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Premise: with the wisdom of hindsight, 1848 offered Russia, which had avoided revolution at home, a unique opportunity to eliminate it's main continential rival for hegemony in the Balkans (and, assuming that some sort of Pan-German alliance is in the long run ineveitable, deny said alliance non-German territory and resources).

However, although Austria opposed Russian aims during the Greek war of independence, acted to limit it's gains following the Russo-Turkish war of 1828, generally sought to curb Russian influence in the Danubian principalities, and push back against the diplomatic gains Russia made in the straits in 1833, Nicholas I and Metternicht were careful not to antagonize each other too much. What would it take for Nicholas to be so antagonized by Austrian policy in the pre-1848 period to be prepared to ditch his legitimist principals and invade Galicia in effective support of Piedmont and the Hungarian rebels (I'm assuming the early Magyar leaders is prepared to make some concessions such as electing a Russian approved monarch in order to secure Russian support, and that Kossuth is sidelined)?

Secondary premise: The Crimean war was good for Russia. It shattered its faith in it's millitary, economy and society and enabled reformers to gain the upper hand (up to a point) without resulting in ruinous casulties, economic devastation or siginificant territorial loss. What kind of miscalculation would be required to trigger an earlier Crimean like war (That is a prolonged, losing war against Britain+Ottoman Empire, with or without France, and without active Austrian or Prussian intervention) sometime between 1828-1841, prefferably one which would result in Austro-Russian antagonism?

How about Russian refusal or procastination in evacuating the Bosphorus in 1833/4? is that plausible?
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