The Fate of the Russian Empire
This series examined what a German victory via the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 would’ve meant for the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Now, we’ll turn our attention to the Russian Empire. We’ll explore the Romanovs, the Russian relationship with the Balkans, the communist revolution, and how things would’ve gone for them if they had been on the losing side in a short war with Germany.
The Romanovs and Three Hundred Years of Rule
The year 1914 ushered in the celebration of the Romanov’s three hundredth year on the Russian throne. Much like stories of other empires, it was fraught with a pendulum of strong and weak leaders. For the latter, they did not have as bad a run as the Ottoman Empire, but in 1914, a weak leader on the throne precipitated a change in government. But before we get there, let’s explore some of its leaders leading up to 1914.
The first tsar was Michael II, crowned in 1613 at the young age of sixteen. He was essentially given the crown out of desperation. The previous fifteen years of political turbulence were known as the Time of Troubles, with various “imposters” claiming the throne. Russia also experienced a famine that killed a third of its population. Taking advantage of the situation, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (you might remember them from the last blog) occupied Russian territory, taking Smolensk.
Desiring stability, Michael Romanov was crowned with a claim to the throne through his aunt, Anastasia, who was the beloved first wife of Ivan the Terrible. She was the mother of the last tsar in Ivan’s line, and those gave Michael an acceptable claim to the throne. However, what would put Russia on a collision course with a war in Europe would start a century later.
When Peter the Great came to power, he tried to push Russia into the modern Western world. He was responsible for moving the country’s capital from Moscow to a new city he built on the coast, which became known as the Venice of the North. It was called Petrograd in Russian, but to make it sound more Western, it was named St. Petersburg.
During his reign, Peter (the first to call himself emperor) forced the men of Russia to shave their beards, adopt Western-style clothing, and rejected Russian traditionalists. He also conquered seaports on the Baltic and the Black Seas, acting as the catalyst to peel Ottoman control back toward Constantinople.
Yet, upon his death, the male line of the Romanovs died out (he had his only heir from his first wife tortured and killed, given he favored the children from his second wife Catherine). Catherine I became empress of the Russian empire, creating the precedent for future empresses to rule Russia, including Catherine’s daughter, Elizabeth, and her granddaughter, Catherine the Great.
Under the latter’s rule, Russia continued to pursue a westernization of Russia. It was also during this time that Catherine instilled the idea that Russia would serve as a patron to the Christian peoples of the Balkans, creating the key thread that would influence the wars in the region to come (read Part 1 to learn more about Russia’s relationship with the Balkans).
After Catherine the Great, her unfavorable son, Paul, took the throne but was assassinated by his own officers, opening the throne for Paul’s brother, Alexander I, whom Catherine favored. He led Russia through the tumultuous period of the Napoleonic Wars, saving Russia from Napoleon after the French army had burned Moscow to the ground.
Upon Alexander’s death, his heir, Constantine, refused the throne, and it was passed to Alexander’s youngest brother, Nicholas I. Nicholas was not a reformer but was a pure reactionary. Upon his death in 1855, he was called the man who froze Russia for thirty years. However, his son Alexander II was more apt for the role. He started out as an idealist, abolishing serfdom in Russia, but he would eventually become a repressive and reactionary ruler. This would lead to his death when a radical Pole threw a bomb at him that tore the emperor to pieces, leading to his bloody death.
His eldest son, Alexander III, would take the throne. He was a bear of a man, known to crush silverware into balls with his bare hands. He was autocratic as a ruler, attempting to undo many of the reforms his father had done. From the beginning, he was a tyrant as he tried to stamp out anything that would diminish the family’s power. However, he would suddenly die from nephritis, leaving his son, Nicholas II, to assume the throne in 1894.
Unfortunately for the empire, Nicholas II was not like his father. He was physically slight and was lacking in self-confidence. Upon the death of his father, whom he idolized, he said:
“What am I going to do? I am not prepared to be a tsar. I never wanted to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling. I have no idea how to talk to the ministers.”
In a strange connection to other nations that would find themselves in a war in 1914, he had married Princess Alix of Hesse-Farmstadt, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain and the first cousin of Wilhelm II of Germany. Yet, his leadership shortcomings would eventually be his undoing and would end Romanov rule.
A New Government and Revolution
When you read about Nicholas II in the lead-up to his abdication on 8 March 1917, the word that comes to mind is inaction. Sticking his head in the sand, as it would seem, he let the gathering storm clouds continue to grow even though he had to have known that these forces were coming for him. His wife even encouraged him to use force to suppress the growing rebellion against his rule.
But unlike his father, who would’ve acted swiftly and violently, he did nothing. Instead, he would abdicate the throne along with his hemophilia-plagued son, Alexei. His other son, Michael, the family's black sheep, would quickly abdicate as well, paving the way for the new Russian Provisional Government, a collaboration between the imperial state Duma and Soviet Petrograd.
While Soviet Petrograd cooperated initially, this quickly deteriorated as the non-Soviet side of the government made blunder after blunder. During this time, the Soviets began to gain control of the imperial army, the factories, and the Russian railway system. Resenting that the Provisional Government had kept them in the war (which would lead to a disastrous campaign in Galicia that ended after three days with mass mutinies), it seemed the stage was being set for another revolution.
The Provisional Government was ineffective from the February Revolution to the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks finally seized power. It bungled many opportunities to try to right the ship, but these failures exposed it. As the Bolsheviks consolidated power, they made the checkmate move starting on 24 October, leading to the rise of the Soviet regime.
The Rise of Communism
One of the dirty secrets of the events that led to the October Revolution involved a central figure in this narrative—Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. The state of Russia was already ripe for revolution. Germany recognized that further destabilizing Russia could potentially knock the empire out of the war. A Marxist Lithuanian turned German agent would help facilitate this operation.
Israel Lazarevich Gelfand, also known as Parvus, had been involved with socialist circles for decades before the war. Despite having lost his reputation in these circles for the Maxim Gorky Affair and becoming a millionaire dealing arms from Turkey in the Balkan Wars, he developed a relationship with German ambassador Hans Freiherr von Wangeheim during his stay in Istanbul. Through him, he was given an audience in Berlin, presenting his twenty-page plan, A preparation for massive political strikes in Russia. He essentially became a German agent, and while Lenin kept him at arm's length, he did maintain relationships with other revolutionaries, including Leon Trotsky and Leo Deutsch.
While it’s unclear how much his specific efforts contributed to the success of the Bolsheviks and Lenin, his involvement and the money the Germans spent on this coup (1 billion in today's Euros) reveal a tangible attempt on Germany's part to destabilize Russia. Moreover, The Kaiser permitted a chartered train that brought Lenin from Switzerland through Germany back to St. Petersburg. His return was followed by Berlin, with the Foreign Office stating in a message to Germany’s top army command:
“Lenin’s entry into Russia was a success. He is working according to your wishes.”
But much of the events of 1917 were precipitated by the pressure the war was applying on Russia and its people. So, would these events have transpired if Germany had won an early victory in 1914?
An Embarrassing Defeat for Russia
In this alternate scenario, Russia most likely capitulates, given the destruction of the British Expeditionary Force and the defeat of the French Army in the west. The Russians themselves had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Tannenburg just before the First Battle of the Marne (which we discussed in my series here that set up this idea of a successful Schlieffen Plan). Only a few days later, they would suffer another defeat at the First Battle of Masurian Lakes.
While the Germans had successfully destroyed the Russian 2nd Army and broke the 1st Army, Russia still had the largest army in the world. They would reform new armies and renew their attack in East Prussia yet again. However, with a French capitulation in the west, would the Russians pursue peace now that they faced three empires alone?
Given how large their army was, it’s not inconceivable to see how the Russians might have continued, albeit for a short time, in hopes of a victory against the Germans to negotiate on better terms. But history, as it really shook out, doesn’t support the idea that this would’ve worked out. The Russians would suffer another major defeat at the Second Battle of the Masurian Lake in our timeline. And it might have been even more devastating if the Germans no longer had to worry about the Western Front, moving even more units to the east.
In either case, assuming Russia pursued peace in 1914 or decided to get out of the war in 1915 after suffering further defeats, it probably would’ve been a humiliating endeavor. Much like after the Russo-Japanese War, an uprising probably would’ve occurred in its aftermath. But it’s hard to say if the Bolsheviks would’ve risen to power. They did so in our timeline because of the ineptitude of the Provisional Government between the February and October Revolutions. After suffering a brutal winter that led to food shortages as well as bringing the Russian rail network to a halt, the morale on the homefront reached an all-time low, leading to what we saw in 1917—that wouldn’t have been the case in the scenario we’re exploring.
Nicholas II was already a reluctant and even detached leader. Perhaps the Imperial Duma would’ve seized power sooner, forcing him to abdicate sooner, which could’ve led to the formation of a Russian Republic rather than a Soviet-ruled Russia in an alternate timeline. The Bolsheviks would still be a player in Russian politics, yet we must remember Lenin did not return from exile until April 1917. Maybe he would’ve returned earlier (if he was able to).
However, the Bolsheviks used the disgruntled and war-weary situation of the population and military in 1917 to seize power. Those factors wouldn’t have been there with a defeat in 1914/1915 save for a disgruntled military after losing yet another war. Would it be enough for the Bolsheviks to win them over? That’s hard to say. But given the new government that rose in 1917 wanted to continue the war to achieve victory, perhaps the Duma could’ve taken over the government on their own (Soviet Petrograd didn’t form until after the events of the February Revolution).
It’s possible that the rise of the Bolsheviks to power might have taken longer, if at all, especially if the new government found a way to succeed, using the embarrassment of 1914/1915 to double down on a future war that most likely would’ve centered once again around the Balkans with the deterioration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The power vacuum that would’ve hit the Balkans would, perhaps inevitably, lead to a crisis, given how messy a break-up of that empire would’ve been. And with the Berlin to Baghdad railway on top of it, the Germans and the Turks would’ve had even more of a strategic interest in that region.
Perhaps then World War I would’ve not been known as The Great War but as a Second Franco-Prussian War. The First World War might have followed within the decade after this war, involving a German-Turkish alliance (with maybe a reluctant, subdued, or even conquered Austria) against a Russian Republic, France, and Britain, the latter two of which would inevitably see this as an opportunity to deal with the Berlin to Baghdad railway, which was viewed as a threat to the Suez Canal (and deal a little revenge with the Russians).
In light of that, we can’t overlook another nation. In line with this alternate scenario, one must think about what this would’ve all meant for the United States of America. World War I radically changed and impacted America in ways that many don’t understand today. In my next series, I’ll explore America’s reluctance to enter the fray, President Woodrow Wilson’s views on the war (and what that would mean for his reelection), how America found itself in the war, what impressions it left, and more.
Read Next Blog Series <Coming Soon>
Sources:
Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914 to 1918. New York, Bantam Books, 2015.
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