The_Shrike
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Is there any point at which Czarist Russia could have landed a decisive victory against the Central Powers after Tannenberg?
Could Czarist Russia have "won" World War One?
- Thread starter The_Shrike
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If the Ottoman Empire could have been knocked out of the war in 1915, e.g. by more efficient naval operations combined with the Entente successfully persuading Bulgaria to enter the war on their side, I think the answer is yes. In such a situation the Bosphorus is open and Russia can be supplied better, and the Entente can devote a lot of the resources it used against the Ottoman Empire to fighting Germany and Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary in particular is under a lot more pressure in this case than in OTL. It faces the Italian, Russian and Romanian forces it faced in OTL; the Serbian army is stronger because it was not attacked by Bulgaria, and there are also probably many more Entente troops redeployed from the Middle East. It could be enough to get Austria-Hungary to try to surrender, ending the war before the Tsarist regime loses control. There's an unfinished timeline from a couple of years ago with such an alternate WWI.
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The_Shrike
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Though could the Austrians have collapsed completely resulting in a cascade effect that could have cracked German staying power in the latter yeara of war and by extension kept Russia intact in the aftermath. At least momentarily?
Couple things that had nothing to do with Tannenberg:
1. Prior to the war Russia should not have so much of its gold in the French banks. In OTL the French government immediately frozen them “to protect interests of the French investors” (while begging Russia to launch the ill-prepared offensive to save their ass) and then made a loan with these investments as a security to allow purchase of the French weapons of which France did not have enough for its own use. Slightly later the Brits did practically the same. Russia would be much better off if the gold was in Russia or in the US allowing purchase of the American weapons in the most critical moment.
2. Russian government could, from the very beginning, allocate orders for the artillery shells, cartridges, etc. to the tool shops. In OTL this was done only in 1916 with a great effect. If it was done in 1914, the “shell starvation” of 1915 would not happen and the German success (and Russian losses) would be much smaller.
In general, the offensives should be coordinated with the allies on the quid pro quo basis and to be less one sided.
AIUI the US didn’t actually send that many weapons to the Entente. It’s usefulness was in its open capital markets. And the American government would not permit the Russians to Float loans themselves. The British and the French has to do it for them. Later the French lost the privilege as well and Britain was doing it alone. France has the largest Gold reserves in the world at the time and I believe Russia was close behind.
It was a matter of buying for gold and there was no need for the loans (at least initially). You seemingly did not quite get what I wrote: in OTL the French government basically arrested the Russian gold in the French banks thus killing any possibility of purchasing the needed weapons and materials and then lended Russia money using the arrested capital as a collateral (aka, they could get access only to the part of their own money and had to pay % for getting that access). That “generous” loan could be used exclusively for purchasing the French supplies but France did not have a noticeable surplus of a military production (see memoirs of the Russian military attaché in France, Count Ignatiev: even the infantry helmets and ignitions for the engines had been a problem and even the rifles of the old models could not be purchased in the needed numbers). When France run into the crisis, Britain introduced similar loan schema and, again, there was not enough surplus to start covering the Russian needs. Ability to place significant military orders in the US and pay for them with a gold would be much more productive than OTL mess, especially if the money already had been in the American banks.
Why would the GB and France be needed for the Russian commercial operations in the US I have no idea: there was already a noticeable American investment into the Russian economy before WWI.
IMO, one of the best (for Russia) scenarios would be, as soon as France introduced its schema, a “screw you” approach: “either you are immediately removing all restrictions or we are making a separate peace. Bon soir!” I’m sure that the French would rearrange their priorities within few hours. 😜 But for this Russia would need not to have 2 idiots in the critical positions: NII and NN.
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Probably something of the kind would be possible if the French and Brits had been effective in tying more Germans on the Western Front. Some noticeable allied successes there would deny Austrians the German reinforcements.
Decisive victory is a no go. Some consequential strategic victories may be possible, but ultimately WWI was an attritional conflict rather than one of decisive action (with the exception of the periods of high fluidity at the very start and very end).
The Russian Empire's best bet is probably reducing the number and scale of its offensives into Galicia. Between the Battle of Galicia, the Brusilov Offensive, and the Kerensky Offensive, the Imperial Russian Army was beaten blunt and ultimately shattered trying to secure Austria's poorest and most distant province.* And its not like securing it would be a war deciding action (at least until the loss of the CP's main oil fields is felt, but remember this is WWI not WWII, I think the air arms would be the only forces crippled by lack of oil), the Common Army falls back into the Carpathians and then the Russians are left to reenact the Italian efforts at the Isonzo.
Post Tannenburg Russia's best option is to be more conservative with its forces on the Eastern Front and use victories over the Ottomans to buoy moral.
If an earlier PoD is permitted, change Russia's mobilization plans, and rush an army into Silesia (Germany's second [3rd? I forget how A-L ranked] most heavily industrialized region).
*the Common Army also bled itself (it's officer corps in particular) white in Galicia, but they at least had pretty clear moral and political reason to do so.
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I understood what your point. Though I would be interested in a source. Not that I don't believe you, I just haven't heard about this before.
My point was that the solution may not actually help. Russia's problem was not that it had no gold with which to buy American arms. It did. Even with the scheme you mention, there were extensive gold stocks in Russia. However, buying for gold is a risky proposition in wartime and was rarely undertaken by anyone. More over, no nation in WW1 could have financed their purchases from Gold alone. The bulk of their war effort was financed by borrowing. And to quote The World War 1 Encyclopedia:
"Russia required enormous additional amounts of credit to mobilize and sustain the war against the Central Powers. Its very backwardness in economic development thus sucked in French and British lenders more deeply as the war continued. Wartime borrowing significantly exceeded pre-war borrowing, and over the course of the conflict Russia’s indebtedness to Britain rose by 5.1 billion rubles, to France by 1.34 billion rubles, and to the United States and Italy by another 2 billion rubles.[38] Over 70 percent of Anglo-French borrowing on Wall Street between 1914 and 1917 was undertaken on Petrograd’s behalf.[39] "
Russia didn't have the contacts or the strong financial system to gain this credit on its own. It had to go through Britain and France. Russia had Gold reserves of around $750 million at the outbreak of war. The US lent over $7 Billion over the course of the war, 70% of which (4.9 billion) would have gone to Russia.
If France and Britain screwed over Russia in the scheme you mention, then definitely Russia would be better off if they did not. But if given a choice between using its limited Gold reserves in a risky trans-Pacific journey to trade gold for materials and using it to back up Anglo-French borrowing from the US on Russia's behalf, the latter is a better deal.
The source is http://ist-konkurs.ru/raboty/2014/1...a-anglo-frantsuzskom-denezhnom-rynke-1914-god
And I think that you still did not quite get what I was trying to say (perhaps I was not clear enough). I was talking strictly about ability to use money during the initial period of war when Russian situation with the necessary materials was critical and the French crippled ability to buy them by freezing Russian investments, not allowing to buy elsewhere and not being able to sell themselves.
By the beginning of war Russia had 467M rubles in France, 111 in Germany, 88 in Britain, 3 in AH and 8 elsewhere. Now, if a big part of the 467M (plus of 88) was in the US banks these money could be used for purchasing in the US (argument regarding shipping is irrelevant, I was talking about the gold already being in place).
All of the above on its own would not be enough for a victory but it would be one of the prerequisites for making situation better.
Of course, in a reality, situation was more complicated and goes back to the gold standard and a structure of the foreign loans set up by Witte and his predecessors: Russia had to secure payments by the existing loans and the biggest lender was France. But, with the “european fixation” alternatives were not even tried. Anyway, even within the existing situation, Russia could take a stronger position toward its allies: while Tannenberg was an unfortunate offset (to a great degree caused by the French requests) it was somewhat compensated by success against the AH. OTOH, at the same time situation was much more critical for France and loyalty to the allied should be reciprocal. Russian government could demand release of all investments and freedom of their usage.
Yes, even the major successful offensives were rather disastrous for Russia in the terms of the spent resources. Of course, a completely defensive strategy would not work either but probably there was a possibility of the limited local offensives with no major “Western front style” preparations, just to keep the opponents out of balance. In this sense the Brusilov Offensive (which was initially planned as a distraction) demonstrated the effective schema: preparations on a wide front with no obvious intended breakthrough point (the attacks started on few points simultaneously) with a short artillery barrage (instead of a prolonged one giving enemy a clear indication of the sector to be attacking and allowing to increase the depth of the defenses). The important thing was to figure out when to stop (which Brusilov did not) before your own losses start mounting.
Thanks for the source! Its interesting (though somewhat... bitter?) description of the Russian financial situation in WW1.
Again, I did understand your point, though not the context of your suggestion. As far as I can tell, this wasn't exactly a seizure of Russian funds but a blanket moratorium on issuing deposits. Likely to avoid a run on French banks to keep their own financial system intact. I agree though, it would have helped out Russia if the French had made an exception to their moratorium on deposits in Russia's case. And likely would not be unreasonable, considering they are allies.
My point (and I apologize if I am not explaining well enough) is not that it would not be better for the French to allow those funds to be withdrawn, but that they don't really amount to much in the US if the Russian government is not permitted to use it as collateral on loans on the US capital market. The article states that of the 670 million rubles held internationally in early 1914 350 million were needed for paying interest on debt and the rest was a reserve in the event of crop failure. When the French announced the moratorium, about 555 million rubles was held in French and British banks. If we assume that a similar percentage of that was needed to pay interest on loans that leaves 265 million rubles. If the entirety of that ($132.5 million at the time) had been in American banks it would likely have helped. In that we are in agreement. However, this is all of 2.7% of what they got from the US (through France and Britain) alone. Not really worth threatening a separate peace in a war that Russia was just as intent on as France. If the US would allow Russia to float loans there (and I can't remember why they didn't off the top of my head) then it might amount to something. If they can get a 1/3 collateral agreement (which is generous but might be possible), then they can get an extra 795 million rubles to work with (more as the ruble devalues). That might be enough to make a difference somewhere.
Exactly my point. The whole premise of Russia “winning” WWI (singlehandedly?) seems to be too vague sonI was thinking along the lines of Russia being able to keep fighting all the way to the allied victory and improved supply situation on the initial stage of war (to which, as usually, Russia was ill-prepared) could help in achieving this goal but it would be only one of the things needed.
Yes
If the Brusilov offensive goes as planned and the General in the North, Evert, attacks when he should have attacked, then by doing so it would have made German reinforcements to the south much more difficult which might have lead to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
If Evert also had prepared and attacked in the same way as Brusilov then that may have lead to the collapse of the German lines as well and the war might have ended a few months after that if not earlier.
If the Brusilov offensive goes as planned and the General in the North, Evert, attacks when he should have attacked, then by doing so it would have made German reinforcements to the south much more difficult which might have lead to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
If Evert also had prepared and attacked in the same way as Brusilov then that may have lead to the collapse of the German lines as well and the war might have ended a few months after that if not earlier.
The_Shrike
Banned
Thanks guys so if that had occurred what would the Russian plan have been for say austria in the event of total victory there? Puppethood and if so who would have been in place there to rule?
The_Shrike
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To rephrase it to get to the point. Being a monarchist state would Russia put a Hapsburg puppet there or implace a Russian Romonav or some such?
Seems like puppeting AH is a bit beyond Russia’s war aims. AIUI what they wanted out of AH was recognition that Balkan Slavs were in Russia’s orbit and more land on the frontiers.
The_Shrike
Banned
Im wondering if there is a way to make that be within a realm of possibility, if Russia were to overextend itself buoyed by total victory.