Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/151

Rh footing the active army contains about twenty thousand officers and five hundred and thirty thousand men; the reserve adds eight thousand and one hundred thousand to these figures respectively, so that the total peace footing is twenty-eight thousand officers and six hundred and thirty thousand men."

"And how much is the war footing?"

"The war footing, according to the latest figures, to give it exactly, is 41,551 officers and 1,176,353 men. Add to this the whole able-bodied militia liable to be called into service in case of necessity, and the available war forces of Russia amount to about 3,200,000. On the peace footing, the army has 129,736 horses and 1844 guns, which are increased in time of war to 366,354 horses and 3778 guns. In 1883 a census of the horses in fifty-eight provinces of European Russia showed that there were nearly fifteen millions of these animals fit for service in case of need."

One of the youths wished to know something about the Cossacks, and whether they formed a part of the army or not.

"The Cossack is an irregular soldier," the Doctor replied, "though in some cases he is not a soldier at all. The origin of the Cossacks is unknown, some claiming that they belong to the Tartar, and others to the Russian race. The probability is that they are a combination of the two. They were first heard of in the tenth century, in the valley of the Don River; in the wars of Russia with the Turks and Tartars, about the fifteenth century, they showed a great deal of bravery and an excellent organization of a semi-military character.

"They are more Russian than Tartar in their language, religion, and customs. The rulers of Russia have not always found affairs running smoothly between themselves and the Cossacks, and when the latter felt they had not been properly treated they were not slow to rebel. A revolt was generally followed by an emigration of the Cossacks into the Tartar country to the east, and in nearly every instance this emigration resulted in the addition of new territory to Russia."

"I believe I have read that the conquest of Siberia was accomplished in this way," said one of the youths.

"You are right," was the reply, "and the whole conquest hardly cost anything to the Government. About three hundred years ago a tribe of Don Cossacks rebelled, and under the guidance of Yermak, their hetman, or leader, crossed the Ural Mountains into Asia. They began a career of conquest, which was pushed so rapidly that in less than seventy years they and their descendants had carried their banner to the shores of the Okhotsk Sea. In the early part of their career they offered the conquered