Russia marches South: army reform and battlefield performance in Russia’s Southern campaigns, 1695-1739

Abstract

The southern campaigns were a series of military endeavors, undertaken by Russia against the Ottoman and Safavid empires between 1695 and 1739. These campaigns played a vital role in the military evolution of early modern Russia and influenced the reform policy, carried out by the tsars in order to restructure the old Muscovite army into a new, imperial one. The dissertation aims at depicting and defining the interrelation between reform and battlefield performance in the case to eighteenth-century Russia and also to outline the main factors, which influenced the development and conduct to the tsarist forces.