“At the time of the accession of the new Emperor, the minds of all were full of the painful ending of the Crimean War. Alexander II. was forced to begin his reign with the conclusion of a peace such as no Russian Emperor had accepted since the peace after the Pruth, and the new Emperor felt to the full the weight of the burden imposed upon him. Foreign affairs were by no means in so critical a state that an energetic ruler could not have emerged from the war without loss of dignity or material advantages. In the interior of Russia there was no exhaustion; the nation was by no means driven to extremities. The new Tsar, whom everyone desired to love, could undoubtedly, if he had appealed to this feeling and to the national patriotism, have aroused a tremendous enthusiasm which would have supported any action he chose to take. The Allies not only felt the burden of the war, but were desperately anxious for its close, and a firm announcement by the Tsar to the effect that he intended to continue fighting until an honourable peace was concluded would undoubtedly have compelled them to fall back.
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“... But for this course of action, breadth of view, daring, capability, and energy were necessary—qualities which the new Emperor did not possess. It would even have been sufficient if he had had round him advisers who would have lent him some support, but there was not a man of any moral or intellectual strength in his entourage. He was surrounded by those who, haunted by the groundless fear of having to fight the whole of Europe, had been partly responsible for Nicholas’s retreat. The only voices to be heard now were those that cried: ‘Peace! peace at any price!’ And so, after the fall of Sevastopol, peace was concluded at a moment when that place might have played the same rôle as Moscow did in 1812. After the sacrifice of the fortress we should have announced that, far from being over, operations were only just beginning! With the Allies would have then remained the onus of finishing the war.”
Dissatisfaction with the results of the campaign was universal, and penetrated all grades of society. The root of the evil was seen to lie in our serfdom, so the Tsar Alexander II., the most humane of men, himself headed a movement for the emancipation of the serfs. They received their freedom. This event was of extraordinary importance, constituting, in truth, an epoch in Russian life, which affected all spheres of activity, not excluding that of the War Department. A new language was heard on all sides. Indeed, it is difficult now to realize the animated, convincing, and liberal tone of the articles which appeared in the Voenni Sbornik. But, alas! everything soon returned to its former state. The Polish rebellion of 1863, the attempt to assassinate the Tsar, and the open conspiracies of a few evil-minded people, served as a pretext for the adherents of the old régime to strive for the reduction of the rights that had been granted. Their efforts were crowned with success, and a reaction set in which was particularly violent as regards educational and agrarian affairs. The War Department, however, was under the enlightened guidance of General Milutin, who, as far as possible, reduced the effect of this reaction upon the army; the department, indeed, was on this account for some time looked upon with suspicion. Though the Crimean War did arouse to some extent the latent patriotism of the masses, it was waged at too great a distance from the heart of the people to have earned the title of a national struggle.
It is unthinkable that any great nation could ever have become reconciled to the terms of such a peace as that signed by Russia in 1856, when she engaged to abstain from maintaining a fleet in the Black Sea, and to give up the mouths of the Danube, won by her in 1828–29. However involved, therefore, its causes may appear, the war of 1877–78 was in reality but a continuation of our two-hundred-year-old struggle towards the Black Sea, on this occasion complicated by the necessity of assisting our kindred in the Balkans—the Servians and Bulgarians. Though we did not make the most of our opportunities, the time for preparation allowed us by the Turko-Servian War really decided the issue of that between ourselves and Turkey. It is true we mobilized and concentrated the army in Bessarabia before the declaration of war, but we delayed so long in making this declaration that the Turks also had time for preparation. The severe reverses we suffered after our initial successes showed that our opponents, who were now armed with the breech-loading rifle and organized on the European model, were no longer the foe that we had faced in 1828, whose mobs of armed men were easily routed by small bodies of our troops. As usual, we put too few men in the field at first; but the Emperor, upon the advice of General Milutin, pressed masses of reinforcements to the front, among them the Guards and the Grenadiers, the flower of our army. Our comparatively short line of communication enabled this to be done with considerable rapidity. It was at Plevna, in August, 1877, that we suffered our last heavy reverse, and by October the Guards and Grenadiers had arrived at the front. Including the Roumanian, Servian, Montenegrin, and Bulgarian militias, we succeeded in placing superior numbers in the field, our armies amounting altogether to some 850,000 men in both theatres of operations, and in spite of the enemy’s gallant opposition, we advanced up to the very walls of their capital. But it was not a lightly-won victory. To break down the stubborn defence of the Turks, who were ably commanded at Plevna, we were forced to put thrice their number into the field. Dubniak Hill, which was very weakly fortified, was only taken by the Guards, who were five or six times as strong as the enemy at that particular point, after a desperate fight. Though their earth-works were mostly of field profile, and without any obstacles, such as wire entanglement, mines, and abatis; though the defenders had no bomb-proof shelters; and though we were three to one in men, and put many more guns in action, we were unable to seize Plevna by assault, but had to resort to a blockade. Our Commander-in-Chief, however, was ably supported on the European side by such distinguished leaders as Gurko, Skobeleff, Radetski, and Todleben, whose troops soon became seasoned, and brought victory to our arms. In the theatre of operations in Asia the Grand-Duke Michael Nicolaeff was assisted by Lazareff, Heyman, Ter-Gukasoff—all energetic and able soldiers. Under them our Caucasian force did gallant service. While the force under Kridner and Zotovi was being driven back from the weak Plevna position, they were engaged in night assaults on the fortress of Kars. The defence of the Shipka Pass and of Bayazet, on the Turkish side, are among the most brilliant achievements in our military history.
This war again showed up many blots in our organization. The supply and medical services were very inefficient. The work of the cavalry and artillery on the European side was not up to expectation. The whole burden of the campaign was borne by the infantry, and right well did this Arm issue from the ordeal. In some engagements units lost as much as one-third or even half their strength, and yet were able to re-form and continue the action. Nor was there anything to complain of as regards the reservists. Their long halt at Kishineff enabled them to shake down and to amalgamate with the serving soldiers. Certain units, however, just brought up to strength with reservists, and sent into action before they had had time to be properly trained and disciplined, were not on every occasion as steady as they should have been; but, generally speaking, our troops upheld their reputation for gallantry, steadiness, endurance, and discipline. But we were stronger in defence than in the attack. Although this campaign—our first experience after the introduction of the law of universal military service—ended successfully, it emphasized the inferiority of our arrangements for rapid mobilization and concentration as compared with those of our western neighbours. The men were called up upon no regular mobilization scheme or system, and the reserve units were formed haphazard, and, owing to the inefficiency of the railways running to Roumania, the general concentration was slow. Our information about the enemy was insufficient and unreliable—it was due to our ignorance of their strength that we took the field with such weak numbers. Our re-armament was not completed owing to lack of funds, and we started operations with three different patterns of rifle. We did not have enough maps, and the reconnaissance sketches which had been made—of the Shipka position, for instance—were left behind in St. Petersburg. Our artillery matériel was technically inferior to the enemy’s, our 4-pounder gun in particular being useless. The engineer services and stores were insufficient, and their distribution was bad. Thus, in the fights at Plevna on September 12 and 13, when Skobeleff and Imeretinski led the main attack on the enemy’s fortified position, with an army corps consisting of twenty-two battalions, there was only a detachment of some thirty sappers, which I myself had by chance been able to collect! Siege material was not forthcoming in sufficient quantity, and what there was was of obsolete pattern. I have touched upon the cavalry duties on the European side, which were, with few exceptions, unsatisfactorily and selfishly performed throughout the war. The work of the artillery, which on the Caucasian side was splendid and self-sacrificing, in Europe often left much to be desired. There were instances of batteries retiring because a few men had been wounded. Many of the most senior commanders were unfit for their positions, and capable artillery or cavalry leaders were few and far between. The staff work, particularly that of the General Staff, was seldom good. There was far too much correspondence before a battle, while to report the most important events, or to inform subordinates of what was happening, was a duty frequently forgotten in the stress of action. During the actual combat touch was not properly maintained either laterally or to the rear, and as a result there was little co-operation between the different arms, the brunt of the fight being thrown almost entirely on the infantry. The light railway communication (via Roumania) was inadequate in capacity and badly organized. There were no rest-camps along the line, and in winter, when the roads were cut up, the transport of every kind of supplies was almost impossible. The attitude of our troops in Bulgaria towards the inhabitants was not always humane or just. Payment for produce brought in was made irregularly, or not at all, owing to the improper system whereby forage allowance was treated as the perquisite of a commanding officer. Away from the front disorder and debauchery were common. Owing to our hurried advance in insufficient strength, we were obliged to evacuate areas of the country once occupied, and the people who had at first received us with open arms as liberators were forced either to retire with us or be slain by the returning Turks. Consequently, for a time there was a general revulsion of feeling; the Bulgarians lost all faith in us, and began to turn towards the enemy. Up to a certain point it was the Crimea over again. Strong in defence, we were weak in power of manœuvre, and our attacks consequently suffered from clumsiness: this was notably the case at Plevna. On the other hand, there is no doubt that we were greatly assisted by the comparative unreadiness of the Turks for any offensive operations; otherwise our cordon in Bulgaria might have easily been broken in August or September, before reinforcements reached us. We should then have been obliged to fall back behind the Danube. Only the jealousy and incompetence of the Turkish leaders, and the interference from Constantinople, saved us from misfortune. In spite, however, of all our want of organization, in spite of all our shortcomings, we defeated the Turks, capturing whole army corps at Plevna, Shipka, and Kars, and finally marched victoriously to the walls of Constantinople itself. This was the last great war in which we were engaged in the nineteenth century, and immediately after it, in 1879, our military self-esteem received a severe blow in Central Asia. Repeated raiding by the Turcomans, carried out even in the neighbourhood of Krasnovodsk, necessitated a special expedition into the Turcoman Steppe. The experienced and veteran leader, General Lazareff, was appointed to its command, but at his death, on the eve of the departure of the force from the line of the Artek towards Geok Tepe, the command unfortunately passed to the next senior—General Lomakin—who was quite unfitted for such responsibility. The expedition ended in disaster. The force reached Geok Tepe, the weakly fortified Turcoman stronghold, and made an attempt to storm it which was unsuccessful, though our troops consisted of the magnificent Caucasian regiments. We were forced to abandon several hundred breech-loading rifles, and to retire with great loss to the fortified posts on the line of the Artek. We had to make greater efforts, and had to organize quite a large force—measured by the standard of Asiatic warfare. General Skobeleff, an especially able and energetic man, was given the command of it, and after a severe fight he defeated the Turcomans and seized Geok Tepe. We twice met with reverses in the different night attacks made by the enemy, being overwhelmed by sheer numbers after desperate hand-to-hand fighting; we lost three guns and the standard of one of the most distinguished of our Caucasian regiments.[17] But Skobeleff succeeded in instilling into the minds of all that, whatever the loss or sufferings, they should continue to fight to the bitter end. So we won. This expedition showed, however, that the time had passed when columns composed of a few companies, like those under the command of Generals Cherniaeff and Kaufmann, could defeat greatly superior numbers of natives. Besides being very brave, the Turcomans were armed with captured Berdan rifles, with which they managed to inflict severe loss upon us. Of the small force of under 5,000 which attacked Geok Tepe, we lost about 1,000 in killed and wounded. The very last action in which our troops took part in the nineteenth century was the affair at Kushk in 1885,[18] when a small Russian force defeated the Afghans at the expense of forty-three men.
The result of the Turkish War of 1877–78 was that we regained the mouths of the Danube, and obtained possession of Batoum and Kars. In our contests with Turkey in the nineteenth century our primary object was the freeing of the various Balkan nationalities still subject to Turkey. But this question touched too closely the interests of the other nations of Europe, who opposed us, by force at Sevastopol, and diplomatically at the Berlin Congress. The lack of simplicity in our aims also militated against our success, for in our anxiety over the fate of the minor nationalities we lost sight of our own material interests. Consequently, the results attained in this century on the Black Sea did not on the whole correspond to the sacrifices we made. In the three wars with Turkey we put 1,700,000 men into the field (bringing the strength of the army up to 850,000 men in 1878), and lost in killed, wounded, and missing 126,000; sick, 243,000; a total of 369,000. If we take into account that we put 1,300,000 men into the field during the Crimean War, and that our casualties in killed, wounded, and missing were 120,000, and in sick 220,000, it appears that the acquisition of the Black Sea littoral, the mouths of the Danube, and the right to maintain a war fleet on the Black Sea, cost us 3,000,000 men put into the field, a loss in battle of 250,000, and 460,000 invalided. Yet, in spite of all these sacrifices, the gateway out of the Black Sea remained closed to us and open to our possible foes. In 1878 we were virtually in possession of this gateway, but now it is guarded against us not only by the Turks, but by the Germans. The task of preserving our position on the Mediterranean from the Black Sea has passed to the twentieth century.
To obtain possession of the Caucasus we had to fight twice with Persia in the nineteenth century, and were at war for sixty-two years with the mountaineers of the Caucasus. Before arriving at our present frontier in Central Asia we had been making expeditions for thirty years. Our operations both in the Caucasus and in Central Asia were productive of many gallant feats. Though in the former we crossed swords with a particularly brave opponent, and had to contend against extraordinary natural difficulties, we were in greatly superior numbers and far better organized than the enemy, and from a purely military point of view the contest did not present at all the same difficulties as the wars against the Turks. During our operations in Central Asia, from 1847 to 1881, we never had more than 15,000 men in the field at one time. The total number sent out was some 55,000, of whom we did not lose as many as 5,000 killed and wounded, and 8,000 sick. Our work in these two directions can be said to have been completed in the nineteenth century, for, as will be shown later, not only is no realignment of our present frontier necessary, but no change is possible without risking serious conflicts with Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and, probably, Great Britain. But the character of the Caucasian and Central Asian peoples will demand constant watchfulness and a strong hand in order to prevent racial and religious risings.
In spite of the small force maintained in Siberia, we considerably altered our frontier line in the east during the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century we must be careful to preserve the peaceful relations which have lasted for 200 years between the Chinese and ourselves.