Question by [email protected]: What is the story behind Russia being looked at as incompetent after the Crimean War?
I tried looking for information on why (in the late 1800’s) was Russia the laughing stock of the world, but the stuff I found was a bit confusing and I didn’t quite understand it. Perhaps a more direct answer is in order, and would be greatly appreciated. All I know is that something happened in the Crimean War and now they were looked at as idiots.
Answers and Views:
Answer by blackienorton69
Being looked at as idiots is a bit harsh. Certainly they were nearly a century behind in military tactics and technology. They were no major contributor to defeating Napoleon decades before (although the Russian Winter was) and they were fighting the British on the Crimean Peninsula which is firmly locked in Russian territory.
So, a vastly Superior (in numbers) force could not dislodge the British from their own territory.
Those are the main reasons why the Russians are viewed that way in the Crimean War.
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Sydney Michelle says
"Laughing stock" is a bit overdoing it. "Backwards" at least for a nation that had not kept up, was more like it, although Marx thought that Russia would be the last place in Europe suitable for Communism because of its relatively small industrial base.
As for the Crimean War, Russia lost. However it was the Anglo-Franco forces that looked more inept with a poorly executed seige of Sevasatopol. The Charge of the Light Brigade may be an inspiring poem, but the French on the spot verdict of "C'est magnifique, mais c'est n'est par la guerre." (Magnificent, but it's not war..) was more spot on.
Essentially Russia failed to keep up with the growing industrialization of Western Europe. It also continued to have a form of rural slavery (serfdom) where peasants were bound to the land of the nobles' estates. That ceased only in 1861 when Alexander II, paid the nobility to end the practice. However the serfs were still stuck in place until the bonds issued to pay for the program were paid off. Without mobile labor, industrialization continued to lag.
By the 1890's, after the serfs were released from the restrictions (The Cherry Orchard has a former serf, now a successful minor industrialist, proposing to the daughter of his former lord, a idea she finds repugnant) Russian industrialization began to take off. In the 1910's, Russia had the fastest rate of industrialization of any of the European Powers. That was from a small base, so in absolute terms it lagged behind the other European Powers, but it was coming on.
Russia also did not have an elected legisalature (Duma) until 1905, being the last major European state to be ruled by an autocratoc monarchy.
More to your question, Russia also lost to the Japanese in 1905. The idea of a white, European "Great Power" losing to an Oriental nation that was only a generation into industrilization after emerging from self-imposed feudal isolation, certainly lowered the prestige of the Russian military prior to World War I.