It wasn't really that the army reform of Barclay de Tolly wasn't lasting; it's just that by the Crimean War it was decades out of date. You'd need to find some way to have reform be a continuous process.
How to Make a Constitutional Monarchist Russian Empire the Primary World Power (for a Novel)
- Thread starter Ellis MacVey
- Start date
Well assuming that Russia did hold it, large-scale supplies could be moved to Russia in ww1.
I think making a Russian Commonwealth with several states that would be all under Russian authority but fairly autonomous would both help Russians cope with the different minorities with a case by case government and make things easier with the far too big Russian Empire.
The main problem would be to implement democracy, I think it would be a step by step democracy, with different levels of liberty depending on the state.
Maybe an Imperial Constitution would come up with time, showing which things are allowed and which things are not
The main problem would be to implement democracy, I think it would be a step by step democracy, with different levels of liberty depending on the state.
Maybe an Imperial Constitution would come up with time, showing which things are allowed and which things are not
Well, it is not intended to be condescending, just pointing to the obvious fact that superficial knowledge sometimes results in a confusion. Nothing personal. There is a huge amount of information related to this period which goes well beyond articles on Wiki. And especially revealing are the writings of people involved.
See what I said above. I did read "Nauka pobezdat" (did you?) and it is quite peculiar document on more than one account. It was regularly referenced to by the Soviet military historians as a proof of his military genius but practically never published in its entirety. It contains a mixture of the tactical details from "шаг аршин, в захождении - полтора" defining length of a soldier's step on a march or explanation how a single soldier should be able to kill 3 enemies (mostly by bayonet) and up to the tactical deployment on a division/corps (these entities were not standardized at his time). Artillery is hardly mentioned (and the same goes for his orders of the battle during Italian campaign) but there are samples of the patriotic speeches which the officers should make to raise spirit of their soldiers. As for the soldiers, this "soldiers father" made a clear advice on how to care about their health: "to one who does not look for himself, the sticks".
Suvorov's famous motto was "bullet is a fool, bayonet is a good guy" and it was used by the Russian military well beyond the reasonable point, practically all the way to WWI.
You are welcomed. There is nothing "perhaps" about it: it is a common knowledge. One fundamental thing which you are seemingly missing is understanding of a historic background. Suvorov was the best Russian general and probably by the early XIX the only one with the solid international reputation (Austrians insisted on his candidacy based upon the earlier experience of the joined operations in the Ottoman war). He was unquestionably a brilliant tactician and his Italian campaign demonstrated that he was a very good strategist as well. But this was practically the 1st campaign in which he was a theater commander and by that time he was too old to put anything in writing (except for the battle dispositions) and died soon after return from the Swiss campaign (which is also considered a great achievement as a getting out of seemingly impossible situation). After his death he was elevated by the Russian and then Soviet tradition as one of the greatest military geniuses of all times and his rather meager "paper train" was lauded as an ultimate source of a military wisdom (referencing text without publishing it in its entirety is a very effective tool).
Who are you talking about? Kutuzov? I have no idea which references are you talking about and with him situation was similar to one with Suvorov: his "promotion" to a military genius started in Tsarist Russia and was picked up by Stalinist historians (after Stalin declared him a great strategist). As a result, each word he ever wrote would be used as a proof of this status (well, personally, I did not see too much beyond the routine paperwork). You are more than welcomed to quote the references linking him to any "content for military reform" because I did not see anything of the kind. There are plenty of the recent researches which provide much more balanced view of Kutuzov but, one way or another, he did not participate in the Arakcheev's or Barclay's reforms and, honestly, by a character he was a rather unlikely figure for such a task: he was a well-known sybarite trying to enjoy life even in 1812 (there were nasty rumors about him having with him a concubine dressed as a man; check how old he was at that time) without being excessively involved into the boring routine work. There were accusations of him leaving the disposition at Borodino in the hands of Karl Toll (which seems believable if one compares its "style" with Toll's proposals for Tsarevo-Zajmische and, IIRC, Clausewitz also wrote something to this effect in "1812") and doing nothing during the battle (which IMO is exaggeration even if most orders had been coming from Barclay who got St. George 2nd class for this battle). He took care of well-being of his troops while in Tarutino camp (providing the winter clothes, relaxing requirements regarding the uniforms) but did close to nothing during the counter-offensive part of campaign leaving his troops without food and other necessary supplies. There are some colorful descriptions by the campaign participants about status of their footwear and clothes by the end of campaign: they were not much better that the French but simply knew how to use what was available properly (Bestuzev-Marlinsky gave some details). As a result, Russian weather-related losses during the victorious counteroffensive had been comparable with those of the French.
Never heard about Bagration being involved in any type of a military reform. While his merits as a battle general were duly acknowledged by everyone, his abilities in other areas (besides allegedly screwing Alexander's sister) were much less so. When the candidacies of a supreme commander had been discussed Alexander rejected him as being an idiot. Even if this was an exaggeration, how one should evaluate a commander who earlier in campaign of 1812 declared that with 30,000 he will defeat Napoleon? Then, he as a head of the "Russian party", calling Barclay a foreigner (AFAIK, Barclay's ancestors had been Russian subject for a longer time than those of Bagration
and Barclay spent all his life serving in the Russian army) lacking Russian patriotism deserved Barclay calling him a fool in his face (according to Yermolov). As far as the reform is involved, I strongly suspect that you did not quite get what one of the OTL was about.
As experience of the 3rd and 4th Coalition demonstrated, Russian army was not structurally up to date with the changing warfare: it simply did not have an administrative organization capable to raise and operate an army of a much greater size. It also demonstrated that in some areas like staff organization, supply services, coordination between various services, organization and quality of the artillery, etc. a lot of work has to be done.
The work had been started by Arakcheev (who was War Minister in 1810 - 10) who unified all operations of the war ministry and subordinated to it the army commanders (who prior to this were reporting only to the Emperor), then he put to order all paper work and relations between various entities within the ministry, improved military medical service, improved control over finances, established new rules for the troops allocation within the empire, etc. Besides this he paid special attention to artillery (among other things, created special committee responsible for the innovations, improved education of the artillery officers, etc.).
Barclay, who became minister in 1810, continued work with the special emphasis on seemingly inevitable war with France. New fortresses had been built in a border zone, the warehouses and arsenals created in Moscow, Pskov, Smolensk and Kremenchug and increased production of weapons and ammunition. The new rules were formulated for the expanded recruitment system (including abolishing physical punishment of the newly recruited soldiers). The soldiers got the better muskets and more attention had been paid to the shooting practice with an attached bayonet and in a full battle equipment (somehow he figured this out without Bagration
). On a higher level he standardized organization of the army units (prior to the reform even division was an ad hoc war time formation) making corps, division and brigade both peace and war time permanent formations, with division being a combination of infantry, cavalry and artillery (as in the French army). Both corps and division units got their own staffs. Then he wrote instruction on organization of a "Big Army" which was defining functions of the army structure from its commander and down to the division level, functions of various military institutions like intendancy, engineering and military department, military court, medical services, etc. Ministry itself had been reorganized into 7 departments (the brief synopsis is in https://lib.vsu.by/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/11264/29-32.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y or on Barclay you can read something like http://flibusta.is/b/264895 if you read Russian).With the US entering the war close to its end, I'm not sure why this would result in a significant change comparing to the existing ports, especially keeping in mind a limited capacity of the Trans Siberian Railroad. Anyway, this was clearly not a consideration behind the whole schema: it was a part of a planned Russian expansionist policy on the Pacific.
Anyway, the huge money had been spent on the risky adventures instead of development of the Russian heavy industry that would allow a greater production of weapons in WWI.
Yeah the more I read about Kutusov the more I detest him. As for Bagration, I don’t really care about him. As you aptly pointed out I chose the wrong people to make my point. To get back to the OP, what I wanted to do is trigger lasting change based on the Napoleonic Wars.
With Speransky a person exists in the right spot to facilitate this change. However it’s not enough. If you need something to change in an organization with a lot of Red Tape (politics, formal processes, conflicting stakeholders etc etc), you need a couple for things: a reason to change, change agents, executive backing and budget.
So my thinking went: you take Speransky and make him more effective. Some things have to change (according to my (granted limited) information) about the man himself, some about his environment. Then the civil change could be started.
Then you need a better performing Russian imperial army (not just in the Napoleonic Wars but also afterwards) bolstered by someone who can bring change (here I should have used a more effective (live longer, start earlier?) Barclay de Tolly) and can introduce reforms not just like OTL, but have them bear fruit earlier and also kick off a culture of continuous improvement.
But these two on their own are not enough. They need to convince not just the Tsar, but also remove effective support for any opponents. So you need lower ranked guys to support their ideas. Eg Arakcheev (or Bagration or Santa Claus, basically anyone who is somebody). Military is easier, the Wars were their moment to shine and support from the army will limit the options opponents have. Have de Tolly support Speransky, have the army back both and we could have a believable start to reform not just the army but Russia in general.
Biggest problem then is keeping the momentum going with a culture of continuous improvement. Ow and ideally the Tsar, de Tolly and Speransky all fall in love with the steam locomotive.
That was my idea of a POD
With Speransky a person exists in the right spot to facilitate this change. However it’s not enough. If you need something to change in an organization with a lot of Red Tape (politics, formal processes, conflicting stakeholders etc etc), you need a couple for things: a reason to change, change agents, executive backing and budget.
So my thinking went: you take Speransky and make him more effective. Some things have to change (according to my (granted limited) information) about the man himself, some about his environment. Then the civil change could be started.
Then you need a better performing Russian imperial army (not just in the Napoleonic Wars but also afterwards) bolstered by someone who can bring change (here I should have used a more effective (live longer, start earlier?) Barclay de Tolly) and can introduce reforms not just like OTL, but have them bear fruit earlier and also kick off a culture of continuous improvement.
But these two on their own are not enough. They need to convince not just the Tsar, but also remove effective support for any opponents. So you need lower ranked guys to support their ideas. Eg Arakcheev (or Bagration or Santa Claus, basically anyone who is somebody). Military is easier, the Wars were their moment to shine and support from the army will limit the options opponents have. Have de Tolly support Speransky, have the army back both and we could have a believable start to reform not just the army but Russia in general.
Biggest problem then is keeping the momentum going with a culture of continuous improvement. Ow and ideally the Tsar, de Tolly and Speransky all fall in love with the steam locomotive.
That was my idea of a POD
US entry in the war Apr 1917
Russian revolution Mar – Nov 1917
It could be argued that Russia still fought on after Mar but any supplies from the US are coming too late.
Well the problems in supplying resulted in Gallipoli.
With the trade from China, plus the needs of the military this would be upgraded, once ww1 came with the need to move more supplies it would be further upgraded.
Indeed.
Indeed, the loss of this war and the modernisation of the Russian military helped this.
Well, let's not go from one extreme to another.
Kutuzov had his merits as a diplomat and even as a military commander. After all, it was he who managed to finish the war with the Ottomans in the most critical moment. And, BTW, the way he did it was an impressive combination of the military skills and in-depth understanding of an enemy. By a skillful maneuver he managed to surrender the Ottoman army lead by the Great Vizier but he knew that Vizier can't negotiate in such a situation so he let him to escape and then started talks which ended up with a peace.
Of course, a lot of things had been said about his leadership in 1812: from unquestionable support of everything he did all the way to a 100% negative coverage but at least his prediction that continuation of the war after Napoleon is expelled from Russia would benefit Britain and not Russia proved to be reasonably true.
Well, we have a problem. While Speransky at this stage of his career was a proponent of the liberal reforms, there was also Arakcheyev who did not went anywhere (*). After resigning from his post of Minister of War he became a member of the State Council as chairman of the military committee (basically, a boss of the Minister of War) and he was anything but a liberal so you have inevitable clash. And, unless Nappy is completely removed from the picture, the military issues would inevitably prevail over the civic ones, especially if you keep in mind that Alexander highly respected Arakcheyev.
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(*) As a side notice Wiki page on him mistakenly identifies 2-pood (32 kg, 64+ pounds) unicorn as 2-pounder
See above: he was a "higher ranking" guy both by position and personal influence.
I'm not sure if this would be workable in Russia of that period. Barclay was a strictly military figure with seemingly no interest and definitely no influence in the civilian issues (he was not even an estate owner by 1812) while intervention of a civilian like Speransky into the military matters would be universally despised. The "army" also was not a political body and, anyway, until his performance at Borodino Barclay was not personally popular and even afterwards had enough personal enemies or ill-wishers. One way or another, Russian army of that period hardly could provide any "support" to the civic reforms.