1850–1914: The Heartland: Continued Expansion and the Shock of Industrialization
Year: 2017

In the nineteenth century, the old rules of mobilization were transformed by the energy bonanza of fossil fuels. This chapter describes how the Russian heartlands were affected by the global changes of the late nineteenth century. Defeat in the Crimea forced Russia's rulers to take industrialization seriously. Before that war, the Russian Empire still looked like a global superpower. Russia's army was expensive because it was huge, and permanently under arms. In the decade after the Crimean War,