Look to the West (Thande's first proper timeline, and it's about time!)
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Part 14: A Man, a Plan, a Han, - Japan!
"Writers of speculative romance seem to my mind overly enamoured with the Japanese islands. To presuppose that this cultural backwater could ever fancifully produce a great imperialising power, as they apparently see it, I believe speaks for itself in its absurdity."
~~~
From - "Russian Expansion in the East, Volume II" (Oxford University Press, 1987)
After the Treaty of Stockholm in 1771, a new paradigm for Central and Eastern Europe had been introduced. Austria had been excluded from Polish affairs, save Galicia and the city of Krakow (German, Krakau). The old Commonwealth, noted for its unique governmental structure but having become sluggish and a puppet for outside powers, was ended. Poland was brought into personal union with Prussia, while the Grand Duke of Lithuania became an ally of Russia, its Grand Duke being a hereditary post occupied by the current Russian Tsarevich, much like the Principality of Wales in Britain. Sweden had been neutralised during the war by being promised Courland and the retention of northern Ducal Prussia, including the city of Königsburg, and this was confirmed by the Treaty.
Some commentators had predicted that this state of affairs was shaky and would only last a few years, until the inevitable next war. But events conspired against them. Poland was certainly suspicious of the relationship with Prussia, given the two states' history, and there were several uprisings until the end of the century, mainly over the privileges of the Polish nobility (szlachta). The final settlement was for the most senior members of the szlachta to be given the same rights as Prussian nobility. However, the unusual system in pre-partition Poland had meant that many even relatively poor people had szlachta status: fully ten percent of the population, in fact. The vast majority of these were excluded by necessity from the upper classes of the combined states, and remained a disenfranchised and restless minority for years to come.
If anything, Lithuania seemed an even more volatile proposition. Commentators' general position was that the Lithuanians would sweat under Russian bull-in-a-china-shop demands for a few years, rise up, be crushed and the country finally be directly annexed to Russia. This was not an unreasonable suggestion, based on previous history, but it failed to take into account just how seriously the Russian Tsarevich Paul (Pavel) took his new job as Grand Duke Povilas of Lithuania. Although his relationship with his father Tsar Peter III was relatively good, he continued to defend independent Lithuanian interests, and the Lithuanian people were pleasantly surprised. There were still some uprisings, of course, but on the whole it seemed that against all the odds, a Russian ruler gave Lithuania more independence than a Polish (or foreign, in the last few years) one had.
One of the most important projects begun during the 1780s was the construction of a Lithuanian navy, known as the Patriotic Fleet. The Commonwealth had previously been too consumed by its own internal strife to construct a Baltic navy, and had suffered somewhat for being unable to intercept raids from Sweden or other Baltic naval powers. Although Russia and Prussia had successfully bought off Sweden in the War of the Polish Partition, both governments, and particularly the Russians, were quite certain that this state of affairs was not sustainable. In particular, the Russians still had their eyes on Finland, which would eventually necessitate another war with Sweden. Sweden already had one of the largest and most powerful Baltic fleets, and the Swedish possession of the shipyards at Königsburg and Libau would only make this worse. Unless the Russians wanted to try and fight a war with Swedish troops able to land near St Petersburg with impunity, it was time to rectify the situation.
While Tsar Peter's own shipyards were simply expanded and the existing Russian Baltic fleet renovated, the situation was more difficult for Grand Duke Paul. Lithuania had not had a history of shipbuilding for some years, although the territorial revisions at the Treaty of Stockholm had awarded her the valuable port of Memel, renamed Klaipeda in Lithuanian. While vulnerable to Swedish attack from both north and south, Paul decided to build up Klaipeda into a major shipbuilding centre in order to give Lithuania a Baltic fleet of her own. This was both to supplement the Russian force and to create a patriotic project (hence the name) that would both create new jobs and reinforce the idea that Lithuania was an ally of Russia, not merely a puppet.
Just as Peter the Great had when Russia had built her first navy, Paul decided to look to more established shipbuilders, the Dutch. Rather than going to the Netherlands himself as his great-grandfather had, Paul simply brought in Dutch (and other) shipwrights, builders and sailors to expand Klaipeda and train his Lithuanian volunteers in shipbuilding and naval affairs. This ambitious project was surprisingly successful, although the Dutch would regret it in years to come.
In the event, the much-anticipated Baltic war was postponed. In Sweden, the Cap party was enjoying a long period of dominance at the Riksdag, with the Hats' policy of anti-Russian alignment and war largely discredited. Austria suffered financial crises in the 1770s and 80s and, when she finally recovered a few years before the French Revolution, now had a government more interested in expanding influence in Italy than having another stab at Poland. Prussia remained too weak and too consumed with holding down Poland to make another attempt at recovering Silesia from Austria. Tsar Peter opposed a war with the Ottomans or the annexation of the Crimean Khanate. So, the catalysts of war lay largely silent for many years, and Russia and Lithuania were left with shiny new fleets and nothing to do with them.
Being Baltic forces, these consisted of a large number of galleys, though these were finally becoming obsolete, and a smaller number of high seas vessels. From around 1784, the Patriotic Fleet adopted a policy of sending the latter on voyages around European ports, both to give their sailors more experience and to 'fly the flag' for Lithuania. These voyages succeeded in broadly changing foreign impressions that Lithuania was a puppet state of Russia, but were also expensive.One mission in 1788 even reached the Empire of North America, and carried a Lithuanian ambassador to attend the opening of the first Continental Parliament by George III.
That ambassador was a Slovak-born Pole named Móric Beňovský, who has gone down in history by the Russified form of his name, Matvei Benyovski. This enigmatic character is one of the most colourful in Russian history. Initially fighting for the Commonwealth against the Prussians during the War of the Polish Partition - commanding one of the few Commonwealth forces to achieve any coherent success during that conflict - he escaped from the Prussians and settled in Lithuania in 1772. He joined the new Lithuanian army and rose rapidly to the rank of colonel thanks to both the ramshackle nature of the makeshift army and his educated background. Possibly he initially intended to use this position of power to turn the army against the Russians in an uprising, but he caught the eye of Grand Duke Paul. Benyovski entered the Lithuanian government, going from acting Minister for War to Foreign Minister and then leading the 1788 expedition to the Empire of North America.
However, Benyovski's greatest achievements were yet to come. Since the 1770s, Tsar Peter had become paranoid about equalling the achievements of his namesake, Peter the Great, and had decided that, like his grandfather, he must expand Russian power and control in the Far East. He balked at an ambitious invasion of Outer Manchuria drawn up by his generals: at the time, Qing China, though leaning towards a path of isolationism and decay, was still a formidable military power. Furthermore, such a plan would destroy the careful trade system with China that Russia had set up a century earlier at the Treaty of Nerchinsk: it could only lose trade. Peter instead decided on a course of action probably just as ambitious - to attempt to open up Japan, closed to trade for a hundred and fifty years.
An expedition from Yakutsk led by Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin had already failed to establish trade links with Japan in 1774. The Japanese in Edzo[1], the Matsumae Han, had received him favourably but simply stated that they did not have the authority from the Shogun to trade. Japanese trade was restricted to two southern ports, one of which traded with China and the other with the Netherlands, Nagasaki - which was inconveniently far away from any Russian holdings.
Lebedev's disappointing report spurred the Russian government on to other approaches. Grand Duke Paul agreed to contribute three Lithuanian ships, his best crews, to add to four Russian vessels. These would set out from the Baltic with the supplies needed to expand the port at Okhotsk, and then would carry diplomats from both countries to attempt to establish trade links both at Matsumae town in Edzo and, if necessary, in Nagasaki or in the capital Edo itself. As a logical progression from the Lithuanian flag-flying missions around Europe, the ships carried a fair number of elite troops with the intention of impressing the Japanese authorities. Peter took the opportunity to get rid of numerous Leib Guards whose competence was unquestioned but whom he thought, quite possibly accurately, still supported his exiled wife Catherine.
The Russian mission was put under the command of Adam Laxman, a Finnish-born officer who had formerly served in the Swedish navy (using foreign-born emissaries was surprisingly common in eighteenth-century Russia). The Lithuanian portion could have no other leader but Benyovski, and Paul was quietly relieved to have the man safely a long way away. He was supremely capable but also quite volatile. As the Japanese would learn...
The missions set sail in 1792 and, with the assistance of hired Dutch navigators, made the first recorded Russian and Lithuanian rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and passage of the Malacca straits. This was a new approach to the previous overland attempts at establishing trade with the East, although scarcely less inconvenient. After observing Nagasaki from a distance in late 1794, they proceeded to Okhotsk and began building up the port as ordered. By this point, the First Jacobin War had broken out in Europe, but in faraway Okhotsk, this was not known about until it was almost over five years later.
Laxman was dutiful, but Benyovski became impatient with the preliminaries and sailed directly to Edzo in 1795 in an attempt to establish a trade mission. Blown off course and with his men unfamiliar with the waters, they couldn't find Matsumae town and Benyovski ended up meeting the indigenous Ajnoo[2] people of the island. He did manage to establish trade with them, mainly raw materials and food for Russian manufactured goods, including firearms...
to be continued
[1]This is the Russian name for Ezo (Hokkaido) and it is the name by which the island is commonly known to international audiences in TTL.
[2]Ainu
"Writers of speculative romance seem to my mind overly enamoured with the Japanese islands. To presuppose that this cultural backwater could ever fancifully produce a great imperialising power, as they apparently see it, I believe speaks for itself in its absurdity."
- Dr Sanjaï Matthieu, Université de Trivandum (English translation)
~~~
From - "Russian Expansion in the East, Volume II" (Oxford University Press, 1987)
After the Treaty of Stockholm in 1771, a new paradigm for Central and Eastern Europe had been introduced. Austria had been excluded from Polish affairs, save Galicia and the city of Krakow (German, Krakau). The old Commonwealth, noted for its unique governmental structure but having become sluggish and a puppet for outside powers, was ended. Poland was brought into personal union with Prussia, while the Grand Duke of Lithuania became an ally of Russia, its Grand Duke being a hereditary post occupied by the current Russian Tsarevich, much like the Principality of Wales in Britain. Sweden had been neutralised during the war by being promised Courland and the retention of northern Ducal Prussia, including the city of Königsburg, and this was confirmed by the Treaty.
Some commentators had predicted that this state of affairs was shaky and would only last a few years, until the inevitable next war. But events conspired against them. Poland was certainly suspicious of the relationship with Prussia, given the two states' history, and there were several uprisings until the end of the century, mainly over the privileges of the Polish nobility (szlachta). The final settlement was for the most senior members of the szlachta to be given the same rights as Prussian nobility. However, the unusual system in pre-partition Poland had meant that many even relatively poor people had szlachta status: fully ten percent of the population, in fact. The vast majority of these were excluded by necessity from the upper classes of the combined states, and remained a disenfranchised and restless minority for years to come.
If anything, Lithuania seemed an even more volatile proposition. Commentators' general position was that the Lithuanians would sweat under Russian bull-in-a-china-shop demands for a few years, rise up, be crushed and the country finally be directly annexed to Russia. This was not an unreasonable suggestion, based on previous history, but it failed to take into account just how seriously the Russian Tsarevich Paul (Pavel) took his new job as Grand Duke Povilas of Lithuania. Although his relationship with his father Tsar Peter III was relatively good, he continued to defend independent Lithuanian interests, and the Lithuanian people were pleasantly surprised. There were still some uprisings, of course, but on the whole it seemed that against all the odds, a Russian ruler gave Lithuania more independence than a Polish (or foreign, in the last few years) one had.
One of the most important projects begun during the 1780s was the construction of a Lithuanian navy, known as the Patriotic Fleet. The Commonwealth had previously been too consumed by its own internal strife to construct a Baltic navy, and had suffered somewhat for being unable to intercept raids from Sweden or other Baltic naval powers. Although Russia and Prussia had successfully bought off Sweden in the War of the Polish Partition, both governments, and particularly the Russians, were quite certain that this state of affairs was not sustainable. In particular, the Russians still had their eyes on Finland, which would eventually necessitate another war with Sweden. Sweden already had one of the largest and most powerful Baltic fleets, and the Swedish possession of the shipyards at Königsburg and Libau would only make this worse. Unless the Russians wanted to try and fight a war with Swedish troops able to land near St Petersburg with impunity, it was time to rectify the situation.
While Tsar Peter's own shipyards were simply expanded and the existing Russian Baltic fleet renovated, the situation was more difficult for Grand Duke Paul. Lithuania had not had a history of shipbuilding for some years, although the territorial revisions at the Treaty of Stockholm had awarded her the valuable port of Memel, renamed Klaipeda in Lithuanian. While vulnerable to Swedish attack from both north and south, Paul decided to build up Klaipeda into a major shipbuilding centre in order to give Lithuania a Baltic fleet of her own. This was both to supplement the Russian force and to create a patriotic project (hence the name) that would both create new jobs and reinforce the idea that Lithuania was an ally of Russia, not merely a puppet.
Just as Peter the Great had when Russia had built her first navy, Paul decided to look to more established shipbuilders, the Dutch. Rather than going to the Netherlands himself as his great-grandfather had, Paul simply brought in Dutch (and other) shipwrights, builders and sailors to expand Klaipeda and train his Lithuanian volunteers in shipbuilding and naval affairs. This ambitious project was surprisingly successful, although the Dutch would regret it in years to come.
In the event, the much-anticipated Baltic war was postponed. In Sweden, the Cap party was enjoying a long period of dominance at the Riksdag, with the Hats' policy of anti-Russian alignment and war largely discredited. Austria suffered financial crises in the 1770s and 80s and, when she finally recovered a few years before the French Revolution, now had a government more interested in expanding influence in Italy than having another stab at Poland. Prussia remained too weak and too consumed with holding down Poland to make another attempt at recovering Silesia from Austria. Tsar Peter opposed a war with the Ottomans or the annexation of the Crimean Khanate. So, the catalysts of war lay largely silent for many years, and Russia and Lithuania were left with shiny new fleets and nothing to do with them.
Being Baltic forces, these consisted of a large number of galleys, though these were finally becoming obsolete, and a smaller number of high seas vessels. From around 1784, the Patriotic Fleet adopted a policy of sending the latter on voyages around European ports, both to give their sailors more experience and to 'fly the flag' for Lithuania. These voyages succeeded in broadly changing foreign impressions that Lithuania was a puppet state of Russia, but were also expensive.One mission in 1788 even reached the Empire of North America, and carried a Lithuanian ambassador to attend the opening of the first Continental Parliament by George III.
That ambassador was a Slovak-born Pole named Móric Beňovský, who has gone down in history by the Russified form of his name, Matvei Benyovski. This enigmatic character is one of the most colourful in Russian history. Initially fighting for the Commonwealth against the Prussians during the War of the Polish Partition - commanding one of the few Commonwealth forces to achieve any coherent success during that conflict - he escaped from the Prussians and settled in Lithuania in 1772. He joined the new Lithuanian army and rose rapidly to the rank of colonel thanks to both the ramshackle nature of the makeshift army and his educated background. Possibly he initially intended to use this position of power to turn the army against the Russians in an uprising, but he caught the eye of Grand Duke Paul. Benyovski entered the Lithuanian government, going from acting Minister for War to Foreign Minister and then leading the 1788 expedition to the Empire of North America.
However, Benyovski's greatest achievements were yet to come. Since the 1770s, Tsar Peter had become paranoid about equalling the achievements of his namesake, Peter the Great, and had decided that, like his grandfather, he must expand Russian power and control in the Far East. He balked at an ambitious invasion of Outer Manchuria drawn up by his generals: at the time, Qing China, though leaning towards a path of isolationism and decay, was still a formidable military power. Furthermore, such a plan would destroy the careful trade system with China that Russia had set up a century earlier at the Treaty of Nerchinsk: it could only lose trade. Peter instead decided on a course of action probably just as ambitious - to attempt to open up Japan, closed to trade for a hundred and fifty years.
An expedition from Yakutsk led by Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin had already failed to establish trade links with Japan in 1774. The Japanese in Edzo[1], the Matsumae Han, had received him favourably but simply stated that they did not have the authority from the Shogun to trade. Japanese trade was restricted to two southern ports, one of which traded with China and the other with the Netherlands, Nagasaki - which was inconveniently far away from any Russian holdings.
Lebedev's disappointing report spurred the Russian government on to other approaches. Grand Duke Paul agreed to contribute three Lithuanian ships, his best crews, to add to four Russian vessels. These would set out from the Baltic with the supplies needed to expand the port at Okhotsk, and then would carry diplomats from both countries to attempt to establish trade links both at Matsumae town in Edzo and, if necessary, in Nagasaki or in the capital Edo itself. As a logical progression from the Lithuanian flag-flying missions around Europe, the ships carried a fair number of elite troops with the intention of impressing the Japanese authorities. Peter took the opportunity to get rid of numerous Leib Guards whose competence was unquestioned but whom he thought, quite possibly accurately, still supported his exiled wife Catherine.
The Russian mission was put under the command of Adam Laxman, a Finnish-born officer who had formerly served in the Swedish navy (using foreign-born emissaries was surprisingly common in eighteenth-century Russia). The Lithuanian portion could have no other leader but Benyovski, and Paul was quietly relieved to have the man safely a long way away. He was supremely capable but also quite volatile. As the Japanese would learn...
The missions set sail in 1792 and, with the assistance of hired Dutch navigators, made the first recorded Russian and Lithuanian rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and passage of the Malacca straits. This was a new approach to the previous overland attempts at establishing trade with the East, although scarcely less inconvenient. After observing Nagasaki from a distance in late 1794, they proceeded to Okhotsk and began building up the port as ordered. By this point, the First Jacobin War had broken out in Europe, but in faraway Okhotsk, this was not known about until it was almost over five years later.
Laxman was dutiful, but Benyovski became impatient with the preliminaries and sailed directly to Edzo in 1795 in an attempt to establish a trade mission. Blown off course and with his men unfamiliar with the waters, they couldn't find Matsumae town and Benyovski ended up meeting the indigenous Ajnoo[2] people of the island. He did manage to establish trade with them, mainly raw materials and food for Russian manufactured goods, including firearms...
to be continued
[1]This is the Russian name for Ezo (Hokkaido) and it is the name by which the island is commonly known to international audiences in TTL.
[2]Ainu
Thande
Donor
I believe it generaly ends up on random Maps, with Russia owning Hokkaido.
Nice Flocc refrence Thande.
Thankee, good fellows.
As Scarecrow points out, Russia in Japan is a bit of a map cliche but I don't think anyone's ever actually implemented it in a TL (not surprising, as it's bloody hard
)I'm fairly certain no-one's ever had Lithuania in Japan before
Thande
Donor
Yes, I know you and the Hungarians claim him for yourself as well
I'm glad I live in a mono-ethnic island state (well, until recently) ; the only one we fight over to my knowledge is the Duke of Wellington
Yes, I know you and the Hungarians claim him for yourself as well
I'm glad I live in a mono-ethnic island state (well, until recently) ; the only one we fight over to my knowledge is the Duke of Wellington
I think Hungarians and Poles should give us (as in us Slovaks) Benovsky just for good sport, they have enough figures of their own. Even with Benovsky we have like four national heroes.
Thande
Donor
I don't know, I was surprised when I Wiki'd "List of Famous Slovaks" and it nearly crashed my computer
I don't know, I was surprised when I Wiki'd "List of Famous Slovaks" and it nearly crashed my computer
Half of the guys' nationality is more than troubling (like they listing Kossuth, yes THAT kossuth) and other half never did anything really important, even for Slovakia,
Slovak national heroes are Matúš Čák Trenčiansky (who is not even listed there, and again his nationality is matter of dispute - Matthias Csak, and he himself said that his ancestors were Magyars- but rather too vehementlz if zou get mz drift), Juraj Jánošík (Slovakian Robin Hood), Móric Beňovský, Ľudovít Štůr (creator of modern Slovak language) and Rastislav Štefánik ( founder of Czechoslovakia, officer in French Army).
Thande
Donor
Because, like Hanover, Ireland is merely a kingdom in personal union with Great Britain, whereas England and Scotland are constitutionally joined in the Kingdom of Great Britain.
I see, in that case I have no further comments, except I think the Netherlands are far to similarily coloured to Britain.
Seconded...
I second that - a darker color of orange would be a good idea. Other than that, nice map, Thande.
I second that - a darker color of orange would be a good idea. Other than that, nice map, Thande.
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