WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 Welcome to the deep dive. We are so glad you 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:04.540 are here with us today. I want you to start by 00:00:04.540 --> 00:00:07.860 picturing a scale that, well, a scale that almost 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:11.539 defies human comprehension. Right. Imagine a 00:00:11.539 --> 00:00:15.339 military force so unbelievably massive that over 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:17.579 the course of just a few years, specifically 00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:20.280 during World War One, it managed to mobilize 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:24.550 15 million men. Which is, I mean. 15 million. 00:00:24.670 --> 00:00:27.089 It is a staggering number to wrap your head around. 00:00:27.149 --> 00:00:29.070 It really is. That is not just a large army. 00:00:29.429 --> 00:00:31.670 That is the entire population of a medium -sized 00:00:31.670 --> 00:00:34.109 country, you know. uprooted from their lives, 00:00:34.549 --> 00:00:37.090 all marching into a single imperial banner across 00:00:37.090 --> 00:00:39.689 this sprawling, multi -continental empire. Exactly. 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:42.530 When you hit a figure like 15 million, you aren't 00:00:42.530 --> 00:00:44.429 just talking about battlefield tactics anymore. 00:00:44.549 --> 00:00:46.729 You are talking about the complete mobilization 00:00:46.729 --> 00:00:49.670 of a society's food, its transportation, its 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:51.789 economy, and its culture. And that is exactly 00:00:51.789 --> 00:00:54.070 our mission today. We're going to unpack the 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:57.210 fascinating, chaotic, and highly dramatic history 00:00:57.210 --> 00:00:59.350 of the Imperial Russian Army. We will be tracing 00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:01.969 its entire lifespan from its formal founding 00:01:01.969 --> 00:01:05.409 by Peter the Great in 1721 all the way to its 00:01:05.409 --> 00:01:09.209 total catastrophic collapse during the 1917 revolution. 00:01:10.010 --> 00:01:12.209 OK, let's unpack this. To set the baseline for 00:01:12.209 --> 00:01:13.989 this deep dive, we really have to look at what 00:01:13.989 --> 00:01:16.790 this army actually represented. This isn't just 00:01:16.790 --> 00:01:19.170 a chronological list of generals and troop movements. 00:01:19.209 --> 00:01:21.290 No, definitely not. What we are examining is 00:01:21.290 --> 00:01:25.030 the story of how a massive empire tries and ultimately 00:01:25.030 --> 00:01:29.790 fails to modernize a highly rigid, deeply unequal 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:33.510 society. And crucially, how it attempts to use 00:01:33.510 --> 00:01:36.230 the military as its primary tool to force that 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:38.829 modernization upon its people. To really understand 00:01:38.829 --> 00:01:40.489 how they got to that point, we actually had to 00:01:40.489 --> 00:01:42.150 step back a little bit before Peter the Great 00:01:42.150 --> 00:01:45.290 to look at the army's precursors. The Streltsy. 00:01:45.530 --> 00:01:48.349 Yes, the Streltsy. Back then, the Russian Tsars 00:01:48.349 --> 00:01:50.969 relied on these hereditary musketeers. They were 00:01:50.969 --> 00:01:52.810 originally raised by Ivan the Terrible in the 00:01:52.810 --> 00:01:54.790 16th century. And at first, they were a highly 00:01:54.790 --> 00:01:57.500 effective fighting force. They were. But over 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:00.659 the decades, the role became hereditary. Fathers 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:02.859 passed their positions down to their sons, and 00:02:02.859 --> 00:02:05.099 they essentially became this localized, entrenched 00:02:05.099 --> 00:02:08.280 political class. They turned into a massive political 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:11.780 headache for the Tsars. The Streltsy became completely 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:14.479 unruly, highly undisciplined, and just incredibly 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:17.020 unreliable. Right. They functioned almost like 00:02:17.020 --> 00:02:19.479 a Praetorian guard that could launch rebellions 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.729 or heavily influence who sat on the throne. If 00:02:22.729 --> 00:02:25.469 Russia was going to compete on the rapidly evolving 00:02:25.469 --> 00:02:29.210 European stage, relying on a localized hereditary 00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:32.610 militia simply wasn't going to cut it. So Peter 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:35.750 the Great looked at these unruly musketeers and 00:02:35.750 --> 00:02:38.830 realized he needed a complete overhaul. He wanted 00:02:38.830 --> 00:02:41.750 a modern Western -style regular army. Which meant 00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:44.909 a draft. A brutal draft. In December of 1699 00:02:44.909 --> 00:02:47.710 he introduced this quota -based conscription 00:02:47.710 --> 00:02:50.289 system. The government started drafting peasants 00:02:50.289 --> 00:02:52.370 and townspeople based on the number of households 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:54.849 in a settlement and eventually they shifted to 00:02:54.849 --> 00:02:57.229 drafting based on total population numbers. And 00:02:57.229 --> 00:02:59.870 that draft fundamentally altered the social fabric 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.110 of the Russian countryside. I couldn't believe 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:04.069 it when I read the details of this. Yeah. If 00:03:04.069 --> 00:03:06.110 you were a peasant who got tapped on the shoulder 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.550 in the 18th century, it was a lifetime sentence. 00:03:08.789 --> 00:03:11.210 Literally life. You were in the army for life. 00:03:11.849 --> 00:03:15.030 Wait, how did the local economy even function 00:03:15.030 --> 00:03:16.909 if you're pulling all these able -bodied men 00:03:16.909 --> 00:03:19.590 out of the workforce for their entire adult lives? 00:03:19.810 --> 00:03:22.349 It was economically devastating for individual 00:03:22.349 --> 00:03:25.150 villages. When a man was conscripted, he was 00:03:25.150 --> 00:03:26.930 essentially considered dead to his community. 00:03:27.289 --> 00:03:30.330 It wasn't until 1793 that they generously, and 00:03:30.330 --> 00:03:32.650 I use that word loosely, reduced the term to 00:03:32.650 --> 00:03:35.229 25 years. Which is still a lifetime for a peasant 00:03:35.229 --> 00:03:37.770 back then. Exactly. But from the perspective 00:03:37.770 --> 00:03:40.969 of the imperial government, that ruthless approach 00:03:40.969 --> 00:03:44.280 to build a standing army yielded undeniable military 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:46.819 results on the global stage. They were willing 00:03:46.819 --> 00:03:50.340 to sacrifice local agrarian productivity to build 00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:52.860 an unstoppable military machine. Unstoppable 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:55.060 is the perfect word for it because by the late 00:03:55.060 --> 00:03:58.000 1700s, this army had become a total European 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.199 juggernaut. Oh, absolutely. Just look at General 00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:02.800 Alexander Suvorov. He led Russian forces from 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:06.219 the 1760s through the 1790s. The historical record 00:04:06.219 --> 00:04:08.340 highlights him as one of the very few generals 00:04:08.340 --> 00:04:11.210 in all of recorded history. who never lost a 00:04:11.210 --> 00:04:13.689 single battle. Not one. He fought the Turks. 00:04:14.090 --> 00:04:16.750 He fought the Poles. He campaigned in the Crimea, 00:04:17.009 --> 00:04:19.350 the Caucasus, and marched his men all the way 00:04:19.350 --> 00:04:22.949 into Italy and the Swiss Alps. He was the living 00:04:22.949 --> 00:04:27.170 symbol of the rising dominance of this new military 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:30.399 structure. Dominance is fleeting, though, especially 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:32.480 in Europe during the turn of the 19th century. 00:04:33.060 --> 00:04:35.360 The tactics that worked brilliantly for Suvorov 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.199 eventually ran headlong into the dawn of modern 00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:42.339 warfare. So we enter the early 1800s. Despite 00:04:42.339 --> 00:04:45.120 Suvorov's earlier successes, the Russian army 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.779 was still operating under an ancient regime mindset. 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:50.019 Very much so. Essentially, they were clinging 00:04:50.019 --> 00:04:52.860 to the old medieval style feudal order. There 00:04:52.860 --> 00:04:55.259 was no permanent military formation above the 00:04:55.259 --> 00:04:57.920 regimental level. The senior officers were almost 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:00.180 entirely recruited from aristocratic circles 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:03.120 by birthright, not merit. And the common soldiers 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:05.920 were treated terribly. Regularly beaten and violently 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.420 punished just to instill discipline. So when 00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:11.019 they finally clashed with the dynamic, fast -moving 00:05:11.019 --> 00:05:12.980 forces of Napoleon and the French Empire. They 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:15.639 hit a brick wall. They did. The Russians and 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:18.019 their Austrian allies suffered a massive, crushing 00:05:18.019 --> 00:05:21.290 defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. If 00:05:21.290 --> 00:05:23.670 we connect this to the bigger picture, Austerlitz 00:05:23.670 --> 00:05:26.649 forced a brutal reckoning. Napoleon wasn't fighting 00:05:26.649 --> 00:05:29.670 like an 18th century aristocrat. He was moving 00:05:29.670 --> 00:05:32.730 massive corps of men rapidly across the continent. 00:05:33.259 --> 00:05:36.180 That threat culminated in 1812 when Napoleon 00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:39.120 invaded Russia with a ground army of six hundred 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:41.279 and fifty thousand men. Six hundred and fifty 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:43.980 thousand. The logistics of simply feeding that 00:05:43.980 --> 00:05:46.480 many horses and soldiers was a nightmare for 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:48.899 the French. And the Russian commander, Field 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.759 Marshal Kutuzov, knew exactly how to exploit 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:54.079 that vulnerability. Right, because Kutuzov knew 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:56.899 he couldn't beat Napoleon in a straight up traditional 00:05:56.899 --> 00:05:59.160 European battle. So he didn't try. He traded 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:01.740 space for time. The famous scorched earth policy. 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:04.660 Yes. The details of this retreat are just apocalyptic. 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:07.000 Imagine being a Russian peasant and watching 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.639 your own army burn your lands, your crops, and 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:12.120 your villages as they retreated eastward. They 00:06:12.120 --> 00:06:14.759 fought one incredibly bloody battle at Borodino, 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:17.800 but then Kudasov kept retreating, leaving the 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:20.100 road to Moscow wide open. And when the French 00:06:20.100 --> 00:06:22.500 finally arrived in Moscow in September, expecting 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:24.540 a formal surrender and a warm place to spend 00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:26.740 the winter, they found that the Russian governor 00:06:26.740 --> 00:06:29.060 had ordered the city burnt to the ground. They 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:31.879 willingly destroy their own cultural heart just 00:06:31.879 --> 00:06:34.980 to deny it to the enemy. It is a level of commitment 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:38.720 that completely broke Napoleon's strategic framework. 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:42.360 Emperor Alexander I absolute refused to capitulate. 00:06:42.519 --> 00:06:45.660 Refused. So there Napoleon was sitting in the 00:06:45.660 --> 00:06:48.160 smoldering ashes of Moscow realizing he had no 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:50.980 food. The brutal Russian winter was setting in 00:06:50.980 --> 00:06:54.480 and he had no clear path to victory. And so began 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:57.740 the Great Retreat. The French army starved, they 00:06:57.740 --> 00:07:00.339 frozen the snow, and they were constantly harassed 00:07:00.339 --> 00:07:02.819 by Russian troops the entire way back. Out of 00:07:02.819 --> 00:07:05.839 that initial 650 ,000 strong invasion force, 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:08.079 by the time they dragged themselves back across 00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:11.019 the Niemen River in December, only 20 ,000 fit 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:13.939 soldiers remained. 20 ,000 from 650 ,000. The 00:07:13.939 --> 00:07:16.459 sheer loss of human life in that campaign is 00:07:16.459 --> 00:07:18.720 difficult to even fathom. It really is. What's 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.759 fascinating here is the stunning reversal of 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.550 fortune that followed. Kutuzov traded space for 00:07:23.550 --> 00:07:25.870 time and the strategy worked so flawlessly that 00:07:25.870 --> 00:07:28.370 by 1814 Russian troops weren't just defending 00:07:28.370 --> 00:07:30.910 their own borders, they were marching all the 00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:33.610 way across Europe and physically occupying Paris. 00:07:34.029 --> 00:07:36.670 Wow. That victory established Russia not just 00:07:36.670 --> 00:07:40.350 as a survivor, but as a premier continental power. 00:07:40.810 --> 00:07:42.649 They essentially became the military backbone 00:07:42.649 --> 00:07:44.910 of the Holy Alliance, which was a coalition of 00:07:44.910 --> 00:07:47.750 conservative monarchs actively working to crush 00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:49.990 any new revolutionary movements in Europe after 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:52.879 Napoleon's defeat. They were riding high, seeing 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:56.480 themselves as the saviors of Europe. But complacency 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:59.740 is dangerous. It always is. Following the Napoleonic 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:02.459 Wars, Emperor Nicholas of Hyde kept the army 00:08:02.459 --> 00:08:06.120 incredibly large. By the 1850s, it numbered over 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:09.819 1 .1 million troops. But the main focus of this 00:08:09.819 --> 00:08:12.300 massive army had completely devolved. They stopped 00:08:12.300 --> 00:08:15.189 innovating. Exactly. Instead of tactical innovation, 00:08:15.410 --> 00:08:17.449 they became obsessed with parades, uniforms, 00:08:17.769 --> 00:08:19.949 and highly choreographed artificial war games 00:08:19.949 --> 00:08:22.490 overseen by the emperor himself. They were polishing 00:08:22.490 --> 00:08:24.589 their boots and perfecting their marching steps 00:08:24.589 --> 00:08:26.850 while the rest of the world was industrializing 00:08:26.850 --> 00:08:29.649 its warfare. They were still relying on a massive, 00:08:29.769 --> 00:08:32.830 poorly supplied army of serfs, shaving 25 -year 00:08:32.830 --> 00:08:36.440 terms. And the reality check for that stagnation 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:38.460 arrived in the form of the Crimean War in the 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:42.139 1850s. Russia suffered a humiliating defeat on 00:08:42.139 --> 00:08:45.500 its own soil against a modern industrialized 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:48.480 coalition of British, French and Ottoman forces. 00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:51.299 That defeat was the ultimate wake up call. It 00:08:51.299 --> 00:08:54.960 ushered in an era of massive sweeping reforms. 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:57.730 Spearheaded by the Minister of War. Count Dmitri 00:08:57.730 --> 00:08:59.929 Militin. Right. Following the emancipation of 00:08:59.929 --> 00:09:03.149 the serfs in 1861, Militin looked at the military, 00:09:03.409 --> 00:09:05.590 realized it was fundamentally broken, and tore 00:09:05.590 --> 00:09:08.490 it down to the studs. He completely reorganized 00:09:08.490 --> 00:09:10.690 the Ministry of War, overhauled the military 00:09:10.690 --> 00:09:13.490 training system, and basically forged the Russian 00:09:13.490 --> 00:09:15.710 army as it would look going into the 20th century. 00:09:15.909 --> 00:09:17.669 His absolute masterpiece was the conscription 00:09:17.669 --> 00:09:20.789 statute of 1874. It wasn't just a military tweak. 00:09:20.889 --> 00:09:23.350 It was a complete societal paradigm shift. Here's 00:09:23.350 --> 00:09:25.990 where it gets really interesting. Militan's 1874 00:09:25.990 --> 00:09:28.990 law made military service compulsory for all 00:09:28.990 --> 00:09:31.730 21 -year -old males in the empire. And when we 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:33.970 say all, we mean all, even the nobility. Which 00:09:33.970 --> 00:09:36.850 is wild for that era. Imagine being a 21 -year 00:09:36.850 --> 00:09:39.450 -old drafted from a poor village and suddenly 00:09:39.450 --> 00:09:42.230 you're part of a system where an aristocrat might 00:09:42.230 --> 00:09:44.690 also be drafted as an enlisted soldier if they 00:09:44.690 --> 00:09:46.669 didn't actively choose to become an officer. 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.990 Plus, the term of service was massively slashed. 00:09:50.350 --> 00:09:52.950 Instead of decades. Right. The active land army 00:09:52.950 --> 00:09:55.330 term was reduced to just six years, followed 00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:58.250 by nine years in the reserve. The strategic brilliance 00:09:58.250 --> 00:10:01.409 of that move cannot be overstated. By utilizing 00:10:01.409 --> 00:10:04.389 short -term conscripts, you are constantly cycling 00:10:04.389 --> 00:10:07.049 young men through the military giving them modern 00:10:07.049 --> 00:10:09.570 training and sending them back into civilian 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:13.039 life. creating a massive hidden pool of trained 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.840 reservists. Exactly. Reservists who could be 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.440 rapidly mobilized in wartime. It allowed the 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:21.500 empire to maintain a slightly smaller, much more 00:10:21.500 --> 00:10:24.759 affordable standing army during peacetime without 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:27.139 sacrificing their overall military potential. 00:10:27.539 --> 00:10:29.519 Milutin didn't stop at the enlisted ranks either. 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:32.759 He radically changed the officer corps. He opened 00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:35.340 up new military training academies called junker 00:10:35.340 --> 00:10:37.340 schools. Which were very different from the old 00:10:37.340 --> 00:10:40.559 system. Night and day. Unlike the old elite cadet 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:42.480 corps that were basically reserved for the sons 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:45.039 of wealthy nobles, these junker schools were 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:48.360 open to educated commoners. It was literal social 00:10:48.360 --> 00:10:52.559 mobility via the sword. In the 1860s, non -noble 00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:55.179 officers made up just 4 % of the officer corps. 00:10:55.220 --> 00:10:58.340 A 4 %? But by the 1890s, that number had jumped 00:10:58.340 --> 00:11:02.480 to nearly 45%. And by 1912, just over half of 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:04.639 all the officers below the rank of captain were 00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:07.659 commoners. That is a profound demographic shift 00:11:07.659 --> 00:11:10.419 for a highly stratified society, but we also 00:11:10.419 --> 00:11:12.620 have to look at the cultural reality on the ground. 00:11:12.700 --> 00:11:14.840 Right, the regimental culture. For the individual 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:17.259 soldier, the regiment was the absolute center 00:11:17.259 --> 00:11:20.080 of their universe. Joining a regiment meant entering 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:22.720 a family with its own deep traditions, guided 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:25.960 by the overriding motto, for faith, czar, and 00:11:25.960 --> 00:11:28.220 fatherland. The main value instilled in these 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:30.779 men wasn't necessarily independent tactical brilliance. 00:11:30.940 --> 00:11:34.080 It was absolute, unquestioning obedience to the 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:36.769 officers and the emperor. Even with that influx 00:11:36.769 --> 00:11:40.090 of commoner officers, the old class divides were 00:11:40.090 --> 00:11:42.590 still deeply entrenched in the daily life of 00:11:42.590 --> 00:11:45.730 the army. Military regulations literally regarded 00:11:45.730 --> 00:11:48.029 enlisted soldiers as second -class citizens. 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:50.429 They were expected by the noble -born officers 00:11:50.429 --> 00:11:53.389 to accept terrible living conditions, poor food, 00:11:53.769 --> 00:11:55.730 and harsh treatment without a single complaint. 00:11:55.950 --> 00:11:58.509 But as the 19th century ended, the demographics 00:11:58.509 --> 00:12:01.330 of the draft changed. You had newly literate, 00:12:01.370 --> 00:12:03.950 urban, working -class conscripts entering the 00:12:03.950 --> 00:12:07.019 ranks. no longer uneducated serfs, and they started 00:12:07.019 --> 00:12:09.340 having much higher expectations for their basic 00:12:09.340 --> 00:12:11.019 human rights and how they should be treated. 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:13.100 You can see the tension building. Oh, definitely. 00:12:13.379 --> 00:12:16.440 You have a modernizing military machine colliding 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.259 with an archaic social structure, and that tension 00:12:19.259 --> 00:12:21.519 becomes even more complex when we zoom out to 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:23.440 look at the sheer diversity of the Russian Empire. 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:25.919 The Imperial Russian Army was essentially a vast 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:28.799 tapestry of minorities, and the Ministry of War 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:31.779 had to constantly balance this. They instituted 00:12:31.779 --> 00:12:34.330 policies to ensure that non -orthodox soldiers 00:12:34.330 --> 00:12:37.450 made up no more than 30 % of any single regiment 00:12:37.450 --> 00:12:40.789 purely to maintain cohesion and prevent localized 00:12:40.789 --> 00:12:43.870 uprisings. Within that tapestry, some groups 00:12:43.870 --> 00:12:47.070 carved out incredibly unique roles. Like the 00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:50.230 Cossacks. Let's talk about the legendary Cossacks. 00:12:50.830 --> 00:12:53.470 These were steppe cavalrymen who lived on the 00:12:53.470 --> 00:12:56.179 frontiers of the empire. In exchange for their 00:12:56.179 --> 00:12:58.600 military service, the Russian government gave 00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:01.320 their communities, known as hosts, ownership 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:03.480 of their territories. They're a semi -regular 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:05.740 force. Right. They actually had to provide their 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:07.580 own horses, their own saddles, and their own 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:10.360 uniforms, but they were absolutely vital to the 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:13.419 military structure. By World War I, the Cossacks 00:13:13.419 --> 00:13:15.639 made up two -thirds of the entire Russian army 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:19.179 cavalry, contributing over 500 ,000 men to the 00:13:19.179 --> 00:13:21.899 war effort. Their role in the empire, however, 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.539 was incredibly complex. On one hand, the central 00:13:24.539 --> 00:13:26.600 government frequently used Cossack regiments 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:29.620 as mounted police to violently crush civilian 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:32.039 protests and labor strikes. That gave them a 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:34.879 very dark, popular image as the Tsarist government's 00:13:34.879 --> 00:13:37.480 enforcers. But on the other hand, many Cossacks 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:40.019 strongly resented being used this way. Right, 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:42.759 some of them actively opposed putting down protests 00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:45.179 and desired more autonomy from the central government. 00:13:45.500 --> 00:13:47.539 They were not just a monolith of blind loyalty 00:13:47.539 --> 00:13:50.340 to the Tsar. The empire's diversity also brought 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:53.240 some truly amazing, almost surreal moments on 00:13:53.240 --> 00:13:56.440 the battlefield. Think back to the 1812 war against 00:13:56.440 --> 00:13:59.919 Napoleon. Generally, Muslim subjects in places 00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:03.139 like Turkestan or Dagestan were exempt from the 00:14:03.139 --> 00:14:06.000 mandatory draft. though many volunteered. But 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.120 during the French invasion, Muslim Bashkirs and 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:11.399 Buddhist Kalmyks fought in the Russian army. 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:14.379 And get this, the Bashkirs were fighting the 00:14:14.379 --> 00:14:17.159 French Grande Armée, wielding bows and arrows. 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:20.299 It's incredible. Napoleon's light cavalry, armed 00:14:20.299 --> 00:14:23.480 with modern firearms, was literally facing off 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:25.759 against mounted archers on the plains of Russia. 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:28.919 It is a fascinating clash of eras happening on 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:31.019 a single battlefield. And even though Muslim 00:14:31.019 --> 00:14:33.360 populations were mostly exempt from peacetime 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:36.000 conscription later on, many still volunteered 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:38.240 for special units. Like the Savage Division. 00:14:38.500 --> 00:14:40.879 Yes. During World War I, there was the famous 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:43.480 Caucasian Native Cavalry Division, often called 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:45.519 the Savage Division, which was primarily made 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:47.940 up of Muslim volunteers from the Caucasus region 00:14:47.940 --> 00:14:49.899 and became renowned for their effectiveness. 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.679 The empire's treatment of its minorities also 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:55.039 had an incredibly dark side, particularly when 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:59.179 it came to the Jewish population. In 1827, Emperor 00:14:59.179 --> 00:15:02.200 Nicholas I issued a conscription statute that 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:04.840 specifically targeted the massive Jewish population, 00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:07.539 requiring them to serve those brutal 25 -year 00:15:07.539 --> 00:15:10.259 terms. It's worth pausing here just to note that 00:15:10.259 --> 00:15:12.840 as we look at these historical policies, the 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:15.320 atrocities committed, and the eventual revolutions 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:18.419 they sparked, we are strictly following the factual 00:15:18.419 --> 00:15:21.600 historical record. Our goal isn't to take a political 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.100 stance on the past, but to impartially report 00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:26.320 on the brutal realities these groups actually 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.639 faced and how those realities shaped the military. 00:15:28.779 --> 00:15:31.919 Because the reality of that 1827 decree was deeply 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:35.240 horrifying. The explicitly stated goal of Nicholas 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:37.940 R .I. was forced assimilation. He wanted to strip 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:39.840 these individuals of their religion and culture 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:42.379 and mold them into loyal subjects. Because Jewish 00:15:42.379 --> 00:15:44.600 families naturally tried to hide their sons to 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:47.259 escape this fate, the government employed specialized 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.019 kidnappers known as cappers. These cappers were 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.480 paid bounties to snatch Jewish children off the 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:55.480 streets to fill the military quotas. They frequently 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.539 ignored the legal minimum age of 12, kidnapping 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:00.940 boys as young as eight years old, pulling them 00:16:00.940 --> 00:16:03.200 away from their families forever. and forcing 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:05.460 them into the military machine. By the time the 00:16:05.460 --> 00:16:08.940 empire ultimately collapsed, roughly 1 .5 million 00:16:08.940 --> 00:16:11.700 Jewish soldiers had been forced to serve under 00:16:11.700 --> 00:16:14.740 this incredibly oppressive system. Which raises 00:16:14.740 --> 00:16:17.279 an important question. What happens when you 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:20.299 build an army out of a populace that is deeply, 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.429 fundamentally unhappy with its government? The 00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:25.730 cracks in the ice of this empire began to widen 00:16:25.730 --> 00:16:28.269 significantly at the dawn of the 20th century. 00:16:28.690 --> 00:16:31.590 Despite all of Milutin's reforms, the military 00:16:31.590 --> 00:16:33.730 share of the state budget had been steadily falling 00:16:33.730 --> 00:16:37.149 for decades. The cracks fully fractured in 1904 00:16:37.149 --> 00:16:39.509 when the empire stumbled into the Russo -Japanese 00:16:39.509 --> 00:16:42.429 War. It was a logistical and tactical disaster 00:16:42.429 --> 00:16:44.629 from the word go. The mobilization process was 00:16:44.629 --> 00:16:47.149 a complete mess. The first reservists they called 00:16:47.149 --> 00:16:49.049 up were the older men who had minimal recent 00:16:49.049 --> 00:16:51.600 training. Some of these older recruits had never 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:54.779 even held the new 1891 Mosin Nagant rifle they 00:16:54.779 --> 00:16:56.919 were supposed to be taking into combat. And this 00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.600 ties exactly back to the danger of arming an 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:02.820 unhappy populace. The mobilization for the Russo 00:17:02.820 --> 00:17:06.759 -Japanese War brought older, urban, heavily politicized, 00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:09.900 working class men right into the ranks of the 00:17:09.900 --> 00:17:11.920 military. These men had been exposed to the labor 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.779 movements. And they spread revolutionary ideas 00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.660 among the younger troops. Combine that political 00:17:17.660 --> 00:17:20.119 unrest with a humiliating defeat by the Japanese 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:23.279 military and the result was explosive. Between 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:26.559 the autumn of 1905 and the summer of 1906, the 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.599 Russian army suffered over 400 separate mutinies. 00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.119 The military was literally fracturing from the 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:34.880 inside. But the Tsarist government managed to 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:37.140 violently suppress the mutinies and barely hold 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:40.039 the structure together right up until the ultimate 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:42.500 breaking point. World War I. When war broke out 00:17:42.500 --> 00:17:45.440 in 1914, Russia had the largest peacetime standing 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:48.539 army in Europe, sitting at about 1 .3 million 00:17:48.539 --> 00:17:51.519 men. But upon mobilization, they tried to scale 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.539 that up to a staggering 4 .5 million troops almost 00:17:54.539 --> 00:17:56.970 overnight. It was a logistical nightmare that 00:17:56.970 --> 00:17:59.230 the Russian infrastructure simply could not handle. 00:17:59.670 --> 00:18:01.369 They were sending millions of men to the front 00:18:01.369 --> 00:18:03.250 lines, but they didn't have enough rifles to 00:18:03.250 --> 00:18:05.349 arm them. They didn't have enough artillery shells 00:18:05.349 --> 00:18:06.750 to support them. They didn't even have enough 00:18:06.750 --> 00:18:10.230 food to feed them. You had situations where soldiers 00:18:10.230 --> 00:18:13.269 were sent into the meat grinder of modern industrialized 00:18:13.269 --> 00:18:15.609 warfare on the Eastern Front, essentially told 00:18:15.609 --> 00:18:17.769 to wait for a comrade to fall just so they could 00:18:17.769 --> 00:18:20.450 pick up a weapon. The casualties were astronomical. 00:18:20.690 --> 00:18:23.569 And that brings us to the final collapse in 1917. 00:18:24.170 --> 00:18:27.130 Amid the massive casualties, the severe food 00:18:27.130 --> 00:18:29.750 shortages back home, and the Russian Revolution 00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:32.450 breaking out in the streets of Petrograd, the 00:18:32.450 --> 00:18:35.779 Imperial Russian Army finally dissolved. Though 00:18:35.779 --> 00:18:38.200 what is remarkable is how long it actually held 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:41.619 on before breaking. Yes. Even after the February 00:18:41.619 --> 00:18:43.980 Revolution and the formal abdication of Tsar 00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:47.599 Nicholas II in March 1917, the majority of the 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:50.799 old army somehow remained intact. The soldiers 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:52.960 swore loyalty to the new provisional government, 00:18:53.319 --> 00:18:55.400 and incredibly, they stayed on the front lines 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:57.940 against Germany and Austria -Hungary for several 00:18:57.940 --> 00:19:01.269 more months. It wasn't until early 1918. that 00:19:01.269 --> 00:19:03.490 the command structure completely disintegrated. 00:19:03.650 --> 00:19:05.869 And when it finally broke, it shattered into 00:19:05.869 --> 00:19:08.549 pieces that turned violently on each other. The 00:19:08.549 --> 00:19:10.589 remnants of the Imperial Army went in wildly 00:19:10.589 --> 00:19:13.309 different directions. For example, the Latvian 00:19:13.309 --> 00:19:16.230 riflemen, who had been formed in 1915 and won 00:19:16.230 --> 00:19:19.509 major bloody battles for the Tsar, overwhelmingly 00:19:19.509 --> 00:19:22.569 joined the Bolshevik faction and became a highly 00:19:22.569 --> 00:19:25.880 effective key part of the new Red Army. Meanwhile, 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:28.539 other former imperial officers and elite units 00:19:28.539 --> 00:19:31.119 formed the core of the anti -Bolshevik White 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:34.759 Army, plunging the entire region into a devastating 00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:37.240 multi -year civil war. So what does this all 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:39.519 mean for you listening right now? Why does the 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:42.859 rise and fall of this specific army matter in 00:19:42.859 --> 00:19:45.109 the grand scheme of history? It matters because 00:19:45.109 --> 00:19:47.289 the Imperial Russian Army was never just a tool 00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:50.450 of war. It was a perfect magnified mirror of 00:19:50.450 --> 00:19:52.470 the society that built it. It shows us that you 00:19:52.470 --> 00:19:54.930 cannot compartmentalize modernization. The Russian 00:19:54.930 --> 00:19:57.970 Empire tried to build a modern 20th century military 00:19:57.970 --> 00:20:00.450 machine while aggressively maintaining a rigid 00:20:00.450 --> 00:20:03.140 18th century autocratic social structure. They 00:20:03.140 --> 00:20:05.539 wanted highly educated, capable soldiers who 00:20:05.539 --> 00:20:07.619 could operate modern artillery and logistics, 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:10.279 but they still wanted to treat those same men 00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:12.660 as subservient second -class subjects with no 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:15.519 political voice. When you try to modernize the 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:18.240 technology and tactics of a military without 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:20.740 modernizing the political and social rights of 00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:23.059 the people serving in it, the machine eventually 00:20:23.059 --> 00:20:25.599 breaks. The pressure simply has nowhere else 00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:28.480 to go. It is a profound lesson in the limits 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:31.329 of brute force and autocracy. And as we wrap 00:20:31.329 --> 00:20:33.029 up today's deep dive, I want to leave you with 00:20:33.029 --> 00:20:35.589 one final deeply ironic thought to mull over. 00:20:36.309 --> 00:20:38.789 We talked earlier about Dmitry Milutin's sweeping 00:20:38.789 --> 00:20:41.769 reforms and how he desperately needed to expand 00:20:41.769 --> 00:20:44.789 the officer corps to handle the massive new reserve 00:20:44.789 --> 00:20:48.849 pools. To do this, he created a one -year volunteer 00:20:48.849 --> 00:20:51.549 option. This allowed highly educated men to serve 00:20:51.549 --> 00:20:53.769 a single year in the ranks and then quickly take 00:20:53.769 --> 00:20:57.180 an exam to become reserve officers. It turns 00:20:57.180 --> 00:20:58.740 out that a massive percentage of the men who 00:20:58.740 --> 00:21:01.019 took advantage of this program were university 00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:03.940 students. And in the late 19th and early 20th 00:21:03.940 --> 00:21:06.579 centuries, those universities were hotbeds of 00:21:06.579 --> 00:21:09.380 highly radical anti -Sarist revolutionary views. 00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:13.140 So consider the incredible irony here. In its 00:21:13.140 --> 00:21:15.660 desperate systemic push to modernize and expand 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.259 its massive military machine, the Russian Empire 00:21:18.259 --> 00:21:21.640 inadvertently provided formal, high -level military 00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:24.240 command training to the exact same revolutionaries 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:26.700 who would eventually use those very skills to 00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:29.079 help tear the entire empire down. Thank you for 00:21:29.079 --> 00:21:30.960 joining us on this journey today. Keep questioning, 00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:32.480 keep learning, and we'll see you on the next 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:33.000 Deep Dive.