306 The Military Settlementsevidently refers to settlers and dependants, but excludes the military element
(active lroops, reservisls, and cantonists)-as does the slightly higher figure
(730,000) given by a Soviel historian.^52 How large was the military elemf"nt?
According to a contemporary foreign source there were 24 cavalry regiments in
the southern settlements (Kherson and Khar'kov provinces only), with 160
active and 104 reserve squadrons, making a total of 51,000 men.5-1 To these
must be added the artillerymen and other support troops, the regiments
stationed in other settled areas, soldier~· wives and children (cantonists), and
officers. The grand total of persons within the system must have exceeded one
million.
The comprehensive programme of military and other reforms instituted
after the Crimean War put an end to this state within a state, which by then
was generally recognized as an anachronism. The immediate motive seems to
have been as much moral as economic. The settlements had a bad reputation
for corrupt practices, as had the entire system for supplying the troops in the
=::rimea. The Russian army was about to reduce its swollen effectives and to
:hange its mode of recruitment and pattern of service (see ch. 15). This logi-
:ally involved a move by the military away from economic self-sufficiency
owards reliance on the civilian market in meeting requirements for grain and
Hher commodities. Between 1856 and 1858 the 'farming soldiers' in the north
md west were turned into 'apanage' (ude[) or Crown peasants. The southern
;ettlers were harder to dispose of. They did not become state peasants until
1866, but in the interim their labour obligations were gradually reduced and
he administrative structure civilianized.^5 .i The more pious among them attri-
mted these changes to miraculous intervention by their patron saint.^55
As part of this process the military surrendered, in 1860, its control over
even sizeable towns, including Uman·, Yelizavetgrad, and Chuguyev, which
1ad served as headquarters or bases.^56 This act passed almost unnoticed amidst
he other momentous changes of the era, yet it might be seen as symbolic. It
narked the close of a long but waning tradition whereby the military had exer-
ised first a preponderant, then a significant, influence over local government,
:nd indeed in the administration of the empire generally. It is appropriate to
51 Beskrovnyy, Potentsial, p. 37.
5J Dussieux, Force elfuiblesse, p. 61. Marmon! ( Voyaxe. i. 197, 209) offers two totals of 32,400
nd 36,000 men for the five divisions in Kherson and Khar·kov provinces only (1834). Kohl, who
ravelled through southern Russia in 1840, put the military element in these settlements at 60,000:
~eisen, i. 26. In 1854 there were 75,CXlO men in a..:tive units stationed in the settlement districts and
various settlement units': Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, ii. app. 34. The same table shows a total of
61,000 soldiers and an almost identical number of 'general population'; but the tenth revision
1858) put the total number of military settlers at l, 119,CX)O (572,000 males): J. Blum, Lord and
•eosant in Russia ... , Princeton, 1960, p. 503.
54 Ferguson, 'Settlements, 1825-66', pp. 123-4; for relevant legislation, Amburger, Geschichte,
p. 325-6.
55 Lobachevsky, 'Bugskoye kazachcstvo', p. 626.
lo II PSZ xx xv. 36415 (19 Dec. 1860); Chernyshev, '1st. oboLreniye', p. 420; Kabuzan,
·useleniye Novorossii, p. 68.