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deed a serious family calamity, for in Russia peasant - proprietorship has, since the emancipation of the serfs, become a most burdensome and unprofitable reality. Agricultural labour for wages cannot be procured by the peasant proprietor. His land must be tilled by the exertions of his own family. The loss of a pair of strong hands and arms is immediately and severely felt, and there is no reduction in the rent collected by the State in the form of taxes. To help to meet the difficulty, a most cruel custom prevails. When the lad of twenty is drawn as a soldier, his parents frequently force him immediately to marry. The young woman is chosen chiefly for her working capacities; and when, after a few weeks' married life, her husband leaves her to serve his term of years, and perhaps never to return, the girl is driven by her father-in-law to take the absent son's place in the hardest of field labour. Thus in 1885 29 per cent recruits were married, and 67,046 girls, their wives, were condemned to wait years for the return of a husband whose love they had probably never won, and to pass the term of his absence in a condition of practical slavery, the ill - used drudges of pitiless fathers and mothers in law. It is a sad condition of affairs, and it is naturally not conducive to village morality. The drawing and the departure of the recruits are always signalised by the most extraordinary demonstrations of grief. The families accompany the young men to the district town, and stand about all day outside the recruiting office, and as each unfortunate lad appears who has drawn a number obliging him to serve, terrible howls are set up, not only by the women of his own family, but, pre

sumably out of sympathy, by half the women assembled. The extraordinary scene of a market-place crammed with peasant women standing about crying and wailing and sobbing the livelong day, is one of the most distressing spectacles I have ever witnessed.

As regards Russian officers, their merits as a body cannot, unfortunately, be considered equal to those of the men whom they command. The Russian nation, considered generally, consist of but two classes the peasantry and the nobility. Civilisation has not yet had time to form an important middle-class, still less to form such an upper middle class as provides the mass of officers for the English and German armies. The nobility furnishes officers for the Guards; the mass of the army is officered by men in whom a superficial civilisation has destroyed many of the primitive noble qualities to be found in the peasant soldiery, but who have acquired no solid compensating virtues. In one respect, and in one respect only, are such men worthy of the soldiers whom they are called upon to lead. They are absolutely careless of death. They are, unfortunately, equally careless of their duties and of the lives and wellbeing of their men. They have a high sense of the value of their rank, as entitling them to claim the obsequious subservance of inferiors and of civilians generally. Military custom allows them to draw the sword with impunity on any unfortunate and defenceless civilian who may have chanced to insult them; and many sad tales can be told, of what Englishmen cannot but consider as cold-blooded murders, where the victims were civilians who had resisted the intolerable self-assertion of quarrelsome officers. This keen sense of

the dignity of military rank is, however, unaccompanied by the corresponding feeling of responsibility which such rank should entail. The Russian officer, in full uniform, is not ashamed to publicly frequent the lowest haunts of vice in St Petersburg and Moscow, or to behave in public restaurants in a manner that would ensure the expulsion of civilians. He dares the police, knowing that they cannot arrest him; and, indeed, were he not as a rule a goodnatured fellow, he would make life unbearable to the civilians around him.

Skoboleff, who had the greatest faith in the Russian army, and honestly believed that it was a match for the Germans, whom he longed to meet, used to admit, nevertheless, that his one source of anxiety was the untrustworthiness of his officers. As he said, a general in the field is dependent on the faithful execution of his orders, at all events to the utmost ability of his officers; and he knew that not only could he not trust that his orders would be always faithfully executed, but that he

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the further risk that, when they had been neglected, he might be led to believe that they had been fulfilled. It is easy to understand the insecurity of a commander who receives an elaborate account of a reconnaissance which has never been made, or a report from an outpost which has never been posted. Yet this was the class of danger which Skoboleff most feared. Nothing can be more likely to happen than that an officer, ordered on some disagreeable duty, should at the last moment be delayed by the importunate hospitality of a comrade, and, gradually forgetting himself, let the hours slip by till too late to fulfil his orders; and then there

would be little hesitation in satisfying an exacting commander by. presenting a report to meet the occasion. The rules of the service as regards all duties are strict enough; it is a sense of conscientious responsibility which is wanting. An officer "on guard" is expected, during his twenty-four hours' turn, never to take off his greatcoat, his belts, or his arms. I have seen an officer "on guard playing billiards in a heated room, and walking round and round with sword and revolver, and buttoned up to the throat. His duty did not permit him to unbuckle a single strap. By and by some jovial comrades arrived, bent on a sledging party; and after some little expostulation, he accompanied them, leaving a hasty message to try and find somebody or other to answer for him till he should return-which, of course, he said, would be very shortly. This occurred in time of peace; but similar neglect of duty would not be wanting in war-time, and then the consequences might be seriousnot to the defaulter, but to the whole army.

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Appointment to the rank of officer is either obtained by cadets from the war schools, or by noncommissioned officers of good character, who can pass the necessary qualifying examination in the same subjects as are taught in the warschools. Of these schools there are seven, of which the four principal are in St Petersburg and Moscow, and which furnish an average of 400 officers annually for the infantry, and 80 or 90 for the cavalry. The Nicholas General Staff Academy admits every year 70 officers, for a two years' course, to qualify by examination for the general staff. Officers who complete the course satisfactorily secure appointments which give

them one step of rank higher than officers of the army generally, together with a corresponding advantage as to pay and allowances. Staff officers are, however, liable at any time to be sent back to regimental duty, and if not again employed on the staff during a period of three years, their names are struck off the list. The annual pay of an ensign on the line is 300 roubles, or about £30. The field pay given in time of war and in some of the remote Asiatic provinces is about £45 per annum. The corresponding rates of pay for a full colonel are £75 and £112. Every officer is entitled to free quarters and fuel, or lodging allowance, and also to a messing allowance or table-money, which, in the junior ranks, is equal to about two-thirds of the ordinary pay. Non-commissioned officers and men receive their pay quarterly in arrear, A private in a line regiment gets only about ten shillings per annum, and the highest existing rate paid to a sergeant-major is about £3, 125. Pensions are only granted to non-commissioned officers and men who have suffered from wounds or diseases whilst on service. Commissioned officers can retire on full pay after thirty-five years' service, and on half-pay after twenty-five years' service. There is also a special pension fund, formed by the deduction of 6 per cent from every officer's pay during his period of service. This fund is calculated to double the pensions granted by the State on retirement, and to afford a certain provision for the families of deceased officers.

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To sum up, the officer receives but little for his services, and but little is expected from him. The standard of education, except for the staff, is miserably low, and the

ordinary line officer being absolutely without intellectual resources, and with no money for amusements, passes a most wretched existence. To play at cards half the night and to sleep half the day is the routine of the officer's life in the villages and small provincial towns. Under such conditions, it is not to be wondered at that the weakest point in the Russian army is the incapacity of its leaders.

As regards general organisation, the Russian forces are divided into regular troops, irregular troops, and the Opoltchenie, or levée en masse.

The Opoltchenie consists of all men between the ages of twenty and forty capable of bearing arms, and not included in other levies. The numbers which could be included under this head are very large, but as there do not appear to be any arrangements for arming or otherwise supplying this force, it may practically be considered as non-effective for the ordinary purposes of warfare.

The irregular troops are composed of the Cossacks and militia. The militia consists only of a very few battalions and squadrons in the Caucasus and Transcaspia, and need not be considered. The Cossacks are divided up among the different army-corps in Europe and the forces in the Asiatic military districts.

The regular troops consist of the field or standing army, the reserve, depot troops, fortress artillery, local troops, and special corps. Of these in time of war the depot troops are required to maintain the field troops up to war-strength, and the garrison troops would be confined to their respective fortresses. For active operations in the field the standing army, the reserve, and the Cossacks would alone be available.

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If, as is probable, a division of infantry of the reserve, with its proportion of reserve artillery, were added to each army-corps which took the field in time of war, the fighting strength of each such corps would be increased by about 16,500 combatant officers and men and 32 guns, besides a suitable transport column.

In connection with the present political crisis, it is interesting to note the ordinary territorial disposition of the seventeen armycorps in European Russia. The Guard Corps, which is considerably stronger than any of the others, is concentrated in St Petersburg and

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its immediate neighbourhood-two infantry, one cavalry, and one artillery brigade being, however, detached to Warsaw. The 1st ArmyCorps, which is of normal strength, has also its headquarters at St Petersburg, and is quartered in the St Petersburg district. The 13th Army-Corps has its headquarters at Moscow, and so has the Grenadier Corps; but it must be noted that the latter has no cavalry division attached. Of the remaining thirteen army-corps, seven are on the western frontier, with two more in almost immediate reserve at Minsk and Riga. Prince Bismarck produced some years ago

quite a sensation in Berlin by distributing to the Reichsrath deputies a map showing the disposition of the Russian troops; but though they certainly appear to be always threateningly near the frontier, the Russians can explain with truth that their soldiers are naturally quartered in the most thickly populated districts, and where supplies, and particularly forage, are most abundantly to be procured. If Russia should intend an attack on either Germany or Austria, she need not-and in all probability would not move a man until at least a general mobilisation had been ordered, the reserves called out, and active operations within comparatively few days decided upon. For this reason all wild stories about concentration on the Austrian frontier may be disregarded. If the situation is considered threatening, no doubt the Russian War Minister will show special activity in the collection of material and supplies; but such minor preparations are very difficult to follow, and on the other hand, orders for mobilisation would necessarily be known throughout Europe within a few hours of their decree. The case is somewhat different if an invasion of the Balkan Peninsula is intended, and any serious movement of troops towards the south-west frontier of Russia would give reasonable cause for alarm; but even then there would probably be fair warning, for it is not likely that any army-corps would leave the headquarters, where all its stores and material are collected, until by special notice all men on furlough, or profiting by the various privileges for shortening service with the colours, had been called in.

So far the distribution of troops in European Russia only has been accounted for. There is a general impression even among ordinarily

well-informed people, that Russia now maintains imposing forces in Central Asia; but a few rough details will soon show how false is this idea. In the Caucasus proper, south of the Caucasian range, from which the Transcaspian region can be most readily reinforced. there is only one army-corps, with its headquarters at Tiflis. This corps has, however, three infantry and two cavalry divisions, instead of two infantry and one cavalrythe ordinary strength; and there are also four surplus rifle battalions quartered about Tiflis. In the Transcaspian region, as far as known, there are only twelve battalions of infantry, a Cossack brigade, four batteries of artillery, and minor detachments; whilst the army of Turkestan, with its headquarters at Tashkend, consists of twenty-five battalions of infantry, six Cossack regiments, nine batteries of artillery, and sundry details. Considering the the enormous

tracts of country which these troops guard, the forces above enumerated cannot be considered as much in excess of ordinary garrison requirements; and before any serious aggressive operation could be undertaken, there must be great movements of troops, which cannot be made in absolute secrecy.

The defects and maladministration of the intendance or supply departments would be a very weak point in the Russian army, were it not that the remarkable qualities of endurance of the soldier, already described, enable him, to a great extent, to make light of deficiencies which would most seriously affect the fighting capacity of less hardy soldiers. During the last Russo-Turkish war, the corruption and mismanagement in the commissariat and other departments of supply were nevertheless responsible for quite as many lives

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