Birth of the Military Intelligentsia 239
much should be made of it.^42 Cavalry officers were wealthier than their infan-
try counterparts, as one would expect.
In the eighteenth century the autocrat would still reward his or her meritor-
ious servitors with grants of land and peasants, as Muscovite rulers had done.
The best-known instances concerned men in privileged units who were close to
the court, such as the grenadiers who hoisted the empress Elizabeth (1741-61)
to the throne, or the troops from Gatchina whom Paul, on his accession,
incorp~rated into the guards.^43 This archaic practice ceased under Alexander I,
but both he and his successors continued to make lavish gifts of ornamental
weapons, jewellery, or cash, and sometimes even paid off their officers'
private debts. 'I consider it my duty to serve Him to the last drop of my
blood', wrote N. I. Krivtsov to his mother in 1815, after the tsar had given him
25,000 roubles for this purpose.^44 In 18 I 7 Martos, then a captain, waspresented with a ring which he soon afterwards sold for 2,000 roubles. (^45) I. A.
Baratynsky, a favourite of Nicholas I, received an annual bonus of 2,000 silver
roubles from 1834,which was doubled in 1846, and a lump sum of 4,300
roubles in 1845.^46 Another notable recipient of Imperial largesse was P. K.
Essen, military governor of St. Petersburg from 1830 to 1843. (^47) Such
grants-and personal pensions, too-were often tied to the award of medals,
which might be emblazoned with diamonds, or to membership of chivalric
orders; these were of course matters that fell within the sovereign's
prerogative.^48 Medals were also awarded to entire units. As the Polish critic
Tanski observed perceptively, 'ces sortes de recompenses collectives sont d'une
bonne politique, elles entretiennent I' esprit de corps'.^49 The emperor's 'fount
of honour' had a material aspect which meant a great deal to potential
beneficiaries and helped to keep them loyal, even though the arbitrary way in
which awards Were Often made might engender irritation and cynicism.SO
Curiously enough, the political implications of this largesse have yet to be
studied. Presumably the prospect of royal favour affected the behaviour of
senior officers more than it did that of their subordinates, but this is only
a hypothesis.
Russian officers did not form a closed caste, but they were of course drawn
overwhelmingly from the ranks of the privileged, as was the case in other
42 L. ll'yashevich, 'Zhenatye otitscry', VS 34 (1863), p. 422.
43 For a routine instance, to a colonel who performed well against Pugachev ( 1777): Shchukin,
Sbornik, i. 142-3;Manstein, Zapiski, p. 243; Chicherin et al., lstoriya Preobr. polka, ii. 581;
Volkonsky, 'Rasskazy', p. 186; Shil' der, Pavel, pp. 56S ff.
(^44) Shchukinskiy sbornik, iii. 27S.
4l Martos, 'Zapiski', p. 534; cf. Denisov, 'Zapiski', p. 615; Dolgorukov, 'Otryvki', p. 326;
Fabritsius, in SVM vii. 113, n. I. (^46) RBS ii. 495.
47 Shepelev, Otmenennye istoriyey, p. 34.
4ll PSZ xxiv. 17908 (5 Apr. 1797); Drutsky-Sokolinsky, 'Biogr. zametka', pp. viii-ix; Sazonov,
'Ordena', VE xvii. 143-S. (^49) Tanski, Tableau, p. 176.
SO Mosolov, 'Zapiski', p. 134; Modzalevsky (ed.). Arkhiv Rayevskikh, i. 98; Engcl"gardt,
Zapiski, pp. 122, 141.