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In addition to acquiring new horses, the army made great efforts to preserve the ones it already had. In December 1812 Kutuzov ordered cavalry commanders to ‘remove all ill, wounded or very thin horses from the cavalry and settle them in Chernigov province once communications with it reopen’.57 This policy of resting and rehabilitating horses in depots established behind the lines was to continue until the army reached Paris in 1814. What percentage of horses was detached in this first wave is impossible to say but it was certainly considerable. The 2nd Cuirassier Division alone sent away 164 horses out of a total of well under 1,000 and there is no reason to think it was untypical.58

In the early summer of 1813 a young lancer officer, Lieutenant Durova, returned to duty after sick leave. Durova was a unique officer since she was female, serving for many years while preserving her secret. Like all convalescents returning to active military service from Russia, she was assigned to the Reserve Army, a policy which helped greatly to refill its ranks with veterans. She was sent to the cavalry depot, which had now moved forward to Slonim, charged along with three other officers ‘with fattening up the exhausted, wounded, and emaciated horses of all the uhlan regiments’. She adds that ‘to my part fell one hundred and fifty horses and forty uhlans to look after them’, which is a reminder of how very labour-intensive was the care of cavalry horses. Every morning after breakfast,

I go to inspect my flock in their place in the stables. From their cheerful and brisk capers I see that my uhlans…are not stealing and selling the oats, but giving them all to these fine and obedient beasts. I see their bodies, previously distorted by emaciation, taking on their old beauty and filling out; their coats are becoming smooth and glossy; their eyes glow, and their ears, which were all too ready to droop, now begin to flick rapidly and point forward.59

Together with horses, Kologrivov above all needed trained cadres. By the winter of 1812 the Field Army’s cavalry regiments had a great many under-strength squadrons, usually with a disproportionate number of officers and NCOs. At Alexander’s suggestion, in most cavalry regiments Kutuzov created three, two or if necessary even just one full-strength squadron for service in the field. The remaining cadre of officers, NCOs and veterans was sent to help Kologrivov form reserve cavalry. In the spring 1813 campaign the Smolensk Dragoon Regiment, for example, deployed two squadrons with the Field Army. These now comprised 13 officers and 332 other ranks. Meanwhile 18 officers and 89 other ranks were sent to Slonim to join Kologrivov.60 The detailed report on the Reserve Army which Lobanov submitted at the end of the war, packed with statistics, shows that the Reserve Army’s cavalry had contained many more veteran soldiers and a much greater proportion of officers and NCOs than was the case with the infantry. Given the realities of cavalry training and service this was essential.61

The generous provision of horses, officers and veteran troopers goes a long way to explaining why Kologrivov made such a success of forming the cavalry reserves but it is far from the whole story. According to his aide-de-camp, the poet Aleksandr Griboedov, Kologrivov organized not just horse hospitals, blacksmiths and other obvious adjuncts to a depot for cavalry but also picked recruits with key skills, trained others and created workshops to manufacture horse furnishings, saddles and uniforms, thereby not just saving the state a great deal of money but also freeing himself from overdependence on the war ministry’s commissariat.62

Between March and September 1813 Kologrivov sent 106 squadrons to the Field Army. In November 1813 he sent another 63 and had almost as many more ready for dispatch. Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky spent much of his time inspecting units of the Reserve Army before their departure to the Field Army. His comments about the cavalry