In the Imperial Russian Army

Imperial Russian Army

The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

, a military district was a territorial association of military units, formations, military schools, and various local military establishments. This territorial division type was utilized to provide a more efficient management of army units, their training and other operations activities related to combat readiness

Combat readiness

Combat readiness is a condition of the armed forces and their constituent units and formations, warships, aircraft, weapon systems or other military technology and equipment to perform during combat military operations, or functions consistently with the purpose for which they are organised or...

.

History

In the Imperial Russian Army

Imperial Russian Army

The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

, military districts were first formed by Dmitry Milyutin

Dmitry Milyutin

Count Dmitry Alekseyevich Milyutin was Minister of War and the last Field Marshal of Imperial Russia...

 in 1862–64 to replace the pre-existing Military Inspectorates. The military districts were organised to include civilian administration regions of gubernyas and uyezd

Uyezd

Uyezd or uezd was an administrative subdivision of Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire, and the early Russian SFSR which was in use from the 13th century. Uyezds for most of the history in Russia were a secondary-level of administrative division...

s. By 1892 there were 13 Military Districts in the Russian Empire, and one region with the status of a military district:

1) Petersburg Military District

Petersburg Military District (Russian Empire)

The Petersburg Military District was a Military District of the Russian Empire originally created in August 1864 following Order B-228 of Dmitry Milyutin, the Minister of War of the Russian Empire...

– Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg Governorate

Saint Petersburg Governorate , or Government of Saint Petersburg, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire, which existed in 1708–1927....

, Olonets

Olonets Governorate

The Olonets Governorate or Government of Olonets was a guberniya of north-western Imperial Russia, extending from Lake Ladoga almost to the White Sea, bounded W. by Finland, N. and E. by Arkhangelsk and Vologda, and S. by Novgorod and St. Petersburg...

, Arkhangelsk

Arkhangelsk Governorate

Archangelsk Governorate was an administrative division of the Russian Empire, which existed from 1796 until 1929. Its seat was in Arkhangelsk...

, Novgorod

Novgorod Governorate

Novgorod Governorate , or Government of Novgorod, was a governorate of the Russian Empire.The governorate was established in 1727 from Belozersk, Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, and Velikiye Luki Provinces of the St. Petersburg Governorate and existed until 1927, when its territory was included into...

, Pskov, Estonia

Governorate of Estonia

The Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...

 and four uyezds of the Livonia gubernya (Pernov, Fellinskiy, Valkskiy and Verrosskiy)

2) Finland Military District - all eight Provinces of the Grand Duchy of Finland

Provinces of the Grand Duchy of Finland

The governorates of the Grand Duchy of Finland were the administrative division of the Grand Duchy of Finland as part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917....

3) Vilno Military District

Vilno Military District (Russian Empire)

Vilno Military District was a Russian military district of the Imperial Russian Army.In the Russian Empire, military districts were first formed by Dmitry Milyutin in 1862–64 to replace the pre-existing Military Inspectorates...

- Vilno

Vilna Governorate

The Vilna Governorate or Government of Vilna was a governorate of the Russian Empire created after the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795...

, Grodno

Grodno Governorate

The Grodno Governorate, was a governorate of the Russian Empire.-Overview:Grodno: a western province or government of Europe lying between 52 and 54 N lat 23 and E long and bounded N by Vilna E by Minsk S Volhynia and W by the former kingdom of Poland The country was a wide plain in parts very...

, Kovno

Kovno Governorate

The Kovno Governorate or Government of Kovno was a governorate of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kovno . It was formed on 18 December 1842 by tsar Nicholas I from the western part of the Vilna Governorate, and the order was carried out on 1 July 1843. It used to be a part of Northwestern Krai...

, Kurland

Courland Governorate

Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland, Governorate of Kurland , and Government of Courland , was one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, that is now part of the Republic of Latvia....

, Livonia (without above mentioned four uyezds), Vitebsk, Mogilev

Mogilev Governorate

The Mogilev Governorate or Government of Mogilev was a governorate of the Russian Empire in the territory of the present day Belarus. Its capital was in Mogilev....

, Minsk

Minsk Governorate

The Minsk Governorate or Government of Minsk was a governorate of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partitions of Poland, and lasted until 1921.- Administrative structure :...

 and Suwałki (without the Shchuchinsk uyezd)

4) Warsaw Military District - Congress Poland

Congress Poland

The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...

 without the part of Suwałki in Vilno Military District

Vilno Military District (Russian Empire)

Vilno Military District was a Russian military district of the Imperial Russian Army.In the Russian Empire, military districts were first formed by Dmitry Milyutin in 1862–64 to replace the pre-existing Military Inspectorates...

5) Kiev Military District

Kiev Military District

The Kiev Military District was a Russian unit of military-administrative division of the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently of the Ukrainian Army, RKKA, and Soviet Armed Forces...

- Kiev

Kiev Governorate

Kiev Governorate , or Government of Kiev, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire.The governorate was established in 1708 along with seven other governorates and was transformed into a viceroyalty in 1781...

, Podolia

Podolia Governorate

The Podolia Governorate or Government of Podolia, set up after the Second Partition of Poland, comprised a governorate of the Russian Empire from 1793 to 1917, of the Ukrainian People's Republic from 1917 to 1921, and of the Ukrainian SSR from 1921 to 1925.-Location:The Podolian Governorate...

, Volhynia

Volhynian Governorate

Volhynian Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit initially of the Russian Empire, created in 1792 after the Second Partition of Poland from the territory of the Kiev Voivodeship and Wołyń Voivodeship...

, Chernigov

Chernigov Governorate

The Chernigov Governorate , also known as the Government of Chernigov, was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate with an administrative centre of Chernigov...

, Poltava

Poltava Governorate

The Poltava Governorate or Government of Poltava was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate which was split between the Chernigov Governorate and Poltava Governorate with an...

, Kharkov

Kharkov Governorate

Kharkiv Governorate or Kharkov Governorate was a governorate of the Russian Empire originally founded in 1780. It was renamed to Sloboda Ukraine Governorate in 1797 and back to Kharkiv Governorate in 1835....

, Kursk

6) Odessa Military District

Odessa Military District

The Odessa Military District was a military administrative division of the Imperial Russian military, the Soviet Armed Forces and the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was known under such name from around 1862 to 1998. It was reorganized as part of the Military of Ukraine and the Military of Moldova in...

– Bessarabia

Bessarabia Governorate

Bessarabia was an oblast and later a guberniya in the Russian Empire. It was the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812...

, Kherson

Kherson Governorate

The Kherson Governorate or Government of Kherson was a guberniya, or administrative territorial unit, in the Southern Ukrainian region, between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers, of the Russian Empire. It was one of three governorates created in 1802 when the Novorossiya guberniya was abolished...

, Yekaterinoslav

Yekaterinoslav Governorate

The Yekaterinoslav Governorate or Government of Yekaterinoslav was a governorate in the Russian Empire. Its capital was the city of Yekaterinoslav .-Administrative divisions:...

, Taurida

Taurida Governorate

The Taurida Governorate or Government of Taurida was a historical governorate of the Russian Empire. It included the Crimean peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River and the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov It was formed after the defunct Taurida Oblast in was abolished in...

7) Moscow Military District - Moscow

Moscow Governorate

Moscow Governorate , or Government of Moscow, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire, which existed in 1708–1929....

, Smolensk

Smolensk Governorate

Smolensk Governorate , or Government of Smolensk, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire, which existed, with interruptions, between 1708 and 1929....

, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda

Vologda Governorate

The Vologda Governorate or Government of Vologda was a guberniya in the historical northern region of the European part of Russian Empire.In its size it was second right after the neighboring Archangelgorod Governorate...

, Vladimir, Nizhniy-Novgorod, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan, Orel, Tambov

Tambov Governorate

Tambov Governorate was the administrative unit of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and later the Russian SFSR with the center in the city of Tambov. The governorate was located between 51°14' and 55°6' of north latitude and between 38°9' and 43°38' east longitude...

, Voronezh

8) Kazan Military District - Kazan

Kazan Governorate

The Kazan Governorate or Government of Kazan was a governorate of Imperial Russia from 1708–1920, with the city of Kazan as its capital.-History:...

, Vyatka

Vyatka Governorate

Vyatka Governorate was a governorate of Russian Empire and USSR, with its capital in city Vyatka . Existed since 1796 to 1929...

, Perm

Perm Governorate

Perm Governorate - an administrative unit of the Russian Empire and the USSR in 1781-1923 years. Located on both slopes of the Ural Mountains...

, Ufa

Ufa Governorate

Ufa Governorate was a governorate of Russian Empire with its capital in city Ufa. Was created in 1865 by separation from Orenburg Governorate. March 23, 1919 the governorate was transformed to Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...

, Simbirsk, Samara, Penza, Saratov, Astrakhan (with the Astrakhan

Astrakhan Cossacks

Astrakhan Cossack Host was a Cossack host of Imperial Russia drawn from the Cossacks of the Lower Volga region, who had been patrolling the banks of the Volga River from the time of Russia's annexation of Astrakhan Khanate in 1556.- History :In 1737, the Russian government relocated a number of...

, Ural and Orenburg Cossack

Orenburg Cossacks

The Orenburg Cossack Host , a part of the Cossack population in pre-revolutionary Russia, located in the Orenburg province ....

 host troops)

9) Caucasus Military District

Caucasus Military District

The Caucaus Military District was a military formation of the Imperial Russian Army. It was created in 1865 as the successor to the Caucasus Army, and was dissolved in 1917.-History:...

- Stavropol gubernya with the entire Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

 and Transcaucasia (including the Kuban and Terek Cossack host troops)

10) Turkestan Military District

Turkestan Military District

The Turkestan Military District was a military district of both the Imperial Russian Army and the Soviet Armed Forces, with its headquarters at Tashkent. The District was first created during the 1874 Russian military reform when by order of Minister D.A. Milyutinym the territory of Russia was...

- the region

Region

Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...

 (область): Syrdar (with the Amu Dar'ya subdivision), Samarkand

Samarkand

Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...

 and Fergana

Fergana

Fergana is a city , the capital of Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Fergana Valley in southern Central Asia, cutting across the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan...

11) Omsk Military District - Tobolsk and Tomsk guberniyas, the Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk and Semirechye regions (with the local Cossack troops).

12) Irkutsk Military District - Irkutsk and Yeniseysk Governorates and the Yakutsk

Yakutsk

With a subarctic climate , Yakutsk is the coldest city, though not the coldest inhabited place, on Earth. Average monthly temperatures range from in July to in January. The coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet outside Antarctica occurred in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast...

 region (with the local Cossack troops).

13) Amur Military District – regions of Transbaikal

Transbaikal

Transbaikal, Trans-Baikal, Transbaikalia , or Dauria is a mountainous region to the east of or "beyond" Lake Baikal in Russia. The alternative name, Dauria, is derived from the ethnonym of the Daur people. It stretches for almost 1000 km from north to south from the Patomskoye Plateau and North...

, Amur

Amur Oblast

Amur Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , situated about east of Moscow on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers. It shares its border with the Sakha Republic in the north, Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the east, People's Republic of China in the south, and Zabaykalsky...

 (with the local Cossack troops), Pacific coast region and the Sakhalin island

The Transcaspian oblast’ had separate military district administrative rights.

The Commander of the military district was named Commanding troops of (name) military district (in the Petersburg military district - Commander-in-Chief

Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...

 who was the Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

), with all troops, military institutions and military rank

Military rank

Military rank is a system of hierarchical relationships in armed forces or civil institutions organized along military lines. Usually, uniforms denote the bearer's rank by particular insignia affixed to the uniforms...

s of the military region subordinated to them.

In some regions the military district commander was simultaneously the local Governor-General

Governor-General

A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...

.

Control of military district included the military-district council and functional district staff and the administrations of artillery, engineers, commissariat

Commissariat

A commissariat is the department of an army charged with the provision of supplies, both food and forage, for the troops. The supply of military stores such as ammunition is not included in the duties of a commissariat. In almost every army the duties of transport and supply are performed by the...

 and military medical service.

In the Don

Don River (Russia)

The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....

skoy military district the right and responsibility of the Commander of forces and Governor-Generalship were entrusted to the appointed ataman; control of the military district consisted of Don Cossack host staff and administration.

However by the beginning of the First World War there were 12 military districts remaining: Dvinsk, Irkutsk

Irkutsk

Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...

, Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

, Kazan

Kazan

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

, Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, Minsk

Minsk

- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

, Moscow, Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Omsk

Omsk

-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

, Petrograd, Amur

Amur Oblast

Amur Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , situated about east of Moscow on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers. It shares its border with the Sakha Republic in the north, Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the east, People's Republic of China in the south, and Zabaykalsky...

 and Turkestan

Turkestan

Turkestan, spelled also as Turkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks".The term Turkestan is of Persian origin and has never been in use to denote a single nation. It was first used by Persian geographers to describe the place of Turkish peoples...

.