With a POD after 1750, could the Habsburgs ever defeat Russia in a war?
- Thread starter Socrates
- Start date
Depends on their allies and the war goals.
I mean the ottomans technically won the crimean war against the russians because they had better alies. I'd even argue that austria (and allies) beat russia in ww1.
And certainly even as 1-1 fight if it was a limited proxy war fought as influence in a foreign civil war or as a colonial fight in africa, austria could win without having to defeat the main russian armies.
A 1-1 all out fight though? With no allies for the habsburgs and no restriction on russian forces? Hard to imagine. You'd need an austrian napoleon.
I mean the ottomans technically won the crimean war against the russians because they had better alies. I'd even argue that austria (and allies) beat russia in ww1.
And certainly even as 1-1 fight if it was a limited proxy war fought as influence in a foreign civil war or as a colonial fight in africa, austria could win without having to defeat the main russian armies.
A 1-1 all out fight though? With no allies for the habsburgs and no restriction on russian forces? Hard to imagine. You'd need an austrian napoleon.
With France on side you don't even need them to be that enhanced. Napoleon managed to beat russia when it was allied to austria, prussia, sweden and the uk, let alone by itself.
Like I said in the first post, russia lost the crimean war, it lost ww1, if austria's allies are strong enough and it's aims are reasonable it can very much win a war. You need a napoleon like general for them to do it without major alllies but with france/prussia on side, no bother.
Napoleon seemed to show the opposite lesson: even when you take Moscow you don't defeat Russia. How does Russia actually lose against a Franco-Austrian alliance, especially without a Napoleon? Would they have to take Moscow? Or could you just have Russia bow out with a few army defeats in the field?
Which is what I mean by reasonable aims. Russia was out of the war after the 4th coalition because napoleon beat their army in the field and agreed a reasonable leniant peace.
Yes the peace won at friedland didn't last long, and alexander had no intention at keeping to the terms he agreed but napoleon bought him to the peasce table without even entering russian territory.
If Austria joins the Crimean War it might start a snowballing effect where Sweden and Prussia join in too and give Russia a thoroughly epic beatdown she may never fully recover from and be at central Europe's mercy for decades.
The Key is to get a war in the 1840's, a time when Russia was militarily backwards compared to the rest of Europe and hadn't started modernizing yet. Even by the time of the Crimean War Russia was still mostly relying on old muskets and doctrine from Napoleonic Times. If Austria can use Industrial Infrastructure and war-making abilities against Russia it could conceivably win a war with Limited Objectives against Russia because Russia was notoriously slow to mobilize, a quick victory using railroads to move troops would allow for a limited objective war to be carried out and the Russians to be forced to the peace table.
The Problem of course is that it can only be pulled off once before Russia begins to modernize due to the shock of a lost war.
Another Problem is the lack of industrial infrastructure in Eastern Europe in the 1840's. You could concievably move troops via railroad into Congress Poland, but not much further than that. . .
The Problem of course is that it can only be pulled off once before Russia begins to modernize due to the shock of a lost war.
Another Problem is the lack of industrial infrastructure in Eastern Europe in the 1840's. You could concievably move troops via railroad into Congress Poland, but not much further than that. . .
And WWI shows that it is entirely possible to defeat Russia without ever getting close to Moscow.
Like others have said, if the Habsburgs have good allies, they can win easily.
Russia lost wwi because germany and stupidity. They crushed austrian and ottoman forces. Russia lost in crimea due to limited aims of allies. I doubt britain and france would have been able to take st petersberg or moskow given logistics. Even then russia lost in crimea primarily due to horrible logistics and ineficient doctrine but if the russians could have gotten their main armies down to crimea fast enough rather than piecemeil well against hundreds of thousands of russian soldiers the franco british expeditionary force does not stand a chance. For austria war cannot occur due france and threat of prussia and ottomans. Post napoleon russia need not intervene in 1848 for austria to side with allies in crimean war. This does not happen becuase without russia austria would not have made it out in one piece. 1860s too late cause france and prussia. Than franco russian allaince. So really wwi was the earliest war could break out.
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