raharris1973
Well-known member
What if Tsar Alexander II's Russia gave a hard pass to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877?
I can think of a couple reasons why Alexander II, and his minister Gorchakov, might stick to avoiding war with the Ottomans, despite the Bosnian and Bulgarian uprisings and their repressions,and the Serbian and Montenegrin attacks on the Ottomans and their defeats. The same reasons that could restrain Russia from going to war, could also restrain Russia from pre-war diplomatic arrangements and private and public that provided pretexts for war and put Russian honor on the line, notably the Reichstadt agreement with Austria on Balkan spheres of influence, and the Constantinople multilateral conference demanding collective European oversight of autonomous Bosnia and Bulgaria.
#1 The first reason Alexander II may hesitate to commit is he may realize his military underpreparation, and near-complete naval unpreparedness. Despite his abrogation of the Black Sea clauses of the 1856 Treaty of Paris, the Russian Empire, for non-trivial fiscal reasons, had neglected to rebuild the Black Sea fleet! AII may quickly come to the conclusion it is rather pointless to go to war with the Ottomans without a decent Black Sea fleet that Russia can use to seize and blast through the Turkish straits and Constantinople to gain decisive results, and dictate Russia's desired terms. Also, he may take note of the quality western armament the Ottomans have purchased and deployed and its superiority in many cases to Russian armament. This could lead him to believe this is not a crisis to be resolved by war, which is terribly expense for Russia's weak economy anyway, and that no war would make sense until Russia improves its land arms and begins a Black Sea naval build up and gives it a decade, or at least half a decade, to bear fruit.
If AII goes this route, how does the eastern crisis of the late 1870s wind down? Do the Ottomans definitively crush the Bulgarian and Bosnian revolts by late 1877, 78, 79, or 80?
Does an alternate set of powers - perhaps Britain and Austria-Hungary, intervene to try to halt the Balkan bloodshed? The latter would probably compel Russia to feel like it has to participate rather than be a mere bystander.
Assuming it winds down with an Ottoman suppression/Ottoman victory and is relatively quiet for another decade or half decade at least, what is different about Russo-Ottoman, Russo-Austrian, Russo-German, Russo-British, and Russo-French relations in this ATL?
How differently might things go later on in the 1880s or 1890s if the Eastern (and Balkan) question flares up again, depending on if Alex II is assassinated in 1881 per OTL's schedule, or if he avoids assassination and lives out his natural life?
Does the lack of the Russo-Turkish War 1877-78 disrupt the Ottoman succession and prevent Abdul Hamid's rise to power or not? Does it allow continuation of constituional rule? Without a war at that moment, the Ottomans do not need to contract debts related to that war, and have no reason to cede Cyprus to Britain. Are the French still in a position to seize Tunis in 1881?
# 2 A second reason I can think of for the Russians to avoid a war in 1877 would be diplomatic rather than their own internal decisionmaking unaided. AII and Gorchakov did sound out the courts and capitals of Europe about the potential for war. What if in private discussions, Bismarck replies with a resounding 'nein'? Bismarck states his reasoning that a Russo-Turkish war would stoke rather than quell further unrest, just as the Greek intervention did, and it would excite jealousy between the powers (jealousy of Austria, Britain, France, and Italy in particular) and risk a war Russia cannot afford and Germany cannot afford. Bismarck stubbornly sticks to the position that the territorial and sovereign status quo, for all its shortcomings, is less bad than all possible alternatives. Bismarck similarly intrigues the Austro-Hungarians, especially using Magyar interlocutors, always wary of expansion, especially expansion that adds more Slavic nationalities, to have them take a similarly negative position toward a prospective Russian war, rather than make a deal under the table. The Tsar and Gorchakov don't bother to ask the British under Disraeli, because they assume based on recent decades of British policy, that the British would reply negatively. Gladstone would be happy for a Russian war punishing the Turks, but he is unfortunately only the Opposition leader. With these players already unreceptive, St. Petersburg considers the French, defeated and revolutionized and crown-less as of six years ago, and the Italians, irrelevant players with no opinions of account.
So the Russians hold back from going to war or going out on such a diplomatic/public limb that they could be trapped into one.
All the same questions about how things play out in the rest of the 1870s, 1880s, and into the 1890s, from the first cause, still apply.
Only I would add one more. Alexander II in this ATL knows that his and Russia's traditional 'friend' Bismarck, game him an emphatic 'no' on an important foreign policy question. Regardless of whether AII's heart was fully committed to the war policy, it could be a bit of a shock and could sting that Bismarck refused to acquiesce as expected (after all, Prussia had no history of particular interest in the Eastern Question(s)), and that Wilhelm I, one of his Three "League'd" Emperors, and uncle, stood behind his Chancellor. Alexander II would almost certainly let his son and heir know what happened.
How much damage could and would Bismarck/Wilhelm/Germany's preemptive non-consent to Russian war with the Turks have damaged Russo-German relations at this time (1877 & the years after)? A lot, a little, none at all? Would Russia, under either AII or AIII have gone shopping for an anti-German alliance, with France and/or Britain, possibly Italy as well, over a decade earlier than OTL? Would Russia have refused diplomatic arrangements and expedients like the twice renewed second Three Emperor's League of the 1880s or the strictly secret and bilateral Russo-German Reinsurance Treaty? Could Bismarck butter up the Russians he opposed/offended in the Balkans/Near East by providing contrasting encouragement/support to their expansion in the Far East vis-a-vis China, Korea, Japan.....or Persia, in the more "Middle" East?
I can think of a couple reasons why Alexander II, and his minister Gorchakov, might stick to avoiding war with the Ottomans, despite the Bosnian and Bulgarian uprisings and their repressions,and the Serbian and Montenegrin attacks on the Ottomans and their defeats. The same reasons that could restrain Russia from going to war, could also restrain Russia from pre-war diplomatic arrangements and private and public that provided pretexts for war and put Russian honor on the line, notably the Reichstadt agreement with Austria on Balkan spheres of influence, and the Constantinople multilateral conference demanding collective European oversight of autonomous Bosnia and Bulgaria.
#1 The first reason Alexander II may hesitate to commit is he may realize his military underpreparation, and near-complete naval unpreparedness. Despite his abrogation of the Black Sea clauses of the 1856 Treaty of Paris, the Russian Empire, for non-trivial fiscal reasons, had neglected to rebuild the Black Sea fleet! AII may quickly come to the conclusion it is rather pointless to go to war with the Ottomans without a decent Black Sea fleet that Russia can use to seize and blast through the Turkish straits and Constantinople to gain decisive results, and dictate Russia's desired terms. Also, he may take note of the quality western armament the Ottomans have purchased and deployed and its superiority in many cases to Russian armament. This could lead him to believe this is not a crisis to be resolved by war, which is terribly expense for Russia's weak economy anyway, and that no war would make sense until Russia improves its land arms and begins a Black Sea naval build up and gives it a decade, or at least half a decade, to bear fruit.
If AII goes this route, how does the eastern crisis of the late 1870s wind down? Do the Ottomans definitively crush the Bulgarian and Bosnian revolts by late 1877, 78, 79, or 80?
Does an alternate set of powers - perhaps Britain and Austria-Hungary, intervene to try to halt the Balkan bloodshed? The latter would probably compel Russia to feel like it has to participate rather than be a mere bystander.
Assuming it winds down with an Ottoman suppression/Ottoman victory and is relatively quiet for another decade or half decade at least, what is different about Russo-Ottoman, Russo-Austrian, Russo-German, Russo-British, and Russo-French relations in this ATL?
How differently might things go later on in the 1880s or 1890s if the Eastern (and Balkan) question flares up again, depending on if Alex II is assassinated in 1881 per OTL's schedule, or if he avoids assassination and lives out his natural life?
Does the lack of the Russo-Turkish War 1877-78 disrupt the Ottoman succession and prevent Abdul Hamid's rise to power or not? Does it allow continuation of constituional rule? Without a war at that moment, the Ottomans do not need to contract debts related to that war, and have no reason to cede Cyprus to Britain. Are the French still in a position to seize Tunis in 1881?
# 2 A second reason I can think of for the Russians to avoid a war in 1877 would be diplomatic rather than their own internal decisionmaking unaided. AII and Gorchakov did sound out the courts and capitals of Europe about the potential for war. What if in private discussions, Bismarck replies with a resounding 'nein'? Bismarck states his reasoning that a Russo-Turkish war would stoke rather than quell further unrest, just as the Greek intervention did, and it would excite jealousy between the powers (jealousy of Austria, Britain, France, and Italy in particular) and risk a war Russia cannot afford and Germany cannot afford. Bismarck stubbornly sticks to the position that the territorial and sovereign status quo, for all its shortcomings, is less bad than all possible alternatives. Bismarck similarly intrigues the Austro-Hungarians, especially using Magyar interlocutors, always wary of expansion, especially expansion that adds more Slavic nationalities, to have them take a similarly negative position toward a prospective Russian war, rather than make a deal under the table. The Tsar and Gorchakov don't bother to ask the British under Disraeli, because they assume based on recent decades of British policy, that the British would reply negatively. Gladstone would be happy for a Russian war punishing the Turks, but he is unfortunately only the Opposition leader. With these players already unreceptive, St. Petersburg considers the French, defeated and revolutionized and crown-less as of six years ago, and the Italians, irrelevant players with no opinions of account.
So the Russians hold back from going to war or going out on such a diplomatic/public limb that they could be trapped into one.
All the same questions about how things play out in the rest of the 1870s, 1880s, and into the 1890s, from the first cause, still apply.
Only I would add one more. Alexander II in this ATL knows that his and Russia's traditional 'friend' Bismarck, game him an emphatic 'no' on an important foreign policy question. Regardless of whether AII's heart was fully committed to the war policy, it could be a bit of a shock and could sting that Bismarck refused to acquiesce as expected (after all, Prussia had no history of particular interest in the Eastern Question(s)), and that Wilhelm I, one of his Three "League'd" Emperors, and uncle, stood behind his Chancellor. Alexander II would almost certainly let his son and heir know what happened.
How much damage could and would Bismarck/Wilhelm/Germany's preemptive non-consent to Russian war with the Turks have damaged Russo-German relations at this time (1877 & the years after)? A lot, a little, none at all? Would Russia, under either AII or AIII have gone shopping for an anti-German alliance, with France and/or Britain, possibly Italy as well, over a decade earlier than OTL? Would Russia have refused diplomatic arrangements and expedients like the twice renewed second Three Emperor's League of the 1880s or the strictly secret and bilateral Russo-German Reinsurance Treaty? Could Bismarck butter up the Russians he opposed/offended in the Balkans/Near East by providing contrasting encouragement/support to their expansion in the Far East vis-a-vis China, Korea, Japan.....or Persia, in the more "Middle" East?