Composite Grenadier units

These are little known units but are interesting as regular infantry that fought alongside Cossacks in the Tsaritsyn area. The officers had previously been members of the Imperial Grenadier Regiments.

Uniform

Dress uniform

The Imperial Army had sixteen regiments of grenadiers. Officers from those units were taken out of the other Volunteer units and given conscripts and ex-Reds to command.

1st Division	2nd Division	3rd Division	4th (Caucasian) Division
1st Ekaterinoslav G.R. 2nd Rostov G.R. 3rd Pernovsk (Pärnu) G.R. 4th Nesvizh G.R	5th Kiev G.R. 6th Tauridian G.R. 7th Samogitian G.R. 8th Moscow G.R.	9th Siberian G.R 10th Malopolska G.R. 11th Fanagoriysk G.R. 12th Astrakhan G.R	13th Erivan G.R 14th Georgian G.R. 15th Tiflis (Tblisi) G.R. 16th Mingrelian G.R.

The dress caps had a dark green crown with hat band according to the place in the division, both piped red. Officers would often wear this dress cap, though it was unlikely any other ranks did.

Shoulder-boards were yellow piped for the division (plain for the 4th). All units had a cipher, in red. Metal was gold for the first three divisions and silver for the Caucasian units. Buttons had grenades on them.

Blouse and tunic were normal. Dress trousers were dark green.

Field Uniform

The field cap of the grenadier regiments was piped along the top of the hatband in the colour of the dress hatband.

The khaki shoulder-boards were stencilled with the cipher in yellow, but if officers were not wearing the yellow ones they would have tried to have metal ciphers.

The greatcoat tabs were the colour of the hatbands, not piped.

Flag

The flag of the Composite Regiment of the Caucasian Grenadier Division was the old Imperial Mingrelian Grenadier Regiment, which had been retained.

History of the Composite Grenadiers

These units of passable quality, without being elite, as their officer ratio was too low. They were quite possibly the unluckiest units of the civil war, being surrounded and wiped out on multiple occasions.

We have the memoirs of Constantine Popov, who fought in the Composite Caucasian Grenadier Regiment. He escaped the destruction of the division in early 1920 and then was not present when the remains were finally obliterated in the Kuban, so was a lucky survivor of a doomed unit.

First units

The grenadiers started as a company in the 1st Officer Regiment (which would go on to become the Markov Regiment) and a unit largely commanded by grenadiers in the Southern Army. In Autumn 1918 a Composite Grenadier Battalion was formed in the 1st Officer Regiment.

Composite Grenadier Regiment

By February 1919 enough grenadier officers had been assembled that a composite regiment was made in their name. Each of its sixteen companies was to represent one of the original Imperial regiments. It was part of the 6th Infantry Division.

Composite Caucasian Grenadier Regiment

Because the Caucasian Grenadier Regiments had been fighting on the Turkish front, far more of their officers made it to the Volunteer Army. In June 1919 the 31 present were split off into their own regiment. In theory each of its four battalions represented one of the Imperial Regiments, but in practice there were more from the Erivan Regiment and almost none from the Georgian.

At its peak it had around 500 men.

Grenadier Division

In September 1919 numbers had grown sufficiently to form a Composite Grenadier Division, formed from the former 6th Infantry Division, with four regiments each representing a division of the Imperial Army. There was also a reserve battalion, a Composite Grenadier Artillery Brigade (see here), and an Independent Grenadier Engineer Company (formed on 1 May 1919).

In July 1919 the Composite Astrakhan Regiment, which had been part of the 6th Infantry Division, was destroyed on the left bank of the Volga. Two companies and the scout komand on 6 August 1919 became the 5th and 6th Companies of the 2nd Composite Grenadier Regiment. In August 1919 the Composite Saratov Infantry Regiment surrendered near Tsaritsyn. The remains formed another company of the 2nd Composite Grenadier Regiment.

In October 1919 the division it was part of the 1st Kuban Corps with 1,149 men, 178 sabres, 30 machine guns and 17 guns (four batteries). It was heavily involved in the battles defending Tsaritsyn. During the retreat in January 1920 it suffered huge losses and on 22 February almost all of its remaining officers were killed after it was surrounded.

Composite Grenadier Battalion

In March some 45 men of the old division went into the Drozdovskiy Regiment, while the rest went to the Alekseev Regiment, where they formed a separate battalion. That unit was surrounded and completely destroyed in the Kuban landing in August 1920