| Russia faced a serious crisis in its military policy in the reign of Nicholas I which would ultimately contribute to its defeat in the Crimean War and provide an impetus for the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the military reforms which followed it. The rapid growth of Russia's armies during the wars with Napoleon placed an intolerable strain on an economy already beginning to lag far behind the rest of Europe. The persistence of serfdom, however, restricted Nicholas' efforts to relieve that strain by recluding the development of the sort of cadre-and-reserve army which other European countries were adopting to cope with the changing nature of war. At the same time, the worsening of Russia's strategic situation caused by the Russo-Turkish War, the Revolution of 1830 in France, and the rise of liberalism in England meant that Russia's armies, too large for the country to support, were also too small to fulfill all of the missions which might be required of them.;Nicholas tried hard to ameliorate the crisis as best he could by means of conservative reforms developed and implemented by the War Ministry under the control of A. I. Chernyshev. Precluded from solving the critical manpower problem because of his inability to emancipate the serfs and distracted from the implications of the strategic situation by an incomplete evaluation of the reasons for success and failure in the wars with Turkey (1828-29) and Poland (1830-31), Nicholas and Chernyshev focused instead on perfecting Russia's military administration and the organization of the army. The changes they made in the administration greatly increased its capacity to support the army, but could not solve the problems created by the worsening strategic situation and the manpower crisis. They constituted, however, an essential step in the development of a rational, well-organized bureaucracy and so helped make possible both the emancipation and the creation of a modern military system. The reforms of the 1830s were the beginning of a process of fundamental change which Dmitrii Miliutin and others would continue for almost fifty years. |
