Shadow of great britain

The Hastings Report

Q: Based on your observations during the Napoleonic Wars, if the French cavalry broke through the infantry phalanxes of the northern countries during a battlefield charge, would they surrender and let you control them?

A: If this happened, the Austrian infantry would throw down their weapons, everyone would call themselves Poles, and follow you faithfully. The Prussian infantry would also lay down their weapons, but as soon as they noticed that friendly forces were coming to reinforce them, they would immediately pick up their weapons and join the battle again. The Russian infantry would lie on the ground, let the cavalry jump over them, and then stand up and use their weapons again.

——French light cavalry expert, Jean-Baptiste de Braque, "Light Cavalry Outpost"

Confidential

To: Viscount Palmerston, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

From: Sir Arthur Hastings, Cultural Counselor of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Russia

Cc: The Leader of the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington, the Home Secretary, the Viscount Melbourne, the Secretary of War and Colonial Affairs, the Secretary of the Navy, Sir James Graham, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Lord Rowland Hill, and the First Sea Lord, Sir Thomas Hardy

"First Diplomatic Report on the Investigation of the Current Situation in Russia"

As the Cultural Counselor in Russia, I have recently entered Russia by land at your request and have conducted in-depth observations and research on the local customs and practices of Russia. Under some coincidences, I accidentally discovered some important intelligence that could not be collected by conventional means. Here, I would like to report my initial findings to your Excellency and gradually explain the progress of my initial work in Russia.

During the process of entering Russia, due to the extremely bad weather, I was trapped in a small town in the northwest of Russia by a snowstorm, and I met Pavel Andreevich Barkov, the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Cavalry Regiment of Russia, who was passing through there. According to Barkov himself, he was sent by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs to collect relevant information about the Pugachev Rebellion in the early years along the Little Russia region.

(Note: Pugachev was a Russian Cossack born in a poor peasant family along the Don River. He joined the Russian army in his early years and was promoted to second lieutenant for his bravery in the Russian war against the Ottoman Empire. After retiring in 1773, he pretended to be Peter III who was killed by a palace coup, and accused Catherine II, the then Tsar who ascended the throne by killing her husband Peter III, of being the culprit for the heavy agricultural rent and taxes, and instigated Russian peasants to launch an uprising. At its peak, the number of participants in the Pugachev uprising reached more than 100,000, affecting a wide area including the Urals, Western Siberia and the middle and lower reaches of the Volga River)

Through my conversation with Barkov, I vaguely learned that there seemed to be a secret organization called the "Peasant Committee" in the Russian court. The organization was led by Tsar Nicholas I, and the committee members included the highest bureaucrats of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of War. According to the information I have obtained so far, the establishment of this secret committee should be related to the riot in the military settlement area of ​​Novgorod Province in 1831.

After the war ended in 1812, in order to solve the problem of tight military expenditure and food supply, the then Tsar Alexander I listened to the advice of Army Minister Arakcheev and set up military settlements across the country. The residents of the military settlements are mainly composed of veterans who have served in the regular army for more than 6 years and local "state serfs" aged 18 to 45. Depending on the size of the military settlement, its organization is usually divided into battalions or regiments.

Male children in the military settlements are registered as "hereditary soldiers" from the age of 7. They wear military uniforms in daily life and receive military training during the slack season. Orphans or street children and other people without homes live in specially built barracks and live according to strict military regulations. They get up, eat, train and work on time. Field labor in the military settlements is led by non-commissioned officers and unified under command. Soldiers can get married, and their spouses are designated by their superiors. Anyone who violates discipline, including women and children, will be punished according to military regulations.

According to what I have seen and heard along the way, it can be roughly estimated that the number of military settlements in various parts of Russia should be at least 160,000. In addition, the number of hereditary soldiers should also be very close to this number.

When the Russian government implemented the military settlement system, it originally wanted to use this method to replace conscription and greatly reduce military expenditures. But according to what I saw and heard from several military settlements after entering Russia, there is obviously a big gap between the idea and the reality. I cannot conclude that all military settlements have messed up production, but at least the few military settlements I have seen are all unable to be self-sufficient. The officers of the military settlement area told me bluntly: They need a lot of subsidies from the state to support themselves.

What's more serious is that this kind of rural area with armed people has become a favorable condition for peasant uprisings. Only 8 years after the new Tsar Nicholas I ascended the throne, more than 140 peasant uprisings of varying sizes have broken out in various parts of Russia. And the peasant uprisings with the greatest influence and destructive power, without exception, all came from military settlements.

When cholera broke out in 1831, the Tsar ordered the establishment of epidemic prevention stations on the country's main roads. However, the epidemic prevention stations blocked traffic and hindered production, making contractors and coachmen penniless, cutting off local farmers' sources of income, and triggering large-scale riots in the sixteen provinces of western Russia.

Among them, almost all officers and doctors in the Novgorod military settlement were beaten to death by the rioting peasants, including several generals and dozens of colonels. Even the foreign officers sent by the King of Prussia were not left alive. In order to escape punishment, the rioting peasants sent representatives to Enola to plead guilty to the emperor. The peasant representatives carried with them a forged poisoning list that was forced to be written by the officers of the military settlement before their death.

According to this poisoning list, the peasants claimed that the officers and doctors conspired to poison the military settlement to create large-scale cholera. Nicholas I summoned the peasant representatives and promised them that he would go to Novgorod in person to severely punish the poisoners and forgive the crimes of the rioters. Nicholas I fulfilled his promise and led his army to Novgorod. According to the statement of a gendarme present, the emperor had lunch in the military settlement, and the soldiers offered him honey and bread. He originally planned to forgive the mob as planned, but the accompanying General Arndt stood beside the emperor and announced angrily: "Today, we should not offer you bread, but our funeral porridge." ’

Nicholas I then gathered the troops on the playground, ordered the priest to read prayers for the dead soldiers, kissed the cross, and then turned to the participants of the riot and announced that the emperor would never forgive them and asked them to hand over the leaders of the riot. The leaders of the riot were ordered to be beheaded, but the eight military settlements involved in the riot were not severely punished. Instead, they were moved to Gatchino, about 30 miles south of St. Petersburg, where the Tsar’s summer palace is located.

I have sufficient reason to suspect that the establishment of the "Peasant Committee" that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not know about should have a significant connection with this uprising, because the establishment time of the committee is highly consistent with the uprising of the Novgorod military settlement. The Tsarist authorities sent military personnel to investigate the Pugachev rebellion in the 18th century, mostly because they realized that the existence of the military settlement had greatly threatened the stability of their rule, and tried to provide direction for the formulation of agricultural policies by analyzing "why Pugachev could gain huge influence among the people."

Although the Russian government promulgated new military service regulations after the uprising in the military settlements in 1831, the new regulations stated that the Russian army still implemented conscription, but the main targets of conscription were: peasants, petty bourgeoisie and soldiers' sons (hereditary soldiers) and other working people. The children of the ruling class such as nobles, merchants and clergy were exempted from military service as usual. Moreover, the new regulations did not solve the fundamental problem, because according to the previous rules, the service period of Russian soldiers was still as long as 22 to 25 years.

And suggestions such as implementing compulsory military service and shortening the service period were not accepted by the Tsarist government. This was mainly because these suggestions were once important propositions of the noble officers who launched the Decembrist uprising, and therefore were regarded as disrespectful to the emperor in Russia. And because the compulsory military service system would largely affect the interests of Russian landlords, which would draw their serfs from the land to the army, it was also widely opposed in Russia.

When it comes to the Russian army, what particularly caught my attention was the low literacy rate of Russian soldiers. I was invited to visit the garrison camp of a certain city. Through contact with the garrison soldiers, I found that only two of the more than 100 soldiers in the city could read and write their own names. The same situation also occurred among the elite Russian Cossack cavalry. The same standard is applied to the British Army, and our literacy rate is close to 48%. Of course, I have no intention of discrediting this army that once defeated Napoleon.

This is an excellent army with many veterans who have served for 25 years. Russian soldiers are a model of drill. When visiting the barracks, I was greatly shocked by the discipline of this army. However, I also found that the phalanx formation formed by this unit is impeccable, but they are also very bad at dispersing formations and fighting in small units, so that the only tactical option for Russian officers is to order the soldiers to charge the enemy in a phalanx.

All ideas of tactical maneuvers have been abandoned here, and the only slogan I heard was: forward, forward, forward. Such dense infantry phalanxes are naturally very suitable for being the most ideal shooting targets for artillery because they are very dense. Here, I must borrow the remarks I heard when chatting with a Russian businessman in the hotel: picking out a Russian alone will not allow him to enter heaven, but if it is a whole village, he must let them go.

According to the self-description of the local officer, the tactical ideas he is proud of were all learned from the military school. Because Russia's highest military institution, the General Staff Military Academy, which aims to provide excellent combat staff for the General Staff, was just established two years ago. Before that, except for about 70% of hereditary nobles who had not attended military school, the remaining 30% of Russian officers graduated from the military school.

Therefore, I have reason to believe that the vast majority of Russian officers hold the same tactical ideas and train their soldiers in the same way as the garrison officer I met, and such tactical concepts should affect the Russian army for at least 20 years.

My view was verified in the Russian Infantry Regulations. Through the Russian military regulations I borrowed from the captain of the garrison, I found that the first article pointed out that the focus of training was dense formations and pace, emphasizing strict and complex marching movements, but not mentioning tactical movements.

After I established a familiar relationship with this captain, he revealed to me his requirements for soldiers: the guns must be polished, but accurate shooting is not required. Everything is for inspection, not for actual combat. Artillery does not train aiming and shooting, and the hit rate is extremely low. But whether the target is hit or not, the report must be loud.

At the same time, according to what I observed along the way, the Russian artillery equipment generally remained at the level of the Napoleonic Wars. Their artillery mainly consisted of 6 to 12 pound field guns, 1/4 pood and 1/2 pood unicorn guns. The maximum range of these guns, according to my visual estimation, is about 600 yards. The 6-pound and 9-pound field guns currently used by the British Army have an effective range of more than 800 yards, and the 24-pound siege guns can easily cover 1500 to 1800 yards.

Through contact with General Barkov, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of Ukraine, I observed that this group of Russia's most elite Cossack cavalry is still equipped with the 1812 carbine produced by the Tula Military Factory.

At the kind invitation of the Cossacks, I personally tested the pistol and confirmed that its effective range should be between 100 and 150 yards. Once this distance is exceeded, the accuracy will become very poor.

I also tried the 1812 model rifle in the hands of the garrison. The theoretical range of this rifle can reach 300 yards, but due to the large recoil, only senior veterans can maximize its potential.

Under the current background, choosing to compete with the Russians in the number of troops is obviously not a wise choice, and it is not in line with the military principles that Britain has always implemented. The development route of the Russian army mainly emphasizes the development of people's potential, while I suggest that Britain focus on technological innovation in the development of the army.

The Baker rifle, which is currently the main equipment of the British Army, has an effective range of about 200 yards and a maximum range of 500 yards. According to my understanding, the new Enfield rifle currently being developed by the Royal Ordnance Bureau has an effective range of 300 yards and a maximum range of 600 yards.

If the Ordnance Bureau can continue to work in this direction, when the effective range of the rifle exceeds 600 yards, we can easily arrange the army's skirmish line outside the range of Russian artillery. Fortunately, according to the information I got from the captain of the garrison, the gendarmerie officer and General Barkov, Russia currently has no plan to develop new weapons, so as long as we work a little harder, we still have hope of achieving this goal.

In addition, I must send a friendly reminder to the cabinet. Even though Nicholas I likes to intervene in local affairs through the army, when choosing local officials such as provincial governors to be sent to local areas, he usually likes to choose generals with military backgrounds. However, even so, mobilizing the military commander of an elite cavalry unit like Barkov is still an extraordinary move.

Maybe Barkov did not lie to me, and he was indeed ordered to investigate the history of Pugachev's rebellion, but I think this may not be the only task he is responsible for. Given that Barkov's troops have a history of fighting in the Caucasus, I will report this matter to Ambassador Earl Darramore in person after arriving in St. Petersburg, and suggest that the Consul in Kiev, Sir George Harrington, immediately contact British merchants near Zaporizhia to find out as soon as possible whether the 2nd Ukrainian Cavalry Regiment stationed there has been mobilized, and forward the relevant information to the British Minister to Persia, Sir John MacInniel, through diplomatic channels.

Sir Arthur Hastings

February 1, 1834

Arthur sat in the Vienna carriage presented to General Barkov by the mayor of Druisk, and slowly wrote the first diplomatic report after arriving in Russia.

Suddenly, the whip lifted the curtains, and Barkov's face appeared in front of the window. The Cossack general just saw the letter in Arthur's hand, and asked half-jokingly and half-seriously: "Brother Hestingov, are you secretly reporting me to the higher-ups?"

Arthur put the letter into his jacket pocket and said with a smile: "Reporting you? Is there anything worth reporting to the higher-ups? Are you talking about this carriage? But didn't you win this carriage from Mayor Bakalkin? It's a pity that I didn't have as much luck as you that night. I only won a few clothes. If I had better luck, this carriage would be named Hestingov now."

Gogol, who was cushioned with a small blanket under his butt, exhaled: "General, thanks to your good luck, if there was no such car, I would definitely have to suffer all the way."

Barkov nodded contentedly when he heard this.

At least, this kid, Hastingov, is not as stubborn as some gendarmes who have to fight to the death with the local authorities and exchange the heads of officials in a province for the position of the gendarme commander. People like this may be able to cooperate in the future.

When he comes back from the war in the Caucasus, if he is lucky, he may be promoted to a higher level.

If he gets the rank of major general, he will have the opportunity to apply to become a provincial governor in the local area. By then, the emperor will be far away. If Hastingov is willing, see if he can be promoted to become the gendarme commander. By then, the two of them will join forces and be impenetrable. After fighting for a lifetime, it is time for our Barkov to enjoy the blessing of the local emperor.

Suddenly, a soldier's announcement sounded outside the carriage: "General, Petersburg has appeared on the horizon!"

Hearing this, Arthur used his cane to lift the curtain and looked out.

At first, the figure of Petersburg was just a blurred color block on the horizon, like a vague outline in a painting.

As the carriage slowly moved forward, the outline of the city became more and more apparent, gradually rising from the vast expanse of ice and snow.

The Neva River runs through the entire city. The magnificent buildings, solemn domes, exquisitely carved bridges, the golden-domed Winter Palace, and the spacious Nevsky Avenue are like a flower of ice and snow that has emerged from the cold winter and is waving to Arthur.

It's as if they are saying: Welcome to Petersburg, welcome to the heart of Russia, Arthur Hastings, or Hastingov!