Cossacks in Central Asia

The following is quoted from Count K. K. Pahlen, Mission to Turkestan, 1908-1909

"The nomad population <of Semirech'ye in southern Russia, at the beginning of the nineteenth century> was of Kirgiz origin, divided into three distinct stems: the Kara-Kirgiz in the east, the Kaisak-Kirgiz (or Kazakhs) in the west, and between them a third stem of no definite name. The tribal elders were known as sultans or manaps, and were blindly obeyed by their kinsmen. The frequent raids north made by the Kirgiz, and their infringement of the grazing rights of the Kalmyks, who were Russian subjects, prompted the southward push of the Russians from Siberia. To counter the Kirgiz raids the Russians successfully applied colonizing tactics developed over a couple of centuries in struggles with border nomads. Small forts were built in the steppe, far ahead of the frontier, to which Cossack villages (stanitsas) were after a time transferred by order of the sovereign.

Most of my readers probably know that the Cossacks were an armed militia, obliged to put cavalry regiments into the field in time of war. Every Cossack owned his mount, the distinctive uniform of his unit and all his accoutrement, only his rifle being supplied by the state. Against this duty the Cossacks paid no taxes and enjoyed a large measure of autonomy in the management of their communal affairs; and every mounted man was granted 200 hectares of land. The whole of the Cossack structure in Russia was divided into separate 'cossack hosts', named after the regions they inhabited. Each host was militarily under the command of an 'Ataman', appointed by the Emperor, while each village was represented by an elected ataman but administered by an elected village council. Following an age-long tradition, long upright poles indicated the approach to a Cossack village. When set alight, the bundle of straw fixed to the top of these poles used to serve as a signal that the enemy was approaching and as a call to arms.

As time went on, whenever there arose a need for a standing force on some distant frontier the Cossacks were allotted new areas, and thus new Cossack 'hosts' were brought into being such as the Siberian Cossacks, the Amur Cossacks and, in the course of the nineteenth century, the Semirech'ye Cossacks, the latter originating in the manner I shall now describe.

By order of the Ataman of a given Cossack host 'voluntary' emigrants would. be called for. Wives and children would be left behind for the first few years, while the men went off to the designated region where they would found a new settlement, bring the soil under cultivation, defend themselves against unruly tribes and even wage war against them.

An old Cossack of Semirech'ye told me the story of his experiences.

'I was twenty years old at the time.' he said, 'and had to leave my young wife behind me in the stanitsa in Siberia. The authorities ordered every stanitsa, according to its size, to produce so many young men for emigrating to Semirech'ye. We were promised good land, and I and twenty other youngsters came to this stanitsa, on the river Ili. The younger generation have no idea of what we had to put up with. We were told that we were expected within three years to build a sufficient number of houses, and to lay in supplies of corn and oats sufficient to provide bread and fodder until the next harvest, for three times our number together with their and our own families. Those were hard times. We toiled in the fields by day, spent the night chasing off the Kirgiz who grazed our lands and raided us, built houses and dug wells. It took ten long years to make life more bearable.'

When I visited it, his stanitsa was a flourishing village. Every Cossack owned cattle and horses; the sons and daughters of several were studying in the gymnasium or at a university. The houses were spotlessly clean and well-built; some even had pianos, and every home was surrounded by its own orchard.

All through the nineteenth century the Cossack cordon round Semipalatinsk went on extending farther south. The towns of Kopal and Vernyy <note: Vernyy is the present-day Alma-Ata> were founded, and gradually populated by Russian townspeople. I need hardly say that these pioneers were a mixed and motley lot, deriving from the most varied strata of European Russia, many of them with records best left uninvestigated. There were also quite a few keen tradesmen, who bartered their goods with the natives and piled up huge profits, as well as some craftsmen and intellectuals. In metropolitan Russia police surveillance at the time was pretty thorough; out here the authorities were less inquisitive, prepared to accept anyone as a citizen and to register him under any name he chose to adopt. What he was called at home was not their business, neither was his marital status. Under these conditions many a shattered life was forgotten for good and a new life built up under the benign protection of a rapidly growing province."

Cossack army bivouac and customs

From the account of Captain Petto, of the Russian service, recounted by Fred Burnaby, A Ride to Khiva, 1877

In the presence of the enemy, a Cossack detachment ordinarily bivouacked behind a wagon barricade; a small detachment which found some natural feature (ie a cliff, river, ravine) to use as one side of the barricade would bivouac behind a U of wagons backed onto this feature. A large detachment bivouacked behind a square of wagons, with hay bales or guns in the angles between straight walls of wagons, and the size of the square according to the numbers which could be stationed at each wall. The wagons or carts were parked in rows, several rows to a side, and the men stationed between the outer and inner rows. Room had to be allotted to wheel up artillery if needed. The men's kits were piled up behind their sections, their rifles stacked directly behind them.

Behind the bivouac was the Cossack horse-line; behind the horses, was the center of the barricade housing the staff, the artillery park, the engineer and hospital trains, the sutlers, and finally (if there was enough room) the drivers with their horses and camels in a separate square.

If possible, the livestock went out daily to graze without the bivouac, and was brought back into the walls at night. The camels went where there is no danger of attack; the horses were hobbled in the horse-lines. A chain of dismounted guard-posts (called by the Cossacks a mayak, signaling station) guarded the bivouac by day and night.

Each mayak was made up of three men, one always mounted while the other two rested, went for water, cut grass etc. At night the bivouac threw out a chain of sentries, as local Kirghiz etc. were in the habit of sneaking behind the lines to steal things. In the late 1800s, because they lacked the numbers to keep a constant guard, the Cossacks took to using guard dogs from the Caucasus, vigilant beasts which barked at the least little noise. These dogs were used and trained regularly on the shores of the Black Sea.

In a steppe campaign, the train taken along by Cossacks included: food, forage, horse equipment, officers' and soldiers' baggage, medicines and hospital stores, felt tents and camp equipage. For a company of 170 men, this meant: six cast-iron boilers with lids, two white-metal dram-cups, seven water-vessels, seven pounds of pepper, four one-half pounds of laurel-leaves, 100 pounds of leaf-tobacco, nine bottles essence of vinegar, 100 pounds of onions, ten pounds of garlic, ten pounds of horse-radish, ten pounds of soap, 200 pounds of salt, three wooden troughs, five scythes, 120 mats, 300 fathoms rope, three hatchets, three spades, three picks, seven shovels, two white-metal mugs, one eight-gallon cask, three wooden shovels, one net, one iron pail, and 170 wooden tea-cups. The total weight: from 1200 to 1600 pounds. Sometimes the detachment also brought wooden field-forges, bridging material, portable wells, guns on pack animals, and trains of spare camels or horses to carry injured or sick men.

This amount of equipment entailed a very large baggage train. In European warfare of the same era, one supply cart sufficed for 40 or 50 men; in steppe campaigns, one baggage animal for every two or three men. Thus a Cossack sotnia of 150 men, going for a month's campaign in the field, took along 80 camels - this, without calculating the officers' supplies, carts for the transport of military stores, the sick, etc. Military detachments marching in the steppe become little more than escorts for their own lengthy baggage caravans.

Napoleon, campaigning in Egypt, organized his transport on such a small scale that the whole could be protected within a small infantry square; this was because his food and other stores were transported via the Nile. When the French campaigned in Algeria, the army stayed within two or three marches of their supply depots, but still fetched along about 1000 beasts for each column of 5000 men under arms.

During the Russian Khiva campaign, there was one camel per every two men.

During General Perovky's expedition in southern Russia, in the winter of 1839, every man had two camels, and there was a three-horse cart for approximately every two men.

The English trains in the East Indies and Afghanistan were still more numerous. The average train (in times of peace) per battalion of infantry was 1200 mules with 600 mule-drivers; in time of war, somewhat more. The English in Afghanistan during the winter campaign of 1841, retreated under General Elphinstone with 4000 men; the train following in rear numbered 12000, and when this motley crew of animal-drivers and native servants panicked and fell into disorder, the resulting chaos allowed the Afghans to surround the English soldiers and massacre all - not only the armed soldiers, but their unarmed and frightened followers - except for a single escaping horseman.

Consequently, in the Abyssinian campaign of 1867, the English limited the baggage of each officer to 80 pounds, and each soldiers' to 20 pounds including bedding; this reduced the mule train of each battalion from 1200 to 187 animals, with 100 drivers. Nevertheless the total train of the army numbered 20,000 beasts.

For Cossack steppe campaigns, the beasts allotted were: one-horse carts 700 pounds per cart, two-horse or two-bullock carts no more than 1400 pounds each, camel-loads 680 pounds each. Give an infantry company numbering 200 men (including servants, non-combatants and officers) fighting in the field for one month, the Cossack supply officers calculated: 12480 pounds biscuit, 2080 pounds groats, 60 pounds tea, 180 pounds sugar, five one-half gallons of spirits weighing eighty pounds. Oats for the draught horses, 600 pounds. Fifteen kibitkas (ie ten per company, two for sick, three for officers) weighing 260 pounds each, total 3900 pounds. Felts for bedding 10-12 pounds; camp equipage and stores 1200-2000 pounds; mens' kits at 60 pounds each, 12,000 pounds; ammunition amounting to 2000 pounds; in all, about sixteen tons.

To carry this, assuming one-horse carts carrying 1000 pounds each, the company had to take along 36 supply carts. Fifteen carts alone carried the food ... but since a detachment never went out for less than two months at a time, this meant at least fifty carts, or one cart per four men! Three or four additional carts went along to carry the apothecaries' medicines and sick on the march: ie, about fifty-six carts in all. To this, the supply officers added 65 camels (each carrying 560 pounds) allotting one spare camel for each seven to ten beasts. If hay was fetched along for the camels, this meant even more in baggage.

The Cossacks themselves were fine sturdy men, averaging about eleven stone in weight. On the march, they toted about seven stone each - this included about 20 lb barley for their horses (barley being preferred to oats at that time) and six pounds of biscuits or enough for one man to subsist upon for 4 days. They were armed with short breech-loading rifles and swords; they looked forward to being supplied with the superior Berdan carbine, a weapon highly-recommended by their Russian officers. Their pay amounted to about a shilling a month. Their daily rations: 2 pounds flour and 1 pound meat, plus a credit of half a copeck per day for vegetables; with each 100 soldiers being issued one pound tea and three pounds sugar per diem. The state paid each Cossack an additional two pounds fifteen shillings yearly, from which he had to keep his kit (which was originally supplied to him by the district which equipped and sent him forth).

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Last Updated on August 26, 2001 by Sylvia