The Russian Army
Organization and Statistics
(1857-1876)

 

Here are some useful statistics relating to the Russian army during the middle of the 19th century.  We have the manpower of the Russian army for selected years between 1857 and 1878.  We also have the organizational structure for military units that made up the army of this period.

 

Strength of the Russian Army
Selected Years

The Russian army maintained a fairly regular size between the Crimean and Turkish wars.  The army did grow for a time after the Polish rebellion of 1863, but it soon returned to its previous size.  The emphasis during the era was on creating a flexible reserve system that could rapidly swell the size of the army during times of crisis.  This allowed the military to modernize faster, and it also cost the Empire less money than keeping a huge standing army.

Personnel Strength
(Selected Years)
1862

792,000 men
(+100,000 additional reserves)
1864

1,132,000 men
1867

742,000 men
1872 742,000 men
(1,358,000 men if all reserves mobilized)
1874 754,265 men
1878 1,500,000 men

  

Russian Army Organization

The tables below show the organization of the Russian military from 1873 until just after the Russo-Turkish war.  They allowed more flexibility than the older style of organization used during the Crimean war.  It should be noted that even though the Russian army began to reorganize along these lines in 1873, the process would not be complete until 1879.  This meant that many of the units involved in the Russo-Turkish war would be in a transitional state.

 

Russian Army Corps*  

*Headquarters and support elements are not included in this chart.
Infantry: 20,160
Cavalry: 2,048
Artillery: 108		 Infantry Division Cavalry Division Sapper Battalion
2 x Infantry Divisions
2 x Cavalry Divisions 
 1 x Sapper Battalion 		1 x Brigade Headquarters**
4 x Infantry Regiments
1 x Artillery Brigade
      (6 batteries of 8 guns)

** Some divisions had two

 3 x Cavalry Regiments
     (4 Cavalry Squadrons each)
1 x Cossack Cavalry Regiment
     (4 Cossack 'Hundreds' each)
2 x Horse Artillery Batteries
     (6 guns each)		  

  .

Infantry Regiment    
Manpower: Uncertain Infantry Battalion
3 x Infantry Battalions*

*This would later be increased to four infantry battalions.

5 x Infantry Companies
      (4 line infantry, 1 rifle/sharpshooter)

    

Back to the
The Russian Army of 1857-1876		 Back to the
Conquest of Central Asia

 

Sources Cited

(1) Menning, Bruce W. Bayonets before Bullets, The Imperial Russian Army, 1861-1914, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000. Print.
(2) Drury, Ian and Raffaele Ruggeri, The Russo-Turkish War 1877, London: Reed International Books Ltd, 1994, Print.