Foreigners, ‘Soldiers’, etc

After the disastrous ‘Time of Troubles’ in the early 17th Century, Russia began to recover under her first Romanov Tsars, and in the 1630s a new paid force began to be raised, consisting of four ‘German’ infantry regiments (in fact also containing English, Dutch and Scots mercenaries), and six ’Soldiers’ regiments of Russian infantry trained and equipped on the same lines, and with foreign officers. The basic organisation was intended to be of 960 musketeers and 640 pikemen, in eight companies.

The ‘German’ regiments were dressed and equipped in Western fashion as shown, their dress being colourful and non-uniform; the Russian ones were armed the same but dressed similarly to the Streltsi. Later on the foreign troops tended to be replaced by new Russian units like the two

Raspberry, border green, cross black, ground white, stars raspberry, j Pole violet, corners black, cross white with small red crosses on It, ground red, moons and stars yellow, border emerald green, medium blue and light yellow, k Pole dark rose, corners dark blue with red ornaments, borders red ‘Vibornie’ (‘chosen’ or elite) Moscow infantry regiments (1642).

Also under Michael Romanov (1613-45) foreign or foreign-style cavalry units were introduced. These consisted of ’Reiters’ wearing helmet and corselet and armed with a sword, two pistols and a carbine; dragoons with long musket, sword and short lance; and ‘Hussars’ or ‘Lancers’ in imitation of the Poles, with lance and sabre.

The traditional cavalry still predominated; in fact in the 1632 campaign against Poland there were only 7,000 of all the new troops as against 33,000 of the traditional types.

By this period the ‘Sons of the Boyars’ had adopted firearms to a limited extent. Tartars, as in the 16th Century, were widely employed, and they, like Bashkir and Kal-muk auxiliaries, still relied exclusively on the bow (the latter in fact up to Napoleonic times).

And white, small cross at top yellow, main cross yellow, cross at centre red, ground light blue. I Pole dark rose, corners dark blue, flowers red, border white and yellow, cross red, ground dark blue, m Pole raspberry, border light yellow, main cross white, ground red, small cross and stars white.