Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/828

816 , the yearly contingent taken into the ranks will be just double the old standard, and the number of trained men passed out yearly into the reserve for call to the ranks in war will be at least three-fold what it has ever hitherto been, even when the cadres were kept at the lowest by the premature discharge of men for economy's sake.

It has, of course, naturally occurred to the Russian staff, as one of its chief obstacles, that the cadres hitherto existing, the officers of which are notoriously many of them lacking in the power of instructing others, are not equal to the task of training the whole mass of recruits to be thus suddenly brought in. A great part of this duty is, therefore, to be assigned to the so-called "local" and "garrison" battalions, the whole form and functions of which are to be modified with a view mainly to this end. Their cadres of officers are being enlarged, so that with an addition made on mobilization of reserve officers (whose commissions may be held by mercantile or professional men) each battalion can be at once formed into four, whilst in peace it can act as a training-school. But at the first sound of war, the functions of the two classes mentioned separate. The local battalions, becoming local regiments, are to undertake the whole care of internal order. The garrison battalions, each calling up reserve men to complete it to the strength of a war regiment of four battalions, are to be ready to act as a second line to the field army proper, performing, in fact, very much the same functions as the German Landwehr did so efficiently in France in the late war. It is calculated that the twenty-nine garrison battalions now maintained can thus be made to add nearly one hundred and twenty, at a few weeks' notice, to the effective forces moved to meet the enemy.

Another step of great importance, is to change and enlarge the regimental cadres of the guards and line, so as to provide that each one on moving may leave a depot battalion behind it, which is to be completed and maintained constantly, after mobilization, at a strength of a thousand men, and is specially charged with supplying the losses suffered by the regiment in the field. As there are stated to be one hundred and ninety-nine regiments on the Russian list, the new scheme provides in round numbers two hundred of such battalions, being a further addition to the fighting forces of the nation in time of war; though not intended in this case to imitate the garrison regiments, and take active service in the field as distinct units, but to send their men on in detachments.

But these two new creations will soon be found insufficient to absorb the rapidly growing lists of reserve men. At the end of fifteen years' working of the law, it has been calculated there will be a surplus of at least a quarter of a million soldiers passed through the ranks with varying length of service (in very special cases this may be contracted even to three months) for whom no room is found in active or local depot forces. Provision is therefore made in the scheme for the formation of independent reserve battalions to specially include this surplus; and it is calculated that these, with the other additions already noticed, but exclusive of the local regiments (which are supposed not to move even in case of war), will add a round half million to the regular field army. But as this is itself, on the new footing proposed, placed at the estimated strength of a clear million and a half, it follows that when Russia has carried out her projects to completion, she will be able to summon under arms at the sound of war no less than two millions of effective trained soldiers, besides garrisoning her soil with others for domestic purposes, and adding to them in case of invasion, a Landsturm of very formidable dimensions. Of this last body it must be noticed that the four youngest classes are liable to prolonged service at home in case of war. The force is to occupy a position as to efficiency midway, in theory at least, between the Prussian Landwehr and Landsturm, comprising all reserve men from the fifteenth to the twentieth year of their service, mixed with those who have escaped the training, though declared efficient for it. The statistical calculation is that the four years' classes liable will average 300,000 men each, and with all possible deductions 250,000; so that Russia is deliberately providing a third million of men to be called out as her home defensive army in support of the two millions to be arrayed directly against the enemy. And the law finally provides that all the remaining men of this Opolisheni, or Landsturm, are to be enrolled and armed locally in case of war in such small bodies as may cause least inconvenience. Their numbers, at the end of the first fifteen years, are variously estimated, but by no one at less than two millions; completing the actual armed forces of all kinds, therefore, to a grand total of five millions of men at the least. 