Marking Time 327
selected old soldiers with a given number of years' 'faultles!>' service to their
credit, who were sent on what was termed 'unlimited leave'. These men had to
report annually for a spell of training to refresh their skills. bur rheir military
value was low. Only some 210,000 such men were available when they were
needed to strengthen the forces in the Crimea^1 *-too few to make any real dif-
ference. Thus the idea, although sound, was not pushed to its logical conclu-
sion. Most historians have 1aken the view that to have done so would have
undermined the edifice of serfdom, since the presence in the countryside of
large numbers of ex-soldiers legally exempt from bondage would have created
an unacceptable security risk.^1 ~ There is, however, no hard evidence that wor-
ries on this score determined government policy, and gentry resistance to
reform in this area has probably been exaggerated.
Thus the manpower for both the active army and the reserve continued to be
provided in the main by the traditional recruit levy. A volunteer system was
also in operation, but it chieny concerned certain annexed territories (Finland,
Georgia); and some 35,000 men were transferred to the Imperial forces from
the Polish army when this was disbanded after the 1830-1 revolt.^16 The levy
gave the army an average annual peacetime intake of about 80,000.^17 In all
over two million men were conscripted between 1826 and 1850; the last years
of the reign, which witnessed the heavy impositions of the Crimean War
period, brought the figure almost to three million.^18
In 1834 Nicholas sought to reduce the damage done by frequent levies, and
to cut down administrative costs, by carving the European part of his empire
into two zones of roughly equal population, each of which was to provide
recruits in alternate years.^19 That year the annual intake (three men per 1,000
male 'souls') was drawn mainly from the northern zone, as was that of the
following year; the first one to come wholly from the southern zone was sum-
moned in 1837. Two years later the zonal boundary was redrawn so that it ran
from north to south,^20 and from then on levies were generally raised alternately
in the eastern sector (which included Moscow) and the western (which included
St. Petersburg). The populace probably welcomed these measures, if only
because they reduced the amount of official interference in their lives, and thus
the opportunities for extortion. But they did nor enjoy a much greater degree
of security, since the planned norm of five men per thousand was frequently
exceeded. Moreover, levies from both 'halves' (as the zones were called) were
still taken in 1836, 1840, and no less than three times in 1854-5-at varying
14 Beskrovnyy, Potentsiul, p. 77.
15 Polievktov, Nikolay I. p. 3-11.
lh Vcrzhbi1sky. Re1·0/. dvizhenil'e, p. 150; lh•he 1111plica1cJ in 1h,· rc\ol1 were. hm,ner. 'clll
inlo exile.
17 C"uriiss, Russian Arm1', p. 234.
IN Chernyshev, 'Isl. obozreniye', pp. JJ0-1: for IK51-5 lk,kllnll~\ (Po1t•11f\iu/, pp. 7K-!<O,
recakulated) offers a figure of 886, IK~: d. BogJano' id1. /,1. ocher/.... i. 170, app. I~ (the figure'
are harJ to reconcile).
1~ 11 PSZ ix(i), 7317 (I Aug. llU4); Bc,krllvnyy, Polt'll/\1<1/, pp. 77-8.
20llPS/.xiv.12513(8July18391
wang
(Wang)
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