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Introduction

The Russian Republic limped through the middle of the 19th century. Humiliated by all the nations that surrounded it, the Republic was but a shadow of its former imperial self, being known as the Sick Man of Europe - dysfunctional, weak militarily, and isolated by hostile neighbours that had wanted to take bites out of its territory, which was becoming less and less secure from invasion by the day. Its population was tired of military defeats and continued political instability. Its government was in shambles, only having become a Republic due to the loss of its monarchy. The country had been beaten on the battlefield by scores of political opponents, that being the Turkic khanates, a reformed Commonwealth of Poland, the Byzantine Empire, and even China and Korea had joined in on the fun. The nation, while industrialised with great production and resource output capacity, was still weak and stagnant economically from years and years of war. Truly, a sick man indeed, unable to even bear to hold its head high among the councils of nations that were more powerful than it. And one man - that being the Prime Minister of the Russian Republic, Pavel Mikhailovich Arkhanov - was ready to reverse Russia's fall from grace. He was ready to avenge the humiliation of the past, reforge Russia's status on the world stage as a Great Power, destroy all that opposed the glorious Republic, and eventually, ensure that Russia took the place as the dominant hegemon of the East, a power that far eclipsed those of the Turks, the Byzantines, the Chinese - and eventually, the Poles, the Germans, and perhaps even the French. The foundations of the struggling nation had been laid strong, but it was the soft plywood structure built on top of that stone foundation that had collapsed after years of neglect and mismanagement. The pieces of the Republic that could be assembled into a strong structure were all there, as pallets of materials that had so far been left out in the rain. He just needed to put them all together, ensure that this time, he built the structure out of strong brick and stone, and eventually, he would be able to build a strong castle of the Republic that was impenetrable and impervious to attack. Russians were tired of being the laughingstock of Europe; it was time to reclaim the destiny of the country.

Economic Reforms - 1868-1875

The most pressing matter of concern was for the Russian economy. While the country had industrialised massively in the past five decades, the Republic’s finances were in shambles from years of conflict. Corruption had robbed the Russian state of massive amounts of money that could have been put towards literally anything else - be that infrastructure, industrialisation, construction, improvement of public services, betterment of education, production of media such as newspapers and books, whatever it could have been. The economy, while producing massive amounts of consumer goods, was teetering on the brink of overproduction; the 120 million people in Russia could only buy so many things, especially with their low per capita GDP compared to other European nations, which was already becoming an issue by the 1860s. As trade with the West stalled, the Russian GDP had begun plunging, and some experts even predicted that the imbalance of consumer goods production to consumer goods consumption could cause a catastrophic collapse in the price of everyday goods, putting many Russian companies out of business and causing an economic depression that could have massive ramifications for the Russian state as a whole. The entire Russian economy was like a powder keg, filled with gunpowder, and he was the one that held the stick of dynamite that would either ignite on its own or be put out by relentlessly batting away the spark. Pavel knew that he could not wait to fix the economy; the economy needed to be fixed, now, or it would fix him to the wall when he was crucified by the Russian public for letting the economy collapse.

The Prime Minister issued multiple decrees limiting the production of consumer goods or nationalising factories that were producing massive excesses of certain items; for example, 70 factories producing nothing but furniture were nationalised and within two months, had been retooled into military factories. The agriculture sector, which had been overproducing wheat, potatoes, cabbages, and other crops that were now sitting in warehouses, slowly rotting away, was stopped dead in its tracks by another decree that limited production and set a production cap along with a base market price for agricultural goods. The resulting shortage meant that foodstuffs that had been stockpiled would either be sold on the domestic market or exported internationally. Meanwhile, the lack of prospective jobs in the economy would be addressed too; with the introduction of the Infrastructure Reform Plan of 1869, a massive nationwide program of improvement of basic civil services and infrastructure was established. Armies of the unemployed would be put to work, paving roads with gravel and crushed stone, building hospitals and schools in cities, constructing and expanding railway lines to increase the nation’s export, transport, and import capacity, building new housing and improving general infrastructure in cities; constructing sewers and municipal waste disposal systems, constructing bridges, installing streetlights, laying down tracks for streetcars, and so on. Pavel hoped that infrastructure construction would have both a positive impact on the Russian state and also drag down the unemployment rate, and thankfully, his plans seemed to be succeeding quite a bit. Nearly 1.2 million unemployed and poor gathered around recruitment centres in major cities, eager to earn a bit of money and get back to work, and within a few months, roads in major cities and general infrastructure in municipalities were being improved at a rapid rate, and the unemployment rate had fallen from 21% to 14%, a clear sign that these programs were doing their job. The government had begun a systematic purge of any officials that they could track down to have embezzled funds from the state, which wasn’t too difficult; many government officials and nobles had embezzled such ludicrous amounts of money from the treasury and had left traces and their greasy little fingerprints all over official records. Their belongings and all of their funds were seized and put back into the treasury. But corruption wasn’t nearly that easy to solve. Corruption in Russia extended to all facets of life within the country; most government officials and nobles bribed, stole, and every institution had corruption and nepotism within their ranks. To combat this, Pavel would issue the Decree on State Security and Counterintelligence Measures of 1868, establishing the Okhrana, nominally an intelligence-gathering spy agency for the Russian Government, but in practice it fulfilled the role of an anti-corruption agency - using its widespread authority to root out corruption from within ranks, making prompt arrests, infiltrating every agency to weed out as much of the rot from the nation as possible. By the end of the year, the Okhrana had arrested and summarily executed or imprisoned nearly 25,000 civil servants, ministers, and public officers, all accused of corruption and embezzlement from the Russian state ministry. In addition to the formation of the Okhrana, Pavel established the twin institutions of the Imperial Bank of the Russian Republic and the State Treasury Ministry of the Russian Republic through the Decree State Treasury and Banking on 9 November 1869, which would manage much of Russia’s state finances through investment, proper government management of public funds, and also would operate the bank to function as the country’s first national financial institution. Government financial policy was essentially relegated to the control of experienced financial and economic ministers who had prior experience managing private banks and state treasury coffers; it was hoped that by relinquishing control of the country’s economic policy, a transition towards free-market capitalism built on the concepts of laissez-faire would eventually be established, which would also lessen corruption as financial policy became less and less intertwined with the workings of the government. During this time, the first large-scale companies of the Russian Republic would begin to grow. For example, the first large-scale industrialisation in the easternmost regions of Ruthenia would be carried out by a Welsh industrialist, John Hughes, who began a rapid-scale industrialisation of the town of Aleksandrovskaya. The town quickly became a massive manufacturing hub of eastern Ruthenia and within a few years, its population had exploded to nearly 170,000, being granted city status in 1870 under the name Hughesovka, Yuzovka in the Russian language.

While corruption remained a thorn in Russia’s side, the country's reforms had slowly brought down the corruption rate of the country. Slowly but surely, things were actually getting done, and the economy was getting back on track, with consumer goods production slowly decreasing while demand was increasing, a blessing in disguise for the flagging Russian economy. As the Republic slowly recovered from its economic downturn, the issue of the treasury and the country's formerly shattered finances became even more pressing than it had been before. With all of these programs costing massive amounts of money, the Russian Government’s expenditure far outweighed its gains from taxation and vodka sales. Consumer goods export could only get the country's monetary income so far; while boxcars full of Russian consumer goods were steaming into Europe, too much trade and export would cause the price of said consumer goods to fall, netting the country less profit. Nor could most be sold on the domestic market; it was oversaturated already from the excess production of prior decades. However, there were three resources that Russia could export without significant fear of an oversaturated market: food, mineral and energy resources. Food was already being sold for export - particularly wheat, cabbage, and potatoes from the Ruthenias - but Russian energy, oil and coal, wasn't. Production of coal had always been for the domestic market, and oil production was essentially nonexistent for anything other than manufacture of kerosene. However, Russian economic planners had known since long ago that both coal and oil were resources that were abundant in Russia’s vast expanses of Siberia, particularly in the Kuznetsk basin, the Urals, and regions up north near the Barents Sea. It was the same with mineral and natural resources. Timber was vast and plentiful across all of Russian territories; the country’s forests, while slowly being eroded, had yet to be fully exploited. Iron, copper, nickel, gold, diamonds, lead, aluminium, tungsten, and everything in between was to be found deep beneath the uncharted Siberian wilderness. With the Russian government relying on loans from Western bankers to run its day-to-day operations, the industrialisation and economic exploitation of Siberia was imperative. Overnight, the railroad town of Yekaterinburg was transformed into a hub of commerce as thousands of settlers began to pour through the newly constructed Trans-Siberian, with their belongings in tow. Light and heavy industries began to be established in both Yekaterinburg and the towns of Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Beloretsk, Tyumen, Ufa, and Perm, quickly growing into centres of commerce and industry, forming the first of Russia’s many economic and industrial centres in Siberia. Relying on massive amounts of mineral and natural resources carted in from the expanses of Siberia, massive, sprawling factories, employing thousands and thousands of workers, churned out all matter of goods such as lumber, bricks, steel, gravel, refined copper and aluminium, and tungsten, which would then be exported to the rest of Europe and overseas for massive profits. This rapid industrialisation of the Urals and surrounding regions had also created a population boom, swelling the total number of people living in the territory from around 2.4 million to 5.1 million in 1871. As expected, the tax and investment revenue made from exploitation of Russian natural regions began to turn the Russian economy around, from its previous slump and stagnation, to now one of the fastest-growing economies in the East. Pavel could breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that he no longer needed to worry about the finances or the economy of the Republic, and that he had completed one out of the many reforms to follow.

Army Reforms - 1868-1870

Pavel took stock of Russia's military woes, and what he found was enough to make him put his head through a wall, literally. While the core of the country was heavily industrialised, there had been little in the way of actual output other than civilian goods. Production of military goods - and competent, actually functional military goods at that - was essentially non-existent before his economic reforms had taken hold in the country, and that had led to massive supply issues both in peacetime but also in wartime, where war production had essentially hit a new low instead of a new high. Supply issues had dogged the Russian Army throughout its many failed campaigns and defeats on the battlefield. More than that, general equipment issues, reliability issues, and everything in between had ensured that the Army was beaten before it had even set foot on the battlefield. As many said; an army marches on its stomach. But it wasn’t just the Army’s equipment and supply that he needed to worry about, it was general training, organisation, leadership, morale - what Pavel had meant to say in his report but refrained from out of courtesy was that the Russian Army was a steaming pile of dung that had been left out in a field to dry. Divisions lacked basic training and competent leadership, with some conscripts not having been even issued rifles to shoot with or ammunition to practise their aim. Commanders lacked any sort of leadership ability or even the ability to command their troops effectively. Some of them were even so negligent that they had allowed their artillery and rifles to fall into a state of total disrepair; most of them were individuals who had joined the Army to laze around while receiving payments from the Russian Government, facilitating corruption within the armed forces. The once-mighty Russian cavalry had been allowed to fall into neglect, with horses not being fed properly or even given the most basic of armour. The average infantryman, too, was in a sorry state. Their uniforms were shabby, some of them were lacking proper leather boots, many did not have ammunition or explosive belts, proper knapsacks, proper kit to clean and maintain their rifles, and so on. Clearly the Russian army needed massive amounts of work, grease, and maintenance to get itself in order and actually start conquering its neighbours.

Pavel, seeing all of this, decided to start with the Russian Army in terms of military reform. Russia’s vast borders needed to be secured; the Republic was not about to lose to another upstart state looking to tear another piece out of the freshly reanimated corpse of the nation. Pavel began diverting massive amounts of excess civilian production towards re-supply and re-armament of the Russian Army. With textiles being one of Russia’s larger industries, new uniforms made out of wool could be easily mass-produced and sent to Russian troops en masse. The Prime Minister personally inspected the first batch of these uniforms, produced in the eve of the month of August 1868, and was pleased with the progress, placing an order for 900,000 uniforms to be made by the end of the year. Leather boots, hats, knapsacks, ammunition pouches - all of it would be mass produced on a scale not yet seen in the East, with factories belching out massive clouds of smoke and pollution to produce as much of these uniforms as possible as quickly as possible. With the first batches of the new clothing being distributed to soldiers of the 27th Guards Line Infantry Regiment on 19 September 1868, the program was deemed a “success in progress” by the State Duma and was rapidly grown to include the production of larger-scale textile military goods such as tents and encampment equipment, which would help to alleviate some of the shortage of adequate barracks and housing facilities within the bases of the Army. Pavel hoped to establish a proper military-industrial complex as quickly as possible, with the ultimate aim of having massively diversified, versatile military production, where large sectors of the civilian economy could be quickly geared and re-tooled towards military manufacturing in a short amount of time, therefore enabling Russia to churn out massive amounts of supplies as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Russian military hardware, while being able to be produced in large numbers, was quickly becoming outdated. The West had adopted John Gatling’s invention, the Gatling Gun, in 1861. Russian military leaders saw this type of automatic fire as the future of warfare; they were not about to be stuck in the past. Mass production of Gatling Guns - an initial order for 90,000 units having been placed by the Russian Government - would begin and each unit would be equipped with multiple of them, with each having been built so that two or more could be mounted together and operated with the same crank mechanism, enabling Russian machine-gunners to rain down a hailstorm of bullets onto any enemy that would oppose them. The French Chassepot rifle, one of the most advanced rifles of the era, was envied by the Russian troops for being reliable and one of the finest bolt-action rifles of the era. Many in the country’s military high command had called for these rifles to be imported and produced to become the standard issue rifles of the Russian Army. However, a man named Hiram Birdam, from the former United States, had created a rifle known as the Berdan Rifle in early 1868. This rifle, while being comparable to the Chassepot, was also much simpler and easier and cheaper to produce, making it perfect for outfitting the Russian Army with. After a series of rushed military trials where the Berdan performed reliably and without a single failure, an order for nearly 700,000 of these rifles was placed, which would be fulfilled throughout 1869. With the introduction of variants of the Model 1867 87mm and 76mm artillery into service with the Russian artillery corps, equipment modernisation of frontline troops was mostly complete.

Meanwhile, leadership of the Russian Armed Forces was drastically reformed, perhaps the most reform that it had seen since its establishment in the 16th century. The Republic’s leadership had far overstayed its welcome; it was their incompetence that had lost Russia multiple wars. Russia needed change, now. Pavel purged most of the General Staff of the Russian Republic, choosing to instead replace them with experienced military commanders and cadets from the Moscow Military Command School and the Saint Petersburg Military Academy, many of whom had new and interesting ideas on how to reform the Army’s leadership. One, for example, suggested that the Russian military rely mostly on trains for rapid mobilisation, movement, and logistics, which made perfect sense. In years prior, this strategy of rapid resupply had not been easily implemented thanks to the poor state of Russian railroad infrastructure. Now, though, as the country had heavily modernised and reconstructed the majority of its railroads, this idea was possible to implement with little restrictions. Using an intricate system of supply depots and lower-level local supply hubs that provided Russian trains access to the border regions of the Republic, supply issues in the event of a defensive war could be solved. However, where this strategy faltered was an offensive war into an underdeveloped territory, where trains could not be relied upon as the primary method of supply for hungry and exhausted Russian soldiers. Thus, a new strategy had to be devised, one which was developed by a fairly newly-promoted commander, Commander Ivan Ivanovich Patelnikov; it called for the centralisation of supply depots into a few core areas of the frontline, where trains could come in with and unload the goods and materials needed, which would then be transferred by horse-drawn carriage convoys as a form of localised transport to the actual front where supplies were needed. While the strategy wasn’t perfect, it was the best that the Russian General Staff had to work with. Another cadet suggested a strategy that had been perfected by Napoleon, one which the Old Guard of the Republic had failed to utilise or even study: fast-moving, easily manoeuvrable units that would be used to outflank and outrun enemies, which would give the attackers’ units a significant advantage over slower-moving formations and large army groups. However, adopting this strategy in its basic form without improving upon it would just place them on similar footing to any other army in Europe; Russia needed to add its own twist to it. Traditionally, the Republic had utilised cavalry as its heavy hitters and shock troops, which would punch a hole in the enemy formation and cause chaos. However, nowadays, not only was the Russian cavalry a shadow of its former self, every other army in Europe had adopted and perfected this sort of tactic down to a T. The suggestion by said cadet - Private Nikolai Fyodorovich Klebnikov - suggested instead a triple-pronged attack: First, massive bombardment by the new models of artillery towards attacking enemy forces instead of the traditional way of firing into enemy formations would soften up the enemy lines. Then, fast moving infantry and heavy Russian shock cavalry would flank the enemy’s forces, while the bulk of formation-driven infantry and more Russian cavalry would form a pincer to smash into enemy formations, carving the enemy group up into two scattered groups, encircled and eventually destroyed. In addition to this small-scale operation, the Russian troops would attempt to go for multiple breakthroughs instead of one concentrated breakthrough in which infantry and shock cavalry could pour into the gaps, tearing the enemy line apart and outflanking them over and over, causing chaos within enemy formations. Constant artillery bombardment would do its best to soften up the reinforcements while the vanguard would attempt to drive enemy forces back into a disorganised retreat and potentially, even a rout. The third tactic, by now known as a doctrine, that the Russian Army adopted was that of superior firepower, revolving around the simple idea that manpower was expensive and bullets were cheap, and thus, the objective was to use as much firepower as possible to make enemies lose as much men and materiel as they would be willing to sacrifice. Using the aforementioned Russian artillery corps, which had been expanded massively by this point, heavy artillery bombardment would take place on the battlefield before the actual offensive, and a heavy emphasis was placed on the utilisation of machine guns instead of infantrymen to suppress offensives, citing that Russian Gatling Guns, especially when attached together to make turrets, could lay down enormous firepower on attacking troops with less risk of casualties. Many new generals who had been educated in Russian and wider European military academies were promoted and many of the Old Guard of the Russian Army were either sacked or forced into retirement; while their advice had been valuable in the past, the past was not the present, and their reluctance to treat the present like anything other than the past had lost Russia several wars. Only time would tell if Russia’s new and improved General Staff would improve the Republic’s performance on the battlefield.

Navy Reforms - 1868-1878

The Russian Marine was a shadow of its former self. Barely even outfitted with any modern ironclads, its fleet of mostly wooden-hulled sailing ships was little match for the massive warships of the West. The Republic had barely invested anything into its naval forces since the humiliating defeat by the Byzantines, and now, the once-bustling shipyards of formerly grand seafaring cities like Kronshtadt, Rostov, Kerch, Arkhangelsk, and Sevastopol sat empty, blades of grass and ferns growing out of the intricate stonework of drydocks, and shipyard workers lazing around, doing little except read books and eating their lunches. What little ships Russia possessed with any capacity to stand a chance against Western vessels were either moored and slowly rotting away or in drydock, awaiting maintenance that never came. Ironclads were slowly rusting away; their smokestacks more covered with dust than ash and soot, their sails slowly being eaten away by mice and rats that had found their way onto the vessels, their anchors having become essentially fixtures of the seafloor at this point. The Russian Naval High Command was filled with incompetent ministers who had been previously appointed by their friends thanks to connections within the government and cadets fresh out of the country’s underfunded and mismanaged naval academies, bursting to their brim with new ideas and new strategies that had been adopted by the West, their wallets and funding completely dry from the High Command’s total lack of interest in the modernisation or expansion of the Russian Navy. Sailors and crew and workers that worked for the naval forces were woefully undersupplied, undertrained, and generally just sat around doing little. Training and general competence was at an all-time low, with many sailors being unable to even distinguish between bow and stern, starboard and port, right of way, marine signals… There was too much to be taught and little time to do so. Many spent their days cleaning, lounging around, relaxing, eating, and swimming while their ships rusted away in the sunlight. Even more so than the army, which had been relatively quick and receptive to reform, the Navy was in such a sorry state that reforming or even trying to place a plaster on the wound was nigh impossible, and even Pavel, normally optimistic and quick to act on issues that he saw with pretty much anything, was unable to comprehend what he needed to do to fix the Russian Navy after his state visit to Kronshtadt. Pavel had no experience on naval affairs, and sometimes, it was better to delegate the task to an experienced commander rather than try his hand at something he was inept at. His most experienced admiral, Admiral Zakhamov, would rise to the challenge. Famously a brutal and efficient naval commander who had been the only one to keep his fleets in working order, he would be delegated the task of fixing the Russian Navy using his strategies and tactics. Fast, too. The French, the British, the Greeks - all wanted and strove for naval domination in the open seas.

During the 1868 Budget and Spending Reforms of the Russian state, the Navy would be delegated a substantial portion of the military budget, around 40% - the highest it had ever been in decades. With this newfound funding, Admiral Zakhamov would begin by completely overhauling shipyards within the country to fit the standards of the modern age. New drydocks, cranes, warehouses, and railroads would be installed, and the ground would be paved with stone and gravel. Tools and equipment would be upgraded and modernised at a rapid pace. Shipyard workers would be paid more and more would be hired out of the country’s large military manpower pool. After all, the Admiral knew that a marine, no matter how powerful and strong-hulled its ships were, could never survive without the proper infrastructure to support it. Building a strong foundation upon which ships could be constructed at a rapid pace efficiently would be the priority before any new warships were made. New dockyard facilities were opened up at key port cities, connected to supply hubs and the rest of the country by newly-built railroads that enabled mass transport of materials and supplies to construct and equip the marine. However, he would also order most of the Russian Navy’s vessels back to drydock for a comprehensive modernisation and reconstruction, or scrapping if need be. While Russia’s ships were outdated and poorly maintained, there was potential for them to be comparable to Western-built designs if they were properly modernised, outfitted with the latest naval artillery and gunnery, and upgraded in raw power and armament. Wooden-hulled ships would receive screws and iron plating onto their hulls, while ironclads would receive steel plating and under-hull armour built out of copper. Naval artillery was upgraded on these vessels as well, with the Model 1870 Naval Breech-loading 76.2mm Artillery being installed onto the country’s largest vessels. Russia couldn’t hope to start churning out warships right away; the best strategy was to modernise and actually equip what they already had, creating a small but technologically advanced and well-trained marine that would serve as a coastal raiding fleet until Russian naval infrastructure was improved enough to start pumping out warships and truly transform the Russian Navy to be a power to be reckoned with on the high seas. However, the Prime Minister would still order four frigates, eight corvettes, and two warships to be outfitted to the Baltic and six frigates and three corvettes to be outfitted to the Black Sea, a request which was fulfilled on time thanks to these dockyard improvements. Sailors and seamen were being given proper rations, training, and experience with various naval exercises held on the Baltic and Azov Seas. The navy had been subdivided into four fleets at this point: the Baltic Fleet (Baltiyskyy Flot), Black Sea Fleet (Chernomorskyy Flot), Northern Fleet (Severnyy Flot), and the Caspian Flotilla (Kaspiyskyy Flot). Each was assigned a portion of the naval budget and their commanders were delegated the responsibility of maintenance, upkeep, and repair of ships. Slowly but surely, the Russian Navy was being returned to its glory days as new ironclads were being constructed in the dockyards of Sevastopol, Arkhangelsk, and Kronshtadt. But the Russian Navy would be the slowest to reform, and thus this reform was still minor in the scale of things, and it would be slowest to bear fruit.

First Conclusion

The reforms had been a success. Russia was no longer quite as much of a laughingstock as it had been during the Era of Humiliation, and now, its army, economy, and navy were all being steadily improved. However, there was much still to be done. The political situation in the country had been deteriorating for some time, as the monarchy sat vacant, the Zemskyy Sobor was bickering, and extremist parties, though somewhat tempered by Pavel's popularity, were still gaining support from the country's populace. The issue of the Kavkaz and the Central Asian hordes was still a pressing matter, and thus, troops of the newly reformed Russian Army would be sent to both the border of the states in Southern Russia and the border with the Turks. Poland, ever the thorn in Russia's side, also needed to be dealt with - but for now, it would be a diplomatic wrangling rather than one on the battlefield, which Russia had a very real chance of winning. Perhaps, Russia's enemies would see sense now.