Russian Army

The **Russian Army** is the armed forces of the Russian Federation, founded officially in 1721. They have consisted of 940,000 regulars and 246,000 Cossack irregulars at its height in 1850.

## History

Peter the Great is considered to be the first innovator of the Russian armed forces. His reforms turned a force of militiamen who had outdated weapons (few even had firearms) into a professional standing army consisting of both Cossacks and regular soldiers. The Russians tested this army during the Great Northern War of the early 1700s, and used it to defeat the combined forces of the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sweden. They would later be put to the test in the Seven Years' War of the 1750s, and won over Frederick the Great at several battles such as Kunersdorf in 1760.

It came as a surprise to the known world that Catherine the Great, a woman, was one of the most successful military leaders of Russia. In the 1770s-1790s she conquered Poland and defeated the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sweden many times. She was assisted by John Paul Jones and other foreign volunteers in her successful wars of conquest, and the undefeated Russian general Aleksandr Suvorov. They took Izmir in 1790 from the Turks and fought the Swedes well into the early 1800s.

From 1798 to 1815 they were engaged in a series of wars with the French revolutionaries in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, and Suvorov managed to beat the famous general Napoleon Bonaparte in battle at the Battle of Novi in 1799. The Russians made peace in 1800 when Paul I of Russia felt that he could not beat the French in Switzerland, and Suvorov staged a winter retreat over the Alps. They would be on the defensive in 1807 when Napoleon invaded Russian Poland and the Great Patriotic War of 1812 cost the French over half a million men. Russia would later assist in the reconquest of Central Europe from the Napoleonic Empire, and provided occupation forces after 1815.

In the years between 1815 and 1914 they reformed their armies to modernize. The only thing preventing them from conquering the Ottoman Empire was intervention by the British and French during the Crimean War of 1850-53, which led to the Charge of the Light Brigade among other battles. The Russians lost the war and made peace, but at the same time they conquered the Caucasus from Bukhara and the Khivan Khanate. The Russians continued to fight the Ottomans even after the Crimean War, taking over most of The Balkans from the Ottoman Empire in the 1870s.

Their performance in World War I was not applaudable, as it involved many defeats at the hands of the German Empire such as at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. In 1917 they made peace, and that same year a coup overthrew Nicholas II of Russia, and the communist revolutionaries exterminated the whole House of Romanov. The Red Army replaced the Russian Army from 1921 to 1991.

In the aftermath of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Army was re-formed. They were equipped with modern weaponry and great planes and helicopters, and became one of the most powerful forces in the world. In the Post-Soviet Conflicts the Russian Army fought in many wars in the former Soviet Union and proved their might in World War III in 2016, in which they took over most of Europe and parts of Asia and North America with aid from gas attacks.

## Gallery

Russian army ranksCrosswalk infantryman, 18th centuryRussian soldiers in 2016