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by The Most Excellent Empire of Picairn. . 2 reads.

Perennial Sources of Russian Weakness (1854 article)

The Economist,
WEEKLY COMMERCIAL TIMES,
Bankers' Gazette, and Railway Monitor:
A POLITICAL, LITERARY, AND GENERAL NEWSPAPER.
Vol. XII.
No. 581.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1854.
PERENNIAL SOURCES OF RUSSIAN WEAKNESS.

A YEAR ago we ventured to hint that it might be worthwhile for Europe to go to war with Russia for the sake of information — in order to ascertain, that is, whether her strength was that of the bully or the giant — whether she was really entitled to dictate and domineer as she habitually did — whether, in a word, she was mighty in virtue of her own inherent force, or only in virtue of the ignorant timidity of her foes and rivals. We pointed out several notable sources of weakness in her institutions; we directed attention to the fact that nearly all her great acquisitions had been secured not by fighting but by bullying and intriguing; that diplomacy and not war had always been her favourite weapon; that she kept up such an enormous army on paper that all secondary States had arrived at the conclusion that resistance to her will was hopeless, but that in general she had carefully abstained from coming into actual armed collision with any first-rate Power. We expressed an opinion, too, that there was no reason whatever to suppose that her armies were as effective now as in 1815, when they were supported by the subsidies of England and trained and disciplined by wars with France; and we ventured to surmise that when they came into actual conflict with competent forces and skilful commanders they would exhibit a degree of feebleness and failure that would cause general amazement.

Our suspicions have been more than realised. We know now that even in 1829, when the Russian troops came into collision with none but raw and half-trained Turkish recruits, who had abandoned their old costume and mode of fighting, and had not yet got accustomed to its substitute, they were so far from achieving a victory that they were only saved from utter annihilation by a treaty which the Ambassadors at Constantinople, in ignorance of the facts, persuaded the Sultan into signing, and which the Sultan, in equal ignorance, was terrified into believing necessary. Since then, the Circassian mountaineers have set at nought the whole forces of the Russian Empire for nearly a quarter of a century, and have destroyed army after army, at the rate, it is said, of 20,000 men per annum. No sooner did the present war with Turkey break out, than a host of similar facts, all pointing to the same conclusion, came to light. The Russians were the aggressors and ought to have been the best prepared: in fact for months we had heard of the vast armies which were pouring into the Principalities or converging from all parts of the Empire towards the seat of war. The Ottoman forces were supposed to be inferior in numbers, and no one had any confidence in their power of withstanding their Muscovite assailants. Yet in nearly every engagement, whether fighting behind their own entrenchments, as at Kalafat, or storming those of the enemy, as at Csitate — whether crossing the river to attack, as at Giurgevo, or preventing the passage, as at Rutschuk — they were signally and sanguinarily victorious; and at Silistria they sustained and repelled assaults behind mud walls as none but Spaniards have ever done before. Everywhere the Russians were defeated by inferior numbers. At Bomarsund they appear to have surrendered far more easily than was decorous, though ultimate surrender was no doubt inevitable. While at Alma, though they were in a position deemed impregnable, and though they seem for a while to have fought hard, yet in three hours they were driven from entrenchments which their commander expected them to be able to make good for three weeks. We must admit, certainly, that against the élite of the French and English armies fighting side by side, no fortifications and no troops could hold out long, or hope for final success; but still few anticipated so speedy or signal a defeat.

This unexpected weakness of Russia in military matters arises from four concurring causes, of which three are inherent in her system, and, if not absolutely incurable, are at least little likely to be cured.

In the first place, the nature of the country and the want of roads. Her resources may be vast, but they are scattered and remote. Her forces may be immense, but they are necessarily in great measure distant from the scene of action. The very extent of her territory is against her. Her capital is a thousand miles from her most menaced and unquiet provinces. It takes three months, sometimes six months, to convey her troops to the districts where their presence is required. There are no railroads, and scarcely any common roads to convey them. They have to march — and what is worse, to drag baggage, ammunition, and artillery — over inhospitable and uncultivated steppes, scantily inhabited and affording few resources for even peaceful travellers. In no country could railways be so cheaply and easily constructed; in no country are they so peculiarly and urgently needed;— yet only two, we believe, exist as yet, and few others are projected. Hence, when war is declared, a whole campaign will elapse before reinforcements could arrive at the place where they are needed. This will explain why the vast armies of Osten-Sacken and other Generals, which were announced as on their march to the Danube nearly a year ago, never reached that river at all; why of the 150,000 or 200,000 men who, we are told, occupied the Principalities, more than 70,000 never could be got together; and why we only find 50,000 troops in the Crimea, though nine months since it was proclaimed that reinforcements to the number of 70,000 had been ordered thither. The fact is, that thousands die or fall sick on the road; thousands more lag behind or desert; and those who do reach their destination reach it in an enfeebled condition and after incalculable and often irretrievable delays.

Secondly. The Russian armies are often armies on paper only. Not only are their numbers far fewer than are stated in official returns and paid for out of the official purse, but they are notoriously ill-provided with everything necessary to the effective action of a soldier. The colonels of regiments and officers of the commissariat have a direct interest in having as large a number on the books and as small a number in the field as possible,— inasmuch as they pocket the pay and rations of the difference between these figures. They have an interest also in the men being as inadequately fed and clothed as possible,— inasmuch as they pocket the difference between the sum allowed and the sum expended on the soldiers’ rations and accoutrements. The Emperor provides (or believes he does) for the food, clothing, lodging, arms and ammunition of 5 or 600,000 men; but every one of these who is or can be made non-existent is worth two or three hundred roubles to some dishonest official or officer; every pair of shoes or great coat intercepted from the wretched soldier is a bottle of champagne for the ensign or the major; every ammunition waggon which is paid for by Government, but not provided, is a handsome addition to the salary of the captain or the contractor. Robbery and peculation of this sort is universal, in every rank, in every district, in every branch. It runs through every department in the Empire; and its operation upon the efficiency of the military service may be easily imagined and cannot be easily exaggerated.

This horrible and fatal system originates in two sources — both, we fear, nearly hopeless, and certainly inherent in Russian autocracy;— the rooted dishonesty of the national character, and the incurable inadequacy of despotic power. Cheating, bribery, peculation pervade the whole tribe of officials, and are, in fact, the key-note and characteristic of the entire administration. There seems to be no conscience, and not much concealment, about it. The officers are ill paid, and of course pay themselves. Regard for truth or integrity has no part in the Russian character. We have heard those who know them well say that there are only three honest men in the Empire:— Woronzow is one, Nesselrode another — and men differ about the name of the third. We have heard Statesmen, who strongly incline towards a Muscovite alliance, say that the Russians are liars above all things: it is their spécialité. Then the power of the Autocrat, absolute as it is and vigorously as it is exercised, is utterly insufficient to meet the evil. What can a despot do who has no instruments that can be trusted? There is no middle class who pay the taxes and insist upon knowing how they are expended. There is no free Press, with its penetrating and omniscient vigilance, to compel honesty and drag offenders to light and retribution. There is only one eye over all: and that eye can of course see only a small corner of this vast Empire. What the Emperor looks at, or can visit, is well done: everything else is neglected or abused. It is the common and inevitable story, wherever you have centralisation and barbarism combined.

Thirdly. The common soldiers, brave and hardy as they are, devoted to their Czar, and careless of privation, have no love for their profession, and no interest in the object of the war. If we except the household regiments, who are near the person of the Emperor, the Russian private has no zeal for glory, no taste for fighting, no pleasure in bold and exciting enterprises. He is a serf, seized by the conscription, and condemned to hopeless slavery for life. He is torn from his family and his land, drilled by the knout, neglected by his officers, fed on black bread, where fed at all, always without comforts, often without shoes. How can such troops be expected to make head,— we do not say against French enthusiasm, we do not say against British resolution, we do not say against fanatical and hardy mountaineers, like Shamyl and his warriors, — but even against courageous and well-fed Turks, fighting for their country and their faith, and officered by competent commanders? We need not wonder to read that at Oltenitza and Silistria the Russians had to be driven on to the assault with menaces and blows; that general officers had to sacrifice their lives in an unprecedented manner in order to encourage the soldiers to make head against the foe; and that the prisoners of war begged, as a mercy, to be permitted to enlist in the army that had captured them rather than return to misery by being exchanged.

Lastly. There is another source of weakness in the Russian Empire. That vast State is in a great measure composed of the spoils which she has torn from surrounding nations. She is a patchwork of filched and unamalgamated materials. Her frontier provinces are filled with injured, discontented, hostile populations, whom, being unable to reconcile to her rule, she has endeavoured to enfeeble and to crush; and many of whom wait, with more or less of patience and desire, the blessed day of emancipation and revenge. Sweden has never forgiven Russia the seizure of Finland; nor do we hear that the Finns are enamoured of their new connection. On the contrary, our newspapers last week were busy with the squabbles between our Finnish and Russian prisoners of war. The Germans of Livonia are not yet thoroughly amalgamated; and what Poland is and longs to be, we need not say. The ruined Boyards of Bessarabia curse the day which transferred them to the Russian scepter; and the Danubian Principalities tremble at the prospect of a similar fate. How the Crimea was won and how treated, we described in a recent number (Sept. 2). The Tartars of that province (who still, in spite of every effort, constitute half the population), though languid and inactive, are quite unreconciled, have received our troops with a ready welcome, and would gladly shake off the yoke of their infidel conquerors, and resume their ancestral grandeur under Turkish suzeraineté. The Don Cossacks hate Russia with a perfect hatred, for she has violated their privileges and customs, and yearly drains off their youth to be sacrificed in a war which they detest. Since the great Roman Empire, probably no State ever enfolded so many bitter enmities within its embrace, or was girt with such a circle of domestic foes. Three disastrous campaigns, and all this suppressed and smouldering animosity would in all likelihood break forth, and leave external enemies nothing to do and little to desire.

Now, these three last sources of Russian weakness are perennial. They belong to her as a despotism, as a centralised administration, as an Empire formed by conquest and unconsolidated and unsecured by conciliation. Until, therefore, her whole system be changed; till an honest middle class has been created; till her Government be liberalised and de-centralised; till a free Press be permitted and encouraged to unveil and denounce abuses; and till the rights and feelings of annexed territories be habitually respected, we do not think that Russia need henceforth be considered as formidable for aggression. She has been unmasked; and it will be the fault of Europe if it dreads her, or submits to be bullied by her, any longer.
- LinkThe Economist, October 14th, 1854.

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