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# Skobelev's popular acclaim, his fall from favour under Alexander III and his views on the army
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/pri-zhizni-skobeleva-nazyvali-belym-generalom-za-liubov-k-belym-mundiram-i-belym-koniam-a-na-venke-ot-akademii-generalnogo-shtaba-na-ego-pokhoronakh-bylo-napisano-geroiu-skobelevu-polko/
- Published: 2017-05-11T13:29:51.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:06:20.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Society, People

In his lifetime Skobelev was called the White General for his love of white uniforms and white horses, and the wreath from the General Staff Academy at his funeral bore the inscription: “To the hero Skobelev, commander, the equal of Suvorov”. Indeed, since Suvorov no other commander had enjoyed such love from the people.

In many respects Skobelev’s popularity did him a disservice. Crowned with military triumphs, of impeccable personal qualities, revered by the soldiers, he enjoyed the boundless trust of Alexander II. Very soon he found himself among the disfavoured of Alexander III, allegedly on account of the influence in domestic politics which he intended to direct towards compelling the Tsar to reform and to curb the autocracy.

Take, for example, this: “The reforms of the late Emperor Alexander II, now at rest in God, made the soldier a citizen in our army. Every step on the road back to the old ways will be set against the principle of respect for the individual. It is this very principle that constitutes the chief strength of our modern army, for it shields the soldiery from arbitrariness… The old order in the army was dreadful, for from top to bottom arbitrariness reigned in place of law, and it lay too heavily chiefly on the soldiers.”

What strikes one in Skobelev’s utterances and letters is his distaste for bureaucracy and his yearning to establish some kind of soldierly justice. Having won a stunning victory in the Akhal-Teke campaign, he nursed a hope: “We shall reap undoubted advantages if we manage to preserve in full the dearly bought, now unquestioned, martial prestige, and then, in introducing our own order, do not put the whole business on a clerkly footing, as everywhere else, in the broadest negative sense of that word.”