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... their administrations, and women were permitted to teach. Also, the Crimean war exposed the need for the immediate reform in the army, and thus, the Czar reduced the term of service from 25 to 6 years, as well as established military schools to train officers. Nonetheless, the Czar's reforms failed to generate stability or consensus in Russia. Both the peasants and the landowning nobles contended that the land lawfully belonged to them and were frustrated by the emancipation settlement that had ended serfdom. Criticism of his reforms was incessant in young upper and middle class Russia, who maintained that the changes to the status quo did not go far enough as to improve the peasant's standard of living, nor to allow Russia the right to express their political ideologies in government. Thus, Alexander II was caught in the middle of a crisis: on one hand he was expected to pacify the ...