'"" uuuc.:11urt
power and the dvoryanstvo-the Russian equivalent of the European
nobility^1 -was from the start one of interdependence, not just one of vertical
subordination. Nevertheless these servitors were unable to institutionalize their
gains in the ways that European noblemen did; indeed, in the early eighteenth
C'entury, under Peter I's draconian rule, their state obligations were increased.
Not until 1762 did a monarch permit them to decide (in peacetime) whether
they wished to serve or not; and even so for the next hundred years most
members of the gentry found it necessary or expedient to spend at least part of
their lives in military uniform. Commoners, too, had their burdens greatly
increased during the Imperial era.
In this way the traditional service state survived the turmoil of the French
revolution and its aftermath, when Russian arms helped to liberate the con-
tinent from Napoleonic rule, until the middle of the nineteenth century. It was
only in the wake of the Crimean War (1854-6) that it was dismantled. This did
not come about by revolution from below, but was carried through in a more
or less controlled fashion by officials anxious to modernize the empire's insti-
tutional and socio-economic structure. The reforms were incomplete and
elements of the old order lived on into the twentieth century, leaving a deep
imprint on the minds of people in all classes.
One of the reformers' objectives was to enhance Russia's military efficiency
in order to meet the challenge posed by other European states whose way of
life and thinking had been drastically transformed by the industrial revolu-
tion.^2 This goal was difficult to achieve without shaking the existing social
order, which the late-nineteenth-century tsars and their advisers, as deeply
conservative individuals, were loath to do. In consequence the Russian army
suffered a number of defeats in the field and eventually collapsed during the
First World War, bringing the monarchy and empire down with it. Yet this
failure should not be allowed to obscure the fact that in earlier centuries the
Russians were remarkably successful in keeping up with the international arms
race. It is this earlier age that is the concern of this book, which ends precisely
at the moment when the advent of modern technologies was radically altering
the nature of warfare. Specifically, the closing date is 1874, when Russia went
over to a modern system of selective conscription. There is no lack of literature
on the events and dilemmas of the last hundred years, whereas for the pre-
industrial era, as one might call it, the English-speaking reader at least has
hitherto been very much in the dark.
Thematically this volume is only indirectly concerned with state 'defence'
policies, armaments, or warfare, the stuff of conventional military history
until recent years. Our focus, as the title indicates, is on the soldiers who bore
1 In conformity with accepted practice, the terms 'nobility' and 'gentry' are used here in
reference to the dvoryanstvo, but they are inexact translations; a clumsier but more precise appel-
lation is 'privileged servitors'.
2 See W. H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since A.D.
/000, Chicago and London, 1982, pp. 232-41.