ABSTRACT
VOLTAIRE'S description of Prussia as a country that did not have an army, as the army had the country, to a considerable degree applies to the Russia of Nicholas I. The empire, with population of some sixty to seventy millions, supported a force of over one million under arms. There is no need to define the role of this army as an instrument of foreign policy, as it is well known. Its functions within Russia are less familiar. It was the favorite agency of the emperor, who always wore a uniform, slept on a hard camp bed, and surrounded himself with soldiers. As soldiers held governmental posts that civilians occupied in other lands, so did the army perform many tasks that elsewhere the police or other civilian officials performed. The army proved quite effective in assimilating non-Russians into the Russian community. The Russian high command provided the army with outdated weapons, and failed to train the troops in their use.
