Regulamin wojskowy z 1698 roku

Abstract

Adam Adamovich Weyde (1667–1720), a friend and associate of Peter I, is known to the general public primarily for the famous 1698 Military Charter which he composed for the Russian army. At the same time, he has frequently been overlooked by historians, who, when discussing the reforms (not only military) undertaken by the tsar, mention the tsar’s other closest advisers first. This is most likely due to the fact that Weyde was a “background character” during the events unfolding at the time. Although he did not hold the most prominent positions in the army or the apparatus of state structures, it was his perceptiveness, potential for innovation and hard organizational work that played a huge role in the modernization of the Russian army and state in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Historians who analyze the modernization process of the Russian state during the reign of Peter I in increasing depth are gradually beginning to recognize the role of Adam Weyde. One of his most important achievements was the establishment of modern Russian military legislation, with the turning point being the military charter presented to the tsar in 1698. Notably, Adam Weyde also initiated and completed the work related to the general codification of Russian military law, which resulted in the modern regulations being adopted in 1716, commonly known as the Military Code of Peter the Great. Russia also largely owes to him the introduction, and later consolidation, of the recruitment system, and the establishment of new bodies of central state administration, collegia, which replaced the obsolete prikazes. It was him who organized an efficient military judiciary as the second (vice) president of the military collegium, whose rules of operation he basically developed himself. At the same time, Weyde made a name for himself as an observant strategist and tactician during various war campaigns against Sweden and Turkey conducted in the second decade of the 18th century. He distinguished himself as a commander in battles: the land battle of Narva (1700) and the naval battle off Cape Hangö Udd (1714). His hypercritical report on the condition of the Danish army from 1716 prevented Peter I from making an allied landing on the coast of Skåne and moving the ongoing war with Sweden to the Scandinavian Peninsula. Undoubtedly, the list of Adam Weyde’s achievements would have been much longer had it not been for his more than 10-year stay in Swedish captivity (1700–1711). Adam Weyde’s Military Charter itself is relevant not only to the Russian military. It was a work that presented the latest training, organizational and tactical solutions that were being introduced at the end of the 17th century in Europe. It might even be concluded that if Weyde’s Military Charter had been published in print and translated into German or French, it would have had a chance to become a key treatise for the development of military thought in the 18th century. However, this did not happen for a number of reasons, the main being that Weyde was taken prisoner by Sweden after the Battle of Narva in 1700. Today, the work of this tsarist general is a valuable source for tracing and understanding the transformations taking place in the Russian military at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Western European models that he adopted were adjusted to his own solutions, thus becoming the basis for the establishment of an entirely new army by Peter I. According to our hypothesis, 17th-century military treatises can be closed between two time caesuras. On the one hand, there is the year 1607, when Jacob de Gheyna’s innovative publication entitled Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten ende Spiessen was issued. This work can be considered the most important early modern treatise on the art of infantry warfare. On the other hand, the end to the concepts initiated in the early 17th century came in the second half of the 1690s. First, in 1696, the French military charter L’art Militaire Françoise, pour l’infanterie by Pierre Giffart was issued, incorporating some new tactical developments. Then, two years later, Adam Weyde presented the result of his efforts to Peter I; the “signature” charter soon came to be used as a manual of military training in the newly formed Russian infantry regiments. Thus, at the very end of the 17th century, the Russian army had a new and, importantly, its own military charter breaking with the previously adopted patterns of its training and overall functioning. The aforementioned French charter of 1696 was a kind of harbinger of change; it presented the actions performed by grenadiers and the drill of soldiers using muskets (still with a fuse lock) with a bayonet, but at the same time the traditional exercises for pikemen. This was applicable to a modern and modernizing army which was forced to go through the process of replacing one solution with another. The provisions of the charter in question were to play a different role. The tsar and his associate envisioned a complete modernization of the infantry by adapting the latest solutions already in place in Western European armies. In this regard, Russian delays may have been an asset, as they made it possible to reform the army without any intermediate forms. Thus, Adam Weyde’s Military Charter is not just a description of (and a driver for) the military changes taking place in Russia, but is a reflection of the broader changes in the military occurring on the Old Continent. An analysis of the charter’s content indicates that this is the first European military treatise that presents the complete solutions described and applied in the 18th century. It is a successful compilation of the achievements of previous theorists of the military and military laws, as well as the direct observations of Adam Weyde, a participant in the military campaigns against the army of the Turkish Sultan – in 1695–1696 launched by the Russian army at Azov, and in 1697 by the Imperial Army in Hungary. In the first case, the Turkish fortress of Azov was captured, and in the second, Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy smashed a stronger opponent at the Battle of Zenta. In this book we present the 1698 Military Charter by Adam Weyde translated into Polish, with the relevant scientific background. The work of the tsar’s associate was released only once in Russia in 1841 without a critical elaboration. Our publication features original, never-published illustrations of the holds of soldiers during the drill (for the purposes of the 19th-century source edition, lithographs based on the existing illustrations were made). In addition, we have reproduced the drill patterns not preserved in the Military Charter and proposed by Adam Weyde, which should be an integral part of the work. The annex contains the final text of the “combat infantry charter” compiled in 1700 and entitled Short ordinary instruction with a more detailed, stronger and better explanation (concerning the drill of infantry regiments) of how to do it and what the captain, other commanders and non-commissioned officers are to be on the lookout for. The charter edited by general Avtamon Golovin, another associate of the tsar’s, with the commentary of Peter I himself, was a creative elaboration of the thoughts found in the provisions of Adam Weyde’s Military Charter. TRANSLATED BY TERESA CZOGAŁA-KOCZY