In considering this long series of disasters and unavailing efforts, we are naturally led to inquire what have been the causes of this want of success? We have already mentioned the topographical character of the country, and the difficulties encountered by an invading army in regions not accessible by the valleys, and we have given such details of the manners and character of the mountaineers as may enable the reader to conceive the obstinate and formidable nature of their resistance. Nevertheless, seeing the absolute power of Nicholas, and the intense importance he attaches to the conquest of the Caucasus, it is difficult to admit that obstacles arising out of the nature of the ground and the character of the population could not have been overcome in a region so limited, if there were not other and more potent causes continually at work to impede the military operations of Russia. These causes reside chiefly in the deplorable state and constitution of the imperial armies.
In Russia there is no distinct commissariat department under disinterested control, whether of the government or of superior officers. It is the colonel himself of each regiment who provides the rations, and as he is subject to no control, but acts really with despotic authority, both he and his contractors have the amplest possible opportunity to cheat the government and enrich themselves at the expense of the troops. There are regiments in the Caucasus that bring in from 80,000 to 100,000 francs to the colonel. As for the subaltern officers, military submission on the one hand, and the scantiness of their pay on the other, make them always ready to participate in their commander's infamous speculations. What is the result of this wretched corruption? It is that, notwithstanding the high prices paid by the government, the contractors continue to send to the Caucasus the most unwholesome stores, and grains almost always heated or quite spoiled; for it is only in this way they can realise sufficient profits to be able to satisfy the cupidity of their confederates, the officers. I knew several merchants of Theodosia in the Crimea, men of honour, who refused to have any thing to do with military supplies, because they found it impossible to make the colonels and generals accept sound articles.
This official robbery is nowhere carried on in a more scandalous manner than in the Caucasus. It is there regularly established, and one may conjecture the hardships and privations of the soldier from seeing the luxurious tables of the lowest officers, most of whom have but from 1000 or 1200 rubles yearly pay. Certainly there are few sovereigns who take more heed than Nicholas to the physical welfare of their soldiers, and we must give full credit to his generous intentions in this respect; but these are completely defeated by the corruption of his officers and civil servants, by the total want of publicity, and by that base servility which will always hinder an inferior from accusing his superior. I have been present at several military inspections made by general officers in the Caucasus, but never heard the least complaint made by the soldiers; and when the general, calling them by companies round him in a circle, questioned them respecting their victuals, they all invariably replied in chorus, that they had nothing to complain of, and were as well treated as possible. Their colonel's eye was upon them, and they knew what the least word of complaint would have cost them; yet they were dying by hundreds of scurvy, and other diseases engendered by unwholesome food.
The government usually makes large purchases of butter in Siberia for the army of the Caucasus; but this butter which would be of such great utility in the military hospitals, and which costs as much as sixty-five francs the twenty kilogrammes, very seldom passes further than Taganrok, where it is sold in retail, and its place supplied with the worst substitute that can be had. Nor does the robbery end there. The butter fabricated in Taganrok is again made matter of speculation in the Caucasus, and finally not a particle reaches the sick and drooping soldiers. The other good provisions undergo nearly the same course.