Markin}!. Time 343
replaced him by his favourite, I. F. Paskevich, who tightened controls over the
exiles but also made use of them on his campaigns. This gave some men the
chance, by performing deeds of valour, to win back their commissions and
even to reach senior positions, although they were kept under close
surve!!!ance.^122 !n the 1830~; it bec:une the fo.~;h:on in SL Petersburg 5ocit:ty fo1
officers to put in for postings to the front. Such volunteers were often mere
careerists who returned to safety as soon as they had ~een action or qualified
for preferment. One guards officer who arrived in 1837 was at first shocked by
the informality he found in the Caucasus, but gradually learned to appreciate
the greater freedom that officers enjoyed there. 'I have to admit that in this
respect the Caucasus is of enormous benefit to our young officers', he wrote.
'The St. Petersburg milieu spoils people ... land] encourages all those petty
passions and vices which so disfigure contemporary society: egoism, vanity,
intrigues, boasting'; in the Caucasus, on the other hand, officers broadened
their outlook and learned to judge each other according to their character
instead of their rank.^12 ·^1 It is of course not unusual for men at the front to feel
morally superior to 'paper-pushers' in the rear, especially if the latter are as far
removed from the scene of action as they were here.
Service on the frontier had its negative side, too. It stimulated chauvinistic
sentiments and brutality, especially towards the native peoples of the region,
as well as moral lapses such as intemperance or dishonesty. 'I saw company
commanders who were so drunk that they could not keep their seat on
horseback when fording streams; they fell in and had to be fished out by their
men', wrote one disgusted senior officer after a tour of inspection. On parade
no one dared to speak up about such shortcomings, yet 'there wasn't a com-
pany that would not have had 20 complaints to make about their pay or
equipment', since this was systematically held back by officers on one pretext
or another.^124 Service in the Caucasus was not popular. Officers taking parties
of troops there 'hoped to return as soon as they had delivered them, and the
soldiers said openly that they were being led to the slaughter and that this
justified acts of violence on their part against the inhabitants'.^125
The prospect of duty in Poland or the western provinces, where most troops
were stationed, was only slightly less disagreeable. Subaltern officers resented
the coolness with which, for a mixture of social and political reasons, they
were received by the relatively wealthy Polish or polonized landowners.'2^6 If
sent to the Danubian principalities they might even be greeted with contemp-
tuous oaths.^127 In Great Russia too Ii fe in a provincial garrison was unsatisfy-
ing to anyone with cultivated tastes. The improvement that had occurred in the
122 Beskrovnyy, PotenHial, p. 236.
123 N. S. Martynov, 'Guasha: 01 ryvok i1 ~api~ok ', RA, 1 898, 2, pp. 317-18. Martynov was the
duellist who killed the poe1 Lermon1ov, but thi' doc~ not dimini'h the value of his observations.
124 A. I. Gagarin, 'Zapiski o Kavka1e'. VS 288 ( 1906). '· pp. 24-5.
12l Murav·yev[-Karsky) 'lz zapisok ', RA. 1895, 3, p .. 120.
126 P. P., 'Vosp. kaval. ofitsera', pp. 90-1.
121 K. L. N., 'Vosp. o dunayskov karnpani1', p. 180.