Brief Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Army; And a Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in the Years 1806 and 1807 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tants is of immediate importance, or where moderation and regularity can alone provide the armies with their subsistence. Then the Cossaques are too frequently scourges of terror and desolation, more fatal to friends than foes; sweeping and devastating in the lawless thoughtlessness of barbarian invaders, without any consideration of future necessities. Their obligation to maintain their own horses and themselves; the number of reserve horses that march with them; and the habits of their Turkish wars, produce this counteracting inconvenience to the employment of the Cossaques, and there are many obstacles to the introduction of a system that might regulate their licentious practices without serious innovation on the character of the nation which supplies, (at least, ) thirty thousand voluntary and equipped warriors to the empire, and whose various services, not double the number of regular cavalry could execute, without a waste of man and horse that no resources of the Russian empire could supply. There has, indeed, been lately some incipient attempts at reformation, by regimenting the Cossaques, and by the introduction of distinctive dress to each corps; but the evils are of too complicated and ancient a date to be so superficially remedied, and not only dependent upon the improvement of Cos- saque habits, but the ability of Russia to provide the necessary indemnifications which a change of system would render necessary. More order, indeed, might be introduced, by diminishing the numerous detachments of the Cossaques, and collecting them in a body, under the immediate superintend- ance of their Attaman, whilst the concentration would assure the most decisive superiority over the French cavalry, and en- ii.i ii i. -" -' ..I...?- In the most ancient times Gibbon des...