The ethos of the [Russian Crimean] army was dominated by the eighteenth-century parade-ground culture of the tsarist court, in which promotion, to quote Karl Marx, was limited to ‘martinets, whose principal merit consists of stolid obedience and ready servility added to accuracy of eyesight in detecting a fault in the buttons and buttonholes of the uniform’. There was more emphasis on the drilling and appearance of the troops than on their battle worthiness.

Figes, Orlando. Crimea Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.