ABSTRACT
The Petrine era is portrayed as one of great reforms. The Petrine era witnessed few military technological advances. Military tactics in the Petrine era were inherited from the seventeenth century. The Petrine system can only have been an improvement, although reorganizations in the reign of Fedor Alekseevich were headed in the same direction. Peter H. Wilson's measures to furnish his army with Russian officers proved to be successful, and may well have been his most important military contribution. Most of the consequences of the Petrine army developments have been mentioned—expansion on the Baltic and Caspian, the development of new industries, and exhaustion of the populace—and can be seen as part of a continuous development from the seventeenth century. The impact on society is also part of a generally continuous pattern. In all probability, the cost of the Petrine army was greater than that of the Muscovite.
