[Note: The reader should understand that for the first half of the nineteenth century, the number of graduates from the various cadet corps never came close to meeting the demand for new officers. Most Russian army officers entered the service by applying to the unit of choice. Upon acceptance, they served as privileged lower ranks until they were finally commissioned. Thus, as will be seen below, "entering military service in the lower ranks" includes persons who would never be more than privates, and others who would rise to general-officer rank. M.C.]
PROGRESS THROUGH ARMY SERVICE CAREERS;
AN HISTORICAL OUTLINE
War Ministry Centennial 1802-1902.
Main Staff.
Book I, Section III (pages 1-30).
Chief Editor: General-of-Cavalry D. A. Skalon.
Authors: Privy Councilor A. N. Andronikov and Lieutenant Colonel V. P. Fedorov.
St. Petersburg, 1912.
ARMY SERVICE CAREERS UNDER EMPEROR ALEXANDER I
ON ENTERING SERVICE BY VOLUNTEERING.
ON ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE
IN THE LOWER RANKS
ON THE AGE NECESSARY FOR ENTERING
SERVICE.
EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR PERSONS ENTERING
SERVICE.
ENTERING SERVICE BASED ON THE RIGHTS OF
NOBLES.
ON THE RIGHTS OF STUDENTS OF NOBLE AND NON-NOBLE
STATUS TO ENTER SERVICE.
ON PERSONS ENTERING SERVICE AS
VOLUNTEERS.
ENROLLMENT OF ODNODVORTSY INTO
SERVICE.
ON ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE BY
CAPITULATION.
ENTERING SERVICE BASED ON THE UNIVERSAL SERVICE
RIGHT. MAKING THE 25-YEAR TERM
OF SERVICE UNIVERSAL
FOR ALL TROOPS.
ACCEPTING JEWS INTO MILITARY SERVICE.
ON VOLUNTARILY ENTERING SERVICE FROM
RETIREMENT.
ON THE PROCEDURE FOR SUBMITTING REQUESTS
AND ON THE DOCUMENTATION TO ACCOMPANY
ASSIGNMENT INTO
SERVICE.
ON PROCEDURES FOR ACCEPTING FOREIGNERS INTO
SERVICE.
ON ENTERING SERVICE IN THE FELDJÄGER
CORPS.
TAKING A OATH FOR THE SECOND
TIME.
ASSIGNMENT TO MILITARY SERVICE DUE
TO BAD BEHAVIOR
BY SENTENCE OF THE VILLAGE MIR
VAGABONDS AND CRIMINALS.
DESERTERS.
SELF-MUTILATORS.
PERSONS EXPELLED FROM RELIGIOUS CLERICAL
STATUS.
PERSONS EXPELLED FROM INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER
LEARNING.
MISCELLANEOUS PERSONS.
CAPTURED MOUNTAINEERS.
This outline of career progress [prokhozhdenie sluzhby] in the army, which is one of the books about the Main Staff [Glavnyi Shtab] during the War Ministry’s first hundred years (1802-1902), is a description of the development of legislation concerning the indicated topic in the course of the reigns of five emperors: Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III, and the current prosperously reigning Nicholas II. Short indications of service career patterns were part of the historical outlines: Russia’s Armed Forces up to the Reign of Emperor Alexander I, by General-of-Infantry Mikhnevich, and Manning the Armed Forces in Russia up to 1802, by Captain Ilenko (War Ministry Centennial, IV, Part I, Book I, Section I). This present section of War Ministry Centennial on initial entry into service proposed to cover voluntary enlistments, since the filling of the army’s ranks in the usual way [i.e. conscription of peasants - M.C.] was the subject of Manning the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, we were not able to use the primary archival sources for our overview to anywhere near the amount that one would have liked, for the following reasons. The first and foremost - the limited size of the overview compared to its scope and the period to be covered. Additionally, the written memoranda relating to army service careers in the first half of the last century, relevant to this overview, are preserved in three military archives-the archive of the War Ministry’s Chancellery, the Moscow section of the Main Staff’s archives, and the archive of the Historical Artillery Museum. It is not uncommon for correspondence on the same subject during the first quarter of the last century to be in two archives: in one-the beginning of the documentation, and in another-the end. Also, there is great difficulty in tracing files for the period 1802-1816 due to the idiosyncratic organization of correspondence which existed at that time. For example, let us take the very interesting file of His Majesty’s Campaign Chancellery from 1797 through 1812, preserved in the Moscow section of the Main Staff’s archives. Files did not exist at that time in the sense of what is understood today, i.e. the total sum of a certain kind of correspondence on one or another subject. Acquired papers were collected in chronological order in a journal, without distinguishing between the subjects of the documents, and in this collecting some 500 or even 1000 pages were bound into special volumes. Official recognition was long given to the difficulty of tracing any kind of subject from these volumes: in 1816, immediately after these files were delivered over to archives of the War Ministry’s Inspection Department, the department’s vice-director wrote to the head of the 2nd Section.
In order to provide some relief to the Chief of the archives in tracing documents, as may be required for those concerning His Majesty’s Military Field Chancellery from 1797 through 1812, these being turned over by you organized in the same way as they were maintained up to that point, I find it necessary that in such cases for some time into the future you send your clerk to the archive so that we can more easily and quickly located the desired papers… (Moscow Section of the Archive of the Main Staff, III - files of the chancellery of the vice-director of the Inspection Department, sv. II, d. No. 251 (1816), predp. 24 Aug., No. 1962.)
A little more than ninety years have passed. The clerks who were employed in 1816 have all departed this world, the collected volumes remain untouched, and no aids for searching, such as an alphabetical index, contents table, etc., have yet been produced (a detailed card catalog is currently being printed).
The problem still exists for currently produced correspondence, although these can be dealt with somewhat more easily since copies are written in a kind of journal in chronological order and divided by categories: “signed Highest ukases,” “Highest rescripts,” “ukases made known through a General-Adjutant,” and so on. The situation is little better in regard to many other archival finding aids: you spend a great deal of time looking through an index or catalog, order the file from the archive based on its title, and do not find in it what you hoped for, or you find something unexpected… An example: in the archive of the Artillery Museum is group 272, file No. 7, indexed as “on disbursement of funds in 1801 and 1802…, on engineer work performed and the construction of fortifications,” but in it is actually Moscow University student Yablochkov’s service commission…
The dryness of the subject of this overview, in conjunction with the limited resources mentioned above, and especially with the limited time allotted to complete this work, which was subsequently decreased even further, must all result in unwanted defects in content and succinctness, regardless of our wishes, and so the authors ask indulgence for any shortcomings.
According to the initial outline of the parts making up the historical overview of the War Ministry’s centennial, the subject of career progress (promotions, awards, leaves, retirements, transfer to reserves) was assigned to Section 3 of Book 1 of the first part of the group of volumes covering the Main Staff (Group IV), while an examination of retired personnel and their widows and orphans was to be in Section 4 of the same book and part. Subsequently during the compilation of the overview, it appeared more fitting that promotion in rank, as a wide-ranging and independent subset of progress through army service, be set apart, and so it made up Section 4, Book 1, Part 1 [i.e., a separately bound volume - M.C.]. The examination of retired personnel and their widows and orphans is included in Section 3 of the same book and part.
The varied nature of the topics included in this overview, the short time allotted to complete it, and the task of locating documents in the archives of two cities-St. Petersburg and Moscow-naturally required a division of labor between the authors. Thus the task of collecting of archival material in St. Petersburg and the editing of this historical outline was assumed by the former chief of the Main Staff’s archive, Privy Councilor Andronikov, now retired. The collection of archival material in Moscow and the compilation of the historical outline was carried out by Lieutenant Colonel Fedorov, an office chief at the Moscow Section of the Archive of the Main Staff.
ARMY SERVICE CAREERS UNDER EMPEROR ALEXANDER I
The reign of Emperor Paul I was brief but significant, and its history has at this time still not been sufficiently illuminated. The editor of Historical Outline of the War Ministry Centennial; Russia’s Armed Forces up to the Reign of Emperor Alexander I, Lieutenant General Mikhnevich (IV, Chapter IX, pgs. 219-238), while describing both the good and bad sides of our army in the reign of Emperor Paul I, concludes by calling its state sad. He goes on to say that it was inherited in this condition by Emperor Alexander I, so large-scale reform and reorganization by the new Sovereign were naturally expected in an army that had received particular attention from his predecessor.
ON ENTERING SERVICE BY VOLUNTEERING.
Entering military service was of two ways: compulsory and voluntary. The first was an obligation, but the second depended on a person wishing to seek entry. The first was described in its own volume, while the present outline covers the regulations for entering service at a man’s own option. Additionally, here is also included a special category of persons entering service not voluntarily, but under compulsion, and at the same time not out of obligation, but due to condemnation by communities, decisions of judicial bodies, the will of landowners, etc. For the most part these were criminal persons.
There are three forms of entering military service on a voluntary basis: a) in the lower military ranks; b) as military officers, and c) as ranked civilian officials.
ON ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE IN THE LOWER RANKS
ON THE AGE NECESSARY FOR ENTERING SERVICE.
The basic question whose answer determined, and still determines, whether a certain person can enter military service is age. Those physical demands which military service has always, but particularly so in the past, made on persons undertaking it could only be met by those whose bodies were developed and strengthened to a certain extent.
In a signed ukase from the reign of Empress Anna Joanna, given to the Senate on 7 August 1740 (1st PSZ, 8195, where PSZ stands for Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov, or Complete Collection of Laws, and the numbers following indicate the entry under which are the ukases and decrees), “On not releasing nobles from military and state service without the consent of the Senate,” it was explained that from the information presented to the Military College [i.e. the war ministry as it was then titled, and not an educational institution - M.C.] it was observed that many of the nobility counted the beginning of their service from their very youngest years during which no kind of service could be rendered, and in particular from their attendance in schools, cadet corps, and academies where they were not on service, but engaged in studies. Therefor it was ordered that henceforth everyone’s service would be counted from the time he was twenty years old (Baranov, Register of Highest ukases and decrees, Vol. II, pg. 684). Instructions to colonels of foot and horse regiments allowed for modifications of the established norms in certain cases, namely: colonels were given the right to make soldiers’ children clerks, fifers, and musicians when younger than fifteen, but they were prohibited from being placed into combatant service before the age of fifteen. In this way a colonel might accept and enroll for himself any noble of the indicated age (1st PSZ, 12289 and 12543).
Emperor Alexander, in response to petitions to register into service nobles who were not old enough, in 1801 answered by decreeing: “Accept.” and “Register.” In this way, the following 15-year old adolescent nobles were registered: Zagarin of Simbirsk Province (Moscow Section of the Archive of the Main Staff [Moskovskoe otdelenie Arkhiva Glavnago Shtaba, hereafter MoAGSh] III, op. 152, d. 107, pgs. 43-45), Fainitskii of Smolensk Province (ibid., l. 343), and Sulimkin of Slobodo-Ukraine (ibid., d. 117, l. 15), even though their families were not high ranking. In the same year of 1801, the Military College received from an inspectorate some lists of lower ranks who either had served out the regulation number of years for retirement or who were unable to continue service, and in examining them found that the claimed years indicated the persons had entered service at 9, 10, or 12 years of age. This occasioned the issuing of a new Highest order: the 25-year term of service for soldiers’ children was to be counted from when they were 18 years old (I PSZ, 20003). On 12 May 1809, the Minister of War instructed the Military College not to take staff-officer cadets [literally “column leaders,” kolonnovozhatye - M.C.] younger than 16 into the quartermaster section or as junkers into the artillery [the “quartermaster section” was the name for what later became the general staff, and “junkers” were officer candidates - M.C.] (1st PSZ, 23641; Ukase of the Minister of War to the Military College, 12 May 1809, No. 878; Military Educational Archives of the Main Administration of the Gen. Staff, sect. 1, No. 268). Twelve days later there followed a Highest directive that underage junkers serving in the artillery were to be given over to the 2nd Cadet Corps for instruction. Thus were discovered 10-year old Zhemchuzhnikov in the Guards battalion, 9-year old Kufarin in the St.-Petersburg Reserve Brigade, and six other persons each 14 years old (MoAGSh, op. 153v., No. 90: Orders of the Minister of War, May third of the year 1809). When a plan was set forth on 11 February 1824 about the establishment of a school for guards officer candidates [podpraporshchiki], it included an article that prohibited accepting into service nobles younger than 16 years of age (1st PSZ, 29460).
EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR PERSONS ENTERING SERVICE.
a) In the army. Anyone wishing to enter service, if he had not finished a course in some educational institution, had to pass an examination to show that he could read and write correctly and knew the basics of grammar and arithmetic. Illiteracy was not, however, an obstacle to entering service in the infantry or cavalry-though in such cases the applicant was not accepted in any rank other than private, even though he might be a noble. In 1801, the Sovereign Emperor, having seen that regiments had many non-commissioned officers from the nobility who were completely unable to read and write, ordered that applications from nobles wishing to enter military service indicate for each man whether he was literate and in what subjects he had been educated. Those who could not read or write were not to be accepted other than as privates (1st PSZ, 19825; MoAGSh, op. 153v., d. 27, l. 210, Nos. 843-1012). In the course of time, this problem continued to grow and could not be ignored, and special attention was paid to persons entering the guards.
b) In the guards. On 24 November 1801, the St.-Petersburg commandant was ordered (No. 943) by the Sovereign that nobles coming to him wishing to enter service as non-commissioned officers in regiments of the Life Guards be sent to the 1st Cadet Corps for examination (MoAGSh, op. 153, book 28, Journal of the General Adjutant). In 1808 this order was repeated with the statement that it was Highest will that the Sovereign not be bothered by young nobles appearing before Him wishing to be registered into the guards but who could not show an attestation from the director of the 1st Cadet Corps that they were qualified to be accepted (Military Educational Archive of the Main Administration of the General Staff, sect. 1, No. 265).
c. In the artillery. For those joining the artillery, qualifications were still higher, since in response to the inspector-general of artillery’s application that two young sons of officers, Kalachov and Renner, be enrolled into the Guards Artillery Battalion, His Imperial Majesty deigned to express that He held it to be better if only cadets familiar with the science of artillery were enrolled into that branch, and that volunteers were not to be assigned unless they were found by examination to be knowledgeable about artillery (Artillery Museum, Book of Highest orders to the artillery branch, for the year 1801, sv. 162, g. 6, l. 16). In response to a most respectful transmittal of a similar application for enrollment of the noble youth Stolypin, the Sovereign Emperor ordered that underage nobles not be enrolled into the guards, but rather that colonels-in-chief [shefy] select from other battalions non-commissioned officers who were “superior by their excellence in good conduct and technical knowledge.” This was announced to the inspector of artillery on 24 September 1801 in Order No. 3469, and on this basis the above named youth was enrolled for service in the 12th Artillery Battalion (ibid., sheet 114). The examinations in artillery science mentioned in the Highest order concerning the youths Kalachov and Renner were directed to be carried out in the presence of a group of field and company-grade officers, and the examination papers were to be presented to higher authorities along with attestation by the officers present at the examination. Those who did not pass were to have their documents returned to them (ibid., l. 220, circular of 8 April 1801, Nos. 1275-1286). On 22 June 1809, the minister of war announced to the Military College an ukase by which enrollment into the Life-Guards Artillery Battery was conditional upon: a) the ability to correctly express one’s thoughts in words and writing in the Russian language; b) the ability to at least speak either in German or in French, and c) having a complete knowledge of arithmetic, algebra (including solving first-order equations), and the beginning principles of geometry. Directives in this regard concerning nobles wishing to join other artillery units in the army as junkers are not found until 1817, when military commanders were reminded that such young persons must know mathematics, in which they are first examined, and only then are they assigned to service by the Inspectorate of Artillery, to which end their applications were to be directed to the artillery authorities (MoAGSh, order of the Chief of the Main Staff, 17 February, 1817, No. 12).
ENTERING SERVICE BASED ON THE RIGHTS OF NOBLES.
a) Procedure for enrollment. The ranks of those people who voluntarily entered the army had for a long time been filled by youths from the nobility, and the regulating of their entry into service began in 1803. In that year a draft ukase to the Senate was prepared on the procedure for registering into service young nobles who were not educated in one of the various cadet corps. The plan incorporated the ideal that the nobility, always supportive of government goals and cognizant the army’s need to find young men capable of subsequently becoming officers, were educating their children at their own expense and then sending them into the army as non-commissioned officers. The government, however, paid no attention to this great service, otherwise there would not have followed a directive about training such young men at the various cadet corps and enrolling them into the army already as officers (Military Educational Archives, sect. 4, subj. 19). This project was not carried out, which in time turned out to be for the best. In his notes on establishing junker schools [yunkerskiya shkoly] in army corps and divisions, General-Adjutant Baron Korf wrote that in these schools more attention would be paid to conduct [than in cadet corps] and therefore they would prove to be a more appropriate type of school for youths, since “they conduct themselves well when in lower ranks and may be treated with some strictness,” which would be fundamental for their future conduct as officers when they “could not be dealt with as students…” By regulation, as stated in a Highest order issued in a parole of 14 December 1797, nobles enrolling into military service had to come in as privates and remain in this rank for no longer than three months, and then be promoted to non-commissioned officers (1st PSZ, 18267). Emperor Alexander did not make any basic change to this order of his Most-August Father until 1807, as on 27 March 1802 he only ordered that noble non-commissioned officers in the cavalry and artillery and in jäger regiments be henceforth titled junkers [yunkera], and on further promotion their title would be standard-junker [shtandart-yunker] in the cavalry, flag-junker [fanen-yunker] in the artillery, and swordbelt-junker [portupei-yunker] in the infantry (1st PSZ, 20199).
b) Assignments to units. The Sovereign allowed nobles to enroll in service only in military units having a combat function. When a pupil in the Moscow Military Orphans Detachment, Rovenskii, submitted a petition that he be enrolled for service in the Moscow Police Invalid Command, the following Highest resolution was issued: “…for a noble wishing to enter service for the first time, this kind of assignment is inappropriate.” (MoAGSh, op. 153v., book 33, journal of the General Adjutant, 1st half of the year 1802, 15 February, No. 166.) This point of view continued unchanged throughout Alexander’s reign. On 18 November 1809, a Highest order directed that nobles wishing to enter into service were not to be taken into garrison regiments and battalions, nor into garrison artillery companies, but rather only be assigned to field units. A similar order followed on 29 April 1822 in regard to the St.-Petersburg and Moscow gendarme battalions and other gendarme commands, in which it was directed to transfer to army infantry regiments all non-commissioned officers in these units who were from the nobility, or whose fathers were officers, or who were of other ranking classes. Also, they were not to be accepted into these units in the future. The entry of nobles into regiments of the life guards was made somewhat more difficult in 1823, when the school for guards officer candidates [gvardeiskie podpraporshchiki] was established. Nobles had to first go to this school after passing an examination and only then could they join regiments (1st PSZ, 29460, and War Ministry Centennial I, page 271 and X, page 198). All nobles who presented evidence of their aristocratic lineage were accepted into service regardless of whether they were Russians, from the Baltic provinces, Georgians, Bessarabians, from Finland, Poles, etc.
c.) Entering service at government expense. Beginning in 1812 a Highest directive of 14 May gave young men of the Finland nobility the privilege of having their applications accepted locally if they wished to enter Russian service but were too poor to travel to St. Petersburg for enrollment, and afterwards, as serving soldiers, they were sent into service at government expense. This directive was given at a time of special need before the outbreak of war, and it had a precedent from similar circumstances before the 1807 war (MoAGSh, op. 153, d. 119, l. 63). In view of the army’s shortage of officers and with the goal of attracting young noblemen into military service for subsequent promotion to officer rank, an ukase of 14 March 1807 (1st PSZ, 22493 and Centennial I, pg. 270) to the Minister of Internal Affairs directed him to announce to the noble class that young men not in government service and 16 years of age or older, desiring to enter military service, could travel to the army cadet corps in St. Petersburg and from there, after the shortest possible time necessary to learn the basics of service and the knowledge required of an officer, be sent to regiments as ensigns [praporshchiki]. Poor nobles were even allowed to be provided travel funds for three horses for every two persons. The number of those applying was immediately so large that restrictions had to be ordered (1st PSZ, 26089): 1) no one over 20 years of age was to be accepted; 2) documents were to be collected by local authorities and forwarded for preliminary review and decision; 3) applications were to be accepted only from those who could read and write and knew arithmetic; 4) no persons were to be sent to any cadet corps from September to July, and 5) travel money for two horses was to be provided for every three persons. A Senate ukase regarding traveling expenses for nobles with insufficient resources was issued on 31 December 1818 to its 1st Department (Collection of laws and directives relating to military administration, 1819, Book I, page 379, addendum, extract from the journal of the Committee of Ministers, 24 August and 31 December 1818).
d) Exceptions to general rules. On 31 March, 1810, a directive was issued about youths from the top levels of society, in which was written:
There are pages being educated in the Corps of Pages who have parents in poor health or themselves are lacking seriousness so that they leave the Corps of Pages under the pretext of illness and shirk their duty to be diligent in studying what is taught for his own honor and its usefulness for the Fatherland, and then enroll into army regiments as non-commissioned officers and then become officers without any of the work and study demanded in the corps. Such persons present a very harmful example to other pages to abandon their studies and only endeavor to simply become an officer, and they thereby substantially hurt themselves and at the same time deprive the Fatherland of a useful officer. Therefor, the Sovereign Emperor directed that an order be given that all such pages who are withdrawn from the Corps of Pages due to inability to perform military service are not to be accepted into military service even in other units (1st PSZ, 24171).
e) Enrollment of persons holding officer rank in civilian service. Those civilian officials [chinovniki] who reached officer-level ranks in state service were accepted into military service according to the universal rights of nobles. The question of the manner in which they were to be enrolled arose in a memorandum from the 1st Army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Baron Diebietsch, concerning Provincial Secretary Myakotin, who had declared his wish to be enrolled into the Belozersk Infantry Regiment. Diebietsch reported that he did not know what legal basis governed the enrollment of such persons. As a consequence of this, the Inspection Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Main Staff declared in a circular (MoAGSh, No. 356 - Sept. Circular for 1818, 8 August, No. 7012) that in accordance with the Highest confirmed opinion of the department, it was ordered that officer-level officials in state service who had attained rank but were not of noble birth were to be enrolled as non-commissioned officers, but those who were born to noble families were to be accepted into infantry and cavalry regiments as officer candidates [podpraporshchiki and yunkera, respectively].
ON THE RIGHTS OF STUDENTS OF NOBLE AND NON-NOBLE STATUS TO ENTER SERVICE.
In 1806 the war with France and Turkey led to a widespread shortage of officers. In order to attract into the army young men with a good education who would be material for the officer cadre, on 3 July and 3 November relevant ukases were issued (1st PSZ, 22199 and 22340). In them, in order to encourage both noble and non-noble students studying in universities to strive toward military service and the acquisition of the knowledge necessary for that kind of duty, His Imperial Majesty ordered that students could present to the Minister of Public Enlightenment [i.e. the minister of education - M.C.] proof of having acquired an excellent knowledge of the subjects relevant to the military profession and evidence of good conduct, and also include with this application for military service documentation of their noble or other status. Persons who could satisfy these requirements would be accepted into military service with the following privileges: from the day they entered service they would serve six months in the lower ranks-three months as privates and three as officer candidates-at the end of which time they would be promoted to officers even when the units in which they were serving had no vacancies. On 14 March 1807, these privileges were further extended so that those students who could travel to St. Petersburg upon finishing their studies would not join regiments as privates but instead go to one of the army cadet corps as non-commissioned officers, from where they were sent out as officers after “they were instructed in military service” (1st PSZ, 22493).
In 1810, the Imperial Tsarskoe-Selo Lyceum was founded with the goal of educating youths destined for service in important government departments, but it was ordered that any of the students who wanted to enter military service would be enrolled under the same conditions as for members of the Corps of Pages (1st PSZ, 24325). This was the situation until 1817, when an ukase of 19 May to the Minister of Internal Affairs announced special rules for enrolling Lyceum students into military service. The main points were as follows: motive-recognition of the need for officers for military service possessing sufficient education; conclusion-do not block the way for Lyceum students desiring military service; means of execution-a) students with gentlemanly manners and who have proven by examination that they possess basic knowledge, after being reviewed and vouched for by the Lyceum staff, are to be assigned upon graduation to guards regiments for training in drill and tactics, and upon being qualified they are to promoted to officers in the guards; b) those applicants who have a weaker grasp of the necessary knowledge are upon graduation to be sent to the 2nd Cadet Corps for training in drill and tactics and then be promoted to officers in the army (1st PSZ, 26875).
These student privileges were gradually extended to the Richelieu Lyceum (1st PSZ, 26827), the boarding school of Moscow University (ibid., 27268 and 27269), the boarding school of the Main Pedagogic Institute (ibid.), the boarding schools of the St.-Petersburg and Kiev preparatory schools, and also the Yaroslav Demidov School of Higher Learning (ibid., 27269).
ON PERSONS ENTERING SERVICE AS VOLUNTEERS.
After students comes the category of volunteers [vol’noopredelyayushchiesya], who were ordered to be considered as such on 5 December 1802, in a report to the Military College, and who were to include: the sons of those persons not noble born but who had acquired only personal nobility through service (for example, those who attained company-grade officer ranks upon retirement); sons of persons who had acquired officer-level ranks through state service; foreigners possessing legal evidence of their free status and who chose military service as their way of life; sons of church servitors and other religious persons of noble status, who had studied in church schools and had permission from church authorities as well as documentation of their nobility from the heraldic office; finally, sons of merchants (1st and 2nd Guilds) and [Protestant] pastors -if the first had permission from their communities and the second from their colleges, allowing them to serve where they wished (1st PSZ, 27362 and 27520). To this class of persons were added graduates of the school of the Academy of Arts, who according to a decree of 4 November 1764, were “ranked forever free and emancipated in their lineages.”
Volunteers who served without reproach in non-commissioned officers’ positions for 4 years could be attested for promotion to officers, while those who were not attested in the course of time were allowed, upon serving without reproach for a period of 15 years from the day they entered service, to be released into retirement with an award of company-grade officer rank.
ENROLLMENT OF ODNODVORTSY INTO SERVICE.
The social class of odnodvortsy [literally, “single householders” - M.C.] was formed from the cossacks, streltsy, cavalrymen, and lesser boyars who were all settled on Muscovy’s eastern and southern frontiers to protect it against Nogai nomads and Tatars. They were assigned lands near the border and settled in “single houses” with not many in any one place, from which came their name. Some were undoubted descendents of born nobility, such as the lesser boyars, and others had ancestors in the other groups mentioned above who had earned noble status through service. But all odnodvortsy throughout were put into the status of state peasants (Entsiklop. slovar’ Brokgauz i Yefrom. Vol. XXXIII-76, pg. 726, and Pravnikov’s Pamyatnik iz zakonov, part IV, 1807 ed., pg. 647). On 16 January 1816, Highest confirmation was given to a directive of the Government Council which allowed odnodvortsy descended from nobility to enter military service with the privileges of volunteers. Those who had lost documentation from times long past and were not able to immediately prove their noble origins were permitted to recover their lost rights, and a procedure for this was described: first, a local Noble Assembly [Dvoryanskoe sobranie] provided documentation for a voluntary enlistment into military service, and then when finally officer rank was attained, one’s noble status was reestablished. The introduction of this regulation soon gave rise to misunderstanding and abuse, as under the guise of wishing to be enrolled into military service, odnodvortsy began to live in idleness and avoid paying taxes and obligations such as the regular recruit levy, which burdened the other families remaining in the villages. But they were not allowed to evade the law in this way for long. On 26 March 1819, there was an order (1st PSZ, 27741) that Provincial Administrations explain to odnodvortsy that they would only be exempt from any of their existing taxes and obligations when they actually entered military service. Also, an unhindered entry into service would only happen when they presented the military authorities with a certificate from the Provincial Administration showing that they had no tax arrears [nedoimok], and that the holder of the certificate was not one of the settlement’s chosen recruits. The certificate itself was to be issued by the Provincial Administration upon receipt of information from the of Noble Assembly. If for some reason a person was not accepted for service, then he had to return to his previous dwelling place in his original social status, and it was ordered that his documents be taken away from him and not be issued a second time. The right offered to odnodvortsy to enlist in the army as non-commissioned officers and in six years be promoted to officer rank was given with a stipulation, also issued in the same year of 1819, that “this regulation must only be effective for those odnodvortsy who, during the course of their six years of service as non-commissioned officers, prove their ability and worthiness to be officers; therefore only those meeting that qualification may be put forward for promotion, and on the other hand-if someone from the odnodvortsy who was enrolled as a non-commissioned officer turns out to be unsuitable for this rank, such a person is not even to remain in the rank of non-commissioned officer, but rather is to be demoted to private” (1st PSZ, 27641). In regard to the length of service, Siberians were separated from the rest of the odnodvortsy and were prescribed twelve years of service (Archive of the War Ministry Chancellery, subject 415/284, 1803), the same as for Siberian nobles (descended from boyarskie deti [lesser boyars] and cossacks).
ON ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE BY CAPITULATION.
The word “capitulation” [“kapitulyatsiya”] denotes an agreement with the enemy concerning the conditions for halting military operations, but in some countries it means the terms between soldiers and their leader in regard to entering service or continuing it (Entsikl. Leer, Vol. IV, page 128, and Voenn. Ents. Leksik., part VI, page 515). There had long been men joining the army of the own volition-“volunteers” [“voluntery”]-and rules for them, of a general nature, were part of the old regulations (Ustav voinskii o dolzhnosti General-Fel’dmarshala vsego generaliteta i prochikh chinov, kotorye pri voiske nadlezhat byt’ i onykh voinskikh delakh i povedeniyakh, chot kazhdomu chinit’ dolzhno. 4th edition, Moscow, 1820). But on 18 July 1797, an ukase was issued accepting volunteer recruits in Lithuania Province instead of conscripts (1st PSZ, 18041).
Those wishing to enter service were enrolled based on capitulations if they did not come under one of the earlier listed categories of persons. As an example, we see the Highest decision to receive into service a Little Russian native named Ksenofort Borodenko, who was “not enrolled in any social status”, the son of a retired cavalryman, and married to a peasant woman (Artillery Museum Archive, sv. 172, l. 49, Military College Ukase of 3 May, 1801, No. 16835). When wars were starting and military forces had to formed, it was necessary to resort to raising several regiments through recruitment by capitulations, and these regiments were called “verbunochnye” [after the German werben - “to recruit” - M.C.]. (Circular of the Intendance Dept. of H.I.M. Main Staff, sect. IV, art. 5, March 1817, regarding “men recruited in past years for service based on capitulations in verbunochnye regiments”). More detailed rules regarding them were worked out at their initial formation as well as in later stages as required.
In 1807 the Sovereign Emperor deemed it necessary to form one hussar regiment (the Lubny Regiment). An ukase of 14 March declared this as Highest will (1st PSZ, 22491).
Various supplementary directives were issued for this ukase. Regiments were to be recruited from all classes of free Russian and foreign persons who were not subject to the poll tax and not under other service obligations. Recruits also had to be young, healthy, and in all ways suitable for service. The length of service was prescribed to be not less than six years, and anyone who served out fifteen years was promised a land allotment for settlement, if he so wished. If a man was wounded or crippled as a result of enemy action, so that he was no longer fit to serve, he was to be assigned to an invalid detachment if he so desired, so as not to be left without means of support. It was permitted to spend up to thirty roubles per person to induce them to enlist as privates. In that same year of 1807, on October 24, the Minister of War directed the colonels of the Lubny Hussar Regiment and the Volhynia Horse Regiment that no person from the social class of religious clergy, whether or not he was obligated with duties, be recruited into the regiments without the consent of the clerical authorities. (The Volhynia Horse Regiment was formed by an ukase of 29 April 1807, similar to the one for the Lubny Hussars [1st PSZ, 22526].) This requirement was repeated more than once but was nonetheless violated (Archive of the War Ministry Chancellery, journal of the Minister of War’s orders for 1810 and 1811).
On 4 September 1812, a Kherson landowner, Collegiate Assessor Skarzhinskii, joined the ranks of the army with a squadron which included 100 of the 1000 peasants left to him by his mother, and a number of men recruited by capitulations. (The squadron was made up of: 1 field-grade officer, 1 company-grade officer, 1 non-commissioned officer, 1 supernumerary non-commissioned officer as a volunteer, 6 supernumerary non-commissioned officers from the serfs, 2 trumpeters, 92 privates, 3 volunteer privates, and 4 noncombatants.) Skarzhinskii clothed his men, supplied weapons and horses, and also paid them from his own resources, and for this it was ordered by Highest Authority that no conscripts would be taken from his lands during the 1812 call-up, and that he be conveyed the Monarch’s good wishes. The squadron, bearing Skarzhinskii’s name, took part in the Russian army’s operations under Chichagov against the French, during which Skarzhinskii himself earned the special esteem of the Southern Army’s commander. The squadron’s service ended with the end of military operations in 1814, but as a memorial to its part in the war the squadron was given 96 medals awarded by Highest Authority (Archives of the War Ministry Chancellery, No. 3024, Register of Highest confirmed reports and ukases to the acting head of the War Ministry for 1814; note of General Field-Marshal Graf Barclay de Tolly, 22 March, No. 264; MoAGSh, op. 153-v, gl. 114; Highest orders and ukases of the Governing Senate, 1812, Book 2 pgs. 0298 and 0299; Russkii Arkhiv, 1906, No. 11, pgs. 467-470).
A similar patriotic deed was performed by the senior procurator of the Senate’s 6th Department, Graf Dmitriev-Mamonov. When the Moscow opolchenie [mass levy] was being formed, he came forward to raise a horse regiment for the defense of the fatheland at his own expense. For this he was granted the rank of major general and made the colonel-in-chief of his regiment, which was designated to be organized as lancers. It was ordered to form five squadrons in Yaroslavl Province and have them go to General Kologribov’s reserve army, where they were joined by two more squadrons. Besides Mamonov’s own serfs, the regiment was allowed to recruit by capitulation, in which we see some change from the capitulation conditions given in Melissino’s time. The period of service was to be from 5 to 10 years, and an addition to the basic pay was promised: 1/3 for enlisting for 5 years, 1/2 for 10, and full for 20. The fate of the unit was not like that of Skarzhinskii’s squadron, as the regiment was recruited from persons freed by their landowners, factory workers, craftsmen, and men released from prison, where they had been placed for various crimes. When still in Yaroslavl Province they earned the nickname of the “Mamaevtsy” for their lack of discipline. Everywhere they went outside the country they left evidence of their bad conduct, and in Warsaw, Non-commissioned Officer Zheltov killed a Bavarian officer with his sword. On reaching Freiburg, Major General Mamonov declared to the provost-marshal general, Lieutenant General Ertel, that he “did not have any hope of bringing the regiment in good order to Poznan, where it had been assigned quarters, and he asked that it be attached to some corps.” There was nothing else he could do. He himself was not a military man either by previous service or by nature, as could be seen, and as helpers he had inexperienced university students as officers. The strictest discipline was required, and Mamonov’s request was honored by the Sovereign, with Mamonov himself being allowed to go on leave. In order to “keep the regiment in the necessary good order,” Colonel Ricard was temporarily assigned from the Pskov Cuirassier Regiment, and he reported that the regiment was “completely unreliable.” On 27 August 1814, the fate of the regiment was settled by an ukase in the tsar’s name to Prince Gorchakov, directing the War Ministry: “Based on the recommendation of General Field-Marshal Barclay de Tolly, I order the cossack regiment formed by Major General Dmitriev-Mamonov be disbanded, and the officers and lower ranks distributed to other regular lancer cavalry regiments.” (1st PSZ, 25658; Military Historical Archive of the General Staff’s Main Directorate, sect. 1, orders for 1814; ibid., No. 3098; MoGSh: op. 153a, sv. 47, part 6; op. 154 sv. 124, d. 91, for the year 1815, op. 130, sv. 67, d. 64, and d. 2926/3052 for 1813; 1st PSZ, 22657 and 25310.)
During this same time, three recruited regiments were formed in Finland (War Ministry Centennial, I, pg. 277).
In view of the fact that for some persons of various social classes, exact regulations for their recruitment had not been promulgated, the Inspection Department drafted rules which were confirmed by Highest Authority on 30 January 1817:
1) In the army there are to be only four recruited regiments: the Polish, Tatar, Lithuania, and Volhynia Lancers, while the Lubny Hussars, formerly of this category, is to be manned by conscripts.
2) All persons recruited from the merchant class, clergy, bureaucratic clerks, and freedmen, since they are not part of the poll-tax class, are in accordance with their requests released from service on the completion of their contracted periods of service, being given the written documentation established for retired lower ranks.
3) The persons mentioned above are henceforth to be received into service only with reliable evidence of permission to do so. This is to be attached to the capitulation papers, which fact is also to be noted in a recruit’s personal service record.
4) In regard to recruiting the children of persons holding personal noble status, Polish szlachta, and foreigners, proceed in accordance with the directive of 14 March 1807.
5) In regard to persons who are of the tax-paying class yet hid their status in order to enter service by capitulation, this is an illegal acceptance into service and the landowners and communities to which the men belong are to be notified, and if anyone wants them back, then they are to be returned. If their return is declined, then they are to be classed as recruits with the standard 25-year term of service.
6) Commanders of the four regiments named above are to confirm that henceforth they will not recruit persons of the tax-paying class and thus liable to conscription, and not contract capitulations with them. (Circular of the Inspection Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Main Staff, 1817, No. 19.)
In that same year, confirmation was given to the regulations issued in 1810 on receiving Swedes and other inhabitants of the Duchy of Finland into service in the Finland Corps, but with a change in the capitulation’s length of service (1st PSZ, 24374 and 24404). In 1810 it was set down that men were to be enlisted for six years, and if they were court-martialed for minor transgressions or desertion while in service, then “their service time is to be counted as zero and they must serve a further six years.” In 1817, though, it was ordered to leave the term of service up to the capitulation recruit’s choice (1st PSZ, 26724). Finally, on 28 February 1823, the Sovereign decreed that capitulation service be considered as normal active service (1st PSZ, 29341).
A “universal right” regarding service was established by the Ruling Senate’s ukase of 1 September 1805 (PSZ, 21891), Point 3, where it was stated: “as the liability to be drafted is a universal obligation for all social classes, its burden and thus its fulfillment must be equal for all, and so it is laid down as a rule that henceforth: 1) for all persons, starting with the current levy, who are drafted as recruits, from whatever social class they may come, the term of military service is to be the equal and identical, namely 25 years.” (Until this time, along with the 25-year term of service based on the manifesto issued upon the conclusion of the Peace of Jassy [in 1793], there were laws in effect for other terms of service as exceptions [PSZ, Vol. XXIII, 17149].) Point 2, in turn, eliminated all government poll tax on odnodvortsy and other persons upon their retirement from service once they completed an unalterable term of service of 15 years. On 16 August 1818, the guards had the 25-year term of service shortened by 3 years in recognition of their special service duties and their deeds in wartime (1st PSZ, 27513). Persons of all poll-tax paying classes were allowed to enter service for this universal term of service if they were not liable for other government obligations, they were not in line to be drafted during the general levy, and they wished to enter service voluntarily.
ACCEPTING JEWS INTO MILITARY SERVICE.
Jews were not allowed into military service since they did not belong to the poll-tax classes, but from 30 November 1822 those who accepted Christianity were given the right to be counted in the poll-tax estate and enter military service. The first Jew to enter military service based on this ukase was one Fremgold from Shklov. He had accepted Catholicism, enrolled in a guild of St.-Petersburg saddle makers, and then entered military service (1st PSZ, 29228).
ON VOLUNTARILY ENTERING SERVICE FROM RETIREMENT.
The need to accept lower ranks from retirement arose in 1806 when the government, unable due to “foreign” circumstances to fully man provincial companies and state commands [gubernskiya roty i shtatnyya komandy] with personnel released from regiments, had to invite retired men to re-enter service (20 October) (1st PSZ, 22326).
The conditions for re-entering service and the promised rewards for doing so were as follows:
1) The person entering service was obliged to serve no less than 3 years, and then could be released and his previous discharge order returned to him, on which would be an annotation regarding this latest service and the date of release.
2) After serving 3 years without reproach a medal was to be issued, to be worn in a buttonhole on a red ribbon, and inscribed “za userdie k sluzhbe” [“For zeal for service”].
3) Those who served a fourth year were to be promoted to non-commissioned officer rank as well as receive the medal, and have their pay increased by 3 roubles a year.
4) For 6 years additional service-non-commissioned officer rank, full soldier’s pay for life no matter where serving, and a silver medal “distinct from the first one,” to be worn in a buttonhole on a sky-blue ribbon and inscribed “v chest’ zasluzhennomu soldatu” [“In honor of a worthy soldier”].
In the following year (1807), there was a new ukase (1st PSZ, 22448 and 22449) which proposed voluntary entry into service under conditions identical to those of the ukase of 20 October 1806, except with the word “soldier” in the medal’s inscription changed to “warrior” [“voinu”]. Subsequently, it as ordered to divide these men into four classes: 1st - fit for the army, 2nd - for the militia [militsiya], 3rd - for provincial or state commands, and 4th - those whom it would be appropriate to return to their previous dwelling places. In provinces where the mass levy [opolchenie] or militia was never mustered, there was no corresponding class, and so there were only three. The “voluntary” nature of service in accordance with this ukase appeared to be dubious, since at the end of the ukase there was added in regard to summoning persons to come forward: “those who are summoned but do not give due regard to the benefit to the Fatherland, nor to the granted perquisites, and do not agree to voluntarily enter service, must be compelled to serve and submit in silence.”
On 30 March 1808 there followed a clarification that non-commissioned officers who were discharged as collegiate registrars [the lowest rank of civilian officials - M.C.] or Class-14 officials, and who wished to answer the summons, were to be accepted as non-commissioned officers upon the orders of division Commanders following the same procedures as were established for youths [nedorosli] (1st PSZ, 22820 and 22928).
The rules governing the submission of requests by persons wishing to voluntarily enter military service that were in effect during the first years of Emperor Alexander I’s reign were those laid down on the basis of an ukase of 14 March 1729 (from the High Privy Council during the reign of Peter II - 1st PSZ, 538, and a Highest order of 20 October 1797 - 1st PSZ, 28814, Points 33, 34, 40, and 29370; Compilation of Military Decrees, 1838 ed., Vol. 5, articles 30 and 31). These were: the request was to be given to the Commander of the unit which the petitioner desired to enter, and was to be written on the established official stamped paper. The request was required to be accompanied by: 1) documentation regarding social class and status; 2) testimony regarding behavior; 3) evidence of education, if someone had studied somewhere; 4) documentation of birth and baptism (metrical and similar items); 5) medical certification of sound bodily health and fitness for military service; and 6) certification from the applicant’s local authorities and community bodies that they had no objection to his being placed into service. The requirements as set down were not completely fulfilled in many cases, and sometimes applicants resorted to-plainly speaking-fraud. There was an especially large amount of concern to meet the requirement of Point 1 when this dealt with noble status, since such persons enjoyed special prerogatives that everyone desired. Even Peter the Great (1st PSZ, 3890 - Table of ranks, 24 January 1722) declared that “some persons call themselves nobles, but are not really nobles”; He considered such offenses to be “unbecoming” [“nepristoinymi”] and threatened transgressors with “dishonor” [“bezchest’em”]. After Peter I, a series of directives were issued on this problem during the reigns of Emperor Alexander’s predecessors (1st PSZ, 12610, 14188, 14612, 15500, 16586, 18877), and under Alexander himself in 1803 the Office of Heraldry noted incorrect statements in documentation from noble youths accepted into regiments (1st PSZ, 20920). It was ordered that documentation was to be checked by the Office of Heraldry supported by the War Ministry’s Inspection Department, which already was charged with making final decisions in regard to what rights a youth would enjoy upon enrollment-the rights of nobles, of company-grade officers’ children, or of volunteers. Seven years passed, and it was announced that in the documentation submitted by youths, local representatives of the nobility had to state the origins of noble children with complete clarity and accuracy, i.e. indicate in what ranks their fathers performed their military or civil service, and if they were entered into the noble genealogical book on account of the services rendered by ancestors, then in exactly what documents were they recognized or what Highest charters granted them estates, or what incontrovertible evidence was offered (1st PSZ, 24459). This was confirmed by a Senate ukase of 9 December 1810 (published 24 January 1811, see Archive of the War Ministry Chancellery, No. 2424 in Ukases and Directives to the Military College for 1811), and in 1820, when a careful examination was made of documentation to confirm the suitability of the measures that had been taken, it was found that of 1000 documents received, only 560 turned out to be correct (1st PSZ, 28309, and Report of the Inspection Department for 1820).
Besides these general rules there were issued special directives concerning Polish nobility. The first document showed the Sovereign’s desire to separate the Poles from the general mass of those volunteering to enter military service through some restriction on their entry, and we find it in the form of a secret ukase to His Highness the Tsesarevich Constantine Pavlovich dated 22 April 1807, No. 429. This laid down that when noble Poles wishing to enter military service were being considered for assignment, “the necessary precautions” were to be taken, and no orders were to be issued for them until their status and origins was completely confirmed, and that they had to prove this by submitting the documentation required by regulation, as well as certification of their good character and conduct “so that when serving in our forces, their attitude and thoughts will not be harmful” (MoAGSh, op. 153 v., kn. 67, ukases of the Gen.-Adj. for 1807, Book 1). To the same extent that unrest in the Kingdom of Poland increased every year, so did clouds gather over it, promising a storm from the Government. One of these portents was a Highest order of 16 February 1822 (1st PSZ, 28932) which directed: 1) that the Viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland verify the documents of those persons being assigned to service; 2) that a statement be submitted from the appropriate office that the person in question is not a conscript [konskript] but rather a free man. (“Conscript” refers to a person subject to being called into the Kingdom of Poland’s forces as a result of the obligatory military service in existence there, called conscription [konskriptsiya].)
Special instructions were also given in regard to demanding documents:
a) Class-ranked officials in state service, who reached that status but were not nobles, had to submit statements releasing them from their departments, showing when they had been promoted to their rank (Library of the MoGSh, No. 356, Circular of the Insp. Dept., 8 August 1818, No. 7012).
b) For those wishing to enter the cavalry, a Highest directive of 22 August 1819 laid down that evidence from local authorities was to be required which showed that the persons concerned possessed sufficient means to maintain themselves in this branch of arms upon promotion to officer rank (Compilation of Military Directives, 1838 ed., Part II, Book I, pg. 33).
c) All persons wishing to enter service had to present signed statements that they did not belong to any secret societies. This last directive was issued on 1 August 1822 (1st PSZ, 29151) when the existence of secret societies became known, these being under the name of Masonic lodges and other designations, with the object of the societies being to change the existing governmental and social order and controls.
ON PROCEDURES FOR ACCEPTING FOREIGNERS INTO SERVICE.
Persons entering service voluntarily also included foreigners. We do not encounter any special arrangements for them, but only explanations for particular cases, which we consider necessary to note since they are examples of what was really done at the time.
In September 1801, consequent to a report and inquiry addressed to the tsar from the chef of the Vitebsk Musketeer Regiment regarding the assignment to the regiment of two young persons of the French nation, it was decided that details had to be reported: of what rank were they, when and whence they arrived in Russia, and who were their parents? (MoAGSh, op. 152, d. 119.) A mass of assignment examples show that foreigners were received into service just like nobles, with the non-commissioned officer ranks of sub-ensign [podpraporshchik] in the infantry, junker [yunker] in the cavalry, and fireworker [feierverker] in the artillery [all perhaps best translated as “officer candidate” - M.C.]. For example, there is the case of an officer of the “imperial” [“tsesarkoi”] service being accepted as a fireworker (Archive of the Artillery Museum, sv. 193, d. 7 on the acceptance of the foreigner Waisen into the Life-Guards Artillery Battalion). At the end of 1801 Austrians, or “imperials,” were conducting themselves somewhat badly in regard to their country. There were many deserters, which resulted in two Highest directives being issued about them. The first, on 9 November, stated that they were to be assigned to “distant” regiments and sent through the Kiev commandant, and not to be settled anywhere (1st PSZ, 20049). The second directive, on 21 December, canceled the first, and Austrian military deserters were “to be settled and allowed to choose their way of life as they wished” (1st PSZ, 20086).
When Napoleon was driven out of Russia, prisoners began to petition to enter our service: native Frenchmen, Italians, Dutch, etc. The Sovereign ordered: conduct them to Orel, and at that place form from them legions according to existing organizational tables for companies, battalions, and regiments, so many as appropriate to the number of units formed. Provisions and pay were set the same as for musketeers, with lower ranks being given an additional one rouble a month for meat and drink, the money being issued weekly. Their clothing was to be sewn from recruits’ cloth with yellow, sky-blue, or red collars, but no weapons were ordered to be given to any of them (1st PSZ, 25310, 3 January 1813). When the war with France was completely over and the prisoners of war given their freedom, the Poles among them were ordered to be sent to Warsaw to the Grand Duke Constantine, to be returned to their “previous residences.” During this, among them there turned out to be men who had previously served in our Polish forces and wished to again enter our service, and such persons were allowed to be accepted now upon being determined by the Grand Duke to be suitable (1st PSZ, 26140). There is also information preserved in the archives (Archive of the War Ministry’s Chancellery, file 2441-year 1812, journal of Highest orders announced by the Minister of War [to General-Field Marshal Prince Golenishchev-Kutuzov] dated 16 October, No. 792) that shows that Highest authority allowed all captured Poles to be assigned to regiments of the 19th and 20th Divisions stationed in the Caucasus, they being put at Lieutenant General Rtishchev’s disposal.
ON ENTERING SERVICE IN THE FELDJÄGER CORPS.
Under the War Ministry was also the Feldjäger Corps [fel’d-yegerskii korpus, a body of special messengers - M.C.] which was manned by volunteers. The men being accepted were those who had the right to voluntarily enter service [vol’noopredelyayushchies’], and according to an ukase of 5 December 1802-from Russians or from foreigners who had been sworn in as Russian subjects. Assignments to fill vacancies were made from experienced and capable persons, in all likelihood primarily from men known to the Court administration, to judge by the example of 19 vacancies being filled at one time due to the Feldjäger Corps’ difficult times in the Patriotic War. A list of these persons was sent to the Inspection Department of the War Ministry in accordance with a Highest order of 4 December 1812, and in it were 14 men from the lower ranks of court servants (MoAGSh, Op. 153v, d. 114, l. 0353-4), of which there were: helper to the master of the cellar [kellermeisterskii pomoshchnik] - 1; heating stokers [istopniki] - 8; footmen [lakei] - 3; hairdressers - 1; and mounted attendants [yezdovoi] - 1. Only 4 came from other places: chancellery functionaries [kantselyaristy] released from the State Treasury and Police Department - 1; couriers [kur’er] of the Department of Foreign Trade - 1; and collegiate registrars released from the Commission for Building the Kazan Church - 1. [Collegiate registrars were the lowest grade (14) of ranked civil officials - M.C.] When one or two vacancies opened, then understandably the closest candidates, who were best known, were court servants. In addition, foreigners were ordered to go through a three-month trial period in order to be sure they were “not sent with some criminal intent” (Col. Nikolaev, Stoletie Fel’d”egerskago. korpusa, pg. 55). The length of service of interest to feldjägers, since it gave them the right to rank 14, was six years. Before this period, but nevertheless with not less than three years’ service, this rank was given to men released due to being maimed or falling seriously ill while in feldjäger service. Upon serving nine years, the rank of Provincial Secretary [grade 13 - M.C.] was given (1st PSZ, 26769).
TAKING AN OATH FOR THE SECOND TIME.
Every person assigned to service a second time was given an oath (1st PSZ, 17203), and the documents submitted by him in his petition remained in the files of that military unit or agency or corps of the army which he was entering.
ASSIGNMENT TO MILITARY SERVICE DUE TO BAD BEHAVIOR
BY SENTENCE OF THE VILLAGE MIR
The turning over of state peasants as recruits due to bad behavior, or as it was written at that time-dissolute behavior, existed even up to Alexander I’s time. A series of legal decrees issued under him regarding this subject began with an act of mercy: on 28 April 1808 (1st PSZ, 22982), the possibility of misuse against poor settlers on the part of the mir [village communal authority - M.C.], of which there were cases, was limited in that the sentence of being turned over as a recruit had to be undersigned by not less than 24 persons under oath at the volostnoe upravlenie [local regional administrative office of the volost’, which incorporated several villages - M.C.]. In 1809 this rule was extended to townspeople [meshchane] (1st PSZ, 23872). This same rule was ordered to be applied to the benefit of peasants of landowners in Finland, and was also the law for landless peasants [bobyli], who were otherwise being freely treated as the first choice to be turned over as recruits (1st PSZ, 23927). As early as 1760 (1st PSZ, 11166, 13 December 1760), the idea arose that instead of turning persons over as recruits, perhaps it would be better in some instances for the landowners concerned to send such peasants to settle the southern parts of Siberia which were in need of cultivation. Rules were given for selecting peasants: they had to be from 17 to 35 years old, at least 5 feet 3 inches [2 arshina 4 vershka] tall without shoes, and the other regulation requirements for recruits had to be met. Concurrently with issuing the above measure that limited the mir’s power to sentence men to be turned over as recruits, Emperor Alexander I ordered that rules be developed regarding being sent to settle in Siberia. Subsequently, these laws governing manorial peasants were extended to state peasants and those belonging to the estates of the imperial family. Credit receipts were to be issued for all persons sent away, the same as for recruits [i.e. proper credit was to be applied against the landowner’s obligation to provide recruits - M.C.] (1st PSZ, 24296, 25170, and 25239).
Already in 1797 persons detained by the police without identity papers were classified as vagabonds and subject to being put at the War College’s [i.e. the army’s - M.C.] disposal. Emperor Alexander also allowed such persons to be turned over for military service even when under regulation height if there were no other physical deficiencies (ukase of 13 October 1802) (1st PSZ, 20459). In 1804, the commander of the Poltava Musketeer Regiment refused receipt of vagabonds from the police instead of from the provincial administration, as would have been appropriate. He declared that vagabonds “did not try to learn drill” and ran away, which tempted others to do so (1st PSZ, 21326). This and similar statements were harbingers of a reversal in the laws on assigning vagabonds to military service. Upon recognizing that these men could act as a detrimental and attractive influence, the first step was to forbid sending them to replacement recruit depots [zapasnye rekrutskie depo] (1st PSZ, 24452), but rather to garrison regiments and battalions. At the same time, though, along with vagabonds there was an element still less desirable for military service but by law subject to being sent into it: petty criminals who had committed various misdeeds but not undergone corporal punishment by sentence of a court (1st PSZ, 24707). Up to 1811, even persons who had undergone corporal punishment were being assigned to army regiments, but in that year, on 28 January, an ukase signed by the tsar was issued (1st PSZ, 24503) which ordered that such persons not be turned over as recruits, being “plainly unworthy,” but instead be sent to the Department of Mines, government factories, or military labor companies in fortresses. The motive for changing the “inappropriate practice” was indicated as being the “harmful influence which could affect the good character of a force in which criminals are mixed with soldiers who have elevated themselves on the field of honor.”
The question regarding vagabonds which arose in 1804 was combined with an examination of the issue of criminals, and a decision evolved which by the end of 1817 took the form of an ukase (Circular of the Inspection Department, 1818, No.6):
It has come to My attention that persons turned over to military service by court sentences for various crimes are being assigned to internal garrison battalions and in this way remain in their native provinces and, without having been proven worthy, already enjoy the right which is obtained by long service or disabling wounds received during such time. Therefore, I order you (the Minister of War) to take measures so that at their being turned over to serve, such persons are never placed in their own province’s internal garrison battalion.
At the end of Emperor Alexander I’s reign, the Commander-in-Chief of the 1st and 2nd Armies reported the difficulties occasioned by the high desertion rates of vagabonds and criminals who had been sent to the regiments. In order to solve this problem, incompatible with the attitude toward service expressed by the ukase of 23 February 1823, the assignment to military service of persons of the above categories was completely abolished, and a return was made to the second part of the ukase of 11 May 1765, i.e. exile to Siberia for resettlement and, additionally, consequent to work being ceased in fortresses, to being sent as government labor in ports, the Yekaterinoslav factory, mining and salt works, and on projects of the Department of Ways of Communications. At the same time, it was ordered that vagabonds be sent to Siberia “immediately upon being seized by the police,” without waiting to determine the truthfulness of any declarations which some of these persons made regarding their places of origin. This severe measure was occasioned by the desire to curtail “such harmful vagabondage” (1st PSZ, 29328 and 30286; ukase of the Ruling Senate to the 1st Department, 23 February 1823, No. 10417; Collection of Laws and Decrees Relating to the Military Administration, 1828, Book II). It would not be without interest to record the number of vagabonds encountered during 1820: 3859 persons (Report from the Inspection Department for 1820).
Under the influence of these vagabonds and for other reasons connected with the military way of life there appeared a special type of runaway-deserters [dezertiry]. These persons forced the authorities to deal with the question of what measures to take to curtail desertions. As a first measure, it was ordered that after determining what unit they ran away from, captured deserters were to be sent to that same unit “so that they do not evade punishment, as might happen if they were enrolled into a different unit” (1st PSZ, 21342). Proceedings and judgements regarding military discipline were the responsibility of garrison regiments and battalions (1st PSZ, 21844). Along with this, it was ordered that deserters were to be sent back to the units they ran away from if those were not far from the place where the deserter was captured. In the contrary case, they were to be assigned as the Military College would direct (1st PSZ, 21844). Within five years it was necessary to confirm these directives with the addition that recruits who deserted were to be sent to replacement recruit depots [zapasnyya rekrutskiya depo] (1st PSZ, 24452). The battle against desertion was waged for many years with varying degrees of success or lack thereof. After thirteen years we find one more basic decree under Alexander I. It turned out that deserters had become more skillful at making off further away from their original place of service, and so when they were assigned to the next nearest units in accordance with the Military College’s directives, they received new uniforms and immediately ran off again. On being captured, they changed their name and were assigned to a new unit where they played their game again, sometimes several times. Additionally, since they “lost their shame and good morals” (in the words of the ukase), they spread the disease of desertion in all the units they came in contact with. To stop this evil, it was ordered by Highest Authority on 3 May 1823 that after deserters were caught they were to be treated in accordance with the ukase for vagabonds and criminals. Even if it later became known from where they ran away, they were not to be returned, but left in the category of vagabonds and criminals in which they had fallen (1st PSZ, 29521).
There was still one more class of deserters: those to enemy armies. In 1810 General-of-Infantry Tormasov submitted a report regarding this kind of deserter in which he asked how to deal with the case of a man voluntarily returning. The reply came in the form of an All-Merciful resolution: “Pardon those who voluntarily return from the enemy army and assign them as before, without punishment” (Archive of the Minister of War’s Chancellery, No. 2341. Register of the Military College’s Highest ukases announced to the Minister of War in 1810, Part I, and 1st PSZ, 24109).
Those recruits who caused some kind of physical injury to themselves with the object of avoiding military service were classed as persons shirking duty and liable to punishment for malevolent actions against the law. As a form of punishment of the guilty and to instill fear in others, it was ordered that they were nevertheless to be forced into service and assigned to such duties as they were fit or sent to fortress labor (1st PSZ, 26899). In order to avoid any misunderstandings, it was ordered that “true self-mutilators [chlenovrediteli] were only to be counted as those persons who would have been fit for military service but in order to escape it caused injury to parts of their body” (1st PSZ, 25981).
The government also battled against skoptsy [heretics who practiced castration] using the weapon of assigning them to military service, which was universally feared by non-conformist persons. It had been decreed for a long time that they were to be taken into military service, but at the same time assigned to the nearest units. However, remaining in their own native regions, they continued to spread their heresy. In order to better achieve the goal of removing skoptsy from their native areas, the Committee of Ministers submitted an opinion to the Sovereign: send the skoptsy to the forces in Siberia and Georgia, and those unfit to serve-to Irkutsk Province for settlement. It must be noted that the Sovereign in his magnanimity softened this resolution, and ordered that the new rule only be applied to skoptsy teachers and those who performed castrations [skopiteli] (1st PSZ, 26462).
PERSONS EXPELLED FROM RELIGIOUS CLERICAL STATUS.
In tracing persons assigned to military service for minor degrees of deviance, we come upon the fact that religious institutions also sent some of their own, ordained clergy or church servitors, out of their midst and into the heavy yoke of a soldier because they had fallen into (minor) vices (1st PSZ, 22378 and 29711).
PERSONS EXPELLED FROM INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING.
The same danger hung over the heads of students in institutions of higher learning, who for “dissolute” [“razvratnyi”] behavior led themselves right up to being expelled from their schools (1st PSZ, 24642). What kind of behavior was this? We answer with an example: Ganov (of noble family), a student in the Tsarskoe-Selo School of Forestry [Tsarskosel’skoe lesnoe uchilishche], was expelled and sent into an army regiment for loud manners and outrageous acts against the director and instructors (Archive of the Chancellery of the War Ministry, subj. No. 2251 [Highest ukases of the Military College, announced by the Minister of War during the 1st half of 1809]).
A courier [kur’er] got into a fight with a comrade-and, being as how he unexpectedly broke his friend’s leg, was struck off from his position to serve as a private until his term of service was over (Archive of the Artillery Museum, Ukases of the Military College for 1801 (pg. 480, No. 15520.)… A militiaman [ratnik] submitted a petition in person to the Sovereign in the palace regarding release to his former residence-and was exiled to the Caucasus for one month’s labor on fortress construction, and then to be a soldier on the Caucasian Line (1st PSZ, No. 22851)…
It is especially interesting to read a Highest-confirmed proposal of the commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps that during recruit levies, recruits would not be taken from the villages of young mountaineers captured as robbers. Rather, those of the arrested robbers fit to serve were to be made soldiers in lieu of drafting new recruits. But since they would not be able to speak Russian and thus not readily render good service, “two mountaineers would be taken in place of each recruit” and sent far away from the Caucasus forces (1st PSZ, No. 28,970).
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End of translation. Mark Conrad, 1999-2000.