The Muscovite Officer Corps, 1475-1598

The Muscovite tsars created their state through conquest, marriage and inheritance. The Muscovite army was the institution which executed this expansion. As new lands were added, the army was the tool of their subjugation, integration, assimilation. The army was the common denominator. Muscovy was the hostage of its location. Muscovy had few natural borders to keep out invaders. It was surrounded by cavalry societies, descended from the same Mongol empire, that regarded themselves as the natural inheritor of the reins of power. Russia's right to dominate was no more legitimate than any other of a number of princedoms. What made her successful was the development of an effective cavalry and the evolution of auxiliary services to conduct combined arms warfare tailored to match the specific enemy at hand. The Crimean Tatars to the south remained the major threat to Muscovy's survivial, but the secondary threat from Poland/Lithuania and Sweden demanded a different force, one which adopted the technologies of the Gunpowder Revolution and developed of auxiliary services (infantry, artillery, and transport). Yet, at the same time as Muscovy sought to create a unified, disciplined force obedient to the will of the tsar', many of the patterns and practices which characterize the Muscovite army were purposefully intended to do just the opposite. The army was the tool of the state to execute its will by force, but it was also a source of internal power and possible counterforce to the central government. The tsars developed institutions to bind the army together and also keep it from becoming a threat. The tsars consistently subjugated servitors to universal service binding on all landholders. The Muscovite officer corps did not develop along Western lines, but this was not due to backwardness or an inability to absorb new ideas. Rather, the tsars sought to develop a military machine to fit their own situation. Muscovy's borders were constantly expanding and absorbing new peoples. The Muscovite officer corps was an instrument of assimilation and subjugation which made the expansion a reality, then integrated the new elements into the realm so that they, too, could continue the process.