The article is devoted to the study of military factor as Russian modernization mechanism in 1796-1853. The author sets as an object the analyses of the Napoleonic wars impact on the transition of Russian Empire from an agrarian society to industrial one. He emphasizes the wholeness of modernization processes in Russia as the keystone to their successful implementation. The interpretation of a war as the original “challenge” to Russian (Slavic) civilization which had the “response” in the form of the Russian modernization is the scientific novelty of work. The author comes to the conclusion that the participation of Russia in Second, Third and Fourth anti-French coalitions, the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Abroad campaign of the Russian army in 1813-1814 became the weak “challenge” for Russian modernization processes. Revolutionary events in Russian Empire and Western Europe which delayed strongly the course of modernization processes of Russian state at the end of the XVIII th - in the first half of the XIX th centuries played the important role in that aspect.