The Shadow of Great Britain

256: Chapter 171: The Old Gentleman from Austria (4K) 256: Chapter 171: The Old Gentleman from Austria (4K) By merely sharing a box of tobacco, Arthur quickly became close friends with two military officers.

The three of them chatted and gossiped, ranging from the customs and people of England to the snow-covered fields of Russia, and eventually, due to professional resonance, they couldn’t help but bitterly criticize their clueless superiors and their unsuitable placements.

Through the trivial conversation, Arthur finally formed a vague basic impression of this great Eastern European power.

Previously, Arthur’s understanding of 19th-century Russia was limited to a few outstanding literary figures and the criticized serfdom and obscure administrative system targeted by those figures.

As for his understanding of the mysterious organization known as the Russian Imperial Chancellery, it was even more limited to a few sporadic pieces of information.

But now, the concept had become a bit clearer.

The Russian Imperial Chancellery, originally established as the Tsar’s Office during the reign of Peter the Great, was transformed into the Imperial Secretariat during the era of Catherine the Great, with its status further elevated during the reign of Paul I, and was officially renamed as the Imperial Chancellery.

However, throughout the 18th century, the Imperial Chancellery remained a secretive organization with undefined scope and legal basis, depending purely on the Tsar’s mood.

After 1812, in response to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the Imperial Chancellery was officially made public, and its functions and hierarchical relationships began to resemble those of the Qing Dynasty’s Grand Council, as the Chancellery did not report to any department, but directly to the Tsar, entrusted with collecting and conveying all matters and decrees of interest to Alexander I.

For instance, corresponding with commanders, settling POWs, arranging military supplies and encampments, and so on.

Fortunately, there were no machine guns or telegraphs to rapidly transmit orders at the time, otherwise Alexander I, sitting in St.

Petersburg and directing grand strategies, could completely command the front-line to shift a machine gun position five meters to the left through the Imperial Chancellery.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the power of the Imperial Chancellery began to expand continuously, and successfully entrenched this uncontrolled power in legal form.

The “Tsar’s Office Regulations” clearly stipulated: The existence of the Tsar’s Office is to deal with affairs directly studied and decided by the Tsar himself, all matters are handled directly by the Tsar, or by officials authorized by the Tsar.

The range of the Tsar’s will is indefinite, thus the authority and regulations of the Tsar’s Office are also indefinite.

This statement essentially amounts to the power of the Imperial Chancellery being unlimited.

Soon after, the authority over the promotion of senior Russian officials and the appraisal rights of local administration and police institutions also fell firmly into the hands of the Imperial Chancellery.

In its presence, all other Russian departments were fearful; anyone who offended the Imperial Chancellery could consider their political career prematurely ended as getting off lightly.

And with the expansion of power came a significant increase in institutional scale; the Imperial Chancellery rapidly expanded from one office to four within just a few years.

The first office was responsible for overseeing all departmental work; besides the Navy Department and the Army, even the heads of other departments and the Orthodox Church’s Prosecutor General had to report to the first office every morning.

The second office took control of legislative powers; the Russian Ministry of Justice merely executed the decisions of the second office.

As for the third office, it was even more important.

In fact, the third office encompassed all the powers that Arthur, a Scotland Yard detective, could not even dare to imagine.

The third office consisted of five divisions; the first division was responsible for political surveillance, secretly monitoring domestic revolutionary organizations and social activists, and handling political cases.

The second division dealt with combating separatism and religious extremists.

The third focused specifically on foreign intelligence, not just surveilling foreigners within the country but also managing external espionage.

The fourth division was about mobility; they were specifically tasked with handling national emergencies and significant events, and collecting important information.

As for the fifth division, their responsibilities, compared to several other departments, seemed quite mundane.

It was specifically in charge of the censorship of books, theatrical performances, and other cultural publications.

And to ensure the smooth operation of the third office, they naturally had their own executive agency, comprised of well-trained Russian gendarmes spread across the country.

Directly accountable to the Tsar, unconstrained by law, and capable of deploying gendarmes to resolve issues anytime and anywhere, all these elements made the third office the most formidable department within the Imperial Chancellery, and indeed throughout all of Russia.

To reach the level of the third office in law enforcement was indeed reaching the pinnacle, something that Arthur could not even dream about back in Britain.

On this small island, let alone establishing a department equivalent to the third office, even setting up a typical law enforcement organization like Scotland Yard met with reluctance from many.

Just recently, various parishes in London grumbled in Parliament, “Originally, establishing Scotland Yard was thought to decrease the parishes’ security expenses significantly.

However, after tallying up the accounts at the end of the year, hiring Sheriffs in previous years cost only 170,000 pounds, but this year’s Scotland Yard budget has already exceeded 250,000 pounds.

Such a costly organization might as well be disbanded.”

Although the priests from various parishes voiced this, the Home Office exhibited exceptional rigidity on this issue, leaving no room for discussion about disbanding Scotland Yard.