(^104) The Warrior Tsar, 1689-1725
crippled recruits who had been submitted in lieu of men who were physically
fit. Proprietors disregarded the provision in the decree designed to spare their
more prod11c1ivi:-dependa!!t~ from the lc;.-y; sonu;iimes ihese men were sent
back,^31 which in one case led to a riot. There was a good dea}of random
violence during the operation, and in the Tula district an official supervising
the levy was assaulted by irate civilians.^32 1 \
Peter had hoped to raise a force some 60,000 to 80,000 strong. He o~ained
about 32,000 men, of whom perhaps a quarter to a third were volunteers. The
latter were mostly raised in the Volga region by N. I. Repnin, whereas the men
recruited from central Russia by F. A. Golovin and A. A. W.eyde(whoremained
in Moscow) were overwhelmingly conscripts.^33 Cadres could be drawn from
the soldaty regiments;^34 their numbers had been cut back by the Naryshkin
regime in the early 1690s, but 28,000 took part in the Azov campaigns and
several thousand must surely have still been under arms in 1698-9. Thirty-two
new infantry regiments were formed at that time, and another 39 in 1700.^35
Each was supposed to have about one thousand men, although in fact many
were below strength. In readiness for the confrontation with the Swedes they
were formed into three divisions, each of nine regiments with 10 companies,
equipped and uniformed in European style.
All these units were under the command of foreigners, but it was impossible
to draw on this source for the large number of officers now required: each
regiment had 36 vacancies at the rank of captain or below, but the three divi-
sions had only l, 137 officers in all, of whom one thicd were foreign or 'newly
baptized'.^36 In May 1700 the authorities began to mobilize Russians to fill the
gap. They turned in the first instance to the senior ranks of the service elite.
Nobles now once again found themselves required to bear arms personally,
and not just to part with their dependants. During the summer nearly one
thousand dvoryane were assigned as officers to the new regiments, and in 1701
another 8,600 young gentry servitors, who would normally have done duty in
the levy, were assigned to 14 new cavalry (dragoon) units.3^7 Neither the levy
nor the new-model forces were formally abolished: they were silently superseded
by units of the new standing army.
Gentry servitors preferred to fulfil their military obligations on horseback
even if this meant that some of them had to remain in the ranks.^38 They might
ll A law to that effect was passed on 23 Dec. 1700: PSZ iv. 1820, § I.
l2 Vostokov, '0 delakh General'nogo dvora'. pp. 13-16, 26, 29. Rabinovich, 'Formirovaniye',
does not refer to this earlier study.
H Rabinovich, 'Formirovaniye'. pp. 223, 226-8 (where there is some confusion u to the pro-
portion of volunteers); cf. id., Sud"by, p. 6.
34 Anisimov and Zinevich, /storiya, p. I 7.
35 For details of these see Rabinovich, Po/ki, pp. 26-31, 32-44.
36 Avtokratov, 'Voyennyy prikaz', p. 240.
l^7 Rabinovich, Po/ki, pp. 86-9 (nos. 543-56); id., Sud'by, p. 6; id., 'Formlrovaniye', p. 234.
38 No figures are available which could relate rank to social origin within units, but it is known
that in 1720-1 gentry comprised 71 per cent of cavalry officers as against S2 pa'Olllt of Infantry
officers: Rabinovich, 'Sots. proiskhozhdeniye'. p. 139 and below, p. 119.
wang
(Wang)
#1