If more resources were given to the Caucasus front, could the Russians knock Ottoman Empire out of the First World War through a land-borne invasion of Anatolia (or by any other means)?
Could Russia knock out Turkey during WWI?
- Thread starter Green Painting
- Start date
Deleted member 9338
This is doubtful, as that front was contained by the logistics. The Russians were not going to march across The country to the capital.
Now if we expand the theaters the Russians could help along the Ottoman/Persia border. They can even land troops on the Black Sea side of Constantinople to support the allies landing from the Aegean. All possibilities.
Now if we expand the theaters the Russians could help along the Ottoman/Persia border. They can even land troops on the Black Sea side of Constantinople to support the allies landing from the Aegean. All possibilities.
I think operating from Persia would still be limited by terrain
I know nothing about Russian war effort in WWI, but was there a prior plan about landing in Constantinople?
How could the Russians logistically support such a landing?
I know nothing about Russian war effort in WWI, but was there a prior plan about landing in Constantinople?
How could the Russians logistically support such a landing?
Indeed, the Russians had been planning for just such a thing. They were developing the Black Sea Fleet towards that specific end: crushing the Turkish fleet and supporting an amphibious assault on Constantinople to seize the straits.
However, they expected it was going to be three to five years before they were ready to do so (the link above says 1917; I've read elsewhere, however, that the estimate was 1919). Of course, some of that involved the estimates of comparative naval strengths if the Turkish Navy had gotten their dreadnoughts, meaning the Russian Black Sea Fleet had to get its dreadnoughts.
With an earlier PoD (no Russo-Japanese War or less losses in that war, or a different response for that war), was it possible for such a build up plan to start earlier (maybe four years earlier to stop the Armenian Genocide in time)? The Russians should have known that Constantinople was key to the future war, shouldn't they?
Not necessarily. The Black Sea Fleet emerged unscathed from 1905; its battleships were still functional because Constantinople refused to allow warships through the Straits under their treaty rights, so they couldn't sail off to be annihilated by the IJN.
The problem for the amphibious assault plan is that the Turkish government was procuring dreadnought battleships, and the Black Sea Fleet had to therefore build their own dreadnoughts to match; otherwise the Turkish fleet would simply smash aside the older Russian battle-line and then sink the transports before they even come ashore. As it turns out, of course, the Ottoman Navy never got their dreadnoughts (thanks to Winston Churchill seizing both for the Grand Fleet) but they did instead get a German battlecruiser-raider that was just as formidable if not worse for the Russian plan (courtesy Admiral Souchon, who proceeded to spend a couple of years making the Russian Black Sea Fleet's life miserable).
You'd have to have either an earlier crash building program that produces dreadnoughts more swiftly for the Russian Black Sea Fleet as opposed to the Baltic Fleet, and/or the Ottomans being unable to fund their dreadnoughts meaning the Russians felt more confident about sending transports to sea, and/or the Goebennever making it to Constantinople (for whatever reason), meaning the Russians felt more confident in their ability to send troopships onto the Black Sea and not have them sunk by the Ottoman Navy.
With all of that, you might have the Russians feeling that they can still dispatch an Army Corps to Constantinople sometime after the Ottoman government enters the war; Admiral Eberhardt (CINC Black Sea Fleet) may even feel better about launching a pre-emptive strike before the Ottomans formally enter the war, as he was pleading with St. Petersburg to let him do.
If Russia and the UK/France were able to launch a coordinated offensive in spring 1915, the Ottoman empire could be defeated this year, but the Dardanelles / Gallipoli operation must be successful so the Ottoman will bring severals divisions from others fronts to protect their capital. And the Russians and British offensives on these other fronts must be victorious.
Hell will freeze over before France and Britain allow the Russian tricolor to fly over Constantinople.
I don't think the French had problem with a russian tricolor flag over Constantinople...
Paul MacQ
Monthly Donor
Yes France did have massive problems with Russian flag flying over. They having a half share in that important canal. They just wanted Russia to be able to smash into Germans
Good reading for this theater is
Collision of empires : the war on the Eastern Front in 1914 / Prit Buttar.
and
The First World War in the Middle East / Kristian Coates Ulrichsen.
as starters. Rather new Books so many Libraries might have copies