NEW-FORMATION REGIMENTS

The term new-formation ("western-model," "foreign-model," or "western-formation") regiment refers to military units organized in linear formations, utilizing gunpowder weapons and tactics developed in the West. These regiments consisted of eight to ten companies, each ideally numbering 100 (infantry) to 120 (cavalry and dragoons) soldiers, though few regiments were at full strength. The colonel and lieutenant colonel commanded the first and second companies of the regiment, though de facto command of the colonel's company was given to a first (lieutenant) captain. Captains or lieutenants (either Russian or European) commanded the remaining companies. Other personnel included ensigns, sergeants, and corporals, at the company level, and administrative officers, such as captains of arms, quartermasters, camp masters, clerks, priests, drummers, and buglers. The regiments featured combined arms: muskets, pikes, artillery, grenadiers, and engineers (sappers, miners). The predominant organizational features of the new-formation regiment were its hierarchical command structure and its relative tactical flexibility.

New-formation regiments participated in the major campaigns of the seventeenth century. The first regiments were formed prior to the Smolensk War (1632-1634). The state employed European officers to train and arm Russians to fight in the Western manner, which represented a significant departure from the former practice of hiring entire regiments of foreign troops. The impact of these officers is reflected in the fact that the Treaty of Polyanovka (1634) ordered Russia's foreign mercenary commanders to leave Muscovy after the war, though Alexander Leslie, Adam Gell-Seitz, and others returned to help reorganize Muscovy's regiments again during the 1640s.

Between 1630 and 1634 ten regiments were formed, comprising seventeen thousand men, nearly half of the Russian army at Smolensk. During the Thirteen Years' War, new-formation regiments constituted a significant portion of Russia's armed forces: fifty-five infantry and twenty cavalry regiments. The cost of these regiments was greater than traditional forces because the state supported their supply and salary needs.

The regiments in the 1630s were formed from marginal groups, such as landless gentry, Cossacks, Tatars, and free people (volnye liudi, unattached to towns, estates, or communes). Increased income and status associated with state service motivated these groups to assimilate into the newformation regiments. During the 1650s and 1660s the new-formation regiments included more and more peasants and townsmen, whom the Russians conscripted to offset heavy wartime losses. The nature of the soldiers serving in the new-formation regiments changed over time, though they continued to include marginal groups. Later in the century (1680s–1690s), the new-formation regiments continued to be a stage for retraining traditional forces.

The state continued to hire European officers to command new-formation regiments throughout the seventeenth century. Russians also held command positions in the regiments, most predominantly in ranks below colonel. Tensions existed among the foreign and Russian officers, especially regarding administration and implementation of the regiments. The foreign officers brought with them their military experience and technical literature to train their regiments. Since few printed military manuals were available in Russian, the foreign officers' contribution to military reform is immeasurable. Nonetheless the state distributed a translation of Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen's Kriegskunst zu Fuss (Military Art of Infantry ) to the colonels for use in training, and the state also received input from European officers—in the form of reports and letters—about the training and equipment needs of the regiments.

See also: smolensk war; thirteen years' war

bibliography

Hellie, Richard. (1971). Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Reger, W. M., IV. (1997). "In the Service of the Tsars: European Mercenary Officers and the Reception of Military Reform in Russia, 1654–1667." Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign.

Stevens, Carol. (1995). Soldiers on the Steppe: Army Reform and Social Change in Early Modern Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

W. M. Reger IV