“Second after the Guard”: An Analysis of the Daily Service and Status of the Grenadier Corps in the Russian Imperial Army in the 1840s.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the service activities of units of the Grenadier Corps in the Russian Imperial Army during the reign of Nicholas I. According to the author’s conclusions, the grenadiers were only formally the second most prestigious branch of the armed forces. Unlike the guards, units of the Grenadier Corps were actively used for construction work in the summer. This suggests that the soldiers’ status was closer to that of the regular army infantry than in the Guard. The officers of the corps regiments received much fewer awards for suc-cessful service. In comparison with the Guard, a significantly smaller number of veteran soldiers of army units were transferred to the regiments of the Grenadier Corps than to the Guard, which negatively affected their results in combat exercises. The issue of material bonuses, which were regularly paid to officers of the Guards Corps at the expense of the state budget and significantly facilitated their service, was considered. At the same time, the deployment of guard units in barracks in a large city led to a higher death rate among the lower ranks of the corps.