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1st Guards Corps (Russian Empire)

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1st Guards Corps
1-й Гвардейский корпус
Active1813–1864
1874–1917
Country Russian Empire
BranchImperial Russian Army
TypeCorps
SizeApproximately 46,000[1]
EngagementsRusso-Turkish War of 1877-78
World War I

The 1st Guards Corps (Russian: 1-й Гвардейский корпус) was a corps-level command in the Imperial Russian Army that existed in the decades leading up to and during World War I. Stationed in Saint Petersburg, it included some of the oldest and best known regiments of the Emperor's Guard.

Until 1915 it was called the Guards Corps (Гвардейский корпус).

History

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The Guards Corps was established in 1813, consisting of two guards infantry divisions and their artillery, a guards sapper battalion, and a guards cavalry division. After the reforms in the 1830s, during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, the corps was reorganized into two separate units: the 1st Guards Infantry Corps, which included three infantry divisions, a sapper battalion, and a Finnish rifle battalion, and a 1st Guards Reserve Cavalry Corps with three cavalry divisions and horse artillery. This basic structure existed through the Crimean War. Military reforms began in 1862, and in 1864 both the Guards Infantry and Cavalry Corps had been disbanded.[2]

In 1874 all guards units were combined into a new Guards Corps.[2] The Guards Corps saw action during World War I and was renamed the 1st Guards Corps. In the Kerensky offensive, the 1st Guards Corps launched an attack on Austrian and German positions in the sector of the Russian Eleventh Army and took heavy losses.[3]

Organization

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As of 1914, the corps included the following:[1][4]

Commanders

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b General Staff, War Office 1914, p. 31.
  2. ^ a b Novitsky, Vasily Fedorovich, ed. (1915). "Армейский корпус" [Army corps]. Sytin's Military Encyclopedia (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin.
  3. ^ Wildman 1987, pp. 96–97.
  4. ^ Гвардейский корпус (in Russian). Ria1914.info. Retrieved 10 November 2017.

Sources

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  • General Staff, War Office (1914). Handbook of the Russian Army. London: Imperial War Museum. ISBN 0-89839-250-0.
  • Wildman, Allan (1987). The End of the Russian Imperial Army: The Road to Soviet Power and Peace. Vol. II. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05504-1.
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