At the time of his appointment Arakcheev was 38. He was of above average height, round-shouldered and with a long neck; one of his many enemies in the Petersburg aristocracy recalled that Arakcheev resembled an outsize monkey in uniform. His earthen complexion, big fleshy ears and hollow cheeks completed the impression. Perhaps matters might have improved had he ever smiled or joked but he very seldom did. Instead, a cold, gloomy and sardonic look greeted most of those who met him. Amidst the extravagant, fun-loving society of Petersburg and the glittering festivities of the imperial court he cut a strange figure. Up every morning at four, he dispatched his private and estate business first and then got down to affairs of state by six. He sometimes played cards for pennies with his few friends, but never went to the theatre or to balls, and ate and drank very sparingly.
To an extent, Arakcheev’s austere behaviour reflected his origins. Like most sons of run-of-the-mill gentry families at this time, the young Arakcheev was educated initially by the village sexton on his father’s small estate. His father owned just twenty male serfs and had to tighten his belt to pay for his son’s entry into a cadet corps, even though Aleksei’s place was subsidized. A strict, austere and very resolute mother formed the character and aroused the ambition of her eldest son. Starting well behind many of his peers, Arakcheev quickly made his mark at the Second Cadet Corps because of his excellent brain, his astonishing work-rate, his ambition, and his rigid discipline and obedience to orders. These qualities won him a succession of patrons, ending with the Grand Duke and later Emperor Paul.2
Arakcheev was very much Paul’s ideal subordinate. He was blindly obedient to his superiors, very efficient, meticulous to the point of pedantry, and relentlessly strict in his treatment of wayward juniors, whatever their social origins or aristocratic connections. Arakcheev himself never belonged to any Petersburg faction, remaining wholly dependent on the monarch’s favour and support. Of course, this too was a comforting thought for a Russian autocrat. Though his cadet corps training had taught him French and German, Arakcheev possessed none of the cultural or intellectual interests or the witty conversational skills of the Petersburg elite. Fascinated by mathematics and technology, his mind was entirely practical. In modern jargon, he was a problem-solver and an enforcer. For an emperor trying to govern Russia through a grossly overstretched, poorly paid and corrupt bureaucracy, men like Arakcheev could seem a precious asset. Joseph de Maistre wrote that ‘I consider him to be evil and even very evil…but it is probably true that at present only such a man can restore order’.3
Arakcheev was an artillery officer by training and had been inspector-general of the Russian artillery since 1803. At least in retrospect, even his enemies usually acknowledged his success in this position. In 1800 the Russian artillery had poor guns and equipment, a corrupt administration, confused doctrines, and disorganized (usually civilian) drivers and trains. Thanks above all to Arakcheev, by 1813 it had solved almost all these problems and was superior to its Austrian and Prussian counterparts. By the time he became minister, Arakcheev had already transformed the weapons and equipment, greatly improved the quality and upkeep of the horses, and militarized the drivers and ammunition trains. He studied campaign reports from 1805–7 carefully, in order to understand what made artillery effective on the Napoleonic battlefield. Though the key reforms of the Russian artillery had already occurred before 1807, a number of important improvements to weapons and ammunition were brought in while Arakcheev was minister.4
As minister, Arakcheev also encouraged the creation of the Artillery Journal (Artilleriiskii zhurnal) so that an intelligent public debate could contribute to modernizing the Russian artillery and educating its officers. He introduced stiff exams for officers wishing to enter the Guards artillery and then used the Guards as a training ground and model for all artillery officers. He assigned and often subsidized sixty cadets a year to train with the Guards batteries and rotated officers and gunners from the line artillery through short spells with the Guards in order to learn best practice. On the eve of 1812 General Neithardt von Gneisenau, the Prussian military reformer, submitted a memorandum to Alexander I which in many respects was critical of the Russian army. Even Gneisenau conceded, however, that ‘the Russian artillery is in wonderful condition…nowhere else in Europe can one find such teams of horses’.5
On his appointment as minister of war, Arakcheev sent word to the ministry that he would turn up for work at 4 a.m. on the following day and that he expected all officials to be there to meet him in their correct uniforms. This set the tone for his two subsequent years in the job. Strict obedience to the regulations was the watchword. All communications with the emperor must go through the minister. Commanding officers must record all failings of their juniors in the latter’s service records. Tight rules were drawn up as regards supplying the army with uniforms and equipment on time and in the correct manner: laggards were threatened with fines and dismissal. Arakcheev took pride in the fact that whereas the arsenals were empty when he became minister, within two years all new recruits were armed and there were 162,000 spare muskets in store. Some bottlenecks restricting production at the Tula arms factory were also being overcome. The minister insisted that officials must make payments according to the agreed budgets, and no longer simply dole out the cash provided by the finance ministry whenever it became available to whatever need appeared most pressing.6
The new model musket introduced by Arakcheev was lighter and less clumsy than its predecessors. Given time, he believed that it could become the standard firearm for all infantry regiments. One clear lesson of 1805–7 was that Russian musketry was far inferior to French. The new firearm was intended to help here but in addition Arakcheev issued repeated orders that troops must be trained to aim and shoot accurately. He also produced a very useful booklet on the components, maintenance and cleaning of firearms. Meanwhile energetic measures had been taken to boost production of gunpowder and of cloth for uniforms. By the time he left office in 1810 Arakcheev was able to claim that future demand for military uniforms could now be met from Russian production without the need for the emergency ban on sales to the civilian market which he had been forced to introduce on becoming minister.7
Arakcheev’s management certainly did improve matters. His successor as minister, General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, was also extremely strict when it came to failings in the military administration. Shortly after his appointment, however, he noted that the commissariat was being run with outstanding efficiency and was in ‘the very best order’. Supplies and uniforms were beginning to flow into the stores. On the eve of Arakcheev’s retirement as minister, the French ambassador noted that ‘there has never previously been this level of order in the military administration, above all in the artillery and the victualling departments. In general, military administration is in excellent condition.’8