The first dragoon units were formed in the middle of the XVI century. French Marshal Brissack put the best of his infantrymen on horses and issued them with banners with dragons on them. According to one legend that is how the name "dragoons" first appeared. By another account, their name derived from a weapon called the Dragon – a short musket. Before encountering an enemy, the dragoons dismounted and fought only on foot, but at the beginning of the XVII century, during the Thirty Years War, the Swedish king and commander Gustav II Adolf made dragoons into regular cavalry. They conducted reconnaissance and search duties, served as an advance guard warning of an approaching enemy and fought on the battlefield in both tight and loose formations.
In Russia the first dragoon regiments appeared at the beginning of the XVII century. Englishmen, Dutchmen and Swedes became the first dragoons here. In 1631 tsar Mikhail Romanov's government invited Colonels Leslie and Van-Dimen to Russian service to create a dragoon regiment of a "new style". They formed a regiment, but it did not last long as within a year the foreigners serving in it quarrelled amongst themselves and went home. After such an unfortunate experience, the Russians decided to only invite foreigners for positions of command. By 1634 few dragoon, reitar (from the German "reiter"- rider - heavy cavalry in the armies in XVI-XVII centuries, which replaced knights cavalry and which was armed with sword, pistols, carbines, helmet, breast armor, fighting in close formations) and pikemen regiments were recruited. This was the first attempt to introduce regular troops in Russia, similar to the troops that existed in Western Europe that were trained using linear tactics. However this attempt was not a success either. It was only after the reforms of Peter I that dragoons became truly combat-effective horse units, even though they didn’t become cavalry in the European sense. The dragoons of Peter I were the first truly regular Russian cavalry troops, and played a notable role in the Great Northern War, gaining numerous victories over the Swedes in the Baltic States, Poland and in the Ukraine.
In the early part of 1700, along with the formation of 27 new regular infantry regiments, two regular dragoon regiments were formed. Hardly trained, equipped and organized, these regiments together with the infantry and the artillery of Peter I were drafted to the siege of the fortress of Narva. They did not fight as cavalry during that siege since such operations required a large quantity of infantry, so the dragoons were converted into infantry. During the day of the crushing defeat at Narva, the cavalry occupied positions on the very edge of the left flank. Having heard the sounds of battle, and without waiting for the attack of the enemy, panicing riders rushed to the bridge across the Narove river. During this disorganised crossing about a thousand of them drowned in the cold waters of the river. If it had not been for the stiff resistance to the Swedes from the guard Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky regiments covering the river crossing they could have been totally annihilated. The rest of the cavalry moved from Narva to Novgorod and were the first to bring the bitter news about the defeat of the Russian army to the tsar. Peter I realised that he was effectively without cavalry, and without that he could not hope to achieve victory. That is why, along with the reformation of the army that followed Narva, the cavalry was given special attention. In the course of 1701, a further 12 regular dragoon regiments were formed. Many different types of people served in these regiments - among the privates some were the soldiers of the former territorial cavalry - poor noblemen and the "children of boyars", who didn’t have the means to buy a horse, weapons and equipment, plus some soldiers of previous regiments of the "new style", like reitars and pikemen were drafted into the regular cavalry. Municipal Cossacks and former horse streltsy became dragoons. Apart from that some peasants - "horse levied people" – were drafted. Similar to fusiliers, with a salary of 12 rubles a year (with a deduction from it of about 6 rubles for the uniform, like tricorn hat that cost 21 kopeck, caftan - 3 rubles 33 kopecks, camisole and breeches - 3 rubles 65 kopecks, necktie - 2 kopecks and boots for 94 kopecks that finished the outfit of a dragoon), along with free nourishment worth to the state a further 6 rubles 34,5 kopecks per year were given for a permanent and lifelong service. As in the infantry, the major problem was the staffing of the officer corps. There were too few Russians who knew the "dragoon system". Again, as in many other cases, Peter I, lacking time and resources, had to resort to the recruiting of officers from abroad. In the first few years of the existence of the regular cavalry foreigners were the bulk of the officer corps.
The problem of horse stock for the cavalry proved to be even more complex. The high and strong Holstein horses with strong bones, that were considered to be the model of a combat horse in those years, were not available. The Swedish cavalry had such horses, but Peter I did not have such animals available to him as for centuries the state and private horse-breeding farms bred small, thickset, but very hardy horses of steppe species. Peter I ordered the establishment of new horse-breeding farms in the Kazan, Azov and Kiev provinces. Simultaneously, he improved the species of horses existing in the rural areas by ordering the bringing to Arkhangelsk and to the Ob river coast of several Estonian kleppers. However improvement of the species is a long and difficult job, and due to lack of funds at the beginning of the Great Northern War the dragoons were given the Nogay horses, saddled by heavy German saddles unusual for the Russians. These horses couldn’t retain formation but they were cheap for the Treasury. The forage rations for these horses were very moderate and during the spring and summer period they weren’t supplied with forage at all.
To Peter I’s friends and enemies alike this Russian cavalry did not seem to be an imposing force. The English ambassador Lord Whitworth reported to his government: "in the tsarist army the cavalry, strictly speaking is not available, there are 16 dragoon regiments, which ride the light Tatar horses, and it is doubtful that they could stand against the Swedish cuirassiers...". Inexperienced and so far poorly trained soldiers and the officers of the young cavalry of Peter I had to learn in combat with the mighty enemy. First of all they had to master the new method of fighting on the battlefield. The old "Russian battle style" of the XVII century was a cavalry charge in a dense disorganised mass with cries and whistles, attempting to frighten, to stupefy, to put the enemy to flight. If the enemy retreated, the riders stopped their pursuit and pillaged the enemy’s convoys. If the attack did not succeed, then they turned and departed for their infantry or left the battlefield completely. Swedish dragoons and cuirassiers were prepared for such sudden attacks. Formed into close squadron ranks, they joined battle in a single line. Following the rules of the linear tactics they could rapidly make turnings, change from column of march to the squadron line, then back again into the column, attack and step back as a single unit. Evolutions and changes of pace (for example into a gallop) were accomplished by all soldiers simultaneously, on the command of their officers, which was given through the trumpeters. It was not easy to an individual rider or groups of riders to break this formation, which acted as a single mechanism.
Dragoon costume up to 1720 was no different to that of the infantry - they wore a dark green caftan (coat), red camisole and breeches. In 1720 the Military Council decreed that the dragoons, in contrast to the infantry, were to have dark-blue caftans with turn-down collars, cuffs, edging of loops and the white backing. The colour of the camisole and breeches should be the natural colour of the elk skin (white or cream), white necktie, black hat with white lace. Instead of the cloth breeches, the blunt-nosed shoes and the white stockings the dragoons wore boots with the sockets and the spurs, and the leather breeches made of the elk-skin. The rank and file of the garrison wore a uniform similar in colour to the infantry fusiliers. Dragoons were armed with a fuzeya (musket) or carbine, sabre or broadsword, sword and pistols. To carry these weapons they had to have a sword belt, cartridge bag (lyadunka) and fuzeya crossbelt with a hook (pantaler). It was made up of a wide elk leather belt with a copper buckle, which was worn on the left shoulder. Thus the dragoon fuzeya hung beside the right foot with the muzzle downward. Whilst riding the muzzle of the musket was inserted into a “bushmat” - a leather tube, hung from the saddle on the right side.
When Peter the Great died in 1725, Russia had available 3 mounted grenadier regiments, 30 field dragoon and 4 garrison dragoon regiments. It was in combat in the Baltic States that the regular cavalry of Peter I learned their trade, fighting not as a mass but in formation. It was here that they aquired the taste of their first victory at Erestfer in 1702 and in other successful raids. If the victory at Erestfer over Shlippenbach can be attributed to numerical superiority, the culmination of their transformation was the battle at Kalis in 1706, which became the first large battle of the Northern War won by the Russians. Russian dragoons played the key role in this battle, displaying excellent combat skills. They had about 80 squadrons. Shortly after the beginnig of the battle they put Polish cavalry to flight but the Swedes, despite the fact that their allies had left them, put up fierce resistance. The Russians had to fight the Swedish cavalry with broadswords as well as attack their infantry on several occasions. The cavalry of Karl XII was easily scattered, but the fusiliers and grenadiers lining up in the square repelled all cavalry attacks. The closest of Peter’s aides, Menshikov, ordered the dragoons to dismount, take their muskets, close their ranks and to advance on the enemy. After that the Swedish commander Mardefeld surrendered together with approximately 3,500 of his men. "The victory which was unprecedented" – that’s how Peter I estimated this battle. Menshikov was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the guards, where the tsar himself was the Colonel. Special medals were casted to honour the victory: gold - for the officers, silver - for the soldiers. Indeed at Kalis the Russian cavalry, without the support of infantry, inflicted on the enemy a serious defeat and demonstrated excellent combat efficiency both in mounted and dismounted formations. This cavalry was ready for the new and more serious battles of the Northern war. Ten dragoon regiments took part in the battle at the Lesnaya village, sixteen fought during the battle at Poltava. It is here that credit must be given to foreign colonels Gulitz and Svenwitz and, primarily, to the brave commander of the dragoons Renne– a natural born Swede (for more about the phenomenon of Swedes in the service to the tsar see in our article devoted to the Swedish Infantry). Together with them some Russian noblemen, such as Prince Meschersky, were also at the cradle of the regular Russian cavalry commanding several regiments from the moment of their formation. The traditions of the mounted military service in Russia were much more well-established than those of the infantry and, to some extent, influenced the latter. The habit of putting infantry on horses or wagons purely to hasten the marches in the vastness of mother Russia first emerged and reached an unprecedented scale during the Great Northern War. The guard Preobrazhensky (the regimental march of which you can listen to while reading the article on the Early Russian Infantry) and Semenovsky regiments during the campaign in Belorussia and the Ukraine received horses and equipment still retaining their infantry status. General-fieldmarshall Alexander Menshikov, by that time, hurrying up to the village of Lesnaya to cross the road to General Levenhaupt mounted two infantry regiments. General-fieldmarshall Boris Sheremetev brought infantry from Narva to Derpt on wagons. Later on during his campaign in 1814 Napoleon used post coaches for this purpose.
The absence of clear cut division between cavalry and infantry in the Russian army of that period was a unique feature of the Great Northern War. That brought us to devise a set of the Dragoons of Peter the Great consisting of 12 horses 16 cavalrymen and 6 dismounted dragoons. 12 of the cavalrymen are dragoons and 4 - mounted grenadiers sitting as second numbers behind their comrade’s backs. To accommodate them we removed saddle backpacks from some of the horses. The mounted grenadiers can be easily identified by their high cloth hats without copper plates. Some may be surprised to not see any of them actually throwing grenades, however grenadiers of that period shouldn’t be compared to the grenadiers of the Napoleonic period when hand grenades had fallen out of use completely (at least in field battles) and grenadiers became just another type of heavy cavalry or infantry. In the time of Peter I grenades were actively used and they were thrown either by hand or from special hand mortars. Only a crazy man would throw hand grenades from horseback since he would be the first to receive the splinters. The recoil of the hand mortar was so strong that it would have easily thrown a rider out of the saddle, therefore grenadiers were mounted for mobility purposes only. When they attacked in mounted order, they used muskets, swords and pistols like normal cavalry. Among other figures you can see a figure of a dragoon with pistols in hands and sword in his teeth. This is not an imitation of children’s pirate cartoons or circus tricks as some may have suggested. If one can trust Victor Hugo as a reliable source, that’s how the famous cuirassiers of Milhaud and Kellermann attacked the English squares at Waterloo. Two separately cast swords should make the figures more 3-dimensional. Several running dismounted infantrymen in tricorns, some of them holding stirrups, finish the set as a composition ready for a diorama. A figure of a strelets is missing from this set since we consider this set as cavalry.
We would like to take this opportunity to inform you about our plans for the more distant future. We will release a Russian infantry set for the period of the battle of Poltava including the figure of Peter I. We haven’t decided yet whether the figure will be mounted or dismounted. Contemporary parade battle pictures always depict the tsar on horseback but it’s a well established fact that Peter Alexeyevich didn’t like riding because he had very long legs and did not look very imposing in a saddle. It’s highly possible that the figure of the great reformer will be made on foot with a walking-stick. Apart from this figure we want to make figures of his closest aides – Sheremetyev, Menshikov and others whose portraits we have. The guards grenadiers will wear the head leather casquettes that according to contemporaries were so reminiscent of the Roman Ceasars’ Pretorian guards helmets.