292. Trial and error method
“Trial and error is a fundamental method of Problem solving. It is characterised by repeated, varied attempts which are continued until success,or until the agent stops trying. Until getting the right answer the problem is repeating through various steps. This type of problem solving is called trial and error method.”
Definition
“Progress through trial and error depends not only on making trials, but on recognizing errors.”
Virginia Postrel
“
An error does not become a mistake, until you refuse to correct it.”
Orlando A. Battista
“Anyone can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in their error.”
Cicero
“We Russians are in a happy position of impartial witnesses to these [naval] disputes, which are reaching the extreme limits of irritability and causing the most fierce struggle of passions in the press.”
Admiral Butakov
“
We closely, step by step, followed everything that is being done in foreign admiralties, and there was no invention or improvement in the area of shipbuilding equipment that in one way or another was not immediately made to our property."
Russian Naval Ministry, 1880s
“We can't do experiments in the construction of battleships”
Grand Duke Alexey Alexandrovich (before he became Admiral-General)
Russia. Late 1880s
Going parliamentarian…
As was promised, there were elections into the State Duma of the Russian Empire. The powers of the Duma were determined by the law of February 20, 1886, regulating the order of work of the Duma, and the "Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire". The Duma was elected for 5 years, and the Emperor was granted the right to dissolve it. The Duma could adopt the laws proposed to it by the government, as well as approve the state budget. Between sessions, the emperor could individually pass laws, which were then subject to approval by the Duma during the sessions. The State Duma was the lower house of parliament. The role of the upper house was played by the Council of State, which was to approve or reject the laws adopted by the Duma. All executive power remained in the hands of the monarch, he also alone led the Armed Forces, determined foreign policy, resolved issues of declaring war and peace, imposing a state of emergency or martial law in any territory of the Empire.
The class-curial system was recognized as preferable to general, direct, equal and secret elections because it was expected that “
In a peasant country where the majority of the population is not experienced in political art, free and direct elections will lead to the victory of irresponsible demagogues and as a result mostly lawyers will sit in the legislature”. Well, both the Emperor and his Prime Minister (officially, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers) N. Bunge were right in their anticipation of the “worst case scenario” but, due to a complete lack of a relevant experience, did not prevent it from happening: unlike the parliamentarian “west”, in Russia category of the politically active left-leaning “irresponsible demagogues” was not dominated by the
lawyers: it was spread more or less evenly among all professions occupied by intelligencia. And, while the qualifying requirements for the candidates from peasantry, working class and even landowners and entrepreneurs were rather strict, for a “white collar” it was enough to rent an apartment on his name or to serve in the state or city administration.
The “true conservatives” ignored election as a matter of principle.
As a result, professional composition of the Duma looked as following: 121 peasants, 10 artisans, 17 factory workers, 14 traders, 5 manufacturers and factory managers, 46 landlords and estate managers, 73 zemstvo, city and noble assembly employees, 6 priests, 14 officials,
39 lawyers, 16 doctors, 7 engineers, 16 professors and private associate professors, 3 gymnasium teachers, 14 rural teachers,
11 journalists and 9 of unknown profession.
The biggest party (176 out of 480) were “Constitutional Democrats” (cadets) followed by 96 members of the “Labor Alliance” (trudovik):
- Cadets - one of the party founders, Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov [1] described the constitutional and democratic movement as ideological, extracurricular, socio-reformist, defined the main task of the party being created as "entering the Duma with the exclusive purpose of fighting for political freedom and for proper representation", and drew the boundaries of the party in the political spectrum of Russia as follows: from the more right-wing parties, the Cadets are distinguished by the denial of both bureaucratic centralization and Manchester (the direction of economic policy of the XIX century in England, which requires unconditional non-interference of the state in economic life), from the more left - adherence to constitutional monarchy and denial of the demand for full socialization of the means of production. The party also demanded creation of the Constitutional Assembly, unconditional amnesty of all political convicts, voting rights for everybody and vaguely defined “political and civic freedoms”. The party enjoyed great success in wide circles of intellectuals, merchants and burghers, liberal nobility, as well as among workers. Broad public support for it was provided by program of deep political and social transformations, while on the other hand, the desire to implement these reforms exclusively peacefully, parliamentaryly, without revolutions, violence and blood. Party figures criticized both the repressive actions of the authorities and violent actions by revolutionaries.
- trudovik - A group of deputies from peasants and intellectuals of the populist direction. It was just a parliamentarian group, not a party, and did not have a clear platform. It was to the left of cadets on agrarian issue. The land has to be transferred to the peasants and there must be a direct, universal secret elections.
- With the exception of 16 “Octobrists”, the rest were members of various leftist groups.
The first meeting of the State Duma was held on April 27, 1887 in the Tavrichesky Palace of St. Petersburg (after a reception with Alexander III in Winter Palace).
Whatever were the declared intentions, the practice was strictly confrontational. With the beginning of the work, the Cadets raised the issue of amnesty for all political prisoners, the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of the Council of State, the establishment of the responsibility of the Council of Ministers to the Duma. Which was an attempt of a power grab on more than one level: the Council of State was an equal body of a higher rank and the Duma did not have a right to request change of the existing executive structure or the laws. The majority of deputies supported these demands, and on May 5, 1887 they were sent to Bunge, who refused all the demands of the Duma on May 13.
On May 7, the cadet faction signed by 42 deputies put forward a bill providing for the additional allocation of land to peasants at the expense of state, monastery, church, udel [2] and cabinet [3] lands, as well as partial forced redemption of landlord lands. The whole thing was mostly a demagoguery seeking to win popularity. By that time peasants already owned over 80% of
agricultural land with the landowners, except for a limited number of big high productivity estates, owned mostly forests (a good source of income with a minimal effort). Then, on all categories of the mentioned land there already were
workers (as in “employed agricultural workers”) and, logically, they’d be the first to get land and the peasants (as in “minor land owners”) would get big fat nothing or close to nothing because, the “released” land in European Russia simply would not be big enough. Which was leaving available lands in Siberia but …oops… the resettlement program was already in place and the peasants were reluctant to take advantage of it. Well, the professors, lawyers, etc. would not waste time on studying the land distribution within the empire and the peasants had a semi-religious belief that the big stretches of a free land are hidden somewhere near their own fields.
On May 23, the Trudovik faction proposed its bill providing for the formation of a "public land fund", from which it was supposed to allocate land for use to landless and low-land peasants, as well as the confiscation of land from landlords in excess of the "labor norm" with payment of the established remuneration to the latter. The project was proposed to be implemented through elected local land committees.
On June 6, 33 deputies submitted a bill on the immediate nationalization of all natural resources and the abolition of private ownership of land. By a majority vote, the Duma refused to consider such a radical draft. [4]
On June 8, the Committee of Ministers decided to dissolve the State Duma if the situation around the agrarian issue continued to escalate, as its wide discussion in the Duma caused an increase in public polemics and an increase in the revolutionary movement.
The cadet faction also introduced a bill on the immunity of Duma deputies, which provided that criminal prosecution of a deputy during the session was possible only with the consent of the Duma (except for detention during or immediately after the commission of a crime, but even in this case the Duma could cancel the detention), and if the case was initiated between sessions, all procedural actions and detentions were suspended until the opening of the session and the resolution of this issue by the Duma. Duma, however, refused to consider this bill.
Some of the liberal ministers proposed to give some of the ministerial positions to the cadets but majority of the Committee rejected idea: so far the cadets’ behavior was exclusively confrontational. The State Duma expressed no confidence in the government (which was outside Duma’s competence), after which a number of ministers began to boycott the Duma and its meetings.
For all the time of work, the deputies approved 2 bills - on the abolition of the death penalty (initiated by deputies in violation of the procedure) and on the allocation of 15 million rubles to help victims of crop failure, introduced by the government. The government offered a credit of 50 million rubles, but the Duma, wanting to express its distrust to it, reduced the amount.
By July 8 Alexander had enough and the Duma was dissolved.
“
The elected from the population, instead of a legislative work , went into an area that did not belong to them and turned to investigate the actions of the local authorities set from Us, to the instructions to Us on the imperfections of the Basic Laws, the amendments of which can only be taken by Our Monarch’s will, and to actions clearly illegal, as a direct appeal to the population …
But let Our subjects remember that only with complete order and tranquility is a lasting improvement in the people's life possible. Let it be known that We will not allow any willfulness or iniquity and by all the power of state we will lead the obedients of the law to submission to Our Royal will. We call on all benevolent Russian people to unite to maintain legitimate power and restore peace in Our dear Fatherland.”
Manifest also declared that the new elections will be held.
The first try was, obviously, unsuccessful and the corrective measures had been taken. The law was modified. The government, in case of emergency, had the right to adopt laws without discussion with the Duma, between the dissolution of one Duma and the convening of another, or during the termination of the Duma. The new even more convoluted election rules had been introduced to get the better results than at the first try [5]:
79 peasants, 16 artisans and workers, 49 clergy, 133 zemstvo employees, 22 private employees, 12 writers and publicists, 25 officials, 10 professors, 20 teachers, 37 lawyers, 36 traders and industrialists, 242 landowners, 2 engineers.
225 deputies were from the right wing including Octobrists and only 52 from cadets. The Octobrist Party was one of the leading ones. Some of the deputies of the Octobrists united with the moderate right, forming a leading new group in the Duma - the Party of Russian Nationalists, headed by Pyotr Balashov. This group became the "legislative center" of the Duma.
With the required majority of about 220 votes, the Octobrist faction practically owned the Duma. The alliance of the Octobrists with the nationalists gave a majority on government bills with which the Octobrists agreed; the alliance with the Cadets and Trudoviks gave the Octobrists a majority on any initiative that did not suit the government.
As was expected, the Duma immediately organized numerous commissions, sub-commissions and temporary commissions (most of which were permanent). The commissions worked actively and spent so much time discussing important bills that it caused many years of delays. For example, the draft law on volost management was discussed at 19 meetings of the commission on local self-government and at 60 meetings of the special subcommission, which took more than three years.
Based on the results of the discussion of the bill, the commission appointed a special rapporteur, who presented the conclusion of the commission to the general meeting of the Duma. The bill was discussed three times, with breaks between discussions for at least three days; the first time as a whole, the second and third - under individual articles. For bills recognized as hasty, the second and third readings could be combined. At the second reading, amendments to the bill were allowed. The slow procedure for discussing bills led to the accumulation of bills considered by the commissions and unaccepted, and before the closing of the 4th session, the Duma was forced to adopt up to 120 laws on the last day.
While a complete loyalty could not be fully guaranteed, there was a powerful stimulus: a member of the Duma was receiving 4,200 rubles annually. For comparison, professor or director of the gymnasium received 3200-3500 rubles while an average income of a peasant or worker was 200-300 rubles. Total annual state expenses on maintaining Duma were in a range of 2.5 - 2.9 millions rubles.
This Duma proved to be much more cooperative. 2,571 bills were introduced by various departments. Of these, 106 were taken back by the departments themselves, 79 were rejected by the Duma, 215 were not considered, 2,346 were accepted. Of the adopted, 31 were rejected by the State Council, 26 were returned to the Duma, 94 were transferred to the conciliation commissions of the Duma and the State Council. 2 bills adopted by the Duma and the State Council did not receive the Highest approval. 2,197 bills were approved by the Tsar and became laws. Most of these bills turned into the laws were the minor issues, sometimes creation of a single new position in state apparatus. The flooding of parliament with unimportant bills was an effective means that the government used to neutralize the Duma. The calculation that deputies crushed by the current work under small laws will moderate their own legislative initiatives was generally justified. Below is a contemporary caricature: numerous ministerial bills are dumped through the roof of the Tavrichesky Palace, place where Duma was working ( people doing the dumping are in the uniforms of top-ranking government officials ).
The naval dilemma.
Until 1880s Russian navy was receiving little of a public attention: the glorious naval battles were in a past, and the main task of a navy was to protect the coasts. Which, due to the fact that both in Baltic and Black sea all the powers directly involved had been Russian long-term allies, seemingly was not such a big deal. Ports on the White and Barents seas had been protected by the geography, climate, fortifications and Northern squadron based upon Kola but the same geography and climate made a permanent major naval presence there rather impractical. For quite a while a small Siberian flotilla on the Pacific was considered adequate for the needs, which were limited to catching the poachers and carrying goods between the Russian ports on Asiatic and American coast.
Ideologically, the turret-based artillery (at least of a main caliber) became popular on the early stages pf its appearance.
Practicality in each specific case was a different issue because initially the turrets had been closely associated with the monitors which, while being very good for a coastal defense, had very limited seaworthiness and even within the Baltic Sea needed some upgrades. The first of which was “Peter the Great” completed in 1872 and initially classified as an armored cruiser.
Then, there was a pause in construction of the big ships caused by combination of an absence of obvious need and a complete ideological chaos in that area. Britain, France and Italy kept experimenting in the areas of speed, armor and artillery, sometimes going into the extremes.
For example, Italy, to address a threat from the French Navy, built two powerful battleships
Duilio and
Dandolo having “citadel” and the turrets protected by the armor 22 inches thick but the rest of the ships was protected only by underwater armored deck on top of which there was a layer of small waterproof compartments, which should limit flooding from a single hit. Some of these compartments were filled with coal, others with cork or supplies. Thus, the protection of the ship was provided by an invulnerable armored citadel in the center of the hull, and a checkered layer over the armored deck at the ends. Each of these ships had 4 17.7 inch British made moozle-loading guns placed in two turrets. To load the guns, it was necessary to turn the towers and lower the muzzles of the guns into armored glasis, under which ammunition was located. Limited amount of armor protection allowed to maintain speed up to 15 knots, which at that time was quite high. The ships had a range of 5,000 - 6,000 miles which was excessive for the coastal defense but reflected Italian expansionist ambitions on both Eastern and Western Med. France and Britain were in a constant fear of each other’s attack and, each in its own way, was creating series of ships that cost a lot of money but which advantages and disadvantages never had been seriously tested.
Russian situation, so far, was much better both because of a friendly surroundings on the Baltic and Black seas but because none of these friendly powers was putting too much stress on its naval forces based in these seas. As a result, the general policy was to maintain a force adequate for the coastal defenses and to see the results of competing naval developments. The main exceptions were the long-range cruisers needed to maintain connection with the Russian Pacific (and to irritate Brits into bigger expenses for countering non-existing threat).
The downside of this seemingly reasonable schema was person in charge, the Grand Duke Alexey Alexandrovich, Admiral-General of the Russian Navy. While he was quite sincere in his good intentions, his love to the “good life” was even stronger and he was incapable of a systematic work. As a result, his subordinates in Admiralty found that the easiest way to have things done is to find funds for sending him to entertain himself in Paris and to do whatever is needed in his absence.
Black Sea
The first barbette battleship for the Black Sea, “St. Catherine”, was completed in 1889. It had displacement of 11,000 tons, speed up to 15.2 knots,
6 ×
305 mm/35 caliber guns in 3 barbettes, 7 × 152 mm/35 Cane guns, and 10—12 small caliber guns. This, and 3 following ships of the class had and armored belt along the whole length. In the 1990s the ships had been upgraded: the better engines and more modern armor had been installed.
In 1888 construction of the new series of battleships started (the first was ready by 1892). Displacement over 8,000 tons, armored belt of a compound steel 259 - 356mm, turrets 254 - 305 mm, deck 66 mm. Speed 15.2 knots. Main artillery 4 - 305mm/35 (in 2 turrets) and 4 - 152mm/35 guns.
Baltic Sea
On the Baltic Sea, 2 new battleships had been added in the late 1880s, “Alexander II” and “Nicholas I”. Displacement 9,500 tons, compound armor belt of 102 - 365 mm, turret - 254 mm, deck - 60 mm, speed up to 16 knots, artillery 2 ×
305-мм/30 (in a single turret), 4 × 229-мм/35, 8 × 152-мм/35, 16 × 47-мм. Their specific feature was orientation toward operations in an open ocean including the Pacific (hence the high sides).
As for the Pacific, it was decided that “
Given the rapid successes of China and Japan in the development of naval forces and the fact that the fleets of European powers can easily join them in the event of a break with Russia, we had to limit ourselves to the defense of "the most important points of our coastal" in this theater of operations.” Anyway, until infrastructure on the Pacific coast was developed to a necessary degree, keeping a major fleet there on a permanent base was difficult or even impossible. Russia's political and trade interests in the Far East region could well be protected by a "
sufficient number of cruisers" who, in the event of a war with European powers, could
"seriously threaten their trade by attacking their commercial ships, warehouses and colonies." In the case of the serious problems with China, if Europe is at peace, special squadrons from the Baltic and Black Sea could be send there on a temporary assignment.
Sweden. By 1878 the naval force of Sweden had been for a number of years divided into two branches, one comprising the navy proper, and the other known as the "coast artillery." The navy proper consisted of the relatively small (1,000 - 2,000 tons) screw-propelled ships with the guns being rifled breech and muzzle loaders of 9, 5J, and 4 inch caliber. The coast artillery was considered the most important arm of defense; its total force was one hundred and twenty vessels of all kinds. This includes the armored vessels, the four largest being counterparts of the
Passaic class. In the above were included, also, the small turreted boats built from the designs of Captain Ericsson, and provided with machinery to be worked by hand, independently of steam; there were, also, forty-four sloop-rigged galleys, six mortar-launches, and fifty-three yawls. Only in 1882 a committee of the parliament agreed upon a new type of ironclads of greater dimensions and seaworthiness, greater speed, and more powerful armament. In 1880s it built 3 coastal defense ships of
Svea class (displacement over 3,000 tons, speed 16 knots, armor 11.5 inch belt and turret, armament 2 - 10in in one turret, 4 - 6 in, 6 - 5.7cm and two torpedo tubes).
Germany. For a while its navy was considered predominantly within a framework of a coastal defense and, while being recognized as a separate service, until 1888 it was commanded by army officers, adopted the same regulations as the Prussian army and was subordinated to the general coastal defense system controlled by the army. With the Baltic being “friendly sea”, the main stress was on the Northern Sea and potential defense against France or Britain. In May 1872 a ten-year building programme was instituted to modernise the fleet. This called for eight armoured
frigates, six armoured
corvettes, twenty light corvettes, seven
monitors, two
floating batteries, six
avisos, eighteen
gunboats and twenty-eight
torpedo boats, at an estimated cost of 220 million
gold marks. In 1883 the navy had seven armoured frigates and four armoured corvettes. There was a new emphasis on development of the torpedo, which offered the possibility of relatively small ships successfully attacking much larger ones. In October 1887 the first torpedo division was created at Wilhelmshaven. Later, the protection of German maritime trade routes became important. This soon involved the setting up of some overseas supply stations, so called Auswärtige Stationen (foreign stations). So far, things were quiet and nice for everybody concerned but in June 1888
Wilhelm II became Emperor after the death of his father
Frederick III, who ruled for only 99 days.
The new Kaiser was obsessed with the naval issues approximately to the same degree as with dislike to his British relatives. Well, the last part was easy to understand: a need to make the regular visits to his mother’s family could be quite taxing. His grandmother was a self-righteous opinionated “ball on the bent legs” [6] with a serious case of mania grandiosa and terrible taste [7] but, what was worse, the British upper class tended to look at everybody else down their noses and Wilhelm II, a ruler of one of the most powerful European states hated to be treated as something of a poor relative.
Taking into an account that the main foundation of the British sense of a superiority was their naval power, it is not a big surprise that Wilhelm wanted to get even or superior in this specific area. Another aspect of being “equal” was possession of a big colonial empire and this also required a powerful navy. Of course, expansion of a naval power would come at the expense of an army and the successive heads of the German military forces were opposed to it but to no avail. The obvious counter-argument to their protest was: why should Germany expand its army when there are no obvious enemies on the continent? Breaking with a tradition of having the generals in charge of the German navy, in July 1888 Wilhelm II appointed Vice-Admiral
Alexander von Monts as head of the admiralty.
Monts oversaw the design of the
Brandenburg-class battleship, four of which were constructed by 1894 at a cost of 16 million marks each and displacement of 10,000 tons. Design was influenced by the French
Admiral Baudin class that carried three single-
gun turrets, all on the
centerline. The Brandenburg-class battleships as its main caliber carried a battery of six 28 cm guns of two different calibers; the forward and aft turrets mounted 40-caliber guns while the
amidships turret required the use of shorter 35-caliber guns to allow the turret to rotate.
The first two ships of the class had a compound armor and on two other nickel-steel armor had been used. The side protection system followed the so-called "French principle", using a narrow, full-length armored belt to protect the hull, rather than a shorter
citadel system that only protected a ship's ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. Above the waterline, the armored belt was 300 mm (11.8 in) forward and as the belt moved further aft, it stepped up to 330 mm (13 in), then to 380 mm (15 in), and finally to 400 mm (15.7 in) in the central portion of the ship where it protected the magazines and machinery spaces. Further aft, it tapered to 350 mm (13.8 in) and then to 300 mm toward the stern. The deck armor was only 60mm thick but walls of the turrets were 300mm. Speed was up to 16.5 knots.
It was up to anybody to figure out what is going to happen next and this was making everyone nervous.
____________
[1] As with many others, I had to move his life “forward”: it does not make sense to keep inventing the fictional personages. In OTL at that time he was still working in university on his master degree in history.
[2] Properties income from which was used to finance members of the imperial family. By that time income was produced from the rents paid by the tenants.
[3] Property of the imperial family, which was ruled by the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. Cabinet lands were concentrated in Altai (since 1747) and in Transbaikalia (since 1786). In Siberia, Cabinet lands occupied 67,800,000 hectares. Gold, silver, lead, copper were mined on the cabinet lands, there were factories for smelting iron, cast iron, steel. By 1880s most of these enterprises had been leased and since 1865 peasants’s settlement (rent) on these lands had been permitted. So even in OTL the requirement was a demagoguery or just a result of ignorance in the subject.
[4] In practical terms this would mean an absolute
government’s control of all natural resources and who was a head of the government? 😉
[5] The greatest specialist in the election laws was not around to explain that “
it is not important how people are voting; what is important is who is counting the votes.” Well, it was the XIX century Russia and the progressive ideas were not there, yet. 😉
[6] This is from Nicky Romanov.
[7] Well, the taste part was probably lost on Willy who (or was it his wife?) declared that he and a culture are things incompatible.