Crueldwarf said:There is no way for Germans in late 1917 or early 1918 to advance on Moscow. Petrograd is possible but it would both require serious commitment (that German Empire was ill-posed to afford) and will do nothing to actually topple Bolsheviks. In fact the most likely result of continuing German advance on Petrograd and failure of the peace talks would be a flip of the Bolshevik rhetoric toward patriotic defense and Lenin actually going along with Entente demands. Which would probably lead to Entente actually supporting the Bolsheviks against the Germans.
This is of course going to hurt at home since peace was part of the promise, but the Bolshevik strategy will probably be to gain as much time as possible to let Germany collapse and that's still more popular than the provisional government's approach to the war.
Of course the civil war is still going to happen and having to worry about German pushes makes it harder to fight the opening moves of it.
The easiest solution is to have it not be Lenin and his clique but the Left SRs on top.
Or perhaps the reunified RSDLP that the on the ground Bolshiviks wanted and Lenin stopped when he showed up at Finland Station.
That said as other people have mentioned the German Railway offensive in the face of "Neither Peace nor War" showed that Red Militias were useless in a War against them. You need to build up the Red Army and that is always going to have bigger fish to fry in country.
Its an interesting concept but any game one plays about it (For example having Churchill's proposal to send TR to Petrograd to bring this about which I wrote a rather lukewarm Vignette about years ago) is always going to have to be more about intrigue then the actual war. Since any such war ends no later then a month after it starts.
Its on AHDC. Not really much to it mind you. It's more or less "Did you know Churchill wanted to send TR to Russia???"Where did your little vignette about it?
Big guy with a big stick and a mustache
It doesn't really seem to have had much to do with that and more to do with the fact that Churchill had a man crush and a cocktail of worldwide fame and not actually doing anything.Guessing Theodore Roosevelt, since he helped end the Russo-Japanese war.
Thought so, couldn't find anything when I googled about it, too much Operation Unthinkable stuffBig guy with a big stick and a mustache
They talk about it at the end of this.Thought so, couldn't find anything when I googled about it, too much Operation Unthinkable stuff
Because they thought the German workers would join them in short order and based their strategy such as it was around this and got their asses kicked OTL.Why would they do this, when the Soviets explicitly wanted get out of the war in first place?
Because they thought the German workers would join them in short order and based their strategy such as it was around this and got their asses kicked OTL.
Because there is nothing stopping them from deciding one more heave will do it or that a people's war would work out after just waiting passively didn't work. They tried that one in Poland a few years later after all and against their domestic opposition and it took Lenin's personal intervention to gain enough support among the senior leaders to accept the German terms after the disasters.But this is OTL and they did in fact exit the war OTL. So I don't see how your point explain why they'd stick around when it's clearly not working.
Because there is nothing stopping them from deciding one more heave will do it or that a people's war would work out after just waiting passively didn't work. They tried that one in Poland a few years later after all and against their domestic opposition and it took Lenin's personal intervention to gain enough support among the senior leaders to accept the German terms after the disasters.
Seems fairly easy as POD that he or someone in his circle decide that the Germans are deluding themselves because of easy battlefield success and will instead crumple if they suffer a defeat. And given how close they were to St Petersberg/Petrograd when the OTL peace was agreed its fairly easy to see that city falling if the Soviets take even a few weeks longer to face reality.
And I think losing Russia's second city, former capital and the symbolic birthplace of the revolution is going to see at least Lenin's circle ousted though I have no idea who would end up in charge.
I really don't think the Soviets were incapable of incredible stupid foreign policy moves. They made a whole bunch in this period including continuing to fight Germany and the German terms were very harsh and swallowed very bitterly.I really don't think there's any chance of that happening. The Bolsheviks knew exactly how unpopular the war was, they made a campaign out of it. Some in the party were defencists, and that was very visible in the party line before Lenin returned but that was also before the disastrous Kerensky offensive. And their army is even worse than that. Once it's clear the Germans are still pushing, they're going to send peace feelers.
If you want to derail that attempt, that's another angle entirely, and one that might work, but the Germans really wanted to refocus on the western front and the Bolsheviks were willing to offer pretty much anything because they didn't believe the Germans would last.
I guess you could use a plot from the remaining SR, who were opposed to the peace though.
I really don't think the Soviets were incapable of incredible stupid foreign policy moves. They made a whole bunch in this period including continuing to fight Germany and the German terms were very harsh and swallowed very bitterly.
