Field trips of the General Staff officers in the Russian Army 1871-1914

The paper considers the problem of formation and development of field travels of officers of the General Staff in the Russian army from 1871 to 1914 not studied in the scientific literature. It is concluded that they did not remain unchanged. At first they were conceived for officers'' training. However due to various reasons by the beginning of the 20th century field trips began to be used mainly for reconnaissance of the frontier areas. The failures of the war with Japan forced them to change their content. The trips were divided into training and reconnaissance. However the outbreak of World War I prevented the project of training General Staff officers through field trips from being fully implemented.