ABSTRACT
Three men shaped Russian military policy and thought in the second half of the nineteenth century. Count Dmitrii A. Miliutin, the Minister of War from 1861 until 1881. General Mikhail I. Dragomirov was Russia's foremost exponent of the doctrine of the superiority of man over materiel in the conduct of war. The third man, less well-known than Miliutin and Dragomirov, was General Genrykh A. Leer. This theorist suggested modern guidelines for the employment of Russia's first mass army. When Leer began his career in the 1850s, Russian military thought, particularly with reference to strategy and operations, remained poorly developed. In the 1850s and 1860s Russia experienced an age of shock and rapid change. The surrender of Sevastopol was followed by the death of Emperor Nicholas I and by the demeaning Treaty of Paris. The new Emperor, Alexander II, faced squarely the main task before him—the rebuilding of Russia's military power and its international and domestic credibility.
