Technological changes also inspired innovations in the army, particularly in the structure and operations of its general staff. Whatever his qualities as a commander in the field, Nikolai Obruchev was a hero as an administrator and, in effect, the formulator of imperial strategy from 1865 until 1898. He and the able group of young colonels who worked under him drew up mobilization plans for wars on the many fronts that had to be defended. They collected intelligence, topographical and statistical data of many kinds, and engaged in some thorough social research to underpin decisions; they also maintained an up-to-date base of technological knowledge relevant to warfare, and promoted military education. It was not by chance that many of the most energetic and innovative of these ‘action officers’ were from the guards regiments. This was a reflection not so much of snobbery as of the fact that the guards had a system of accelerated promotion. This allowed Obruchev to recruit a number of able senior officers who were young, mentally energetic and open to ideas. Together they applied scientific methods and ways of thinking to military planning and training. They aimed at professionalizing the army staff, and to a large extent they succeeded. Such developments promoted the Empire’s efficiency, but not all the efforts were sustained.
Obruchev’s ability was to be measured by the consequences of his departure. This, according to a military historian, coincided with ‘deepening strategic anarchy at the highest levels of the government’. War planning was disrupted by the repeated reorganization of the department; the operation lost direction, and became less dynamic, more complacent. Soon even the army’s ability to convince the government of its financial needs faltered. 32 The consequences were to be seen in the impending war with Japan. And misdirection of the army staff was only one ground for concern. The vigour of the young commanders (civil as well as military) and all the inventiveness of the technical intelligentsia were outweighed by the underproductive, restive rural population. The proportion of peasants to total population actually increased in the late nineteenth century. 33 This fundamental problem, and the regime’s inability to cope with it, effectively helped to drive Russia towards the disaster of 1905.
There is a monument on the banks of the Neva in St Petersburg on which sailors’ brides throw their bouquets on the evening of their wedding day. It commemorates those lost at the disastrous battle of Tsushima. Beset by a rising tide of domestic unrest, some government ministers had sought war as a diversion; and the Tsar, with his ill-advised sponsorship of dubious speculators active in the Far East, had helped provide the occasion for it. The Japanese had sounder reasons for engagement: to recover from the effects of Vitte’s démarche in having outwitted them to gain influence over China and Manchuria and a voice in Korea. Soon after Russia went to war with Japan in 1904, its hopes vanished. Port Arthur surrendered after a long siege in January 1905; the army was forced to abandon Mukden, and when the great Baltic fleet which had sailed majestically round Europe, Africa and Asia finally gave battle in May 1905 it lost a dozen battleships along with most of its smaller warships. But an even worse disaster had occurred in St Petersburg in January.
Troops had fired on a large but peaceful demonstration of workers passing the Winter Palace, killing over a hundred of them. Members of all classes throughout the Empire raised a chorus of protest. They also made a variety of demands. The working class called vociferously for better pay and conditions, the educated classes cried out for representative government, while Poles, Finns and others demanded national independence. Crowds clogged the streets of major cities; strikes became frequent and widespread; there was a mutiny in the Black Sea fleet; high-ranking officials were assassinated. Then the peasants rose. The disorders, especially in the countryside, were to take many months to suppress, but suppressed they were.
The departure for the front of so many military units that were normally available near the biggest population centres had encouraged the insurgents, and when the Tsar recalled Vitte and, with American help, peace was arranged with Japan, the tide soon turned. Soldiers dislike crowd-control and suppression duties, but these operations were on the whole well-managed, and casualties were comparatively few. A total of 2,691 people died as a result of terrorism; 2,390 people were executed for terrorist acts. 34 Meanwhile the Tsar’s promise of democratic elections to a parliament or Duma served further to quieten the middle-class opposition.
