KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



217 



CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIANS. 



At the present moment, anything that 

 can throw a light upon the habits of the 

 Russian army and navy, will be perused 

 with interest. It would seem that intelli- 

 gence and vigor form but a small part of 

 their character ; although in numbers they 

 are formidable opponents. 



The following are abridged from the 

 " Knout and the Russians," by Germain de 

 Lagny. 



THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 



For nearly thirty years the Emperor has 

 been making unheard-of efforts to inculcate 

 in the hearts of his troops what is called a 

 military spirit. Up to the present time he 

 has not succeeded, and he never will succeed, 

 because such a thing is not in accordance with 

 the character of Iris people. His army is not, 

 .and never will be, aught but a troop of auto- 

 mata, tricked out in various costumes, which 

 he moves according to his whim, and causes 

 to sink into the earth beneath an irritated 

 look. No noble sentiment ever vibrates in 

 these souls, stultified by serfdom, debauchery, 

 and depravity. 



The Russian army is not intelligent. Be- 

 neath the European costume in which it is 

 tricked out it still betrays its origin. Look 

 at it ; it presents so heavy and singular an 

 appearance that the least practised eye 

 immediately recognises the disguised 

 peasant, the savage tamed but yesterday, 

 hardly knowing how to march, and studying, 

 to the best of his power, his part of soldier, 

 for which he was not intended. It is only 

 redoubtable by its masses ; which, however, 

 can be very efficaciously acted on by grape- 

 shot, as we have seen at Austerlitz, Friedland, 

 and other places. The Russian soldier is not 

 easily shaken. He does not possess that 

 cool energy and contempt of danger, nor that 

 powerful reasoning of true courage, which 

 characterises the French army, and makes 

 heroes of men ; he is merely a machine of 

 war, which never reasons, and is cumbersome 

 to move. His hopes, moreover, foster in 

 him the idea that he is invincible, and that 

 the bullet or the cannon-ball, destined to 

 kill him, will reach him quite as well from 

 behind as from before ; but that, nevertheless, 

 if he turn his back to the enemy, and is 

 spared by death, he will be beaten with the 

 stick and with the knout. 



Europe stands, therefore, face to face with 

 a million and a half of armed men, whose num- 

 ber, in a few months, the Czar could double 

 or treble, according as the necessity of the 

 case should be more or less imperative. It 

 is, most certainly, not a penury of men that 

 will ever embarrass Russia. That is not the 

 cause of its perplexity. What disquiets and 

 worries the Czar is money and credit. But 



money and credit are not the only things 

 which trouble him, and of which there is a 

 scarcity; that which he cannot obtain or 

 buy at the greatest sacrifice, neither^ with 

 the knout nor with the stick, is military intelli- 

 gence ; that unquenchable fire, in a word, of all 

 free nations, the honor of the flag ; this he 

 finds it impossible to inculcate in his people. 



THE RUSSIAN NAVY. 



Russia wants the first, and indeed the only 

 vital element for a navy — seamen. The 

 reason of this is simple enough ; she possesses 

 no merchant navy. The population of Fin- 

 land, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia does 

 not amount to more than a million and a 

 half of inhabitants. That of the Black Sea 

 provinces does not exceed five hundred thou- 

 sand. It is therefore only from this limited 

 number, most of whom too devote themselves 

 to agriculture, that Russia can raise her 

 levies. Even those who are sailors are en- 

 gaged in the coasting-trade, which they fol- 

 luw in the daytime alone ; sheltering them- 

 selves at night behind the girdle of island 

 and eyots which line all the Russian coast. 



To man its ships, the Russian Government 

 is obliged to fall back on the inhabitants of 

 the interior of the country. Tn this way it 

 has, up to the present time, formed an army 

 of sailors, who are frightened at the sea, 

 which the majority of them never saw before. 

 The levies for the" navy, like those for the 

 army, are composed of the strangest and most 

 heterogeneous elements ; and it is therefore a 

 very difficult task to prepare them for the 

 rough calling for which they are intended. 

 Neither the whip nor the knout will ever be 

 able to bend the rebellious and antipathetic 

 nature of the Russian to this kind of service. 



The cold and fanatical indifference of the 

 Russian soldier on land, before hundreds of 

 cannons belching out death, abandons him 

 entirely on board a ship. The Russian, in 

 his tastes, his disposition, his manners, and 

 his indolence, is eminently Asiatic. Like the 

 Arab and the Persian, the Cossack and the 

 Tartar, he has a profound feeling of horror 

 for the sea. Besides this, he is destitute of 

 vigor ; idle, and without muscular strength ; 

 for the muscles beneath his flabby skin, so 

 often lacerated by the rod, are not capable of 

 any great exertion. An Englishman or 

 Frenchman is two or three times stronger, 

 and more active in his movements. A Rus- 

 sian ship consequently requires twice as 

 many men as one of our vessels does, to make 

 up its full complement. 



Again, it is not on board a number of pon- 

 toons, imprisoned in the ice or laid up in 

 dock for the greater part of the year, that 

 sailors are formed, or crews receive the prac- 

 tical instruction which it is necessary for them 

 to acquire. Every year the Baltic is blocked 



