Recently, I have begun reading Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin, and in the section about the police crackdown after 1905, I encountered the following remarkable passage:
For that he cites William Fuller's book "Strategy and Power", pg 138-139. Not having that book, I was unable to investigate further, but it's a striking thought. A mobilization by Germany or AH would demand a mobilization from Russia, which would then be hard pressed to meet the challenge of its restive population. It may well have collapsed the entire structure of Tsarist power, or at least deepened the concessions to the reformers.
Why, then, didn't either of them do that? Was it the famous inflexibility of the Schlieffen Plan, that once set into motion, could not be stopped, thus making a "warning" mobilization impossible? Were they afraid of the effect such a successful uprising might have on their own population? Or did they simply not realize the opportunity until it was past?
Furthermore, let us suppose they DO perceive the opportunity, and do mobilize. Can they stop at the brink, paralyzing the Tsar against internal foes without causing a general war? Or would war break out? And if the Tsar is forced to abdicate to a Russian Republic or accept a merely advisory role in a truly constitutional monarchy, has Germany's position really improved? A democratic Russia would have fewer internal stresses than an autocratic one, by my mark, and will still be Germany's geopolitical rival.
Interested to hear what people think.
RUSSIA’S AUTOCRACY had undergone a near-death experience. Altogether, an army of nearly 300,000, a size close to the land force that had battled the Japanese, was needed to suppress domestic unrest. Such a vast mobilization for repression and regime survival would have been impossible had Russia’s foes on its western flank, Germany and Austria-Hungary, decided to take what would have been easy advantage of the situation. Not even an actual attack from the West, merely a mobilization, would have paralyzed and likely doomed the tsarist regime.
For that he cites William Fuller's book "Strategy and Power", pg 138-139. Not having that book, I was unable to investigate further, but it's a striking thought. A mobilization by Germany or AH would demand a mobilization from Russia, which would then be hard pressed to meet the challenge of its restive population. It may well have collapsed the entire structure of Tsarist power, or at least deepened the concessions to the reformers.
Why, then, didn't either of them do that? Was it the famous inflexibility of the Schlieffen Plan, that once set into motion, could not be stopped, thus making a "warning" mobilization impossible? Were they afraid of the effect such a successful uprising might have on their own population? Or did they simply not realize the opportunity until it was past?
Furthermore, let us suppose they DO perceive the opportunity, and do mobilize. Can they stop at the brink, paralyzing the Tsar against internal foes without causing a general war? Or would war break out? And if the Tsar is forced to abdicate to a Russian Republic or accept a merely advisory role in a truly constitutional monarchy, has Germany's position really improved? A democratic Russia would have fewer internal stresses than an autocratic one, by my mark, and will still be Germany's geopolitical rival.
Interested to hear what people think.