314 The Military Setrlementsale hough the immediate motive for this step was the threat of foreign invasion:
the frontier guards were reorganized on military lines at the same time. In 1816
the lmernal Guard became a separate corps, similar to that set up for the
J11ilit'1ry settlements. It ·~vas divided into eight {later e!even) regional com-
mands, each under a general, and was headed by an adjutant-general to the
emperor (E. F. Komarovsky). Apart from 'put[ting] down acts of insubor-
dination and riotous behqviour', the men performed a wide range of other
police and para-military" tasks: escortin·g ·and training recruits, hunting
deseners and fugitive serfs, and guarding state buildings.^93 Among these
buildings were prisons; these soldiers also kept watch over the detainees,
whether military or civilian, who were sentenced to serve in the 'detention
companies' (arestantskiye roty) set up in 1823.^94 Ordinary convicts came within
their purview as well until the establishment of the celebrated convoy (erap)
system of escorting prisoners to Siberia, which was run mainly by local
Cossacks.
By Nicholas l's reign the Internal Guard numbered about 145,000 men, not
counting gendarmes (zhandarmy).^95 The latter were not, as is usually thought,
an invention of 'the gendarme of Europe'. They had precedents in Paul's
private army at Gatchina (l 792-6) and in the Russian occupation force in
France, where in 1815 a dragoon regiment was converted into one of gen-
darmes. At first given a military police role, by 1817 it had acquired power
over civilians as well. 'Gendarme divisions' were set up in the two capital
ciries. and detachments in 56 other towns. The gendarmes provided the muscle,
so to speak, for the Internal Guard: they had to meet higher physical standards
and were more mobile.^96 Nicholas elevated and expanded this force. The gen-
darmerie became a separate corps (1827) and was placed under an ostensibly
civilian agency, the blandly named Third Department of HIM's Own Chancery.
I ts functions included internal espionage and are sufficiently well known to
need no discussion here.^97 We may simply note that most of its officers and
men were drawn from the armed forces; they had to be tall, 'of good-looking
a~pearance' (blagovidnoy naruzhnosti), and able to ride a horse and to meet
relatively demanding criteria as regards intelligence, morality, and general
c :iaracter.^98
Such requirements were in accordance with Nicholas l's conviction that the
armed forces constituted a repository of virtue. Even more than Paul and
Alexander I he was an enthusiastic advocate of the military way of life and
devoted much attention to parade-ground skills (see ch. 14). 'Military trifles
'J PSZ xxxi. 24704 (3 July 1811), xxxii. 25329 (2 Feb. 1813), xii. 30571 (31 Oct. 1825);
Dubrovin, Sbornik, v. 32-8; VE vi. 443-4; Yeroshkin, lstoriya gos. uchre:.hdeniy, pp. 191-2.
u IE iii. 18.
~1 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, i. 18.
•6 l'Ex. 355-7.
" II PSZ iv. 3199 (27 Sept. 1829), xi(i), 9355 (I July 1836); LeDonne, ':\lilitary Ju~tice', p. 186.
T-.,o 't:mdard works on the subject are Monas, Third Section and Squire, Third Department.
. ,,, II PSZ x(i), 7993 (25 Mar. 1835), xi(i), 9355 (I July 1836), Vil,§§ 98-110.