raharris1973
Well-known member
In any hypothetical Russian 19th century war (post-Napoleon), that includes a Central European front, which extreme outcome if more plausible - an ending like May 1945 with the Russians ravaging Berlin/Vienna, or a Brest-Litovsk with Russia losing all its ethnically diverse western borderlands? Even if neither scenario that likely at all, which extreme is *least implausible* compared to the other?
Let me know if you think it varies significantly by period or decade within 1816-1900, but since I'm keeping the poll binary, provide the answer to the poll that applies to the greatest balance of the period.
Russian 19th and 20th century wars featured multiple types of endgames, I could classify them thusly:
1) Russian steamrolls - WWII is a classic example of this, in its classic, 'come from behind' form, where Russia starts as the attacked, disadvantaged party, but recovers, defeats the enemy armies, and steamrolls on to occupy the enemy's capital city, ie Berlin by May 1945, a little under four years after the Nazi invasion of June 1941. The other classic example is the Russian (and allied) steamroll and occupation of Paris by (whatever month it was) in 1815, in the third year after Napoleon's French-led invasion of Russia in 1812. Russian participation against Japan at the end of WWII was a rapid steamroll (runaway train or truck) from beginning to end without any harrowing defensive struggle up front.
2) Brest-Litovskian mutilation - The stripping away of Russians ethnically diverse western and Caucasian territories after grueling military defeats, military underperformance, and societal collapse amid revolution. A process taking place in tandem with revolution. One where the succeeding Soviet state, with much sacrifice and a bloody civil war, grabbed back about half the yardage.
3) The 'mutilated' victory - The Russo-Turkish War of the 1870s. Russia won, defeated the Turkish armies and gained territories for itself in Europe (southern Bessarabia) and Asia (Kars), and reshaped the Balkans into new states. But the war was blemished by underperformance at the start, and Russia felt butthurt being denied some ambitious territorial goals (San Stefano Bulgaria) at the end, even though those were an overreach beyond what they promised they were looking for in the begining. All in all, fairly parallel to the Italian mutilated victory in WWI - she unmistakably won in territorial terms, but sulked about not getting some additional questionable objective.
4) Humiliating, but only flesh-wounding, defeats - The Crimean War and Russo-Japanese War meet this criteria. Russia has to sue for peace in the first, concede influence over the Danubian principalities, then having a navy on the Black Sea, but territorially, just a smalll slice of southern Bessarabia. No indemnity. In the R-J War, Russia has to sue for peace, loses two fleets in battle, concedes recently acquired influence and property in Korea and southern Manchuria (but not all property in all Manchuria), but of home territory, only southern Sakhalin island. No indemnity or demilitarization clauses. Defeat in Russo-Polish War of 1921 (but mixed case, because Polish maximal goals defeated too)
5) Successful police actions - Hungary 1848, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, suppression of 1830 and 1860 Polish revolts
6) Crumbled police actions/counter-insurgencies - Afghanistan, 1980s
7) Frontier victories - 19th century wars of expansion and conquest against small states or polities of Caucasus, Central Asia and the Ottomans and Persians in the 1820s and the Ottomans and Swedes circa 1810.
8) Bloodless victories - Acquisition of Outer Manchuria and Primorye from China, 1858-1860, ending of restricting Black Sea clauses, 1871.
Let me know if you think it varies significantly by period or decade within 1816-1900, but since I'm keeping the poll binary, provide the answer to the poll that applies to the greatest balance of the period.
Russian 19th and 20th century wars featured multiple types of endgames, I could classify them thusly:
1) Russian steamrolls - WWII is a classic example of this, in its classic, 'come from behind' form, where Russia starts as the attacked, disadvantaged party, but recovers, defeats the enemy armies, and steamrolls on to occupy the enemy's capital city, ie Berlin by May 1945, a little under four years after the Nazi invasion of June 1941. The other classic example is the Russian (and allied) steamroll and occupation of Paris by (whatever month it was) in 1815, in the third year after Napoleon's French-led invasion of Russia in 1812. Russian participation against Japan at the end of WWII was a rapid steamroll (runaway train or truck) from beginning to end without any harrowing defensive struggle up front.
2) Brest-Litovskian mutilation - The stripping away of Russians ethnically diverse western and Caucasian territories after grueling military defeats, military underperformance, and societal collapse amid revolution. A process taking place in tandem with revolution. One where the succeeding Soviet state, with much sacrifice and a bloody civil war, grabbed back about half the yardage.
3) The 'mutilated' victory - The Russo-Turkish War of the 1870s. Russia won, defeated the Turkish armies and gained territories for itself in Europe (southern Bessarabia) and Asia (Kars), and reshaped the Balkans into new states. But the war was blemished by underperformance at the start, and Russia felt butthurt being denied some ambitious territorial goals (San Stefano Bulgaria) at the end, even though those were an overreach beyond what they promised they were looking for in the begining. All in all, fairly parallel to the Italian mutilated victory in WWI - she unmistakably won in territorial terms, but sulked about not getting some additional questionable objective.
4) Humiliating, but only flesh-wounding, defeats - The Crimean War and Russo-Japanese War meet this criteria. Russia has to sue for peace in the first, concede influence over the Danubian principalities, then having a navy on the Black Sea, but territorially, just a smalll slice of southern Bessarabia. No indemnity. In the R-J War, Russia has to sue for peace, loses two fleets in battle, concedes recently acquired influence and property in Korea and southern Manchuria (but not all property in all Manchuria), but of home territory, only southern Sakhalin island. No indemnity or demilitarization clauses. Defeat in Russo-Polish War of 1921 (but mixed case, because Polish maximal goals defeated too)
5) Successful police actions - Hungary 1848, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, suppression of 1830 and 1860 Polish revolts
6) Crumbled police actions/counter-insurgencies - Afghanistan, 1980s
7) Frontier victories - 19th century wars of expansion and conquest against small states or polities of Caucasus, Central Asia and the Ottomans and Persians in the 1820s and the Ottomans and Swedes circa 1810.
8) Bloodless victories - Acquisition of Outer Manchuria and Primorye from China, 1858-1860, ending of restricting Black Sea clauses, 1871.