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Russian Imperial Guards ORBAT 1917The Order of Battle Unit Listing at the Time of the Revolution
A list of the units assigned to the Tsar's own Russian Imperial Guard at its apogee on March 12, 1917- during the Russian Revolution
The Order of Battle of the Russian Imperial Guard, 1917 The last hurrah of the guard was in 1914 when the armies of the old world collided in World War One. The Guard had swelled to 12 Regiments of infantry, a brigade of sharpshooters, two cossack regiments, ten cavalry regiments, the palace grenadiers (still wearing Napoleon’s bearskin hats), artillery units, a bicyclist unit, a machinegun regiment, a railway regiment, a military police unit, a marine battalion who mounted guard in the imperial yachts and four separate red coated squadrons of cossacks of the Konvoy for the Emperor’s personal escort. These units, when coupled with quartermaster support troops, reserve cadres, engineers totaled some 140,000 men by the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Most units had an active force deployed at the front with the Special Army, a force made up almost entirely of Guardsmen and other elite units that was wasted holding the front sector northwest of Dubno instead of being used as a special missions force. It was led by General Vasili Iosifovich Romeyko-Gurko, a close friend of the Tsar and the only one of his generals who advised against abdication. Most historians fail to mention that the Guards in St Petersburg were reserve troops who were training to go to the front, not actual combat frontoviks Infantry Units (Foot Guards)
Guards Strelkovi (Rifle) Brigade
Company of Palace Grenadiers. Cavalry Units (Horse Guards)
Artillery
Misc Units
Sources – Mark Conrad's The Russian Army, 1914 Melegari, The Great Regiments, 1964 Stewart, George. The White Armies of Russia: A Chronicle Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention. Macmillan, 1933. Footman, David. Civil War in Russia Faber and Faber, 1961.
The copyright of the article Russian Imperial Guards ORBAT 1917 in Modern War is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish Russian Imperial Guards ORBAT 1917 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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