pC'ssessed. The authorities indulged this vanity up to a point, but were con-
rned lest too many men be taken off active duty and the army's baggage
1in (oboz) become excessively swollen. (Foreign observers of eighteenth-
ntury Russian armies on campaign were astonished at the large number of
rses and carts that accompanied them: although an impediment to mobility,
:y wen: e55er.tial iu lin: absence oi advanced supply bases and units were
pected to be as self-sufficient as possible in many items of equipment.) In
32 Milnnich prescribed that officers who owned more than one hundred
1uls' should have no orderlies; instead they were to bring their own (civilian)
vants, for whose payment and conduct they were to be responsible.^3 This rule
es not seem to have been observed strictly, at least in peacetime. Von Hupe!,
iting in the 1780s, states that those who dispensed with their quota of
lerlies received an additional I 0.25 roubles a year, and that this grant was
en claimed by junior officers who did not in fact have any civilian servants
: instead came to an informal arrangement with one or more men in their
npany.^4 The government issued a blanket prohibition against taking
:liers 'for private services, such as riding behind [the officer's] carriage, or
rying his cloak or fur-coat, in a word [performing] any domestic tasks'.^5
wever, the inspectors who were supposed to ensure that this ruling was
.erved turned a blind eye to the malpractice.^6
:ome years later S. A. Tuchkov, who made a good career under Paul and
; inclined to be critical of conditions in the preceding reign, listed this as one
;ix major sources of corruption by unit commanders. 'They would take as
1y men as they wished from the regiment into their service, teach them
ious trades and appropriate their earnings. In general those [soldiers] who
e allowed to perform various jobs for their own benefit [also] had to give
t of the money they earned to the regiment.^17 The same complaint is made
-1. von Reimers, whose work (1805) is a panegyric in favour of Paul. Under
herine, he says, only half the men in an infantry regiment might appear on
1de
Luse its commander, who was its absolute boss, took away 20 or 25 men from each
pany for his personal requirements, to his estates; alternatively, he would hire them
to private individuals and keep their earnings [as if] by right. These unfortunates
Id be replaced after a time by other soldiers, but when they came back they were no
I at all for drill (front), as they were in tatters and had become as rough as
ants.^8
Reimers evidently had a particular case in mind, for he went on to
ribe a workshop in which over one hundred soldiers were employed; it
•sz xliii. 5637 (200ct. 1730), pp. 51, 69; xxiii. 17158 (31 Oct. 1793).
'on Hupel, Beschreibung, p. 53; cf. p. 35 for another circumstance facilitating private
ymcnt, in this case by guards officers.
•SZxxiii. 17158 (31 Oct. 1793); cf. xxii. 15990 (30 Apr. 1784).
lubrovin, Suvorov, p. 19.
·uchkov, Zapiski, p. 9. 8 Von Reimers, 'Peterburg', p. 445.