Between Inspections and Corps:  The Russian Divisional Structure, 1806 - 1810

Transformation of Divisional Concept, 1807-1810

By Robert Goetz

From 1807 through 1810 a series of organizational adjustments changed the composition of the Russian Divisions.  Adjustments made in June 1807 included the designation of the Guard as a division and the creation of a new division from regiments drawn from existing divisions.  The extension of the divisional organization to the eastern inspections occurred in February 1808 and Replacement Recruit Depots were created in October of that year.  In 1809 the divisions were substantially reorganized with regiments transferred among the divisions, but the structure of the divisions remained the same.  At the same time, the fact that many of the divisions were fighting wars outside of Russia – up to 18 of the 22 divisions in Europe and the Caucasus in 1809 with the remaining four divisions defending the Baltic and Black Sea coasts  - resulted in the formation of divisions that do not seem to have been attached to a specific geographical territory.  Finally, in 1810 Regimental Replacement Battalions were established and the first permanent corps were introduced.

During this period two significant deviations from the original structure emerged.  First, some of the new divisions appear to have been formed exclusively as operational units for use in the war with the Turks.  Second, while the original structure of the divisions assigned infantry, cavalry and artillery to each division, the cavalry appears to have remained separate from the infantry divisions in subsequent reorganizations.  These deviations effectively changed the concept of the division from a force of all arms (infantry, cavalry and artillery) to a body of infantry supported by artillery.  This foreshadowed the transition to the corps as the force of all arms.  This shift in the underlying concept of the division, coupled with the formation of a depot system and Regimental Replacement structure, completed the essential framework for the establishment of a French-inspired corps d’armée structure in 1812.

Organizational Adjustments

In June 1807 adjustments to the original divisions were ordered.  These changes, decreed while many of the affected divisions and regiments were on campaign in Poland, do not appear to have been implemented until after the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807.  A decree of 1 June ordered all artillery brigades attached to the western divisions to be brought up to the same number of companies:  two battery or heavy artillery companies, two light artillery companies, one horse artillery company and one pontoon company.  This explicitly excluded the Caucasus and Siberian artillery while the Orenburg Inspection, which lacked any field artillery companies, was unaffected.  With the expansion and adjustment of the artillery came a reorganization of the infantry.  The Guard, along with the Leib Grenadiers from the original 1^st Division, became the new 1^st Division.  The remaining regiments in 1^st Division, augmented by Libau Musketeers from 16^th Division to replace Leib Grenadiers, were renamed the 21^st Division.  This renumbering appears to have been purely cosmetic, the designation of “1^st” implying primary importance and seniority and therefore being assigned to the Guard.  The 1^st Artillery Brigade that was formerly attached to the 1^st Division was renumbered the 21^st and attached to the 21^st Division.  At the same time, the seventh regiments of the 6^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 11^th Divisions and a regiment from the 18^th Division were formed into a new 22^nd Division and the 22^nd Artillery Brigade was created for the new division.  As with the Caucasus divisions, the 22^nd Division received no specific cavalry regiments.  The 22^nd Division appears to have been created to create more uniform divisions.  With the formation of the 22^nd Division, all of the divisions in the west contained six infantry regiments, organized into three two-regiment brigades.  Some additional shifting of regiments also occurred in conjunction with these adjustments to even up the allocation of regiments to divisions. 

The 1807 adjustments produced greater regularity in the formation of the infantry of the divisions, but appear to have introduced a departure from the organization of the division as a force of all arms.  One possible reason for this is the stability in the composition of the army’s cavalry arm.  Two new light cavalry regiments were authorized in April 1807 but no new dragoon regiments were authorized.  The allocation of the new cavalry regiments to divisions is not specified, but it seems likely that once their formation was complete they would have been assigned to the 15^th or 22^nd Divisions because these divisions were lacking cavalry.  It is also possible that they simply remained unassigned, as was the case with several uhlan regiments.

The minor changes to the divisional structure in 1808 and 1809 require only brief mention.  The Orenburg and Siberian Inspections were organized into the 23^rd and 24^th Divisions respectively on 5 February 1808.  On 12 August 1808 a new infantry regiment was formed from three garrison battalions and assigned to 9^th Division.  In 1809 there was a considerable rearranging of regiments among the divisions, but without any significant change in overall structure or even total strength of the divisions.  In this year an additional musketeer regiment was transferred to the 1^st (Guard) Division and several other regiments shuffled among the divisions to maintain them at equal size, at least with regard to infantry.  At the same time, the 23^rd and 24^th Divisions were reorganized into three divisions, the 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th, presumably due to difficulties of command over the considerable distances on the eastern frontier.  It is interesting to note that the 13^th, 18^th and 19^th Divisions – the divisions located on the Black Sea coast, in Georgia and in the Caucasus – were oversized while the eastern divisions were only brigade strength.  The final divisional organization is shown in Table 5.

Table 5:  Composition of Divisions, September 1809[i]

Establishment of a Depot System

The most notable omission in the 1806 divisional adjustments was the lack of any depot system to process recruits and to replenish the regiments on campaign.  This omission is perhaps explained by the short duration of the 1805 campaign with France:  the 90-day campaign did not allow time for replenishing depleted units, so there was no demonstrable need to change the established practice.  In contrast to the Russians, the French had developed a highly effective depot system that allowed the French army to maintain its strength even in prolonged campaigns.  Columns of soldiers marched from the regimental depots in France to join the regiments on campaign.  In 1806, for example, recruits caught up to their regiments in the vicinity of Berlin.[ii]  By contrast, the Russian regiments suffered a steady depletion while on campaign.  Recruits were not processed in regimental depots but rather distributed to the regiments directly from recruit processing centers, presumably to receive the bulk of their training with the field battalions.[iii]  Lacking an efficient system for replacing combat losses in the regiments, the Russian practice was to maintain a large reserve of regiments within Russia as a supplementary army. 

On 30 October 1808, this omission was partially corrected with the establishment of the first depot system.  The new depots were established “to avoid the deficiencies connected with the hasty distribution of recruits” and replaced the centralized processing centers with more effective recruit training centers.[iv]  A network of Replacement Recruit Depots were established, each consisting of 6 companies.  Twenty-nine depots were originally authorized, although only twenty-seven were actually created.  These depots, in effect regional recruit processing and training centers, reduced the distance recruits had to march from their villages to the processing locations and from there to their regiments, and provided essential basic instruction for the recruits. 

The Replacement Recruit Depots did not address the need for a system of supplying replacements for regiments on campaign, but this was addressed almost exactly one year later when Replacement Battalions were authorized for the regiments (12 October 1810).  This established regimental depots consisting of the three fusilier or musketeer companies of the 2^nd Battalion of each regiment.[v]  On 8 November 1810, the existing cavalry replacement squadrons and half-squadrons were disbanded and a new system of Replacement Squadrons paralleling the infantry model was established.[vi]  One of the three center squadrons in the 5-squadron regiments and one of the three center squadrons in each of the two battalions of the 10-squadron regiments would form the Replacement Squadron.  With these two reforms, the process of sending raw recruits directly to the regiments was replaced by a two-step process where recruits passed first through the Replacement Recruit Depot, then to the Replacement Battalion and finally to the field regiments.  In addition to improving the training of recruits, the Replacement Recruit Depots and Replacement Battalions provided a ready reserve that could be mobilized as a support force in wartime.

The Barclay Reforms of 1810

In January 1810, Barclay de Tolly became Minister of War and immediately began reorganizing and reforming the army.  A major component of Barclay’s reforms involved the reorganization of the Russian army according to the French model, with formal corps and divisions in a two-tier structure.  The entire series of organizational reforms extends beyond the period of study, but it is useful to briefly address the first of Barclay’s organizational adjustments occurring in October 1810 as these demonstrate the completion of the transition from the Inspections to the prototype of the Russian corps d’armée.  The establishment of Replacement Battalions (described above) on 12 October 1810 logically separated the regimental depot from the physical (peacetime) location of the division.  On 19 October 1810, fourteen musketeer regiments were redesignated as jäger regiments to produce a uniform organization of all divisions with four musketeer regiments and two jäger regiments organized into three brigades.  Finally, on 26 October the divisions were grouped into a corps structure. 

The first corps simply grouped the divisions together in the regions in which they were operating.  (See Table 6)  The divisions that had been involved in the war against Sweden, either in the invasion of Finland or in defending the Baltic coast, were assigned to the first three corps.  The 1^st Corps consisted of 5^th and 14^th Divisions, the 2^nd Corps of 6^th, 17^th, and 21^st Divisions and the 3^rd Corps of 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Divisions.  From subsequent adjustments and considering the composition of the Army of Finland in 1812, it appears that 1^st Corps remained in Finland, 2^nd Corps occupied the St. Petersburg area, and 3^rd Corps defended the Baltic coast.  The 4^th Corps included primarily the divisions that had been committed to the 1809 campaign against Austria in Poland and presumably remained on the western frontier.  This corps included the 7^th and 15^th Divisions along with the replacement battalions of 9^th, 10^th and 18^th Divisions.  It therefore appears that it was intended for the corps to include five divisions after the withdrawal of the 9^th, 10^th, and 18^th from the Army of Moldavia.  The composition of the 5^th Corps was not specified, but the gap in the numbering seems to have been left open for the divisions in the Army of Moldavia.  Five divisions were active in Moldavia and were not assigned to other corps, suggesting that these were intended to form the 5^th Corps.[vii]  The 6^th Corps was formed from the Caucasus divisions, the 19^th and 20^th.  On 28 October, the cavalry was formally reorganized into brigades and each brigade assigned to a corps.  The artillery brigades appear to have remained attached to the infantry divisions.[viii] 

Table 6:  Allocation of Divisions, 1806-1810

Note:  Detachments from 13^th Division also operated in Moldavia; detachments from 1^st Division operated in Poland in 1807 and in Finland in 1808-9.

The result of these adjustments was to complete the separation of the divisions from geographic regions and replace the division with the corps as the standard force of all arms.  The corps structure would evolve over the course of the following year, but the Barclay reforms effectively mark the end of the Catherinian system of divisions, which had served as the underlying structure of the Russian army for almost half a century.

Notes

Placed on the Napoleon Series: December 2002

© Copyright 1995-2004, The Napoleon Series, All Rights Reserved.

[ Top | Home ]