326 Towards a Modem Army, 1825-1874extending the network of military schools and tightening administrative con-
trols. However, these organizational measures were not reinforced by any
substantial change in the system of military justice. In practice soldiers remained
subject to arbitrary treatment by iht:i1 :>upt:riors, who couid mthct barbaric
penalties for trivial faults. This was a conspicuous black spot on Nicholas's
record as a military leader. His reluctance to remedy these well-known abuses
made the task of later reformers more difficult than it need have been.
For most of the reign the army's paper strength was around 800,000; after
1848 another 100,000 men were addcu to meet the supposed revolutionary
threat, and in 1853 Russia's land force'> numbered some I. I million; they had
grown to over I Yi million by the time the Crimean War ended, exclusive of the
militia.^9 Great efforts were made to keep to establishment norms, but one
authority estimates the peacetime shortfall at about 20 per cent.^10 Whatever
the exact figure, it was clearly enormous: 'the [official] view seemed to be that
one could never have enough', was Turgenev's acid comment.^11
Nicholas was keen to reduce the heavy drain on the empire's human and
financial resources. He also knew that only a relatively small proportion of his
troops could be fielded in time of war. Other European powers, notably
Prussia, had adopted a system of keeping down the size of their active forces
and building up a reserve of trained manpower which could be called on in an
emergency. The tsar sought to emulate them. The problem was magnified by
Russia's vast distances and poor communications, which made mobilization of
reservists a laborious task, as well as by bureaucratic inertia. Gentry land-
owners, too, were content with the existing system. not least because it offered
them a convenient means of ridding their estates of undesirables. They (and
other donors) could still send them to the army whenever they wished, without
waiting for the next levy, and receive a voucher in exchange.^12 During the
1840s the number of vouchers offered in lieu of recruits, for whatever reason,
ran at about I 0 per cent of the anticipated intake.'-' The government approached
the matter in its usual cautious fashion. Instead of establishing a truly separate
reserve force, with its own source of manpower and organizational structure,
it simply required each active unit to set aside reserve battalions, composed of
9 Maksheyev, Voye11110-sta1. o/Jo::rerui·e, p. 217; von Bi,mar.:k, R11.ui.1che Krieg.1111acht, p. 82;
Bogdanovich, Isl. ocherk, i. app. 5. The taler figurl'" arl' tor 'li,ll'd 'trrngth' and therefore more
accurate than !ht: earlier establi>hmenl 101ab. Soml' 1'1ll,OOO men were 1n the militia (opo/cheniye):
Beskrovnyy, Pote111sial, P-80. Be,1u1hcv·, f1gurl' or 1.·. 2 million men in the armed forces in 1856
('Krymskaya voyna', p. 194) indmk' the navy.
10 Kersnovsky, /s1oriya, ii. 292. l·or a contcmpnrary e\limatc of 30 per cent: von Hax1hausen,
Kriegsmacht Russ/ands, p. 37. French diplo111ati\: ,ource' estimated the real ,hortfall in 1840 at
18.2 per cen1: 'Nomenclature general<· de l'armce ru"c ... ·• MAI', \1 cl [), Russie, vol. 37
( 1831-52), ff. 251-2.
11 Turgenev, La Russie, p. 299.
12 II PSZ vi(i), 4677 (2!! June l!UI), IV,§ 324. If landowner; JiJ not da11n a voud1er for them,
1hcy were l'XCll!plcd f10111 paying for 1hcir outfitting and pru\i,i1>11': Ill,§ 189. On arrival al their
uni! such recruits were assigned to non-combatant dut1l'': V, § 4J2.
IJ Beskrovnyy, Potellfsial, p. 79; Policvktov, Nikola_•·/, p. 330. For kgislation on vouchers: II
PSZ vi(i), 4677, IV,§§ 321 ff.