What if Germany supported Russia?
- Thread starter Michael
- Start date
I believe you are talking about the Berlin congress which took place in 1878, dealing with the russian-turkish war.
Germany could take the side of russia, but pod must be sometime before 1878. With Bismarck as Chancellor, germany would never have taken russias side. After Bismarkcs dismissal in the 1890ies, Germany tended to have strange political dicissions.
Germany could take the side of russia, but pod must be sometime before 1878. With Bismarck as Chancellor, germany would never have taken russias side. After Bismarkcs dismissal in the 1890ies, Germany tended to have strange political dicissions.
greater Russia
The implications of such a decision will be impressive for Russia,
at leat on a shrot term: a "vassal" state of Bulgaria reaching to
within a gunshot of Constantinopol! Later on this will translate into
military bases, amost complete control of the Black Sea, and much
weaker Turkey. Perhaps, even the revolution of 1917 can be
averted, leaving Russia a weak monarchy.
On the other hand, this puts Germany in much more difficult
position - with Russia sitting strong on the Bolkans, the election
of a pro-German king of Bulgaria (it is true - the king was
elected!
seems unlikely. Given that, and the erratic political
moves of the Kayser, Germany would suffer a much worse
defeat in WWI (if it enter si, of course). The WWI will end
earlier, the resentment in gemany will be worse, so a better
opprtunity for a "Hitler" to come to power.
As we go further, is becomes more uncertain but if the WWII
follows the OTL scenario, the "Hitler" will win easily against the
tsarist Russia, and then starve the UK to defeat. Enters a long
Germany-vs.-US cold war.
The implications of such a decision will be impressive for Russia,
at leat on a shrot term: a "vassal" state of Bulgaria reaching to
within a gunshot of Constantinopol! Later on this will translate into
military bases, amost complete control of the Black Sea, and much
weaker Turkey. Perhaps, even the revolution of 1917 can be
averted, leaving Russia a weak monarchy.
On the other hand, this puts Germany in much more difficult
position - with Russia sitting strong on the Bolkans, the election
of a pro-German king of Bulgaria (it is true - the king was
elected!
seems unlikely. Given that, and the erratic political moves of the Kayser, Germany would suffer a much worse
defeat in WWI (if it enter si, of course). The WWI will end
earlier, the resentment in gemany will be worse, so a better
opprtunity for a "Hitler" to come to power.
As we go further, is becomes more uncertain but if the WWII
follows the OTL scenario, the "Hitler" will win easily against the
tsarist Russia, and then starve the UK to defeat. Enters a long
Germany-vs.-US cold war.
valio_98 said:
I learned to quote! my first time.
If Germany was to suppot russia, it would be on the costs of Autro-hungary. The relatin between the "brother-nations" were to get difficult and I doubt, that in this case Germany would build up treaties they did (on the other hand-without Bismarck...)
This way, Germany would not stumble into a war for austria.
Alayta said:
I am not an expert on the prido but I suspect Gemany
would have gone to war - just under another excuse.
It was the re-destribution of the colonies/speres of
influence, and this would have remained.
However, your point suggest some reshuffling o the
alianse system that I don't dare to predict.
Brilliantlight
Banned
\valio_98 said:
Why? The Russian economy was expanding the fastest just prior to WWI not under Stalin. My guess is that the Russians would have been stronger without Communism.
George Carty
Banned
I'm with Brilliantlight here - because of the mass murder of the Ukrainians under Stalin, many people in the Western Soviet Union welcomed the Nazis as liberators believing they couldn't possibly be any worse (they were wrong, of course). With a less extreme Russian regime, this would not be the case...
Brilliantlight
Banned
Ice-Titan said:
That means they would have caught up a bit more then under Stalin. They wouldn't have been at Western standards but they weren't under Stalin either.
Ice-Titan said:
I never realised how damaging growth was for an economy, apparently all economists and policy makers have been pursuing the wrong goal for generations!
The Council of Berlin was convened and chaired by Bismark with the aim of celebrating the German empire (and giving it an official recognition).
To this purpose, he managed to try and please the largest possible majority of the attendants power, and conspicuosly repeated that Germany was just an "honest dealer".
It would be quite surprising that, with these aims in mind, he were to support russian claims. Russia in those years was playing its usual role: the bogeyman of Western nations. Crimea was less than 25 years in the past, Russian appetites were pushing the Ottomans toward the brink, and were creating strong instability in the Balkans, the Great Game was on in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Bismark's first priority was keeping UK happy, and second was possibly tossing a bone or two to the French, to appease their feelings after the 1870 war.
To this purpose, he managed to try and please the largest possible majority of the attendants power, and conspicuosly repeated that Germany was just an "honest dealer".
It would be quite surprising that, with these aims in mind, he were to support russian claims. Russia in those years was playing its usual role: the bogeyman of Western nations. Crimea was less than 25 years in the past, Russian appetites were pushing the Ottomans toward the brink, and were creating strong instability in the Balkans, the Great Game was on in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Bismark's first priority was keeping UK happy, and second was possibly tossing a bone or two to the French, to appease their feelings after the 1870 war.
Brilliantlight said:
Because the Tsarist Russia will probably evolve into a weak democracy, comparable or weaker than France. And see what happened to France in WWII.
Of cource by WWII this ATL b ecomes pretty uncertain but I still suspect that Hitler will ride to power on the German public's resentment from the WWI, and the German loss in WWI will be more crussing because a slightly stronger than in OTL Russia will help to defeat Germany faster.
George Carty
Banned
valio_98 said:
In WWII the Russians unlike the French were fighting for the survival of their people against a genocidal enemy. Nothing makes soldiers fight like knowing the enemy takes no prisoners...
George Carty said:
The French army, although led by decrepid incompetents at the highest level and left in the lurch by both the British and their own politicians, fought hard against the Germans even in retreat, inflicting heavy damage on both the German armour and aircraft, and a hundred thousand French troops died.
Give the French a capital and major military industry a thousand plus miles from the front lines, plus three times Germany's population, and I suspect they would have done rather better...
As for how non-Communist Russia does in a war vs Nazi Germany, one would have to say "it depends." The business about Czarist Russia growing faster than Communist Russia is a half-truth: although the _overall_ economy might well be larger in 1940 sans the disasters of the 1917-1922 period, whether the actually military capacity would be as great is hard to say. Stalin's Russia was a grotesquely malformed creature, with a hypertrophiated military industrial-sector: although most Soviets lived in poverty, and there were few consumer goods, the USSR posessed an industrial machine by 1940 able to crank out tanks, planes, automatic weapons, etc. at rates substantially greater than Germany within it's 1939 borders.
A Russia maintaining it's pre-WWI growth rates and not too badly disrupted by an alt-WWI _might_ be catching up to Germany in overall industrial output by that time, but that would include shoe factories, bycicle makers, textile manufacturers, etc. - whether it would be matchhing or surpassing germany's military output is hard to say. And here is where the mention of "soft democracies" does have some truth to it - a dictator such as Hitler can order an unsustainable military buildup that a democratic government may find politically and economically hard to match.
And, of course, we can't be sure that economic growth rates of Czarist Russia would continue to be as good: years of growth might be lost to revolution, labor unrest, major global economic slumps. The economy, heavily dependent on French investment, might be badly hurt by any post-*WWI economic crisis in France. But we are still only seeing the iceberg's tip of possibilities: with history diverging as early as the 1870's, there's a range of possible Russias in 1940: a fascistic dictatoship: a constiutional monarchy presiding over a corrupt oligarchic government and a violently revolutionary peasantry being forced off their land by more efficient farmers: a left-wing democratic government violently under assault from forces of the right and unwilling to spend vast amounts on the military rather than on (they hope)bettering the lives of workers and peasants: Brazil writ large: or even a disintegrated state brought on by the failure of the first Russian democracy to satisfy the forces on the left and right and leading to civil war in the 30's. Perhaps we might get a Russia with _sustained_ economic growth rates even higher than our TL.
Some of these various Russias might be better at resisting a German onslaught, others worse. An _efficient_ right-wing dictatorship might be one of the nastier possibilities for the Germans to deal with, although Nazis might find people looking to them as liberators here too (even before our WWI, Poles, Balts, and educated Ukrainians were not exactly enthusiastic about their membership in the Russian empire).
On the other hand (and a big, hairy, knob-knuckled one it is) all considerations of relative Russian power become much less important if we note that a Russia sans a WWI revolution is probably still going to be a French ally vs Nazi Germany, and probably has a common border with Germany. Germany is in a two-front war right away, which makes any chance of german victory very poor indeed, even if Russia is somewhat militarily weaker than in our TL.
A Russia maintaining it's pre-WWI growth rates and not too badly disrupted by an alt-WWI _might_ be catching up to Germany in overall industrial output by that time, but that would include shoe factories, bycicle makers, textile manufacturers, etc. - whether it would be matchhing or surpassing germany's military output is hard to say. And here is where the mention of "soft democracies" does have some truth to it - a dictator such as Hitler can order an unsustainable military buildup that a democratic government may find politically and economically hard to match.
And, of course, we can't be sure that economic growth rates of Czarist Russia would continue to be as good: years of growth might be lost to revolution, labor unrest, major global economic slumps. The economy, heavily dependent on French investment, might be badly hurt by any post-*WWI economic crisis in France. But we are still only seeing the iceberg's tip of possibilities: with history diverging as early as the 1870's, there's a range of possible Russias in 1940: a fascistic dictatoship: a constiutional monarchy presiding over a corrupt oligarchic government and a violently revolutionary peasantry being forced off their land by more efficient farmers: a left-wing democratic government violently under assault from forces of the right and unwilling to spend vast amounts on the military rather than on (they hope)bettering the lives of workers and peasants: Brazil writ large: or even a disintegrated state brought on by the failure of the first Russian democracy to satisfy the forces on the left and right and leading to civil war in the 30's. Perhaps we might get a Russia with _sustained_ economic growth rates even higher than our TL.
Some of these various Russias might be better at resisting a German onslaught, others worse. An _efficient_ right-wing dictatorship might be one of the nastier possibilities for the Germans to deal with, although Nazis might find people looking to them as liberators here too (even before our WWI, Poles, Balts, and educated Ukrainians were not exactly enthusiastic about their membership in the Russian empire).
On the other hand (and a big, hairy, knob-knuckled one it is) all considerations of relative Russian power become much less important if we note that a Russia sans a WWI revolution is probably still going to be a French ally vs Nazi Germany, and probably has a common border with Germany. Germany is in a two-front war right away, which makes any chance of german victory very poor indeed, even if Russia is somewhat militarily weaker than in our TL.