122 The Warrior Tsar, 1689-1725:hose by the soldiers we have already discussed, that they had not been paid
and were suffering distress.^21 Documentary evidence suggests that officers
sometimes received more and sometimes less than the regulation amounts.^22
The tsar also ordered that officers wc:1t: iv have precedence over civilian
noblemen on all occasions-and should refer to themselves as officers
(ofitsery) instead of sh/yakhtichi.^23 This was more important than it may seem,
since the idea of mestnichestvo remained alive and Peter :-vas anxious to shift
the basis cf such rivalries from birth to merit; and for him the best criterion of
merit was the military rank one had attained. In 1714 he ruled that those gen-
try servitors 'who do not know the soldier's craft from its fundamentals' should
not be appointed officers (which in itself was nothing new); to soften the blow
he added that they should serve in the ranks of one of the guards units.^24 This
had the result of fostering elitist tendencies within these regiments (a third,
consisting of cavalrymen, was added in 1719) and making them something of
a noble preserve. Foreign envoys were surprised to find scions "or aristocratic
families serving as privates in the guards, in the same conditions as those of
humble birth.^25 Guards officers enjoyed important material privileges: not
only higher pay but also extra rations (ratsil) for their mounts, superior accom-
modation in special settlements (s/obody), and better medical services.^26 They
also held ranks equivalent to those of officers two grades above them in the
rest of the army, so that a guards major was on a par with an army (full)
colonel.^27 The original rationale for this was that the guards were conc:Cived as
training units, from which men would pass out to command units in the field.
Finally, guards officers were close to the sovereign. They enjoyed his special
favour and were entrusted with extraordinary responsibilities, as we shall see
shortly. These developments were only partly deliberate, and one must be
careful not to misconstrue, in the light of the guards' later history, Peter's
purposes in the 1714 decree. It is true that in 1723 he ordered all young gentry
servitors (and foreigners) to be assigned solely to the guards; but this decree
was not published and remained in the archives.^28 The tsar equated artiliery
service with that in the guards, which suggests that even at the end of his reign
professional considerations were more important than social ones. In any case
there were simply not enough places in either the guards or the artillery for
every aspiring young officer. By 1720 only about 6 per cent of officers had
begun their service in the guards.^29 Those excluded continued to soldier on in
line regiments.
21 DiP iv (ii). 1006, 1055. 22 Cf. DiP i. 42, 52, 112.
:.• PiB vii. 5024 (8 Feb. 1712), § 21; Troi1sky, Absolyutizm, p. 42, whose interprelation is
pr~rerable to that of Rabinovich.
:J PSZ v. 2775 (26 Feb. 1714); Beskrovnyy, 'Voyennye shkoly', p. 288; Podyapol"skaya,
'K ,·oprosu', p. 186.
!5 Berkhgol:ts (Bergholz), 'Dnevnik', II, suppl.. pp. 20-1.
:^6 PSZ xtiii. 3322 (10 Mar. 1719); Juel, 'Zapiski', p. 71; Miiller-Dietz, Militiirarzt, p. 57.
:-Troitsky, Absoly111iz111, p. 109; Glinoyetsky, '1st. ocherk', p. 271.
:~ Troitsky, Abso/y111i;,m, p. 77. 29 Meehan-Waters, personal communication.