Guards crew in battle
The idea to create a guards naval unit was realized during the reign of Alexander the First in 1810. Initially, it was a battalion of four companies, from which the crews of the royal yachts were to be completed. Of course, the guardsmen also carried out guard duty, guarding the Highest Persons, and participated in the hostilities. Having received barracks in the center of St. Petersburg, the best officers and sailors, a new naval the crew was fully combat-ready by the summer of 1812, when the Patriotic War broke out.
Napoleon did not have a fleet, and the guardsmen had to fight on land, as a pontoon part of the 2nd army. The model was to blame for everything - our guards crew copied a similar one from the French, and Napoleon's crew was primarily an engineering unit. So the guards sailors of Russia in that war were engaged in far from maritime business - they burned and built bridges, from the border to Borodino itself. And then there was a trip abroad, from which the crew, however, was returned by sea, on the frigate "Archipelago", but precisely as passengers, but otherwise it was the same engineering service. The service is courageous - the St. George banner and the Kulm Cross are witnesses to this, but never a sea one.
Single line stories The crew - the uprising of the Decembrists, in which the crew actively participated, and participated autonomously. The fact is that a separate secret society arose in its ranks back in 1824, a society associated with the North, but with its own Statutes and plans. On December 14, sailors came to Senate Square to their misfortune ...
The sailors did not join the square of the Moscow regiment. They settled down in a rectangle between the Moscow regiment and St. Isaac's Cathedral, which was under construction. The sailors stood on the square for several hours. And then a buckshot hit the motionless ranks of the Guards crew ... After the defeat of the uprising, the officers of the Guards naval crew conspired, without telling anything about their revolutionary activities, to present the exit to the square as a result of sincere devotion to the legitimate heir Konstantin, disbelief in his abdication and unwillingness to change the first oath .
And then there were wars again, and again the guards sailors did not let them through, but as part of the land. In the minds of the leadership of the Empire, they were pontoons. No, in peacetime, the guards sailors went on sea voyages, went often and repeatedly, but in the event of war, the crew turned into a pontoon unit. This continued until 1877, when, in addition to the usual pontoon affairs, the crew of the mine boat "Joke" was equipped with sailors.
The joke turned out to be really good - unlike other boats, the Joke was a pleasure boat, and unsuitable for battles. Nevertheless, the guards managed:
Early in the morning of June 7, 1877, a detachment of boats headed for Mechka Island to lay a minefield in the area designated for the crossing of Russian troops. From the Turkish fortress Ruschuk immediately ran the ship "Erekli" with eight guns and a hundred soldiers on board. The steamer was at its fullest, obviously intending to crush the boats.
"Erekli" was the first naval victory of the Russian Guards sailors. A victory won 67 years after the creation of the crew. The boat was commanded by Lieutenant Skrydlov, the future commander of the Pacific Fleet, and the artist Vereshchagin was on board. Then the guards "Joke" was engaged in patrolling, went into an unsuccessful attack on the Turkish monitor ...
Time changed, the crew also changed, an engine crew appeared in it, and more and more it turned from a pontoon part into a sea part, a source of manning ship crews, and not only yachts, but also combat ones. During the Russo-Japanese War, the guardsmen fully manned the crews of the battleship Alexander III, and partially the armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov and the auxiliary cruiser Ural. Sailors were waiting for Tsushima.
In fact, the crew in that battle lost the best personnel - only a few people survived from the sailors of the Alexander III, who were transferred to the steamer Oldgamia even before the battle. According to the report of Ensign Leiman, the only battleship officer who survived the war:
I inform your Excellency about the following: on May 6, 1905, by order of the commander of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, Vice Admiral Rozhdestvensky, I transferred from the squadron battleship "Emperor Alexander III" to the prize steamer "Oldgamia" as a watch officer. The commander of the steamer "Oldgamia" was warrant officer Tregubov from the squadron battleship "Prince Suvorov", senior officer - warrant officer Potapov - from the squadron battleship "Oslyabya" and mechanic - warrant officer Zayonchkovsky auxiliary cruiser "Ural". The team consisted of the upper and engine crew taken from the squadron, including 37 people, including the boatswain.
Leiman still had time to fight on Sakhalin, where he was captured. Some of the guards of other ships also survived the battle, but the fate of the Alexander III was heroic and terrible, they died, but did not give up, as their commander, captain of the first rank Bukhvostov, had promised before the campaign.
In the interwar period, the crew had to be restored practically from scratch, and in the First World War, the guards sailors again fought both on land and at sea. Part of the sailors went to the ships, from their number the crews of the cruiser "Oleg" and the destroyers "Ukraine" and "Voyskovoy" of the "Volunteer" type were completed. The second part again acted as pontoons, fighting on the fronts and preparing for a landing on the Bosphorus. In St. Petersburg, meanwhile, they were preparing reinforcements for both. And then came the revolution:
The Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, with royal monograms on uniform and a red bow on his shoulder, appeared on March 1 at 4 hours 15 minutes in the State Duma, where he reported to the Chairman of the Duma MV Rodzianko: “I have the honor to appear to your Excellency. I am at your disposal, like all the people. I wish the good of Russia, ”and said that the Guards crew is at the full disposal of the State Duma.
And the last commander of the Crew and the future pretender to the throne of the already non-existent Empire substantively proved that the efforts of generations of servicemen can be crossed out by one Grand Duke with a red bow, who a little later will again become a terry monarchist. And in the spring of 1918, the unit, along with other units of the Imperial Army, was disbanded.
Summing up the results of more than a century of history of the Guards crew - heroic campaigns and heroic battles, but a completely unclear specialization, which caused some kind of duality. Still, it was probably not worth connecting the engineering part and the sailors into some kind of centaur. And at the beginning of the 20th century, it looked completely anachronistic, after the deepening of specialization in military affairs. And the inglorious end of history, caused, however, by the ambitions of one of the emperor's relatives, who saw in the revolution a chance for his crown. What are the claims to the sailors of the crew, if they were led by a relative of the Emperor?
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