It is known that the question "Does Russia need an ocean-going fleet, and if so, why?" still causes a lot of controversy between supporters and opponents of the "big fleet". The thesis that Russia is one of the largest world powers, and as such it needs a navy, is countered by the thesis that Russia is a continental power that does not particularly need a navy. And if she needs any naval forces, it is only for the direct defense of the coast. Of course, the material offered to your attention does not pretend to be an exhaustive answer to this question, but nevertheless, in this article we will try to reflect on the tasks of the navy of the Russian Empire.
It is well known that at present about 80% of all foreign trade, or rather foreign trade cargo turnover, is carried out by means of sea transport. It is no less interesting that sea transport as a means of transportation is leading not only in foreign trade, but also in world cargo turnover as a whole - its share in total commodity flows exceeds 60%, and this does not take into account inland water (mainly river) transportation. Why is that?
The first and key answer is that shipping is cheap. They are much cheaper than any other type of transport, rail, road, etc. And what does it mean?
We can say that this means additional profit for the seller, but this is not entirely true. It is not for nothing that in the old days there was a saying: "Over the sea, a heifer is a half, but a ruble is a ferry." We all perfectly understand that for the end buyer of a product, its cost consists of two components, namely: the price of the product + the price of delivery of this very product to the consumer's territory.
In other words, here we have France in the second half of the 19th century. Suppose she has a need for bread and a choice - to buy wheat from Argentina or from Russia. Let us also assume that the cost of this very wheat in Argentina and Russia is the same, which means that the profit obtained at an equal selling price is the same. But Argentina is ready to deliver wheat by sea, and Russia - only by rail. Shipping costs to Russia for delivery will be higher. Accordingly, in order to offer an equal price with Argentina at the point of consumption of the goods, i.e. in France, Russia will have to reduce the price of grain by the difference in transport costs. In fact, in world trade in such cases, the difference in the cost of transporting the supplier has to pay extra out of his own pocket. The country-buyer is not interested in the price “somewhere out there” - it is interested in the price of the goods on its territory.
Of course, no exporter wants to pay the higher cost of transportation by land (and today also by air) from their own profit, therefore, in any case, when the use of sea transport is possible, they use it. It is clear that there are special cases when it turns out to be cheaper to use road, rail or other transport. But these are just special cases, and they do not make the weather, and basically land or air transport is resorted to only when, for some reason, sea transport cannot be used.
Accordingly, we cannot be mistaken in stating:
1) Sea transport is the main transport of international trade, and the overwhelming part of international cargo transportation is carried out by sea.
2) Maritime transport has become such as a result of the cheapness in relation to other means of delivery.
And here we often hear that the Russian Empire did not have sea transport in sufficient quantities, and if so, why does Russia need a military fleet?
Well, let's remember the Russian Empire of the second half of the 19th century. What happened then in her foreign trade and how valuable was she to us? Due to the lag in industrialization, the volume of Russia's industrial goods exported fell to ridiculous levels, and the bulk of exports were food products and some other raw materials. In fact, in the second half of the 19th century, against the background of a sharp development of industry in the USA, Germany, etc. Russia quickly slipped into the rank of agrarian powers. For any country, its foreign trade is extremely important, but for Russia at that moment it turned out to be especially important, because only in this way the latest means of production and high-quality industrial products could get into the Russian Empire.
Of course, we should have bought wisely, because by opening the market to foreign goods, we risked destroying even the industry that we had, since it would not have withstood such competition. Therefore, for a significant part of the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire followed the policy of protectionism, that is, it imposed high customs duties on imported products. What did this mean for the budget? In 1900, the revenue part of the ordinary budget of Russia was 1 704.1 million rubles, of which 204 million rubles were formed by customs duties, which is quite noticeable 11.97%. But these 204 million rubles. the profit from foreign trade was not at all exhausted, because the treasury also received taxes on exported goods, and in addition, the positive balance between imports and exports provided currency to service the state debt.
In other words, the manufacturers of the Russian Empire created and sold for export products worth many hundreds of millions of rubles (unfortunately, the author did not find how many were shipped in 1900, but in 1901 they shipped more than 860 million rubles worth of products). Naturally, due to this sale, hefty sums of taxes were paid to the budget. But in addition to taxes, the state additionally received additional excess profits in the amount of 204 million rubles. from customs duties, when foreign products were purchased with the money earned from export sales!
We can say that all of the above gave a direct benefit to the budget, but there was also an indirect one. After all, producers did not just sell for export, they made a profit for the development of their farms. It is no secret that the Russian Empire bought not only colonial goods and all kinds of junk for those in power, but, for example, also the latest agricultural technology - far from as much as was needed, but still. Thus, foreign trade contributed to an increase in labor productivity and an increase in total production, which, again, subsequently contributed to the replenishment of the budget.
Accordingly, we can say that foreign trade was a super-profitable business for the budget of the Russian Empire. But … We've already said that the main trade between the countries goes by sea? The Russian Empire is by no means an exception to this rule. Most, if not to say, the overwhelming majority of cargo was exported / imported from Russia / to Russia by sea transport.
Accordingly, the first task of the fleet of the Russian Empire was to ensure the security of the country's foreign trade.
And here there is one very important nuance: it was foreign trade that brought super profits to the budget, and by no means the presence of a strong merchant fleet in Russia. More precisely, Russia did not have a strong merchant fleet, but there were significant budgetary preferences from foreign trade (carried out by 80 percent by sea). Why is that?
As we have already said, the price of goods for the buying country consists of the price of the goods in the territory of the producing country and the cost of delivery to its territory. Consequently, it does not matter at all who carries the products: Russian transport, British steamer, New Zealand canoe or Captain Nemo's Nautilus. It is only important that the transport is reliable, and the cost of transportation is minimal.
The fact is that it makes sense to invest in the construction of a civilian fleet only if:
1) The result of such construction will be a competitive transport fleet capable of providing the minimum cost of sea transportation in comparison with the transport of other countries.
2) For some reason, the transport fleets of other powers cannot ensure the reliability of cargo transportation.
Unfortunately, even due to the industrial backwardness of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century, it was very difficult for it to build a competitive transport fleet, if at all possible. But even if it was possible - what will we achieve in this case? Oddly enough, nothing special, because the budget of the Russian Empire will have to find funds for investments in maritime transport, and it will receive only taxes from the newly formed shipping companies - perhaps such an investment project would be attractive (if indeed we could build a sea transport system at the level of the best in the world) but still did not promise profits in the short term, and never any superprofits. Oddly enough, to ensure Russia's foreign trade, its own transport fleet was not very needed.
The author of this article is in no way opposed to a strong transport fleet for Russia, but it should be understood: in this respect, the development of railways was much more useful for Russia, because in addition to internal transportations (and in the middle of Russia there is no sea, like it or not, but the goods have to be transported by land) this is also a significant military aspect (acceleration of the terms of mobilization, transfer and supply of troops). And the country's budget is by no means rubber. Of course, some kind of transport fleet of the Russian Empire was needed, but the development of the merchant fleet for the agrarian power at that time should not be prioritized.
The navy is needed to protect the country's foreign trade, i.e. of the goods carried by the transport fleet, it does not matter at all whose transport fleet carries our goods.
Another option - what will happen if you abandon sea transport and focus on land? Nothing good. First, we increase shipping costs and thereby make our products less competitive with similar products from other countries. Secondly, unfortunately, or fortunately, Russia traded with almost all of Europe, but it did not border on all European countries. When organizing trade "on dry land" through the territory of foreign powers, we always have the danger that, for example, the same Germany at any time will introduce a duty for the transit of goods through its territory, or will oblige to carry only its own transport, having charged an incredible price for transportation and … what will we do in this case? Let's go to the foe with a holy war? Well, okay, if it borders on us, and we at least theoretically can threaten it with an invasion, but if there are no common land borders?
Sea transport does not create such problems. The sea, in addition to being cheap, is also wonderful because it is nobody's business. Well, with the exception of the territorial waters, of course, but in general they don't make much weather … Unless, of course, we are not talking about the Bosphorus.
As a matter of fact, the statement about how difficult it is to trade through the territory of a not too friendly power perfectly illustrates Russian-Turkish relations. For many years, the kings looked at the Straits with lust not because of innate quarrels, but for the simple reason that while the Bosphorus was in the hands of Turkey, Turkey controlled a significant part of Russian exports, sailing directly through the Bosphorus. In the 80s and 90s of the 19th century, up to 29.2% of all exports were exported through the Bosphorus, and after 1905 this figure increased to 56.5%. According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, over the decade (from 1903 to 1912), exports through the Dardanelles amounted to 37% of the total exports of the empire. Any military or serious political conflict with the Turks threatened the Russian Empire with colossal financial and image losses. At the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey closed the Straits twice - this happened during the Italo-Turkish (1911-1912) Balkan (1912-1913) wars. According to the calculations of the Russian Ministry of Finance, the loss from the closure of the Straits for the treasury reached 30 million rubles. monthly.
Turkey's behavior perfectly illustrates how dangerous the situation is for a country whose foreign trade can be controlled by other powers. But this is exactly what would happen to Russian foreign trade if we tried to conduct it overland, through the territories of a number of European countries that are by no means always friendly to us.
In addition, the above data also explain how the foreign trade of the Russian Empire was interconnected with the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. For the Russian Empire, the seizure of the Straits was a strategic task not at all because of the desire for new territories, but to ensure uninterrupted foreign trade. Consider how the navy could have contributed to this mission.
The author of this article has repeatedly met the opinion that if it really squeezes Turkey, we could conquer dry land, i.e. simply by occupying its territory. This is largely true, because in the second half of the 19th century, the Sublime Porta gradually slipped into senile marasmus, and although it remained a fairly strong enemy, it still could not resist Russia in a full-scale war alone. Therefore, it would seem that there are no special obstacles in our favor for the conquest (temporary occupation) of Turkey with the seizure of the Bosphorus, and the fleet does not seem to be needed for this.
There is only one problem in all this reasoning - no European country could wish for such a strengthening of the Russian Empire. Therefore, there is no doubt that in the event of a threat to seize the Straits, Russia would immediately face the most powerful political and then military pressure from the same England and other countries. In fact, the Crimean War of 1853-56 arose for similar reasons. Russia always had to take into account that its attempt to seize the Straits would face political and military opposition from the strongest European powers, and as the Crimean War showed, the Empire was not ready for this.
But an even worse option was possible. If suddenly Russia had nevertheless chosen such a moment when its war with Turkey, for whatever reason, would not have caused the formation of an anti-Russian coalition of European powers, then, while the Russian army would have hacked its way to Constantinople, the British, conducting a lightning-fast landing operation, could well To “grab” the Bosphorus for ourselves, which would be a grave political defeat for us. For worse than the Straits in the hands of Turkey for Russia would be the Straits in the hands of Foggy Albion.
And therefore, perhaps the only way to seize the Straits without getting involved in a global military confrontation with a coalition of European powers was to conduct their own lightning-fast operation with a powerful landing, capture the dominant heights and establish control over the Bosphorus and Constantinople. After that, it was necessary to urgently transport large military contingents and strengthen the coastal defenses in every possible way - and prepare to withstand the battle with the British fleet "in pre-prepared positions."
Accordingly, the Black Sea navy was needed for:
1) The defeat of the Turkish fleet.
2) Ensuring the landing of troops (fire support, etc.).
3) Reflections of a possible attack by the British Mediterranean squadron (relying on coastal defenses).
It is likely that the Russian land army could have conquered the Bosphorus, but in that case the West had enough time to think and organize a response to its capture. A completely different matter is to quickly seize the Bosphorus from the sea and present the world community with a fait accompli.
Of course, you can argue about the realism of this scenario, keeping in mind how badly the allies got stuck, laying siege to the Dardanelles from the sea in the First World War.
Yes, having spent a lot of time, effort and ships, landing powerful landings, the British and French, in the end, were defeated and were forced to retreat. But there are two very significant nuances. First, one cannot compare the slowly dying Turkey of the second half of the 19th century with the "Young Turkish" Turkey of the First World War - these are two very different powers. And secondly, the Allies for a long time tried not to seize, but only to force the Straits, using exclusively the fleet, and thus gave Turkey time to organize land defense, to concentrate troops, which subsequently repelled the Anglo-French landings. The Russian plans did not provide for the forcing, but the capture of the Bosporus, by conducting a surprise landing operation. Consequently, although in such an operation Russia could not use resources similar to those that were thrown by the allies into the Dardanelles during the First World War, there was a certain hope of success.
Thus, the creation of a strong Black Sea fleet, obviously superior to the Turkish one and corresponding in power to the British Mediterranean squadron, was one of the most important tasks of the Russian State. And you need to understand that the need for its construction was determined not by the whims of those in power, but by the most vital economic interests of the country!
A small remark: hardly anyone reading these lines considers Nicholas II to be an exemplary statesman and a beacon of statesmanship. But the Russian shipbuilding policy in the First World War looks perfectly reasonable - while in the Baltic the construction of the Izmailov was completely curtailed in favor of light forces (destroyers and submarines), dreadnoughts continued to be built on the Black Sea. And it was not at all fear of the "Goeben" that was the reason: having a rather powerful fleet of 3-4 dreadnoughts and 4-5 battleships, one could take the risk and try to capture the Bosphorus, when Turkey completely exhausts its forces on land fronts, and the Grand Fleet is all the Fleet of the High Seas, quietly withering in Wilhelmshaven, will still be on guard. Thus, having presented our valiant allies in the Entente with a fait accompli, the "dreams come true" of the Russian Empire.
By the way, if we talk about a powerful fleet to capture the Straits, then it should be noted that if Russia did reign on the shores of the Bosphorus, then the Black Sea would finally turn into a Russian Lake. Because the Straits are the key to the Black Sea, and a well-equipped land defense (with the support of the fleet) was able to repel, probably, any onslaught from the sea. And this means that there is absolutely no need to invest in the land defense of the Black Sea coast of Russia, there is no need to keep troops there, etc. - and this is also a kind of economy, and quite considerable. Of course, the presence of a powerful Black Sea fleet to a certain extent made life easier for the ground forces in any war with Turkey, which, in fact, was perfectly demonstrated by the First World War, when Russian ships not only supported the coastal flank with artillery fire and landings, but, which is almost more important, interrupted Turkish shipping and thus excluded the possibility of supplying the Turkish army by sea, "closing" it to land communications.
We have already said that the most important task of the Russian Imperial Navy was to protect the country's foreign trade. For the Black Sea theater and in relations with Turkey, this task is very clearly concretized in the capture of the Straits, but what about the rest of the countries?
By far the best way to protect your own maritime trade is to destroy the fleet of a power that dares to encroach on it (trade). But to build the most powerful navy in the world, capable, in case of war, to crush any competitor at sea, drive the remnants of its navy into ports, block them, cover up their communications with masses of cruisers and all this to ensure unhindered trade with other countries was obviously outside capabilities of the Russian Empire. In the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of the navy was perhaps the most knowledge-intensive and technological industry among all other human occupations - it was not for nothing that the battleship was considered the pinnacle of science and technology of those years. Of course, tsarist Russia, which with some difficulty reached the 5th place in the world in industrial power, could not count on building a military fleet superior to the British.
Another way to protect our own maritime trade is to somehow "persuade" countries with more powerful navies to stay away from our goods. But how can this be done? Diplomacy? Alas, political alliances are short-lived, especially with England, which, as you know, "has no permanent allies, but only permanent interests." And these interests lie in not allowing any European power to become excessively stronger - as soon as France, Russia or Germany began to demonstrate the power sufficient for the consolidation of Europe, England immediately threw all its forces into the formation of an alliance of weaker powers in order to weaken the power of the strongest.
The best argument in politics is strength. But how can it be demonstrated to the weakest power at sea?
To do this, you need to remember that:
1) Any first-class maritime power itself conducts developed foreign trade, a significant part of which is carried out by sea.
2) Offense always takes precedence over defense.
This is how the theory of "cruising war" appeared, which we will consider in more detail in the next article: for now, we just note that its key idea: the conquest of dominance at sea through cruising operations turned out to be unattainable. But the potential threat to maritime navigation, which was created by a fleet capable of cruising operations in the ocean, was very great and even the ruler of the seas, England, had to take it into account in her policy.
Accordingly, the creation of a powerful cruising fleet served two tasks at once - cruisers were perfect both for protecting their own cargo transportation and for interrupting enemy sea trade. The only thing that the cruisers could not do was fight the much better armed and protected battleships. Therefore, of course, it would be a shame to build a strong cruising fleet in the Baltic and … to be blocked in ports by a few battleships of some Sweden.
Here we touch upon such a task of the fleet as protecting its own coast, but we will not consider it in detail, because the need for such protection is obvious to both the supporters and opponents of the ocean-going fleet.
So, we state that the key tasks of the naval force of the Russian Empire were:
1) Protection of Russia's foreign trade (including by capturing the Straits and creating a potential threat to foreign trade of other countries).
2) Protecting the coast from the threat from the sea.
How the Russian Empire was going to solve these problems, we will talk in the next article, but for now let's pay attention to the issue of the cost of the navy. Indeed, if we are talking about the need for a military fleet to protect the country's foreign trade, then we should correlate budget revenues from foreign trade with the cost of maintaining the fleet. Because one of the favorite arguments of the opponents of the “big fleet” is precisely the gigantic and unjustified expenses for its construction. But is it?
As we said above, in 1900, income from customs duties on imported goods alone amounted to 204 million rubles. and this, of course, did not exhaust the benefits from the foreign trade of the Russian State. And what about the fleet? In 1900, Russia was a first-class maritime power, and its fleet could well claim the title of the third fleet in the world (after England and France). At the same time, the massive construction of new warships was carried out - the country was preparing to fight for the Far Eastern borders … But with all this, in 1900 the expenses of the Naval Department for the maintenance and construction of the fleet amounted to only 78, 7 million rubles. This amounted to 26, 15% of the amount received by the War Ministry (expenditures on the army amounted to 300, 9 million rubles) and only 5.5% of the total budget of the country. True, here it is necessary to make an important reservation.
The fact is that in the Russian Empire there were two budgets - ordinary and emergency, and the latter's funds were often used to finance the current needs of the Military and Naval Ministries, as well as to wage wars (when they were) and some other purposes. The above 78, 7 million rubles. on the maritime ministry passed only the ordinary budget, but how much money the maritime department received under the emergency budget, the author does not know. But in total, 103.4 million rubles were allocated under the emergency budget for the needs of the Military and Naval Ministries in 1900. and it is obvious that quite large funds of this amount were spent on suppressing the boxing uprising in China. It is also known that the emergency budget usually allocated much more for the army than for the navy (for example, in 1909 over 82 million rubles were allocated for the army, less than 1.5 million rubles for the navy), so it is extremely difficult to assume that the final figure of the expenses of the Naval Ministry in 1900 exceeded 85-90 million rubles.
But, in order not to guess, let's look at the statistics of 1913. This is a period when increased attention was paid to the combat training of the fleet, and the country was implementing a colossal shipbuilding program. In various stages of construction were 7 dreadnoughts (4 "Sevastopols" and 3 more ships of the "Empress Maria" class on the Black Sea), 4 gigantic battle cruisers of the "Izmail" class, as well as six light cruisers of the "Svetlana" class. At the same time, all the expenses of the Naval Ministry in 1913 (for ordinary and emergency budgets) amounted to 244.9 million rubles. At the same time, the income from customs duties in 1913 amounted to 352.9 million rubles. But the financing of the army exceeded 716 million rubles. It is also interesting that in 1913 budgetary investments in state property and enterprises amounted to 1 billion 108 million rubles. and this is not counting 98 million rubles. of budgetary investments in the private sector.
These figures irrefutably testify that the construction of a first-class fleet was not at all an overwhelming task for the Russian Empire. In addition, it should always be borne in mind that naval development required the development of a huge number of technologies and was a powerful stimulus for the development of industry as a whole.
