Russia's frantic grab for warm bodies reminds me of Rome after the Battle of Arausio.
105 b.c. Rome is trying to fend off an incursion into their territory known as Transalpine Gaul by Germanic tribesmen. At this time, Rome only permits property owners to serve in the legions, for two major reasons. One, they can afford their own weapons and armor, and two, only property owners are believed to have sufficient incentive to fight, as they have tangible assets to fight to protect. People who own no property are too poor to afford military equipment, and are believed to be uninterested in fighting because they have no assets to protect.
Rome's legions facing the Germans are commanded by a patrician general, and a plebian general from a lower social rank. The patrician general refuses to coordinate his movements with those of his social 'inferior', as a result, they are not able to bring a united force against the Germans when they attack. As a result the Roman legions are defeated, leaving Rome vulnerable to attack. Historians estimate a death toll of between 80,000 and 120,000 soldiers dead.
Desperate for warm bodies to fill out new legions, the Senate either decreases the property qualifications of potential soldiers, or ignores them entirely, and also sends out press gangs pulling old men out of their beds and dragging them into service, and intimidating young property owning teenage boys, the "men of the house" now that their fathers have been killed in action, into the legions.
Rome's solution to the problem is not one Russia can emulate, as terms of service have changed so drastically. Social upstart and brilliant general Gaius Marius begins to recruit his soldiers from the unpropertied, the homeless, and the unemployed of Rome, using the most powerful intangible asset there is: patriotism. While the snobbish Senators declare their outrage over an army of social nobodies, Gaius Marius welds his pauper soldiers into a first-class professional army, and together, they win battle after battle after battle for Rome, and change the legions from a part-time militia into a full-time professional force.
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