St. George's Crosses of 4 degrees were established as the highest award, which was honored by representatives of lower ranks in the army of the Russian Empire. She was awarded only for personal courage shown on the battlefield. Despite the fact that this award has been more than two hundred years old, its current name - St. George's Cross - was not immediately received. It appeared only in 1913 with the approval of the updated provision on the Order of St. George.
History of occurrence
In mid-February 1807, the Highest Manifesto was issued, which established the Insignia of the Military Order. It was later renamed into the St. George Cross. In 1833, under Emperor Nicholas I, a need arose for the adoption of a new statute of the Order of St. George. It contained several innovations regarding the awarding of crosses to soldiers. For example, now the commanders of the armies, as well as the military leaders of individual corps, could present for the award. This simplification of the procedure greatly facilitated the process of awarding, and also virtually eliminated all sorts of bureaucratic delays.
The next innovation is the maximum salary increase for soldiers and non-commissioned officers, as well as the right to wear the cross with the St. George’s bow. This difference preceded the appearance of the division of the award into several degrees.
The first awards that appeared in 1807 were not numbered. This oversight began to be corrected only after two years, when they decided to compile lists of all the gentlemen. For this, the awards were temporarily removed and numbered. Therefore, it is precisely known that there were 9937 of them. Thanks to this, and now you can find out who was awarded this or that St. George Cross (4th degree). By the number and type of font it is easy to determine the period to which the award belongs. In World War I, the number of crosses awarded exceeded 1 million, so the 1 / M designation is on the reverse of later medallions on the upper ray.
Short description
Crosses of St. George 4 degrees appeared only in March 1856, when the regulation on the Order of St. George were made the next changes. Initially, grades 1 and 2 were made of gold, and the other two were made of silver. According to the statute, awarding must take place in sequence. In addition, a special numbering was developed for each of the degrees, and for a visual difference, a bow made of St. George’s ribbon was also added.
After numerous awards of soldiers for their valiant service in the Turkish War of 1877-1878, the stamps that had previously been used by the mint for minting, it was decided to renew. For this, the medalist A. A. Griliches made some changes to the images on the crosses. It was then that these insignia acquired the appearance that remained until the 1917 revolution. Imprint of the figure of St. George on the updated medallions has become much more expressive.
Privilege
The new statute of 1913, among other things, provided for a lifelong monetary maintenance. So, those awarded with the St. George Cross 4 degrees received 36 rubles, and the first - already 120. At the same time, the owners of several awards were paid an increase or pension as the highest distinction. Cavaliers of the St. George Cross of the 4th degree, and just awarded this distinction mark had a number of privileges, for example, it was forbidden to apply corporal punishment to them .
Manufacturing Features
Already in April 1914, the St. George Crosses of 4 degrees of a new model appeared. The order for them was received by the mint in the autumn of 1913. They were intended for delivery to members of military expeditions and border guards. Since July 1914, when World War I began, the mint began to mint significantly more crosses. To speed up the process, even those medallions that remained from the Japanese War were used at first. During the first year alone, about 1.5 thousand crosses of the first, more than 3 thousand - the second, 26 thousand - the third and the largest number of the fourth - 170 thousand copies were sent to the army.
Due to the sharply increased demand for St. George crosses made of precious metals and the difficult economic situation in the country in the spring of 1915, it was decided to slightly reduce the sample of gold used for these purposes, so the highest degrees of military decorations were made of a special alloy. In its composition, it contained only 60% of pure gold.
Starting in October 1916, expensive metals were completely removed from the alloy used in the manufacture of all, without exception, Russian awards. From now on, St. George's crosses of 4 degrees were already minted only from cupronickel and tompak, and the letters were on its rays: BM is white metal, and LM is yellow. Before the revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government allowed to present this award to both soldiers and officers, while the latter also pinned a laurel branch to the ribbon.