Imperial Russian Superpower

Industrialization and a more 'european' orientation of Russia as that is where the biggest threat is in. Also education and an earlier freeing of the serfs. Russia was REALLY backwards in that.

It wasn't, actually, if you consider that the first serfs to be freed in Russian (the Baltic serfs in 1818) when their was still serfdom in oh-so-modern Prussia. The main event came in 1861, not so long after the Austrians in 1848 and before the Americans in 1862. ;):p
 
It wasn't, actually, if you consider that the first serfs to be freed in Russian (the Baltic serfs in 1818) when their was still serfdom in oh-so-modern Prussia. The main event came in 1861, not so long after the Austrians in 1848 and before the Americans in 1862. ;):p

Prussia's population (not sure about Austria's) wasn't mostly made up OF serfs (unless I am very much mistaken), same with the US.

But that's a different sort of problem, tying more to the "education? For peasants?" aspects and less to Russia being slow to end serfdom.
 
It wasn't, actually, if you consider that the first serfs to be freed in Russian (the Baltic serfs in 1818) when their was still serfdom in oh-so-modern Prussia. The main event came in 1861, not so long after the Austrians in 1848 and before the Americans in 1862. ;):p

And the Spanish in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the Brazilians, were even later than us.
 
To proceed to the point: no invasion at all would have the potential to do all sorts of good things: play down Alex' messiah-complex and keep him from the clutches of Metternich; keep Poland, which was always a liability, well out of it; give a chance of keeping Nicholas away from the succession; and foster a less reactionary climate in Russia and in Europe generally.

to me, the French invasion of Russia is a defeat. the french only lost cause they didnt adequately prepare their forces, and the russians used a scorched earth policy.

...so Russia won, almost by default, which can be seen as a defeat.

I will never cease to be amazed by these arguments. "The French only lost because their opponents outplanned them, outmaneuvred them, and fought them to a standstill"?

Russia drew the big battle, which is more than you can say about most people who went head-to-head with Napoleon. To say nothing whatever about Suvorov.

Of course Russia was behind France, Britain, the Netherlands and so on in terms of development; but at this time one only needed to be over a minimum threshold of development to have access to all the military technologies required. The Russian army was well-organised, well-officered, and well-artilleried.
 
I will never cease to be amazed by these arguments. "The French only lost because their opponents outplanned them, outmaneuvred them, and fought them to a standstill"?

This.

Of course Russia was behind France, Britain, the Netherlands and so on in terms of development; but at this time one only needed to be over a minimum threshold of development to have access to all the military technologies required. The Russian army was well-organised, well-officered, and well-artilleried.
And this! Though I'd say the second was the weakest link (depending on what we're looking at).

At enormous effort, but Russia delivered a very good performance in 1812-1815. I don't know if it would have done as well in different circumstances - for instance, the offensive campaigns were paid for with generous help from allies - but "Russia didn't really do anything" arguments are an attempt to make the Great Napoleon look like he was defeated by a force beyond his control rather than by a combination of his bad judgment and Russia's leaders taking full and complete advantage of it.
 
Prussia's population (not sure about Austria's) wasn't mostly made up OF serfs (unless I am very much mistaken), same with the US.

But that's a different sort of problem, tying more to the "education? For peasants?" aspects and less to Russia being slow to end serfdom.

It's a fair cop about Prussia - the serfs were on the big east-Elbian estates - but most of Austria east of the Leitha was on a roughly even developmental footing with Russia.

I meant to point out that once the industrial revolution is loose and their is capital, expertise, and motive, industrialisation can happen fast. Saxons and Silesians could go from serf to factory-hand in a lifetime.

One can speed up Russia's political development by moving forward the end of serfdom and setting things up for *Alexander II to succeed in setting up a bourgeois state in the absence of a large bourgeoisie; and hopefully this would allow it to navigate industrial capitalism without such a destructive breakdown of society.

But I don't think you can drastically change the date of the arrival of industrial capitalism in Russia, which is the key factor in power-politics and the ability to mobilise for total war. And it was starting to arrive in Russia by the easily 20th century.

In short: the way to modernise tsarist Russia is to keep the tsar around for longer. I'm agreeing with your skepticism: I don't think government decree can put Russia on a level with Germany by the early 20th C.

Germany's an interesting case, though. Thanks to the rapid development of its modern industries, we often forget the extent to which it remained a country of peasants. Not farmers like those of Britain and France: peasants, living muddy and primitive lives on small plots of lands. Something to reflect on.
 
Last edited:
This.

And this! Though I'd say the second was the weakest link (depending on what we're looking at).

At enormous effort, but Russia delivered a very good performance in 1812-1815. I don't know if it would have done as well in different circumstances - for instance, the offensive campaigns were paid for with generous help from allies - but "Russia didn't really do anything" arguments are an attempt to make the Great Napoleon look like he was defeated by a force beyond his control rather than by a combination of his bad judgment and Russia's leaders taking full and complete advantage of it.

Precisely.

About the Russian officership: they lacked a proper general staff, but then, so did everybody except the Prussians. But the Russian system proved perfectly able to send sufficiently competent men to the top. Sure, they weren't all Suvorov, but they were handling an army good enough that they didn't need to be.

An interesting point about military technology is that in the 18th century the situation with the only really big complicated thing - cannon - was rather the reverse of what we might expect from an experience of 20th century warfare. We know that the less industrialised a country was during WW2, the less able it was to furnish the needs of modern warfare. From America with its giant airforce and mechanised divisions, through us, on to the Germans and Soviets with their tanks thundering ahead and horse-drawn supplies trudging along behind, through Italy and Japan and down to China.

But in the 18th century, big iron-works, as opposed to complexes of proto-industrial iron-goods manufacture, depended on the wish of a country to equip its armed forces. The iron-works made and the army bought. After all, what got made of iron before the railway? Nails, chains, horseshoes, cutlery, pots, pans, farming implements, swords, and 12-pounders. One of these things is unlike the others.

The ironworks of Wales grew up in symbiosis with the royal navy, which was probably the largest consumer of large cast-iron things in the world at that time. And Russia had cannon, because in the Great Northern War it had needed cannon and couldn't easily buy them and so Peter the Great had with Stalinistic simplicity called iron-works into being. You couldn't just call a tank-plant into being without first developing the kind of civilisation that could support motor-vehicles. But in Napoleonic times, a country with sufficient willpower could call the most modern army out of a primitive peasant population.

Paying for it, as you note, was another thing again. But everybody was being subsidised by us after 1813.
 
Last edited:
Precisely.

About the Russian officership: they lacked a proper general staff, but then, so did everybody except the Prussians. But the Russian system proved perfectly able to send sufficiently competent men to the top. Sure, they weren't all Suvorov, but they were handling an army good enough that they didn't need to be.

Its mostly the level below army leading. Russia with more well trained regimental officers would have benefited from it - I can't say it would have made the difference in terms of victory, because it won anyway, but it might have been better for their regiments.

Still, it was a solid army and performed well enough.

An interesting point about military technology is that in the 18th century the situation with the only really big complicated thing - cannon - was rather the reverse of what we might expect from an experience of 20th century warfare. We know that the less industrialised a country was during WW2, the less able it was to furnish the needs of modern warfare. From America with its giant airforce and mechanised divisions, through us, on to the Germans and Soviets with their tanks thundering ahead and horse-drawn supplies trudging along behind, through Italy and Japan and down to China.

But in the 18th century, big iron-works, as opposed to complexes of proto-industrial iron-goods manufacture depended on the wish of a country to equip its armed forces. After all, what got made of iron before the railway? Nails, chains, horseshoes, cutlery, pots, pans, and 12-pounders. One of these things is unlike the others.

The ironworks of Wales grew up in symbiosis with the royal navy, which was probably the largest consumer of large cast-iron things in the world at that time. And Russia had cannon, because in the Great Northern War it had needed cannon and so Peter the Great had with Stalinistic simplicity called iron-works into being. You couldn't just call a tank-plant into being without first developing the kind of civilisation that could support motor-vehicles.

Something that would leave Russia increasingly behind post-1815 even while being adequate up to that point.

Russia desperately needs to "develop into the kind of civilization that could support motor-vehicles" at a pace not too far behind the West for its 1815 power to have not wilted by 1915. Heck, it needs to on that path for it not to have wilted by 1855.
 
A great opportunity that Alexander sucked was immediate emancipation act removing serfdom immediately and without any payments. There was a great reason for this – Russian peasants proved themselves great fighting guerilla against Napoleon. And considering the patriotic feelings of all the Russian society from last serf to the highest aristocrats( Imagine! Russia defeated the man who seemed unbeatable ) Russian nobility will not be openly hostile to this.
And that completely changes the Russian society and further history.
 
The whole peasant-resistance things is exaggerated in my opinion. The French supply-lines were harried, but a lot of that harrying was done by Cossacks - members of the Russian military trained and assigned to the job. Doubtless their was peasant resistance to the French, because nobody likes foreigners stealing stuff, but I've never seen a primary source showing that it was very extensive or important.

And a patriotic outbreak and feeling that it's time for change is one thing; throwing down the gauntlet to the class who fill all your military and civil offices and, ah, killed your dad in a putsch for doing that sort of thing is another thing.
 
The whole peasant-resistance things is exaggerated in my opinion. The French supply-lines were harried, but a lot of that harrying was done by Cossacks - members of the Russian military trained and assigned to the job. Doubtless their was peasant resistance to the French, because nobody likes foreigners stealing stuff, but I've never seen a primary source showing that it was very extensive or important.

And a patriotic outbreak and feeling that it's time for change is one thing; throwing down the gauntlet to the class who fill all your military and civil offices and, ah, killed your dad in a putsch for doing that sort of thing is another thing.
Well, first Cossacks are not regular troops and thus didn't pass through regular military training. But that's not the point.
And there was MASSIVE peasant guerilla. French supply lines were harassed by peasant units ( and Cossacks and hussars as well) consisting of up to 5800 men ( the largest one but there were a lot of lesser ones. The leader of this unit was Gerasim Kurin – Герасим Курин).
 
to me, the French invasion of Russia is a defeat. the french only lost cause they didnt adequately prepare their forces, and the russians used a scorched earth policy.

...so Russia won, almost by default, which can be seen as a defeat.

In other words the Russians did prepare their forces properly, and outgeneraled Napoleon operationally and strategically. It does seem amazing to me the extent to which people go to refuse admitting when Russia wins wars, that it wins wars.
 
And this! Though I'd say the second was the weakest link (depending on what we're looking at).

At enormous effort, but Russia delivered a very good performance in 1812-1815. I don't know if it would have done as well in different circumstances - for instance, the offensive campaigns were paid for with generous help from allies - but "Russia didn't really do anything" arguments are an attempt to make the Great Napoleon look like he was defeated by a force beyond his control rather than by a combination of his bad judgment and Russia's leaders taking full and complete advantage of it.

It's interesting how the only European power that wins wars and people go out of the way to attribute defeat to the mistakes of its enemies is Russia, no? I mean Hitler just screwed up, it wasn't Stalin who won. Napoleon screwed up, it wasn't Alexander who won. Russian generals fight major battles, win strategic and tactical victories that are overwhelming, effectively trade space for time, but it's the enemy making continual mistakes that just so happen to lead Russia to victory after victory. Only Russia could win an 1812 war like that and people claim Napoleon lost for no reason at all. :rolleyes:
 
Top