A "white russian Taiwan" in Crimea?

See here:

https://www.amazon.com/Island-Crimea-Vassily-Aksyonov/dp/0394524314

I read the novel when it came out in 1983. Unfortunately, the author cheats, by the standards of this forum, by making Crimea an actual island. And even then the distance from the mainland would be just too small to make the premise plausible. On top of that, its just not a very good book.

Anyway, the actual Crimea is not even that much of a peninsula. During the Crimean War, the British in fact planned to land at the neck of the peninsula to keep the Russians from reinforcing their forces there, an idea that looks good on the map, only to find out that the waters at the neck were too shallow for even nineteenth century ships to function. During the Middle Ages, you did have whichever nomadic tribe who had dominated the Ukrainian steppe and just been kicked off take refuge in Crimea for a time, but that was the Middle Ages and that doesn't work against anyone who can build boats.
 
There is a WI, where Alaska is retained by the Russian Empire, then in 1922 a White exile state is established there. The US and Britain might be loathe to see a Soviet of Alaska & the Red Army ensconced there. Better a pack of down and out aristocrats running a client state than the Red Army in Jueanu.

Then again, a Russian Alaska existing in 1867-1914 would mean 47 years worth of butterflies that might cause WWI as we know it to be avoided, or to be fought at a different time, and/or with a different outcome.
 
Crimea? Given that it's a peninsula, that will never work. They will get overrun.

But how about you go back a little bit and have Russia colonize some actual island? Alaska has been mentioned, but maybe something more crazy. Hawaii? Actual Taiwan? Iceland? Hokkaido? Cyprus? Butterflies, I know, but still a fun idea.
 
I really like the idea of White Russian Cyprus.

The POD would be a better Russian performance in the Russian-Turkish war. The British still get the Russians to back off, but the price is that the Russians get Cyprus instead of the British.

The really important strategic reasons for Britain to take Cyprus turned out to be non-existent, though they still keep two air bases there. So the only butterfly would be no 1970s Turkish intervention, which mainly affects domestic politics in Greece and Turkey. I could see White Russian Cyprus become a major vacation destination and center for organized crime.
 
Then again, a Russian Alaska existing in 1867-1914 would mean 47 years worth of butterflies that might cause WWI as we know it to be avoided, or to be fought at a different time, and/or with a different outcome.

Maybe

I looked at a possibility of the Jpanese & perhaps others propping up a White state in eastern Siberia. On paper the transportation difficulties along the Siberian Railway make this lookfeasilble. OtL however neither the Japanese no anyone else saw this as paying off in any fashion. Siberian and the Whites were abandoned & a understanding reached with the Red government.
 
Then again, a Russian Alaska existing in 1867-1914 would mean 47 years worth of butterflies that might cause WWI as we know it to be avoided, or to be fought at a different time, and/or with a different outcome.
That depends on the degree of butterfly, considering Alaska is a remote place without big importance until late.
In my own scenario, there is changes, but they don't butterfly the main events. Russia still allies with France and the UK, Japan wages war over Korea and Manchuria against Qing and the Russians, Princip still assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand ...
 
That depends on the degree of butterfly, considering Alaska is a remote place without big importance until late.
In my own scenario, there is changes, but they don't butterfly the main events. Russia still allies with France and the UK, Japan wages war over Korea and Manchuria against Qing and the Russians, Princip still assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand ...

Alaska was a remote place with a small population, but as with a continually Russian Alaska there would be many Russians that would go to Alaska that did not IOTL (for example Finns, who like you know made up a sizable contingent of Alaska's "Russian" population), and other people that did go to Alaska would not (like many of the people who IOTL took part in the Nome Gold Rush, say), the butterflies would stack up in almost five decades. Imagine, for example, an earlier Alaska gold rush that would predominately attract Russians from the Far East and even from the European parts of the empire - that could spin into a fairly significant change in the timeline in itself.

I'd say that the two larger issues in your post are quite plausible, but I personally think that Princip's assassination of Franz Ferdinand would be butterflied away as such a very specific event. After all, Gavrilo Princip wouldn't even be born until 24 years after the POD.

Then of course the matter of knock-on effects and butterflies is always a very subjective one, and naturally there are no "right" or "wrong" alternate timelines, just more or less plausible ones.
 
I'm also taking that the butterflies don't necessarily cumulate systematically, they can also negate each other's effects, leading to a similar outcome. That's not forbidden and not so implausible I think.
 

Deleted member 94680

I really like the idea of White Russian Cyprus.

The POD would be a better Russian performance in the Russian-Turkish war. The British still get the Russians to back off, but the price is that the Russians get Cyprus instead of the British.

Or maybe... the British set up a client state on Cyprus under White Russian leadership post-WWI. A small ‘colony’ slowly grows and eventually gains political power. It’s done in the understanding it’s temporary measure until Russia proper is retaken and 90-odd years later, they’re still there.

The really important strategic reasons for Britain to take Cyprus turned out to be non-existent, though they still keep two air bases there.

How do you mean? Cyprus was built up post-Suez, once the British irretrievably lost Egypt.

So the only butterfly would be no 1970s Turkish intervention, which mainly affects domestic politics in Greece and Turkey. I could see White Russian Cyprus become a major vacation destination and center for organized crime.

Have you spent any decent amount of time on Cyprus?
 
I'm also taking that the butterflies don't necessarily cumulate systematically, they can also negate each other's effects, leading to a similar outcome. That's not forbidden and not so implausible I think.

I think that would be rather, well, convenient. Almost like arguing for some sort of a "Law of the Conservation of the Original Timeline", the OTL being the "normal" or "baseline" the universe tries to return to if the flow of history is any way "disturbed".:)

I do personally believe that it would be implausible for butterlies to work like that, the great majority of times. In my opinion historical events are the results of so many moving parts preceding them that pretty much any POD that directly changes the lives of at least thousands of people (that is non-isolated people who will then interact with thousands and thousands more, in many kinds of ways, over the rest of their now-different lives) will have perceivable effects on events and processes around the (modern) world in a scale of several decades. The changes would (more of less) gradually propagate around the world, it would be just a matter of time really.

So, I think it is perhaps best for us to agree to disagree here.
 
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I think that would be rather, well, convenient. Almost like arguing for some sort of a "Law of the Conservation of the Original Timeline", the OTL being the "normal" or "baseline" the universe tries to return to if the flow of history is any way "disturbed".:)

I do personally believe that it would be implausible for butterlies to work like that, the great majority of times. In my opinion historical events are the results of so many moving parts preceding them that pretty much any POD that directly changes the lives of at least thousands of people (that is non-isolated people who will then interact with thousands and thousands more, in many kinds of ways, over the rest of their now-different lives) will have perceivable effects on events and processes around the (modern) world in a scale of several decades. The changes would (more of less) gradually propagate around the world, it would be just a matter of time really.

So, I think it is perhaps best for us to agree to disagree here.
It is impossible to know really.
 
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