Tough Service
November 11 is Veterans Day. Wanting to include something interesting and meaningful about veterans, when I came across a description of the plight of the average conscript in the Imperialist Russian Army in the 1800’s, described in a fine, new book, “Russia Against Napoleon” by Dominic Lieven, I thought this is it. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was in service, almost everyone (including me) complained about everything. I mean from our noncoms, officers, food, to living conditions, clothing, weather; whatever, we had something to “grumble” about. Imagine us in this army.
In the early 1800’s soldiers in Emperor Alexander 1’s army were conscripted for 25 years which for many amounted to a life sentence. Since most conscripts were illiterate, they could not maintain contact with their families by letter. Most never even took home leave.
Parents, usually long since dead, and remaining family members not welcoming an extra mouth to feed, most soldiers never returned to their villages even after retirement from the army. Conscription was used on private estates to rid the community of agitators.
The landowner and community did not necessarily welcome back an aging veteran who was probably unfit for agricultural work or even nursing a grievance against those who sent him into service. As a matter of fact, a noble landowner could forbid the return of a retired soldier to his village.
The new soldier’s mess mates became his substitute family. If he died, his possessions went to his comrades. As a matter of fact, to supplement their diet of bread and porridge, part of each conscript’s pay and half his outside earnings went to purchasing food and cooking equipment (kettles, pots, etc.).
He would usually serve in the same regiment for his entire service life. If he was moved into a new regiment, it was usually with his whole company. Thus, many collective loyalties and solidarities remained. While many officers left a regiment after achieving a higher rank, some remained for their entire careers. However, the key and glue of regimental loyalty were the NCO’s who usually served their entire careers with the same regiment. In several extreme cases, every sergeant-major, sergeant, and corporal had spent their entire military careers with the same regiment.
Sergeants and corporals were mostly peasants who gained their NCO status as veterans who had shown themselves to be reliable, sober and skilled in peacetime and courageous on the battlefield. And again, as with the conscript body as a whole, the vast majority were mostly illiterate. However, it was this army of illiterate conscripts that pushed Napoleon’s army into its desperately bitter retreat from Russia, and that ultimately triumphantly marched across Europe into Paris in 1814.
Arnie Silverman
