RUSSIAN DRAGOONS OF PETER THE GREAT - THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR

It is quite commonly assumed that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, rulers of Russia in its history was Peter I the Great of the Romanov dynasty, who ruled in the years 1682-1725. Undoubtedly, his numerous reforms in the field of central and local administration, education and economic life have left their mark on Russia and pushed it forward. Equally significant changes took place in the Russian army - including its cavalry. At the beginning of 1700, Peter the Great created two new dragoon regiments, which were already very clearly modeled, in terms of equipment and organization, on analogous Western European regiments. Their unsuccessful baptism of fire took place near Narva in 1700, but despite this, the tsar decided to create new dragoon regiments. In the course of the 1709 campaign, the Russian army had 37 dragoon regiments, including three regiments of Mounted Grenadiers. Initially, the regiment of Russian dragoons consisted of 10 companies of 80-100 soldiers each. At the turn of 1704/1705, this organization changed and a division into 12 companies was introduced, each of which consisted of 90 to 120 people. Another change took place in 1712 - the dragoons regiment now consisted of 1,328 people, divided into 10 companies. From 1708, the basic armament of the Russian dragoons was slowly, but systematically, a flintlock rifle 106 cm long and with a caliber of 14 to 18 mm. The fact that the new Russian army of Peter the Great, including the dragoon, turned out to be an effective weapon, is proved by its great victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and the victorious ending of the Great Northern War.