An Age of Reform 353
who volunteered for the militia in the hope of winning their liberty. The
authorities suppressed the disturbances in their usual clumsy and brutal way
without much ado. On the other hand, serfdom was indeed a hindrance to any
restructuring of the army into a relatively small active (cadre) force and a large
trained reserve-the reform which Nicholas I had ii11kered with and which
Milyutin would eventually force through. Was it an insuperable obstacle, as
many writers have assumed? There was nothing to prevent the tsar from
ending the custom (nowhere clearly established in law and widely disregarded
in practice) of freeing ex-servicemen. Dietrich Beyrau is surely right in stating
that a 'more than marginal military reform ... would also have been possible
even under serfdom'.^6 Whether this is so or not, once the tsar had publicly
placed emancipation on the agenda in March 1856, abolitionists could sell
their cause to conservatives by stressing the military advantages to be gained:
more prosperous and self-reliant peasants would make soldiers more able to
comprehend orders, handle modern equipment, and take the initiative on the
battlefield-aptitudes that were now essential, as the Crimean War had abun-
dantly shown.
As for military reform, this was now generally seen to be inevitable. The war
had cost Russia dear in men, money, and equipment, and had revealed grave
administrative shortcomings. The casualty toll has already been referred to. In
a memorandum of January 1856 Milyutin estimated the drain on civilian
labour at 800,000 men.^7 Particularly grave were the financial repercussions of
the war. In 1854-6 the War Ministry's budgeted expenditure reached 652
million roubles, an increase of 237 per cent on the previous three-year period.a
Unpublished documents show that the true figure was nearer 800 million
roubles.9 The result was a deficit which according to one official military
source totalled 651 million roubles-coincidentally a figure almost identical
with that for expenditure and 468 per cent greater than that in the previous
triennium.10 Baumgart puts it at eleven times higher than pre-war figures, but
this is an exaggeration.^11 In that year ( 1857) the leading economist of the day
estimated the 'financial burden' of the war at 566 million roubles,^12 but this in
turn seems to be too low.
Whatever the exact figure, the economy drive undertaken over the following
years succeeded in eliminating the deficit by I 862-with the result that a
modern sceptic would expect: the way was clear for a further increase in
6 Beyrau, op. cit., p. 211; but cf. p. 206.
7 Bestuzhev, 'lz ist. Krymskoy voyny', p. 206 and fn. I.
8 Min. finansov, i. 628, 636-7; Beskrovnyy, Potentsial, p. 483. Combined military and naval
expenditure, expressed as a percentage of total state expenditure, was as follows: 1853: 36.2 per
cent; 1854: 51.9 per cent; 1855: 51.4 per cent; 1856: 42.0 per cent. for lower near-contemporary
unofficial estimates: Bliokh, Finansy, ii. 4-5, 8-9, 16-17, 25-6.
9 Bestuzhev, 'Iz ist. Krymskoy voyny', p. 208.
10 Malcsheyev, Voyenno-stat. obozreniye, p. 203.
11 Baumprt, Peace of Paris, p. 73.
12 Beyrau, 'Leibeigenschaft und Militarverfassung', p. 194 n., citing the unpublished memoirs
of another minister, A. V. Golovnin.
wang
(Wang)
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