The Russian mounted troops of this period are difficult to be exact about. There are very few sources of information generally and often the quality of those sources is not good. This is an attempt to produce an overview of Russia mounted troops using the information I have available. It is largely based on a book written by a Russian called Rabinovich but with extra details from other sources. It is though not complete as Rabinovich, for example, is often not reliable and there are large gaps in the information. I am unsure if these problems will ever be solved with the information we have but please contact me if you have any additional information.

In addition because of problems when translating from Russian into English the spellings of, for example, personal names can be problematic. Therefore often two alternatives are given and it must be born in mind that neither may be the correct spelling. It should though be reasonably correct phonetically even if not spelt correctly.

I would like to thank the following people for their help with this page, Vladimir Velikanov, Pavel Konovalchuk, Johan Herber, Thomas Arnfelt and Radoslaw Sikora. Without their help and advice this page would have been very difficult to do.

General Overview

Mounted units can be conveniently divided into three categories. Firstly the 'old style' cavalry that existed prior to the reforms of Peter the Great. Secondly the new style, 'Western', units that were raised by Peter the Great. Finally infantry units mounted on horses for particular actions or campaigns.

I do not intend to deal with this last category of troops here. These units were infantry regiments which temporarily used horses for transport. They will be detailed in the Infantry section.

The other two categories can be further subdivided into a number of other types of units. The 'old style' cavalry consisted of four groups.

• Rejtarsky and Kopeishiki, or Kopejno: Old, pre Petrine, regular regiments dressed in traditional Russian style. Kopeishiki or kopejno were lance armed.

• Horse Service Regiments: A feudal levy of the nobility.

• Hussar Regiments: An attempt to raise 'regular' light horse regiments from southern Russia and the Balkans.

• Cossacks and irregular light horse: Irregular light horse raised from southern Russia and also Kalmucks and Bashirs.

While the new style, 'Western', troops could be divided into the following groups.

• Body Guard Squadrons: Two body guard squadrons which were later combined to form a guard regiment.

• Horse Grenadier regiments: Three regiments of the combined horse grenadiers of the 'Named' regiments.

• 'Named' Dragoon regiments: The dragoon regiments which in the period 1706 to 1708 where given a permanent name, usually the name of a province. Prior to this the name of the colonel was used to identify the unit.

• 'Active' but not named Dragoon regiments: Units which were never given a 'name', i.e. they continued to use the colonels name to identify themselves, but which fought in the field.

• Garrison Dragoon regiments: Units used solely, or mainly, as garrisons and in the suppression of revolts and punitive expeditions.

• Miscellaneous Dragoon regiments: Various temporary formations, such as the 'recruit' regiments. Used either to train new recruits or for when they travel to the army, then disbanded and the men placed in other units. Also units whose function is unknown.

Rejtarsky and Kopeishiki, or Kopejno

These units were the old type of regular units. They were dressed in traditional Russian manner and the Kopeishiki were armed with lances. During the initial period of the Great Northern War many of these units saw active service. But most were disbanded or reformed as different types of units as the war progressed.

At present I have no details of the various units organisation. It may be that they were organised similarly to the dragoon regiments or it might be that the organisation varied. At Narva in 1700 4,000 or 5,000 of these type, or Horse Service regiments, were present but only one regiment has been identified. Therefore the possibility exists that regimental strength could be much larger and indeed may have been variable. Although before this war the normal strength of a unit was about 1000 men therefore it is likely it remained so.

In addition to Rabinovich and other sources I have used information from Vladimir Velikanov·s excellent articles which can be found at Russian Army in the 17th Century and Streltzy 1698-1728

Unit 522 was a combined reitar and kopejno regiment.

Unit 539 was a combined reitar, kopejno and hussar regiment. It is probably that these ·hussars· are imitation Polish style hussars, i.e. heavy cavalry. Not light cavalry listed below under ·Hussars·. See 17th Century Russian Army for details of earlier Russian ·heavy· hussars.

All others were reitar.

Horse Service Regiments

These are regiments of horse who are serving through a kind of feudal obligation. Other than this they are very similar to the Rejtarsky and Kopeishiki, or Kopejno regiments above.

Hussar Regiments

These units were an attempt to raise a body of regular light horse. The intention was to provide a reliable source of light cavalry particularly for use against the Turks. The first units were raised in 1707. They were organised in squadrons called 'khorugu'. Initially the squadrons were 300 men but by 1711 they were 200 men. The regular regiment in 1711 had four squadrons each for a total of 800 men per regiment.

By 1711 there were 6 regular units of hussars and Konstam mentions 2 units of volunteer hussars in addition. Unfortunately Rabinovich only mentions the colonels of 4 of these units. Although he does confirm that there were 6 regular units.

Rabinovich's Units

535 Colonel A. Kichich

536 Colonel V. Tanskov

537 Colonel M. Brashevjan

538 Colonel Serbin

The units mentioned above fought in the Prut Campaign against the Turks in 1711. They did not though perform very well. So the units were reformed, using the better troops, into two units, later three. These were commanded by the Colonel·s Kichich, Tanskov and Serbin from above. All of these units were disbanded in 1721.

In 1723 a second attempt was made to raise regular light cavalry. One regiment was raised under the command of Major Albanes. This unit though also didn·t succeed. It never amounted to more than 340 men and quickly dwindled down to 94 men in 1725.

Cossacks and irregular light horse

Cossacks were a normal part of all Russian armies of this period. Along with other irregular light horse, principally the Kalmucks, they were used for scouting and harassing the enemies· lines of supply.

Cossacks were organised into squadrons, called ·sotnias·. These were in theory 100 men strong but could vary considerably and could be as large as 200 men. A number of ·sotnia· made up a regiment and again this could vary a lot but 7 to 15 was typical.

The exact deployment of these forces is also a problem. They were probably present with all Russian forces during the war. Yet because they didn·t have a battlefield role they are frequently not mentioned or only their presence is mentioned. Below is a list of the known numbers of these forces at different battles.

Erastfehr (Dec. 1701): 3,800 Cossacks in 8 ·regiments·. 55 Kalmucks. 150 Tartars (?)

Holowczyn (July 1708): 4,000 Cossacks and Kalmucks.

Named Dragoons, Horse Grenadiers, Body Guard Squadrons

These units were the core of the Petrine army during the Great Northern War and normally provided the bulk of the mounted troops of the Russian army during this period.

Organisation:

Dragoons and Horse Grenadiers:

1700: Regiments were to consist of 5 squadrons each of 2 companies of 80 to 100 men.

October 1704: A new organisation was introduced. It is doubtful if the already existing units were ever actual reformed into this organisation, although new units used this organisation. This organisation called for a regiment to have 4 squadrons each of 3 companies of 90 to 100 men. This gave a full strength unit a total of 1,230 men.

1705: A Horse Grenadier company of 100 men was added to each regiment, or at least in theory. It is unclear if all dragoon regiments actually had a horse grenadier company or if it was just the ·named· regiments. While only 30 of the 37 ·named· regiments can be identified as having horse grenadier companies.

How ever many Horse Grenadier companies there were they were usually concentrated into ad hoc regiments. This happened until 1708 · 1709 when they were organised into permanent Horse Grenadier Regiments, see below.

1708 - 1709: Three Horse Grenadier regiments made permanent, see regiments 38, 39 and 40 below. These consisted of 10 companies each of Horse Grenadiers with each company coming from a different ·Named· dragoon regiment. This would give a regimental strength of circa 1000 men. Immediately below is a list of the regiments which supplied a company to these units.

Regt No. 38: Consisted of the Horse Grenadier companies of the following regiments: - 5, 7, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 28 and 29.

Regt No 39: Consisted of the Horse Grenadier companies of the following regiments: - 2, 4, 6, 8, 17, 22, 24, 25, 26 and 32.

Regt No 40: Consisted of the Horse Grenadier companies of the following regiments: - 1, 3, 9, 10, 13, 15, 19, 23, 27 and 34b.

The horse grenadier companies of the following regiments are not mentioned above: - 12, 30, 31, 33, 34a, 35, 36. Possible these units didn·t have a Horse Grenadier company or possibly they retained it. Also it is unclear if the Horse Grenadier company was disbanded when the parent regiment was disbanded.

1712: Regiments now officially 10 companies strong. They had a total of 1,328 men of which 1,100 were mounted. This does not appear to include the horse grenadiers.

1720: Regiments reduced to 1,251 men but again the number available mounted would be smaller, probably around 1000 to 1050.

Body Guard Squadrons.

Regiments 37a and 37b were actually the body guard squadrons of the two most senior generals in the Russian army, Menshikov and Sheremetev. They were the only ·Heavy· cavalry units in the Russian army at this time. The exact organisation of these is unknown but they appear to have been about the same size as a normal squadron. At Poltava these two units seem to have a combined strength of 220 men. From 1719 they were brigaded together with one, or possibly, more other dragoon companies in St Petersburg. In 1721 these units were formed into the Kronshlotsky regiment and then in 1725 they were renamed the Leib regiment.

The identity of the other unit or units that they combined with is a little uncertain. Konstam identifies it as the ·Governor of St Petersburg dragoon company· but this unit is otherwise not recorded. Although this may be the same unit as Rabinovich·s ·St Peteresburg Squadron·, unit number 633. Rabinovich has unit number 572, Roslavsky·s Dragoon Squadron, as joining the new Kronshlotsky regiment in 1721. So it may be that this is the unit Konstam is talking about. This though still leaves the problem of the regiment only having 3 squadrons while it should have 5. It is just speculation but perhaps more than one independent squadron joined the two body guard squadrons to for the Kronshlotsky / Leib regiment.

Raised & commanders:

The following table shows the development of the Dragoon and other regular regiments of the Russian army. Initially units were know by the name of there commander. From 1706 units were given a name, usually the name of a province, which they kept permanently. Unless otherwise noted it is assumed that the regiments were ·Named· in 1706.

In the column marked 'Regiment' the permanent name is noted and two numbers. The first number refers initially to the number assigned to the unit in the Osprey book by Konstam and Rickman. Later it is a number assigned to them by myself for easier reference. The second number refers to the numbers given units in Rabinovich's work.

The Commanders column lists the known names of the unit commander before the unit was assigned a permanent name. It should be noted that it is often difficult to be 100% certain about the spelling of the name because of problems with translation. Also from the sources I have the exact period of time they were in charge is sometime unclear. So taking for example with unit number 1, what would become the Moskovski regiment. The entry means that initially von Verdun was in charge, or he was the nominal head of the regiment. Then at some time between 100 and 1702 someone called then Goltz or Gults or Gulits was in charge. By 1702 Renne had taken over and at some time between then and 1706, when it received its permanent name Rozhnov was in command.

Deployment:

The following table shows the known deployment of the ·Named· regiments. The bulk of this information is from Rabinovich but additional, usually Swedish sources have also been used.

Note: Units 38 to 40 are the Horse grenadier regiments.

Holowczyn, 1708: You will notice that many units listed as being at this battle are marked (?). This is because there is some confusion concerning which units participated in the battle. The Russian cavalry were deployed in two wings at this battle but only one of the wings was heavily involved in the action. Indeed of the cavalry that was involved in the action only 3 regiments were in actual combat. The rout of these units swept away their supporting units. This has led to confusion about the identity of the supporting units.

All sources agree that Dragoon regiments 4, 16 and 20 were the lead units of the Russian left wing but there are two versions of the other units in this wing. The first version has units 3, 10, 13, 27 and 33 as the supporting units of this wing. While the second version has the wing also consisting of units 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 21 and 28. There is also some indication that with the second version Dragoon regiment 3, the Vladimirski regiment, might also have been involved. It may have formed a kind of central reserve with 4 battalion of mounted infantry. It might therefore have involved in the battle but from the opposite end of the field to the other cavalry.

It is impossible to judge at present which version is correct, although perhaps on balance the second version is more likely. Which ever is true it is likely that the other units were present in the army on the day of the battle. They are likely to have been part of the right wing of cavalry which was not engaged in the battle.

Poltava, 1709: The units identified were in the area at the time of the battle and were not all necessarily involved in the actual battle.

Active· Dragoon Regiments (not 'Named')

These are units that were not 'Named' but which fought against the Swedes during this period. Generally they would be organised as 'Named'dragoon units.

Garrison Dragoon Regiments

These units were primarily used as garrison troops or as combat troops against non Swedish forces. They were used for punitive expeditions and for suppressing the numerous revolts of the period. Generally they would have been organised as 'Named' dragoon units, although actual strength would have varied considerably.

Miscellaneous Dragoon Regiments

These units were used for a variety of purposes but have no know direct combat role. Units whose type is listed as ·Training· were regiments which trained soldiers who were then sent to other regiments to fight. ·Recruit· regiments similarly probably involved an element of training, particularly unit 594, see below. But they were mainly an administrative unit. They consisted of a group of recruits which were going from a rear area to the front. Once at the front the unit was disbanded and the soldiers joined other unit.

The other units in the table, with no ·type, may possibly units that belong in other sections of this work. Little or nothing is know of them and it might be that they should be in one of the other categories of unit.

This page should be viewed very much as a work in progress. Information is very difficult to obtain on Russian armies of the period and the above represents my best guess of the forces of Peter the Great. It is though likely to change as more information becomes available. If you have any additional information, comments, etc please get in touch with me at hwiccee@hotmail.com