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Reform in the Russian Army, 1856–1861

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

E. Willis Brooks
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Historians of imperial Russia have agreed unanimously and confidently that Russia's humiliation in the Crimean War (1853–1856) led directly to the emancipation of the serfs and to wide-ranging social, economic, political, and military changes of enormous historical significance. In addition, whether liberal interpreters were waxing eloquent about a so-called “epoch of great reforms” or Marxists were emphasizing pressures of a “revolutionary situation” in a country in transition from feudalism to capitalism, the reforms of the Russian army introduced by D. A. Miliutin, war minister throughout most of Alexander II's quarter-century long reign, have been acclaimed unanimously as one of the most successful and lasting attempts at modernization in this period of considerable change. Miliutin was appointed war minister only in November 1861, however, more than six and one half years after Alexander II acceded to the imperial throne, leaving an apparent gap at a time when preparations for reform were begun in most other spheres of government and society. Indeed, the period after the Crimean War is so well known as a time of change of enormous historical significance for the future of Russia that inactivity in the military seems remarkable, especially in the aftermath of military defeat.

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Slavic Review , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 63 - 82
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1984

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References

The author is grateful to IUCTG/IREX for research opportunities in archives in the USSR, to the late Petr Andreevich Zaionchkovskii for general scholarly encouragement, and to Walter Pintner and Alfred Rieber for constructive criticism.

1. Bogdanovich, M. I., Istoricheskii ocherk deiatel'nosti voennago upravleniia v Rossii (1855-1880), 6 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1879-1880)Google Scholar; Danilov, N. A., Istoricheskii ocherk razvitiia voennago upravleniia v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1902)Google Scholar.

2. See, for example, A., Kornilov, Kurs istorii Rossii XIX veka, pt. 3 (Moscow, 1914), p. 64 Google Scholar.

3. Zaionchkovskii, P. A., Voennye reformy 1860-1870 godov v Rossii (Moscow, 1952), especially pp. 45–50 Google Scholar, Miller, Forrcstt A., Dmitrii Miliutin and the Reform Era in Russia (Nashville, Tenn., 1968), pp. 22–25 Google Scholar; and Hans Peter Stein. Der Offizier des russischen Heeres im Zeitabschnitt zwischen Reform and Revolution (1861-1905). Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, vol. 13 (Berlin, 1967), pp. 363-65. Representative current Soviet interpretations would be the emphasis on reforms in the military (and in all spheres) because of an incipient “revolutionary crisis,” for instance, M. V. Nechkina, ed., Revoliutsionnaia situalsiia v Rossii v seredine XIX veka. Kollektivnaia monografiia (Moscow, 1978), p. 130, and, in works on military-diplomatic spheres, L. I. Narochnitskaia, Rossiia i natsional'no-osvoboditeinoe dvizhenie na Balkanakh 1875-1878 gg. K stoletiiu russko-turetskoi voiny 1877-1878 gg. (Moscow, 1979), p. 56.

4. Alfred J. Rieber, ed., The Politics of Autocracy. Letters of Alexander II to Prince A. I. Bariatinskii 1857-1864 (Paris and The Hague, 1966), pp. 96 and 25—26. Aurele J. Violette, “Russian Naval Reform, 1855-1870” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1971), and Jacob W. Kipp, “Consequences of Defeat: Modernizing the Russian Navy, 1856-1863,” Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, n.s., 20 (1972): 210-25.

5. Data are for January 1, 1853 and January 1, 1856. M. I. Bogdanovich, Istoricheskii ocherk deiatel'nosti voennago upravleniia v Rossii (1855-1880), 1 (St. Petersburg, 1879), appendix 5, which corrects earlier official figures.

6. Vospominaniia general-fel dmarshala Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina (Tomsk, 1919), p. 87. Added emphasis in the original manuscript was not repeated in the published edition.

7. Danilov, N. A., Istoricheskii ocherk razvitiia voennago upravleniia v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1902), p. 381 Google Scholar. Emphasis in original.

8. A. la. Panaeva (Golovacheva), Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1972), pp. 221-22.

9. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, p. 381. For details and specifics on the state of the Russian army at the time of the Crimean War, see especially N. P., Eroshkin, “Voennyi apparat tsarskoi Rossii v period Krymskoi voiny (1853-1856 gg.)” Moskovskii istoriko-arkhivnyi institut. Trudy, 9 (1957): 138–76Google Scholar, and Zaionchkovskii, chapter 1.

10. Ridiger's and Glinka's memoranda are published as appendixes to Danilov's work.

11. Zaionchkovskii, Voennye reformy, p. 46.

12. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, p. 389, added the qualifier “at least above brigade” as acknowledgment that Alexander was willing to forgo social and political appointments completely. Alexander's comment is taken from “Vypiska osnovnykh polozhenii gr. Ridigera s ukazaniem pomet Aleksandra II na nim” [1856], a two-page memorandum in Miliutin's hand in Otdel rukopisei. Gosudarstvennaia biblioteka SSSR im. V. I. Lenina (hereafter OR GBL), fond 169, karton 22.32, list 2 ob.

13. Miliutin actually was more upset that the Ridiger commission concentrated on questions related to combat situations and largely ignored matters of central and local military administration, of far greater long-term significance to Miliutin and his colleagues in the War Academy. “Uluchsheniia, ne ukazannye gr. Ridigerom” [1856], ibid., listy 3-4. Not all memos advocated such changes: see “Vnutrennee sostoianie Rossii v 1855 g.,” Russkaia starina, 105 (March 1901): 579-96, a memo apparently commissioned by Ridiger which surveys Russian society and government as well as the military, and hankers for “the good old days.“

14. E. V Tarle, Krymskaia voina, vol. 1 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), p. 63.

15. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu raznykh chastei voennago ministerstva 1859 goda,“ in Otchet o deistviiakh voennago ministerstva za 1859 (St. Petersburg, 1860), p.

16. Wortman, Richard S., The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago, 1976), pp. 168–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dzhivelegov, A. K., “Graf V N. Panin,” Velikaia reforma, vol. 5 (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 148 Google Scholar.

17. N. M. Zatvornitskii, Pamiat’ o chlenakh voennago sovieta. Portrely i biograficheskie ocherki (St. Petersburg, 1907), p. 315.

18. Zaionchkovskii, Voennye reformy, p. 47.

19. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, especially chapter 5 (pp. 373—426ff) and other surveys in the Stoletie series. See also the Sukhozanet entry in the Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ for a somewhat different listing of his reforms as war minister. For reasons of length, and because subsequent important changes were barely evident in the period 1856-61, several branches of service are omitted or barely mentioned in this essay, especially the Cossacks, the artillery, and the commissariat.

20. Bogdanovich, Istoricheskii ocherk, 1, appendix 5. The major act used to reduce the size of the army is printed in Polnoe sobranie zakonov (PSZ), second series, 31, no. 30493, May 15, 1856,

21. Decree to State Senate, December 25, 1856, PSZ, second series, 31, no. 31313, which also applied to sailors’ sons.

22. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 395-96.

23. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” p. 334.

24. For a general listing of committees and their activity, see “Kratkii obzor deistvii komitetov uchrezhdennykh pri voennom ministerstve s 1854 po 1859 g.,” Voennyi sbornik, 8 (1859), no. 7- 8: 113-26, and N. D. N. [author not identified], “Obshchii obzor preobrazovanii po chasti ustroistva vooruzhennykh sil Rossii s 1856 po 1860 god,” Voennyi sbornik, 17 (1861), nos. 1: 3-48, 2: 303-52, 3: 3-26.

25. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” p. 351.

26. Otchet o deistviiakh voennago ministerstva za 1860 (St. Petersburg, 1863), pp. 309-11.

27. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” pp. 353-54.

28. Appendix in Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, p. 182.

29. N. D. N., no. 1: 13; L. K. [author not identified], “Vzgliad na stepen’ obrazovaniia russkikh ofitserov v armii, Voennyi sbornik, 1858, no. 1: 147.

30. N. D. N., no. 3: 20-21. During the Crimean War period, on paper at least, a division comprised approximately 20,000 soldiers.

31. OR GBL, fond 169, karton 14.1, list 68. A sign of changing times would be that Chtenie dlia soldat, a semi-official publication of the War Ministry since 1847 which had tried to instill in soldiers “the spirit of obedience to autocracy and Orthodoxy,” in the late 1850s published articles of a less propagandistic nature, as well as revised texts on grammar, mathematics, and other subjects which even the radical journalist N. A. Dobroliubov praised. Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 3 (Moscow- Leningrad, 1962), pp. 398-99.

32. In 1858 in one division described as typical, 329 of 481 officers had received only “home education” (tutors but no formal school training), 65 had attended a cadet corps, and 51 had been promoted from the ranks. L. K., Vzgliad na stepen’ obrazovaniia russkikh ofitserov, pp. 147-49.

33. Ibid., p. 147.

34. This essay will not address the question of officers’ disaffection, a major theme in Soviet historical writing about the army and society in this period, except to note D'iakov, V. A.'s Deiateli russkogo i pol'skogo osvoboditelnogo dvizheniia v tsarskoi armii 1856-1865 godov (Biobibliograficheskii slovar'j (Moscow, 1967)Google Scholar, in which a supplement lists those officers claimed to have been active in the movement by school attended; D'iakov's numerous publications, as well as those of others, have exploited the subject extensively. Regardless of any objections to their methods and the extent of their claims, the fact remains that Sukhozanet, and especially Miliutin in the post-1861 period, were deeply concerned about the loyalty of many of Russia's best educated officers.

35. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 416-18, 461-63.

36. Ibid., p. 461.

37. Ibid., p. 463; Glinoetskii, N. P., Istoricheskii ocherk Nikolaevskoi akademii general'nago shtaba (St. Petersburg, 1882), pp. 125–27Google Scholar; PSZ, second series, 80, no. 29623, August 30, 1855. Alexander further removed the war minister from educational concerns soon after his accession by uniting the Engineer, Artillery, and War Academies, all formerly under the administrative control of the war ministry, into an expanded Imperial War Academy administratively responsible to the director of VUZs Rostovtsev.

38. N. D. N., no. 3: 21; Bogdanovich, Istoricheskii ocherk, 1: 257-58; and P. V. Petrov, Glavnoe upravlenie voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii. Istoricheskii ocherk, pt. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1907), appendix 10.

39. M. S. Lalaev, Istoricheskii ocherk voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii, pt. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1880), p. 129.

40. See “Vzgliad na sostoianie russkikh voisk v minuvshuiu voinu,” Voennyi sbornik, 1 (1858), no. 1: 13-14, which also notes that officers who showed intellectual tendencies were called “scholars“ in the pejorative sense of “eggheads” and were subject to blatant derision. This anonymously published article apparently was written by A. P. Kartsev. See p. 76.

41. Glinoetskii, Istoricheskii ocherk, chapt. 6, especially pp. 152-54. V M. Anichkov is an excellent example of the preparation of some War Academy officers for their future role. Anichkov was one of two officers sent abroad to study West European military technology after 1856. His subsequent study on the military economy was the first Russian-language work in this important military field. Based on his high appreciation of the author, Miliutin recruited Anichkov as one of two aides to help him compile his reform program of January 15, 1862 for Alexander. It might be noted that Sukhozanet's brother Ivan was director of the War Academy until he was sacked for total incompetence by Nicholas I in 1854.

42. PSZ, second series, 38, no. 39192, January 21, 1863.

43. Danilov, Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 459-61.

44. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” pp. 375-78.

45. S. I. Ezerskii, Glavnyi voenno-sanitarnyi komitet. lstoricheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg, 1902), chapt. 3, and an 1860 report on the subject by Sukhozanet in the appendix.

46. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” pp. 346 and 360-61.

47. Cited by Zaionchkovskii in Voennye reformy, p. 48. Emphasis in original. One of the most effective condemnations of the organization of the military supply system appeared in an unsigned article (by Vladimir Nikolaevich Chicherin, brother of one of the leading civilian reformists of the period) which described officers generally as dishonest and greedy and the supply section of the regimental administration as nothing less than “an organized system of theft.” Golosa iz Rossii, “ O polkovykh komandirakh i ikh khoziaistvennykh rasporiazheniiakh,” no. 1, pt. 2, pp. 46-109, and note in facsimile edition, bk. 10, no. 4 (Moscow, 1975), pp. 97-100. The quotation is from p. 73.

48. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” pp. 344-46 and 388-89.

49. Ibid., p. 355.

50. V G. Fedorov, Vooruzhenie russkoi armii za XIX stolietie (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 119— 21.

51. P. A. Zaionchkovskii, “Perevooruzhenie russkoi armii v 60-70-kh godakh XIX v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski, 36 (Moscow, 1951), pp. 68-70. As late as 1870 Miliutin's frustrations and dissatisfaction at continued foreign purchases were evident when he complained that “Russia is not Egypt or the papal domains, [and thereby] forced to purchase weapons abroad for the whole army.” Fedorov, Vooruzhenie russkoi armii, p. 237.

52. Ibid., p. 131.

53. A. A. Smychnikov and Val. V. Mavrodin, “K voprosu o perevooruzhenii russkoi armii v seredine XIX veka,” Problemy islorii feodal'noi Rossii. Sbornik statei k 60-letiiu prof. V. V. Mavrodina (Leningrad, 1971), pp. 236-38.

54. “Otchet o vidakh k usovershenstvovaniiu,” p. 335. This optimism is quite evident in “Kratkii obzor” and N. D. N., “Obshchii obzor preobrazovanii po chasti ustroistva vooruzhennykh.“

55. Letter of March 4, 1859, in OR GBL, fond 169, karton 65.4, list 5 ob.

56. OR GBL, fond 169, karton 14.1, list 59.

57. PSZ, second series, 31, no. 30877, dated August 26, 1856.

58. PSZ, second series, 34, no. 34882 and 34884, dated September 8, 1859. See also Bogdanovich, Istoricheskii ocherk, 2: 470-71. It should be noted, however, that the reduction in active service was less radical than the numbers suggest because Nicholas I had decreed in 1834 that soldiers with fifteenyears of continuous service (with some exceptions) would be granted indefinite leave, subject to recall only in the event of war and for up to six weeks of annual training. During the Crimean War, to be sure, most were activated, but then furloughed again by Sukhozanet, as noted earlier (again with exceptions, most notably in the case of the troops in the Caucasus).

59. PSZ, second series, 31, no. 30408.

60. A. L. Zisserman, Fel'dmarshal kniaz’ A. I. Bariatinskii. 1815-1879, 2 (Moscow, 1890), pp. 10-37.

61. The percentage of the budget is cited from A. V. Golovnin's letter to Miliutin, March 14, 1858, OR GBL, fond 169, karton 61.25, listy 32-33. Golovnin, who was appointed minister of public education in 1861, was a close aide to Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich and therefore in a position to know the disposition of Russia's finances quite well.

62. Relevant memoranda and correspondence between the two men in 1856-7 are reprinted in Zisserman, Fel'dmarshal kniaz’ A. I. Bariatinskii, 2: 18-30 and 61-83. The quotations are from pp. 69 and 78-79.

63. Maksheev, F. A., K 50-letiiu “Voennago sbornika” (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 38–43 Google Scholar, which quotes liberally from the relevant documents.

64. Alexander also gave his personal approval to the founding in 1858 of Soldatskaia beseda #﹛Soldier's Roundtable), whose editor, A. F. Pogosskii, a former general staff officer and close friend of Chernyshevskii, promoted soldiers’ awareness of public issues as well as literary and military information.

65. Actually Sukhozanet was named provisional commanding officer of the First (Active) Army on May 16, 1861, retaining the rank of war minister, but from that date Miliutin carried out the minister's responsibilities. Sukhozanet's poor health, which forced him to give up the new position on August 6, 1861, made the transfer appear the more graceful.

66. N. D. N.'s series of articles, for example, was intended to inform officers of the progress in military reform, noting changes made and contemplated, and gave more data about the army than was available generally to the officer corps (not to mention the public).

67. W. Bruce Lincoln, “The Ministers of Alexander II: A Survey of Their Backgrounds and Service Careers,” Cahiers du monde russe el sovietique, 17, no. 4 (October-December 1976): 467- 68.

68. Wortman, Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness, especially p. 258; Daniel, Field, The End of Serfdom. Nobility and Bureaucracy in Russia, 1855-]861 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976), chaps. 3–6 Google Scholar.