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The Russian ancien régime presents a paradox. Like other anciens régimes, it exhibited many signs of decay. The government had been unsuccessful in its major military enterprises ever since the Crimean War, its diplomatic defeats ranging from the Congress of Berlin to the Bosnian annexation crisis of 1909. Failure abroad was accompanied by signs of weakness within. The crisis of 1879-82 had shown the strength of internal opposition. In 1905, ignominious defeat at the hands of Japan proved to be the prelude to a revolution that shook tsarism to its foundations and clearly displayed its structural weaknesses. The last two "Autocrats of All Russia" were men of mediocre talent. The tsarist court, especially under Nicholas II, was ridden with scandals typical of a declining, unsure, and, indeed, frightened regime. Meanwhile, Russia's ruling class, the hereditary landed nobility, improvident and debt-ridden, its landholdings reduced from 73.1 million desiatins in 1877 to a mere 43.2 million by 1911, was in headlong decline.