Military history of Russia

The military history of Russia treats mainly Russian Empire since its creation by Pierre Large the, in 1721, until its collapse at the time of the Révolution of 1917, which was to give rise to the Soviet Union.

Pierre Large the and Russian Empire

Pierre I {{er}}, wire of a second marriage of the Tsar Alexeï, was, initially isolated circles of the capacity, then prone to a fight of various family factions. When his/her father had suddenly died, it is with his/her oldest son resulting from a first marriage, Fédor III, that the crown échut. But the new elected official, child weak and morbid, died dice 1682. At this point in time the half-sister of Pierre, Sophie, had the idea to keep the capacity, by making it crown, at the same time as her other half-brother, weak and quasi-remained teenager, Ivan V; by dividing the crown into two, it remained the only real authority, by preserving the title and the functions of regent. While ensuring main role, it sent young person Pierre and his mother to village of Prèobrajenski, where it let it be surrounded by a band of children who became his/her playmates, initially, and of faithful, in a second. Very early, influenced by the Officer S Mercenary S and other soldiers of fortune European S, generally Anglo-Saxon S or German S, which populated the district from abroad , with Moscow, (district known as “of the Dutchmen”), and that the future tsar enjoyed to attend, this one was at the head put to organize his/her playmates in an effective military troop equipped and trained with the Occidental E; this merry " bandage amuseurs" , as had called them, for gausser, the members of the court, was to give rise to the two first Régiment S of Infanterie of elite of the future Russian imperial army: the Regiment S of Préobrajenski and Sémiénovski.

Dice its childhood, Pierre Ier conceived an authentic passion for all that touched with the Western Europe, and more specifically with all that concerned the even legal military fields, techniques and. Its greater discovery does not remain about it less one savage will to give to renovated and occidentalized Russia, the element, in its eyes, essence, to give access to him the row more great powers: a fleet of war allowing him to open its empire on the outside world and to allow him to impose its political will on it. It is, from this point of view of creation of a naval force of first force, that is the proof of a real vision geopolitical of the future reforming tsar of the Russia.

But before implementing its projects, it was to take again the capacity confiscated by the Régent E Sophie. It reached that point, in 1689, thanks to its disciplined and faithful troops, by crushing the principal element of the Russian army of the time: the body of the Streltsys, whose bloody defeat marked the one new era beginning in Moscovie. After having drawn aside Sophie, it reached the supreme capacity of Autocrate of all the Russia S, in 1696, at the time of the death of his half-brother Ivan V.

The question Othoman E

The first external threat to which new the Tsar had to face the was carried out despoiling ones of the people Tatar S, which, encouraged in writing pad by the Othoman capacity of Constantinople, carried out almost each year, at the time of harvests, of true operations of raid on the Russian colonies of settlement of Ukraine of the Southern. The first forwarding carried out by overland route against the Forteresse of Azov failed; but one second, carried out in 1696, using strong a river Flotilla built especially to this end, enabled him finally to take the port of Azov. This first victory forecast possible more important successes.

It is, indeed, one of the great constants of the Russian geostrategic thought , to have always tended to to open a maritime door on the the Mediterranean. And this idea, permanent with the spirit of principal the Tsar S which will follow one another, then Soviet mode which, after 1917, will replace them, will be source of the majority of the conflicts which will oppose the Russian S to the Occident with, during S.

Large the War of North

First period: Swedish successes

With the autumn 1699, three states, whose Russia of Pierre Large the, the Poland of the voter of Bavaria Auguste II and the Denmark of Frederic IV, formed a secret coalition in order to put a term at Swedish supremacy , and of its young king Charles XII, on the Baltic area . The war burst the following year, in 1700, and in a few months the Swedish crushed the Danish, during a forwarding unloaded in the north of Copenhagen the August 4th; and, as of the 18 of the same month, the Denmark, overcome, in less than three weeks, withdrew conflict.

The King of Sweden, then old of 17 years and half, was turned over at once against the Russian S, whose one Armée with 40.000 men besieged the city, then under Swedish domination, of Narva, in current the Estonia. During an attack launched in full snowstorm the Russian forces were put in rout and Pierre Large the lost there, not only the battle, but also 10 000 killed soldiers.

After this second great victory, Charles XII was turned over against the born troops Saxon and Polish be that it crushed at the time of the battles of Klissow (1701), Pultusk (1703) and of Thorn ( April - September 1703). After having spent the 4 following years to demolish all the enemy forces which were opposite for him, whose Russian task force sent in Poland and that it put in rout in 1706, it forced, the September 24th 1706, with Altranstädt , Auguste II to be given up any claim on the throne of Poland.

Second period: Russian final victory

At this point in time Charles XII made the great error of its reign, as were to make it besides other future conquerors, Napoleon and Hitler. It mistook on the real state of a so-called endemic weakness of the Armée S Russian S, which it by twice had already overcome, and decided to invade the Russian empire to finish good once for all of them. It had simply not taken into account the fact that during the seven years that it had passed to fight in Poland, Pierre Large the had benefitted from this unhoped-for respite to modernize and set up finally a true military force.

The day of the New year 1708 it crosses the the Vistula with the head of the more large army which ever had a king Scandinave, namely 44 000 men, of which 20 000 infantrymen and 24 000 riders, and took the direction of Moscow. But it was necessary for him to wait more than six months before the Russian S try a military action to stop its advance; this first crushing argument took place with Holowiczin, in the west of the Dniepr, the July 4th, and was to be the last victory ever gained by the Swedish over the Russian S; but already victory without a future, since soon with court of provisioning, it had to move towards the Southern, and more particularly towards the Ukraine, where the Hetman Cosaque Ivan Mazepa, had promised to him to join it with the head of several tens of thousands of Zaporogue S.

As it advanced more deeply out of ground Slave, the Swedish Armée suffered and weakened dramatically because it was to face the one of the strategic weapons applied systematically by the Russian capacities: the policy of the " ground brûlée". an immense rescue party directed by the General Adam Lewenhaupt and composed of thousands of carriages protected by 11 000 Swedes had left Riga but had to face a series of ambushes assembled by the troops Russian S, which of September to October 1708, ended up destroying the provisioning intended for Charles XII, and, at the price of 10 000 as of their, to allow only 5 000 survivors to join the remainders of the principal Swedish army in Ukraine.

The last act was to take place around the town of Poltava, in front of which Charles XII, joined by Ivan Mazeppa, accompanied by less than 2.000 Cosaque S, had put the seat in May 1709. A Russian army of help, directed by Pierre Large the in person, joined there in June; and the July 8th, at the time of the ultimate Swedish offensive, carried out per less 20 000 men, against the 60 000 soldiers of the Tsar, this one gained a final victory, killing or capturing close to 18 000 adversaries. Only Charles XII could flee with less 1 500 comrades in arms. By this success on one of the best captains of its time and against an army with the legendary reputation, Pierre Large the inserted the Russia in the concert of the great powers Européen born.

The era of the " revolutions of palais"

The Guard: new Praetorian S?

After having killed his/her son, the Tsarévitch Alexis, of which had wanted to make use the enemies of the reforms and modernization to Western imposed by the tsar, Pierre modified the rules of its succession, by establishing that it would be with him alone that would return the care to choose it. At the time of its own death, in 1725, it had not made a decision yet, and it is his second wife, Catherine, who went up on the throne, under the name of Catherine I {{Re}}. To its death, in 1727, the imperial crown returned to its grandson, Pierre II, which was to reign only three years before dying in 1730, and to allow the sister of the fire-tsar Ivan V, that one even which had reigned jointly with the young person Pierre Large the, Anna Ivanovna, to succeed to him.

Prevalence of the influence German E

Catherine II and the imperial expansion of Russia

Napoleonean wars

Campaigns of 1805 and 1807

the First patriotic War of 1812

The revolt of Décembristes

The Crimean War

The Russo-Turkish war of 1877 - 1878

The war Russo-Japanese woman of 1904 - 1905

the First World War

The Revolution of 1917

Internal bonds

Bibliography and sources

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