peter the Great's Army (1): Infantry (Osprey 1993).
- ^ Frost, pp. 230, 263
- ^ Hughes, pp. 67–68
- ^ Hughes, pp. 71–73
- ^ a b Hughes, pp. 79–82
- ^ a b c d Stone, pp. 54–56
- ^ a b c Konstam, pp. 62–74
- ^ Konstam, pp. 74–88
- ^ a b c d Stone, pp. 56–57
- ^ Grant, pp. 154–155
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 228–231
- ^ a b c Stone, pp. 57–60
- ^ Trueman, Chris. "The Great Northern War". Archived from the original on 2013-01-05. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 231–233
- ^ Hughes, pp. 165–169
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 239–243
- ^ a b c d e f g h Stone, pp. 61–63
- ^ a b Stone, pp. 63–64
- ^ a b Prothero and Benians, pp. 303–304
- ^ a b c d e Stone, pp. 64–67
- ^ a b c d e Prothero and Benians, pp. 304–308
- ^ a b c Stone, pp. 67–68
- ^ a b Prothero and Benians, pp. 309–312
- ^ a b c d Cowley and Parker, pp. 422–423
- ^ a b c Stone, pp. 68–70
- ^ Marston, pp. 16–17
- ^ Riasanovsky and Steinberg, pp. 248–250
- ^ a b c Prothero and Benians, pp. 314–320
- ^ Martson, p. 15
- ^ a b c d e f g Stone, pp. 70–72
- ^ a b Marson, pp. 26–28
- ^ a b c d Marson, pp. 29–42
- ^ a b c d Stone, pp. 72–74
- ^ a b Prothero and Benians, pp. 322–324
- ^ John T. Alexander, Catherine the Great: life and legend (Oxford University Press, 1988)
- ^ John T. Alexander, Autocratic politics in a national crisis: the Imperial Russian government and Pugachev's revolt, 1773–1775 (Indiana University Press, 1969)
- ^ K. Osipov, Alexander Suvorov: a biography (Hutchinson, 1944)
- ^ Curtis Cate, The War of the Two Emperors: The Duel Between Napoleon and Alexander: Russia, 1812 (1985).
- ^ Adam Zamoyski, 1812: Napoleon’s fatal march on Moscow (2012).
- ^ Mark Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy After Napoleon (IB Tauris, 2013)
- ^ Marc Raeff, The Decembrist Movement (1966)
- ^ Anatole G. Mazour, The first Russian revolution, 1825: the Decembrist movement, its origins, development, and significance (Stanford University Press, 1961)
- ^ John Shelton Curtiss, "The Army of Nicholas I: Its Role and Character," . American Historical Review (1958) 63#4 pp 880–889, quote p. 886. in JSTOR
- ISBN 978-1-4391-0577-1.
- ^ Barbara Jelavich, St. Petersburg and Moscow: Tsarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974 (1974) p 119
- ^ William C. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914 (1998) pp 252-59
- ^ Figes. A People's Tragedy, 168–170.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-19-534197-3.
- ISBN 0-275-98502-4.
- The Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 6. Cambridge University Press.
- Jessie D. Clarkson (1961). A History of Russia. Random House.
- R. G. Grant (2008). Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare. ISBN 978-0-7566-3973-0.
- ISBN 0-395-66969-3.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10300-7.
- ISBN 0-582-06429-5.
- ISBN 978-1-85532-416-9.
- Daniel Marston (2001). The Seven Years' War. Essential Histories. ISBN 978-1-84176-191-6.
Further reading
- Cate, Curtis. The War of the Two Emperors: The Duel Between Napoleon and Alexander: Russia, 1812 (1985).
- Fuller, William C. Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914 (1998)
- Haythornthwaite, Philip J. The Russian Army of the Napoleonic Wars (1987) vol 1: Infantry 1799–1814; vol 2: Cavalry, 1799–1814
- Lieven, D. C. "Russia and the Defeat of Napoleon (1812–14)," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History (2006) 7#2 pp 283–308.
- William Reger, David Jones (ed.). The Military Encyclopedia of Russia and Eurasia. Academic International Press.
- John L. Keep (1985). Soldiers of the Tsar—Army and Society in Russia 1462–1874. ISBN 978-0-19-822575-1.
- Reforming the Tsar's Army: Military Innovation in Imperial Russia from Peter the Great to the Revolution. ISBN 978-0-521-81988-6.
- Christopher Duffy (1982). Russia's Military Way to the West: Origins and Nature of Russian Military Power, 1700–1800. ISBN 978-0-7100-0797-1.
- ISBN 978-0-345-33619-4.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-847-2.
- W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff (1953). Caucasian Battlefield. Cambridge University Press.
- Paul Britten Austin (1993). 1812: The March on Moscow. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-1-85367-154-8.
External links
- Mark Conrad's Home Page – Russian Military History
- Russian Army of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon, His Army and Enemies.