ABSTRACT

Governmental regulation of social relations in military society revealed the desire to promote administrative efficiency and professional performance. But the chronic gap between military needs and available resources coupled with the autocratic ideal of personal rulership prevented the ordering of relations between soldiers and officers along firm professional lines. For the soldiers, additional ambiguities in the system of military justice stemmed from the vagaries of the regimental economy and of official definitions of cruel treatment. Not surprisingly, the judicial records reveal economic conditions and military discipline as the two major sources of conflict between officers and soldiers in the prereform army. Conflict was not, however, inevitable—a fact reflecting the personalized nature of authority relationships in military society. In some cases soldiers exhibited a patient understanding of the difficulties an officer might face in fulfilling his material obligations to them. Another source of conflict built into the regimental economy was the prevalence of outside work.