PURSUIT OF ALBION^253It was not resources or money that made the difference; nor mistreat
ment by outsiders. It was what lay inside—culture, values, initiative.
These peoples came to have freedom enough. They just didn't know
what to do with it.
"The Bayonet Is a Fine Lad"
During the first half of the nineteenth century, the standard Russian
infantry weapon was a smoothbore, muzzle-loading, flindock musket
rather like the weapons used in the previous century. (Daniel Boone,
with his Kentucky long rifle, had better.) The 1828 Russian model,
like those before, used round balls and was not accurate beyond 200
yards. The breechloaders used in West European armies were not
deemed suitable—too complicated and not sturdy enough for field
combat. Also too difficult for Russian armory production
techniques.
Russia's army as a whole was reconciled to this backwardness. For
one thing, procurement was a regimental matter, and officers
preferred to spend their money on food and drink. (Drink, more
than combat, was the favorite test of an officer's manliness.)
"Regiments tried to pay as litde as possible for weapons, and the
regimental suppliers regarded periodic trips to grimy government
arsenals and to distant small arms factories as punishment."^26 The
arms makers in turn gave the buyers what they were looking for—so
and so many pieces, good, bad, and indifferent. The government
tried to prevent shoddiness by assigning inspectors to examine the
arms. To litde avail; the inspectors were part of the system and were
not going to bite the hands that fed them. (A similar attitude toward
production would flourish under various Soviet five-year plans. Fulfill
the plan, turn out the units, pay the inspectors, and devil take the
quality.)
The result was bad screws and rivets, misfit barrels, rotten stocks,
mismatched lock parts. In 1853, just before fighting began in the
Crimea, the tsarist army had only half the muskets that were
authorized. And as bad as the arms were, the Russian soldier made
them worse. Like the serf on the land, the twenty-five-year
conscript—military duty was a life sentence—had no care of his
tools. Guns ("a machine for presentation") were polished for parade,