mid-century the army displayed its characteristic diversity appropriate for Russia’s
imperial terrain: 172,000field troops, 74,000 garrison troops, 27,000 Ukrainian
land militia, 12,000 engineers/artillery, and 43,000 irregulars including Cossacks.
Elizabeth expanded the navy to 21 ships of the line, 5 frigates, and 158 lesser ships.
For all this effort, the state continued developing domestic metallurgy and textile
industries.
The second half of the eighteenth century (and into the Napoleonic period)
saw almost constant war, military expenditures, and expansion. Paradoxically, as
Walter Pintner has shown, as a proportion of state expenditures, military costs
declined over the century, from a high of 64 percent in 1725 to 46 percent in 1764
and 37 percent in 1796, primarily because of territorial and population expansion
and increased expenditures on the imperial court and imperial administration. But
this masks their huge size. Reckoning costs as a share of net state revenues rather
than expenditures, Pintner found that military expenditures alone exceeded all net
income by 1791.Thefield army became steadily more massive, with the standing
infantry growing from about 105,000 in 1763 to about 181,000 by 1774; during
the third Turkish war (1787–92), it rose to a high of about 279,000. The entire
army stood at about 450,000 at the end of the century, Europe’s largest.
Catherine II increased the percentage of light infantry, but weaponry did not
change much over the century. Infantry were equipped with simply designed smooth-
bore muzzle-loading musket with bayonets, a“static technology”in Walter Pintner’s
phrase, facilitating Russia’s self-sufficiency in arms production. Cavalry were equipped
according to their purpose: reconnaissance cavalry (Cossacks and hussars) had light
cutlasses and pistols; some heavy and light infantry (dragoons, cuirassiers, carabiniers)
were equipped forfield battle with cutlasses, pistols,and muskets with bayonets, while
light infantry that chased the foe had lighter guns and sabers.
Catherine II raised the profile of Russia’s navy, sending Baltic ships to the eastern
Mediterranean to destroy the Turkish navy at Chesme in 1770. She strengthened the
Balticfleet, by 1788 adding 37 line ships, 13 frigates, and 30 smaller ships. Russia’s
naval presence was strongest on the Baltic, but with Black Sea conquests Catherine II
developed shipbuilding centers at Voronezh, Pavlovsk, Kherson, Sevastopol, and
Nikolaev. By 1787 Russia boasted a Black Seafleet of 4 ships of the line, 14 frigates,
3 bombardier vessels, and 50 smaller ships. Smallerfleets were also developed on the
Dnieper and Bug Rivers. Naval forces here numbered approximately 13,500 by
1785, compared to about 35,000 officers and sailors in 1764 in the Baltic arena. By
1790 Russia’sfleet of 145 ships outnumbered Denmark’s87andSweden’s48,but
was dwarfed by the French (324 ships) and British (473) navies.
RECRUITMENT AND ITS SOCIAL IMPACT
The massive Petrine army and navy changed life for Russia’s East Slavic villagers
and to a lesser degree townsmen. Mass recruitment of the East Slavic peasantry and
urban taxpayers (even occasionally bureaucrats as well, so desperate was the need for
troops) during the Great Northern War claimed more than a quarter of a million
298 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801