abused the hospitality offered to them. No wonder then that the future
Tzar was puzzled by the display of patriotic sentiments on the part of
the Jewish population at the fatal juncture in the history of Russia.

This inimical view of the Jewish people was retained by Nicholas when he
became the master of Russian-Jewish destinies. He regarded the Jews as
an "injurious element," which had no place in a Slavonic Greek-Orthodox
monarchy, and which therefore ought to be combated. The Jews must be
rendered innocuous, must be "corrected" and curbed by such energetic
military methods as are in keeping with a form of government based upon
the principles of stern tutelage and discipline. As a result of these
considerations, a singular scheme was gradually maturing in the mind of
the Tzar: to detach the Jews from Judaism by impressing them into a
military service of a wholly exceptional character.

The plan of introducing personal military service, instead of the
hitherto customary exemption tax, [1] had engaged the attention of the
Russian Government towards the end of Alexander I's reign, and had
caused a great deal of alarm among the Jewish communities. Nicholas I.
was now resolved to carry this plan into effect. Not satisfied with
imposing a civil obligation upon a people deprived of civil rights, the
Tzar desired to use the Russian military service, a service marked by
most extraordinary features, as an educational and disciplinary agency
for his Jewish subjects: the barrack was to serve as a school, or rather
as a factory, for producing a new generation of de-Judaized Jews, who
were completely Russified, and, if possible, Christianized.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 318.]

The extension of the term of military service, marked by the ferocious