The Praetorian Option 251
Those officers who were able to maintain contact with kinsmen or friends in
the capita! cities shared their sense cf outrage at the ticaty of Tilsit, and ctgain
the tsar took much of the blame.^7
In the noble fronde of 1807-12 concern over the economic effects of
Napoleon's Continental System merged with distrust of the bureaucratic spirit
behind Speransky's reforms. It was basically a civilian phenomenon, for two
main reasons. First, the armed forces were kept busy fighting Turks, Persians,
and Swedes, and in 1809 also had to march about in a mock war with the
Austrians; at one moment four campaigns were in progress simultaneously.
Officers in the field were unable to follow closely events or rumours in distant
St. Petersburg. Second, there was a high rate of intake into their ranks during
these years, both to make up for losses and to command the new units that
were constantly being formed.^8 By 1812 there were about 2,000 more officers
on strength than there had been nine years earlier.^9 Some of the younger men
were channelled into the expanding network of military schools. The best
known of these, called the 'Noblemen's regiment', was founded in 1807. Young
dvoryane flocked to join it; by 1812 it had 2,000, and three years later 3 ,000,
cadets who on graduation automatically received ensign rank.1° Cadet schools
were also opened in such provincial towns as Tambov and Tula.^11 In these
'stick academies' life was very tough and there was little opportunity for politi-
cal scheming, but they probably did have some impact on the pupils' minds.
The more privileged strata of the nobility had better educational prospects.
The Page Corps (founded in 1802) and the celebrated lyceum at Tsarskoye
Selo (1811) prepared men for both the civil and military branches of state ser-
vice. Would-be officers could also attend a training institution known as the
Column-Leaders' Corps; set up in 1811 as a private venture, and there were
several other specialized schools.^12 Here, too, the cadets suffered a good deal
of material hardship and discipline was enforced with rod and fist. Never-
theless they developed a sense of fellowship which helped them to withstand
these trials and encouraged solidarity in the face of acts of injustice. The first
known instance of this dates from 1813, when a popular cadet in the Page
Corps name Arsen'yev, abetted by several comrades, resisted 'execution' (as
a public flogging was termed). The affair was judged sufficiently serious to be
referred to the tsar, who decided that the alleged ring-leader should receive 30
lashes of the whip.13
(^7) Shil'der, Aleksandr/, ii. 168-70, 209-11; Pypin, Obshchestvennoye dvizheniye, pp. 122-3;
Predtechensky, Ocherki, pp. 217-22.
8 For the expansion see Stein, Geschichte, pp. 251-2, 258, 261, 267, 281; Prokof'yev, Bor'ba,
p. 48.
9 Beskrovnyy, Potentsial, p. 81.
10 Gol'mdorf, 'Dvoryanskiy polk', pp. 797-8.
11 Beskrovnyy, Potentsial, p. 124.
12 Nechkina, Dvizheniye, i. 102, 443; Bcskrovnyy, Potentsial, pp. 126, 130.
IJ Gangeblov, 'Yeshche iz vospominaniy', p. 188; cf. Venediktov, 'Za 60 let', pp. 260, 270;
Skaryatin, 'lz vospom. molodosti', pp. 21-2; Kolokol'tsov, 'Preobrazh. polk', p. 284.