ABSTRACT
As Nicholas I and several of his senior advisers recognized, the arguments in favour of major reform, or indeed abolition, of serfdom were strong. While it is unlikely that the decision to act was taken by his son Alexander II as a result of one factor alone, the issue that seems finally to have convinced him and some of his officials that abolition was in the state’s best interests was the Russian Empire’s defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–56 by Great Britain, France and the Turkish Empire. The war exposed Russian weaknesses compared with other European powers. In particular, defeat drew attention to the state of the Russian army.
