Army of the Tsardom of Russia

The Army of the Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Forces of the Russian State and the Forces of Muscovy, was the armed force of the Tsardom of Russia and, before it, of the Principality of Moscow. Until the middle of the fifteenth century the Russian state's forces were decentralized and could be assembled as an improvised militia, and most of the later army was made up of dvoryane and junior boyars, cavalrymen who held service estates only while they served. Its basic unit was the polk, or regiment, commanded by a voyevoda. In 1632 to 1634 regiments of the new system appeared, formed from Russians with foreign officers, and by 1680 they made up up to 67 percent of an army of about ninety thousand. The article gives the size of the sixteenth century army as unknown, with an upper estimate of about 110,000 men, and describes fortresses such as Smolensk built to defend the expanding borders.