240 Gentlemen to Officers
armies at this time. Noble status conferred important advantages as regards
entry into the officer corps and subsequent promotion prospects, ~nd it also
mattered a great deal which family one came from. Most officers of the period
took this discrimination for granted and expected it to continue., The law
provided that non-noble NCOs could be promoted after four, eight, 011,twelve
years' service, according to their social origin: the three categories eomprised
respectively the sons of (non-noble) officers, clergy, and commoners." 'such
individuals automatically became noblemen, although once they left the service
their status was only that of personal, as distinct from hereditary, nobility.
During Catherine's reign there seems to have been a trickle of under-privileged
entrants, although no statistics are available. A. S. Pishchevich, who in the
early 1790s served as a squadron commander in the Astrakhan' Dragoon regi-
ment, recalls in his memoirs that on leaving this unit, stationed on the distant
Kuban· line, he recommended his efficient sergeant-major, Z. N. Popov, for
promotion; after a year's delay Popov was duly made an ensign and took up
duty as regimental quarter-master.^52 In every case such decisions were taken by
higher authority and were no mere formality, at least after 1796. Paul insisted
that all his officers should be nobles, in this emulating his hero Frederick the
Great. SJ Alexander I laid it down in 1803 that commoners who were promoted
to officer rank should serve in (less prestigious) administrative capacities such
as auditors or commissariat officials.^54 This ruling presented a problem, since
there were far more qualified candidates than there were vacancies. A way out
was found by giving those denied such promotion fin"ancial compensation, in
the shape of double pay.^55 But at the same time the qualifying term was
extended to 20 years for clerks and other auxiliary personnel, who were
precisely those most likely to be literate and to have some administrative
experience. Nicholas I made literacy an absolute requirement^56 but Otherwise
kept the system as it was (see ch. 14). Ex-commoners so promoted tended to
identify strongly with the existing order, although in the long term their
presence did represent a challenge to noble predominance. Their fellow officers
referred to them contemptuously as 'bourbons',^57 but do not seem to have
perceived them as a serious threat.
They were much more concerned about the influx of foreigners-many of
whom were actually their non-Russian or non-Orthodox compatriots, above all
Baltic Germans. This resentment went back to the reign of Peter I, who had
appointed a large number of such officers to senior positions. In 172213 out of
51 PSZ xvii. 12543 (14 Jan. 1766), I, § 2; von Hupel, Beschreibung, p. 100; Maslovsky,
Materia/y, i. 46.
52 Pishchevich, Zhizn ', pp. 154-5.
5l PSZ xxiv. 17534 (8 Nov. 1796), 17588 (29 Nov. 1796), V, §§ 2, 4, 7.
54 PSZ xxviii. 20914 (27 Aug. 1803).
55 PSZ xxx. 23009, 23378, 24015 (10 May 1808, Nov. 1808, Nov. 1809).
56 II PSZ iii. 2198, 2311 (31 July, 29 Sept. 1828); v (i). 3686 (31 May 1830).
57 Neizvestnyy, 'Za mnogo let', Feb. 1895, p. 123; 'lz zametok starosluzhivogo', p. 295.