civil administration—­that the individual bravery of soldiers and officers was neutralised by the incapacity of the generals, the venality of the officials, and the shameless peculation of the commissariat department.  The Emperor, it was said, had drilled out of the officers all energy, individuality, and moral force.  Almost the only men who showed judgment, decision, and energy were the officers of the Black Sea fleet, which had been less subjected to the prevailing system.  As the struggle went on, it became evident how weak the country really was—­how deficient in the resources necessary to sustain a prolonged conflict.  “Another year of war,” writes an eye-witness in 1855, “and the whole of Southern Russia will be ruined.”  To meet the extraordinary demands on the Treasury, recourse was had to an enormous issue of paper money; but the rapid depreciation of the currency showed that this resource would soon be exhausted.  Militia regiments were everywhere raised throughout the country, and many proprietors spent large sums in equipping volunteer corps; but very soon this enthusiasm cooled when it was found that the patriotic efforts enriched the jobbers without inflicting any serious injury on the enemy.

Under the sting of the great national humiliation, the upper classes awoke from their optimistic resignation.  They had borne patiently the oppression of a semi-military administration, and for this!  The system of Nicholas had been put to a crucial test, and found wanting.  The policy which had sacrificed all to increase the military power of the Empire was seen to be a fatal error, and the worthlessness of the drill-sergeant regime was proved by bitter experience.  Those administrative fetters which had for more than a quarter of a century cramped every spontaneous movement had failed to fulfil even the narrow purpose for which they had been forged.  They had, indeed, secured a certain external tranquillity during those troublous times when Europe was convulsed by revolutionary agitation; but this tranquillity was not that of healthy normal action, but of death—­and underneath the surface lay secret and rapidly spreading corruption.  The army still possessed that dashing gallantry which it had displayed in the campaigns of Suvorof, that dogged, stoical bravery which had checked the advance of Napoleon on the field of Borodino, and that wondrous power of endurance which had often redeemed the negligence of generals and the defects of the commissariat; but the result was now not victory, but defeat.  How could this be explained except by the radical defects of that system which had been long practised with such inflexible perseverance?  The Government had imagined that it could do everything by its own wisdom and energy, and in reality it had done nothing, or worse than nothing.  The higher officers had learned only too well to be mere automata; the ameliorations in the military organisation, on which Nicholas had always bestowed special attention, were found to exist for the most part only in the official reports; the shameful exploits of the commissariat department were such as to excite the indignation of those who had long lived in an atmosphere of official jobbery and peculation; and the finances, which people had generally supposed to be in a highly satisfactory condition, had become seriously crippled by the first great national effort.