History question, Russian Army?

When you need this kind of information, you should ask a librarian.

I'm not sure they were that ineffective in the 19th century. They defeated Napoleon in 1812. I'm not sure what else they had to do in the 19th century, but if I wanted to know, I'd go to the library.

The Russian army was certainly not very effective in the early 20th century, when they were defeated by Japan and were then a disaster in WWI.

Well, you're probably not going to find much on that. The army of the Russian Empire was one of the best in the world. During the Russo-Turkish war 1877-1878 an army of 8,000 Russians defeated a Turkish army of 25,000 at Shipka pass. The Imperial Russian army was at the gates of Istanbul but then due to foreign pressure a peace treaty was signed creating Bulgaria. Russian Cossacks swept through central Asia easily conquering Central Asian khanates. They were often outnumbered yet the cossacks smashed the armies of Central Asian Khanates. The Border between the Russian empire and British India was only 20 miles. How could an ineffective army create the 3rd largest empire in history? Not to mention the Imperial Russian Army gave Napoleon a severe beating. Hope that helped.

The main reason why Alexander II decided to emancipate the serfs was because he thought this would make them better soldiers (the majority of the rank and file of the 19th century Russian army was conscripted from serfs).

During the Crimean War,Alexander believed that the individual French and British soldier fought better than the individual Russian soldier.Alexander believed that this was because the ordinary French and British man, having more political freedom in their countries than did the ordinary Russian man,therefore had a greater stake in national affairs.This led to them fighting better in battle,as they were more motivated.

So, one reason why the Russian army in the 19th century was not always an effective group was that,as unfree serfs,they didn't identify national success as something that benefitted them in any way.They therefore lacked motivation in battle.

We had somewhat a ruck contained in the Crimea over Russias tried dominance over The Ottoman Empire and the Black Sea and Med. The French and The Brits ganged up on the Russians.