The Russian Army and the Japanese War, Vol. 1 (of 2) / Being Historical and Critical Comments on the Military Policy and Power of Russia and on the Campaign in the Far East

by A. N. Kuropatkin

In the west, to proceed with the work of Tsar Alexie-Michaelovitch, and wrest White Russia and Little Russia from Poland.

In the south, to follow the course indicated by the Grand Dukes Sviatosloff and Oleg, of advancing to the Black Sea coast and creating unrest in Turkey, as a preparation for our further move forward.

In the south-east, to carry on the struggles of Tsar Theodore-Ivanovitch and Boris Godunoff to convert the Caspian into a Russian inland sea, and obtain a firm foothold on the ridge of the Caucasus. In Asia, to extend the Empire in two directions—towards Central Asia, for protection against raids, and towards Russia’s natural outlet in the East, the Pacific Ocean.

During this century it was only the first three of these projects that we really set ourselves to carry out. Our attempt in 1717 to gain possession of Khiva ended in complete failure, which for a long time arrested our advance in Central Asia; while in Siberia, thanks to the peaceful attitude of the Chinese and Japanese, and to the weakness of the Kirghiz, we were enabled to protect our 6,000-mile Chinese frontier with an insignificant number of men. Of the three tasks seriously attempted, the first—that of gaining possession of the Baltic sea-board—was the most difficult. For twenty-one years had that able commander, Charles XII. of Sweden, fought with a small but veteran army against the might of Russia led by Peter the Great. Even the genius of the latter did not avail to avert our complete defeat at Narva in 1700, but his determined efforts to create an army well trained and numerically superior to the enemy were crowned by our victory at Poltava just nine years later. This struggle—the Great Northern War—only came to an end in 1721 with our annexation, under the Treaty of Nishtabtski, of Ingermanland (the province of St. Petersburg), Esthonia, Livonia, and a small part of Finland, altogether 3,500 square miles. The reasons of our defeat at Narva were that we put too few men—50,000—in the field in the first instance, and that they were unreliable. During the course of the war the army was increased in numbers to 136,000, and at Poltava Peter the Great had a very large superiority in numbers, besides the assistance of experienced subordinates and veteran troops. During the whole war we put in the field a total of 1,700,000 men. Our access to the Baltic cost us 120,000 killed and wounded, excluding missing, and 500,000 invalided, but in gaining it Russia won a place among the great Powers of Europe. Our progress towards the Black Sea proved almost as difficult, and necessitated four wars with Turkey. In the first—in 1711—we again committed the same initial error as we had against Sweden, and started operations with insufficient numbers, with the result that, in spite of the presence of Peter the Great, we were surrounded on the Pruth. Not only did we fail in our object, but we were forced by the Turks to surrender Azov, and to raze our fortifications on the Lower Dnieper; but we brought up our total numbers during the fourth war (1787 to 1791), by gradual increases, to 700,000 men, and eventually defeated the Turks. Our maximum number in any one campaign was 220,000. By the Treaty of Jassy[10] we obtained the Crimea and the area between the rivers Bug and Dniester. This final four years’ struggle cost us 90,000 killed, wounded, and missing, and about 300,000 invalided; the total number of men put in the field during the century in order to gain access to the Black Sea being 1,500,000. The prosecution of the third task—namely, that of regaining Little Russia and White Russia—was the cause of three struggles with Poland, after the last of which she ceased to be an independent State. In these campaigns the largest army taking the field on our side was 75,000 strong. The total numbers on our side taking part in the three wars were 400,000, our casualties being 30,000 killed, wounded, and missing, and 75,000 invalided. It is plain, therefore, in which directions our efforts at expansion during the eighteenth century proved most costly. The brunt of these struggles was borne by our army, though our fleet, under Peter the Great—its founder—played a conspicuous and gallant part in the conflict with Sweden.

The commencement of the nineteenth century found Russia a strong Power as compared with her condition a hundred years before. During the past hundred years the Empire had extended in area from 265,000 to 331,000 square miles, and the population had increased to 37,000,000. The revenues had also grown considerably, from £1,200,000 to £5,500,000; but the finances of the State had been severely shaken by incessant warfare. Though £2,200,000 had been spent on military requirements, the whole frontier was still in an unsettled state, and required special watchfulness on account of the many politico-military questions which might arise with Sweden, Prussia, Austria, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.[11] The efforts which had been made during the latter part of the preceding century to develop our army had not been fruitless. It had improved in quality and in professional knowledge, had produced such men as Rumantsieff and Suvoroff, and had grown in numbers; but still its size was out of all proportion to the country’s financial position. Economy was unknown in military affairs. The administration was defective, there was no higher tactical organization than the regiment, and the training given was not uniform. The steps taken by the Emperor Paul II. to rectify these defects were without success, and the war establishment was reduced from 500,000 to 400,000. Theoretically, the army was distributed over twelve inspection areas or military districts; but when the western districts became incorporated in the Empire, and we thereby became directly involved in the political problems of Europe, the greater portion of our troops was required to garrison the country west of the Dnieper. In 1799 about 100,000 men were stationed across the frontier,[12] approximately 130,000 formed two armies in the south-western districts,[13] and in the north some 50,000 were distributed around the capital; the rest were scattered throughout the country, about 25,000 being on the Siberian and Caucasian frontiers. Though a continuation of what had gone before, the military problems of the nineteenth century had to be faced under more complicated conditions. In the north-west Russia had still to put the finishing touch to her effort towards an outlet on the Baltic by gaining possession of the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland and the eastern shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the west the Poles had to be kept in subjection, and our frontier defended from Prussia and Austria. We had to maintain the position we had won, and also to oppose Napoleon’s army of a million men. In the south we had to make permanent our footing on the shores of the Black Sea, and to guard its coasts from oversea attack. In the Caucasus and the Far East everything remained to be done. The consolidation of our position in the two latter directions, so as to protect, before all else, the Russian population of the southern districts, demanded an energetic advance.

It was upon the army that a large share of the execution of these projects naturally fell. Firstly, the beginning of the century was remarkable for our colossal struggle with France, of which Suvoroff’s campaign in 1799 was the commencement. We advanced against Napoleon as the ally of Austria and Germany, whom he was in the process of destroying; but the campaigns ended in our utter defeat at Austerlitz in 1805, and Friedland in 1807. The war in our country of 1812–14 was a continuation of the first two Napoleonic wars, and, notwithstanding the invasion of Russia by an immense army, and the fact that our troops were driven back beyond Moscow, Napoleon was defeated, Europe was freed from his yoke, and Poland became an integral portion of the Russian Empire. The determination with which Peter the Great and Alexander I. conducted their struggles against such opponents as Charles XII. and Napoleon is in the highest degree instructive. In both cases we commenced hostilities with inadequate numbers, suffered complete initial defeat at Narva, Austerlitz, and Friedland, but nevertheless continued the contest. In both cases our troops were reinforced, and gradually became trained and seasoned; leaders were created by the war itself, and our numbers increased until we obtained superiority over the enemy, and finally ended the struggle victoriously by winning the battle of Poltava in the one case, and by marching into Paris in the other.

One result of these wars was the final definition of our present boundary with Poland, which will soon have been established for one hundred years. Any alteration of it, as will be shown later, would not only be distinctly detrimental to our interests, but could only be brought about by a European conflict, which would entail such appalling sacrifices that any change would be on the whole as disadvantageous to Germany and Austria as to Russia. Thus we can at once dismiss the defence of our present Polish frontier from the probable tasks of the twentieth century. Still, the Poles, split up as they are amongst three great Powers, with their well-known national aspirations, have not up till now become reconciled to their fate, and the internal pacification and administration of Poland will doubtless prove one of the problems of this century.

Though our most difficult piece of work in the eighteenth century had been the attempt to gain an outlet on the Baltic, the completion of this task in the nineteenth met with little opposition from Norway and Sweden. The campaign with the latter country in 1808–09 lasted fifteen months, and ended with our annexation of Finland. During its progress the army was never stronger than 44,000 men, the total number put into the field amounting to 65,000. Our casualties were 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing, and 9,000 invalided; total, 16,000. It is interesting to note that we were in superior strength in forty-three engagements, of which we won twenty-nine and lost fourteen. Although after this war we annexed Finland as an integral part of our Empire, we paid too little attention to its internal affairs, the result being that there grew up close to our capital a large hostile country, of which the population, though small in number, was stubborn and independent in character, and was imbued with ideals entirely differing from our own. The final incorporation of Finland in the Empire has been left for our statesmen of the present century.

The consolidation of our position on the Black Sea, which we had gained in 1791, was proceeded with energetically, but was not completed, in spite of three wars waged with Turkey—in 1806–12, 1828–29, 1877–78. The first ended in our annexation of a portion of Bessarabia. By the second we acquired the mouths of the Danube and a strip of the Black Sea littoral, 370 miles long. The interference of the European Powers in Russian affairs, in order to weaken us in the Near East, led to the Crimean War of 1854–56, which resulted unfortunately for us, as we lost our Black Sea fleet and the possession of the mouths of the Danube. At the time of the Crimean War we had a numerically strong army, and much excellent material both among the officers and the rank and file. A great number of the former were of the nobility; the men were long-service soldiers (twenty-five years); while the warrant and non-commissioned officers were experienced men, and wielded considerable authority. But after the successful wars we had waged earlier in the century the army had deteriorated in war-training and fallen behind in armament. All ranks had been deeply bitten by Arakcheeff’s views of military science, the senior ranks being specially weak. That an army was intended for war was quite forgotten. Spit and polish and parade smartness were considered far more than battle efficiency, and more attention was paid to the “manual exercise” and to ceremonial movements than to anything else. The best proof of the views held at this period was the way in which commanding officers of all arms permitted the rifles to be filed and burnished, so that, in performing rifle exercises, a thousand rifles would flash and ring together as smartly as one. An officer’s military career depended on the interest behind him. Without influence only those got on who most slavishly performed the wishes of their commanders, however cruel or barbarous. The national movement towards greater personal freedom, initiated by Emperor Alexander I. after the Napoleonic wars, had penetrated to the rank and file of the army, but had now been replaced by an Administration which paralyzed every activity or impulse towards initiative throughout the country, and acted like a blight on every grade of the population, civil as well as military. Everyone was, so to speak, dressed in a tunic buttoned right up to the chin, and looked as if he had “swallowed a poker.” The whole country, army included, could say nothing but “Very good,” “Quite so,” and “All correct.” The private soldier was treated with cruelty, and was badly fed; peculation and dishonesty of all kinds were rampant. Not only did commanding officers largely augment their pay from the money granted for the purchase of forage, but this was winked at as being only natural. As had always been the system, the commands of regiments were given to the younger sons of the nobility, to enable them to exist, while the favouritism shown to the Guards was the curse of the service. Any display of initiative by soldiers was punished, and the Press was afraid to speak; a discussion in a military paper of questions of dress even was considered to be harmful “free-thinking.” The result was that while we were outdistanced in matériel by the armies of Europe, we made no progress in moral, despite our large numbers. Holding such views as, for instance, that the main use of a rifle was to make a pleasant noise in the “manual exercise,” we naturally did not worry about re-armament, and entered upon the war of 1854–56 armed with smooth-bore weapons against our opponents’ rifles. The spirit of our fleet, fresh from its victory at Sinope, and having such men in command as Lazareff, Nakhimoff, Korniloff, and Istomin, was excellent, and its numbers were strong; but, technically, it was even more behind the other fleets of Europe than our army was behind the land forces of our neighbours, and against our sailing-ships in the Black Sea the Allies brought a fleet of steam-vessels. The peace strength of the standing army in 1850–60 was more than 1,100,000 men, but the greater part of it was stationed in the western frontier districts, in the Caucasus, and in the large cities. The peace strength of the Allied armies amounted to: France, 400,000; Great Britain, 140,000; Turkey, 450,000. Only a portion of these forces took part in the war, but nevertheless Russia was beaten.