The Development of the Firepower of the Russian Army in the first half of the 19th century in Comparison with Enemies as a Factor of Russia's Victories and Defeats in the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars; Развитие огневой мощи Русской армии в первой половине XIX в. в сравнении с противниками как фактор побед и поражений России в Наполеоновских и Крымской войнах

The paper compares the firepower of the Russian army during the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimean War. The authors want to answer the question of how Russia, which defeated Napoleonic France – the militarily strongest power of the early 19th century – lost the Eastern War to Western democracies represented by Great Britain and France. The authors limit themselves to solving this problem by studying the firepower of the Russian army in comparison with the armies of the opponents, proving that the positional war in the process of defending Sevastopol required greater efforts from the Russian military industry, as well as from the logistics of the Russian Armed Forces, than the maneuver war with the Great Army of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812 and during Foreign campaigns. The Crimean War was a small prototype of the First World War, and the Russian defense industry, as well as its military-bureaucratic apparatus, were not ready for this new type of industrial war. This work is based on some scientific works that are little known in Russian historiography, as well as on the book of General E.I. Totleben, a participant of the organization of the Sevastopol's defense, which is insufficiently studied in Russian science. The authors prove that, according to technical characteristics, the Russian artillery did not lag behind the Western one either during the Napoleonic Wars or during the Crimean War. The authors also believe that in the middle of the XIX century in Russia there was also a crisis of the military-bureaucratic apparatus. © 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.