Very interesting as this scenario is, I think what it lacks, so to speak, is a POD. I mean, Nicholas "deciding" to attack the Ottoman Empire comes across as a bit of a brainfart on his part. He needs a spur, and the only logical place for this to come from is the Principalities which, if I may be so bold, is where I would suggest basing the POD
A quick rundown of OTL (thanks to Jelavich) wlll help to lay the background for what I intend to suggest.
- Feb 1848 Revolution in Paris
- Mar 1848 Revolution in Vienna
- Apr 1848 Attempted revolution in Iasi (of various spellings) capital of Moldavia
Since 1834 and the institution of the Organic Statutes, Moldavia has had a much more stable princely government in place than has neighbouring Wallachia. Thus, this attempted revolution consisted of about 1000 people, mainly townspeople making speeches, parading slogans and offering up a petition to Prince Mihail Sturdza. He promptly arrests about 300 of them and disperses the rest who go home
- May 1848 Revolution in Wallachia begins with the formation of a committee
- June 1848 Prince Bibescu of Wallachia is forced to abdicate
A more successful if pretty chaotic affair, the Wallachian revolution was supported by the many boyar opponents of the reigning prince and sought to overthrow the Organic Statutes and end Russian protection. It produced the Islaz Proclamation to this end.
The Wallachian revolution, however, lacked troops and did not want to, nor could really aspire to, stir up the peasants as in the 1821 revolt. What forces there were came under the control of Colonel Ion Odobescu.
- July 1848 Odobescu uses his small army to attempt to overthrow the leadership of the revolution and fails
Jelavich claims that this "saved the provinces from the ravages of a violent civil war", and points out that after the defeat of Odobescu's coup, the revolutionary leaders now could only use diplomacy to try and achieve their ends, diplomacy which was centred on Istanbul as suzerain, and aimed at Britain and France as likely allies.
July 1848 also saw Russia send an army into Moldavia, not against the revolutionaries (whom Sturdza had already dealt with) but with an eye on the situation in Transylvania and the Habsburg empire.
Of course, the Wallachian revolutionaries in Bucharest immediately feared that this army was going to be used against them, and evacuated the city.
At the same time, the Ottoman government is finding itself under contradictory pressures - Britain and France urged negotiation with the Wallachian revolutionaries, Russia urged armed intervention. In the end, the Porte came down the middle, sending an army to the border and sending in a special envoy. Negotiations failed to come up with anything satisfactory, and on September 25th the Ottoman army entered Wallachia, followed two days later by the Russians. Since the Wallachians no longer had any kind of army they could not resist, and volunteer formations gathering in Oltenia disbanded when faced with clearly overwhelming opposition
Its worth noting what is going on with the Habsburgs at the same time
- July 1848 Habsburg forces commanded by Radetzky defeat the Sardinian army at Custozza, at the same time as Archduke John is convening the constitutional convention in Vienna
- October 1848, another revolutionary outbreak forces the imperial court to move to Olmutz, but the Habsburg army soon marches on Vienna, and by the end of the month fully controls it
- January 1849 some Russian forces from Moldavia engages unsuccessfully a Hungarian army commanded by General Bem, an emigre Pole
- March 1848 Franz Josef promulgates a new imperial constitution
- May 1849 Franz Josef requests Russian aid to put down the Hungarians
It is also worth mentioning that 1848 saw the death of Mehmet Ali, ruler of Egypt, whose scheming in the Eastern Mediterranean had twice caused major crises, the most recent ending in 1841 only just short of creating a war in which Russia would have found itself facing France. During 1848 he is succeeded at first by his able son Ibrahim, but he is an old man himself now, and dies during the year to be succeeded in turn by Abbas I
Its probably also worth running over events in Hungary since, odd tho it may seem, they can get subsumed by the crisis at the Habsburg centre and only come into focus once Franz Josef has his house in order by the end of October and begins to look at the Hungarian situation. But, of course, this very Hungarian situation has been evolving steadily over the course of 1848 to date, and it needs to be understood at what point things happened
For example, in April 1848 the Hungarian Foreign Minister Prince Esterhazy is instructed to give a communique to Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador in Vienna. At this stage, Hungary is claiming to be the strongest pillar of the Habsburg empire, seeking only its rights as a recognised kingdom within that empire, and by its success looking to strengthen the empire as a whole. It can even point to influence over Vienna in directing reform in Galicia as indicative of how it intends to lead the way. To paraphrase what Esterhazy told Ponsonby, he says that the changes in Hungary will strengthen the Habsburg empire, but that revolutionary agitation and Russian influence in the "Lower Danubian Provinces" (Moldavia, Wallachi and Serbia) were likely to endanger the security of Hungary, and thus the Habsburg empire as a whole, as well as British interests in the area. Revolutions in the Ottoman Empire might follow, with a European war a probable consequence.
Istvan Deak in "The Lawful Revolution" calls this "a clear reflection of his (Kossuth's) old foreign policy shceme of a joint military crusade by the British, French, Germans, Austrians and Hungarians against Pan-Slavism and Tsarist Russia"
Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary, was pleased to get the note via Ponsonby but did comment that "Her Majesty's Gov't would...on every account be desirous of preventing any such outbreak from happening, but they scarcely know in which way and by what means they can have it in their Power to assist in doing so" (curious that he capitalised the P of Power...)
May 30 1848 was an important date for Transylvania (previously a separate Grand Principality under the empire) voted for union with Hungary. The Romanian leaders were not consulted and came to Buda-Pest to press their case for peasant emancipation, the freedom for Romanian-language institutions, and free trade cross-border with Moldavia and Wallachia. The Hungarian reaction was not a good one, but was born of prejudice and/or blinkered views as to who or what these Romanians were. As Istvan Deak says "timely Hungarian concessions could have saved the situation; but these concessions were never made because the Transylvanian nobiity feared such reforms and because the Hungarian government feared the anger of the Transylvanian nobility"
I make what might appear to be a slight diversion here, because the issue of Transylvania is completely tied up in any potential POD we might adopt. Remember, Russia's move on an army into Moldavia in July 1848 was so as to keep an eye on events in Transylvania.
July 1848 is also pivotal for Hungary's relations with Austria, if one can term it that way. In May it had sent a delegation to the pan-German Frankfurt parliament, on the one hand looking for its recognition of Hungarian sovereignty (in the same sense that in OTL places like the Ukraine used the term before their eventual secession from the USSR), and on the other hand looking keenly on the prospect of the formation of some anti-Slavic grand alliance that their Austrian counterparts also favoured at that date. By July things had improved in the Habsburg's favour on the latter front that it was no longer a realistic need, but also by July was now being raised the idea of Austria's accession to a Greater Germany, with the non-HRE parts of the Habsburg fiefs to remain solely in a personal union with Vienna. To Hungarian politicians this offered the potential for Hungary to decide its own future, reckoning that the Pragmatic Sanction would lapse, and that they could dictate the new relationship with Vienna, or terminate it altogether. Some realised that the whole proposal did not have legs, but many were allowing themselves to be entranced by the possibility rather than the underlying reality
August in Hungary was spent readying both the finances and the military. Habsburg arms had defeated Sardinia and the hopes of a united Italy in July, and then moved against Venice. The centre was strengthening itself, looking towards the likely future clash with Buda-Pest, as evidenced by a decree revoking the right of the Palatine to approve bills passed by the Hungarian assembly - in essence the appointed representative of the Emperor to Hungary woudl no longer pass the laws that the Hungarian parliament made. Until now they had been given the mark of imperial approval, just by his passing, but now that approval was to be withdrawn and lodged back at the imperial court. It was an obvious move towards subjugating Hungary's vastly increasing autonomy, and both sides realised where such a move might lead
September 1848 saw the Hungarians send a huge deputation to Vienna asking that the king (ie emperor) come to Buda-Pest to help resolve the crisis. He declined, and on their way out of the city many of the deputies began to sport red plumes, the symbol of defiance of revolution. By the time their ship returned to Pest, it too was so bedecked. As a result of the failure of the deputation, Batthyany tendered his resignation as head of the Hungarian government.
The next day, September 11th (why does that have a certain ring to it ?!) the Croats invaded, and the Palatine attempted to seize power in Buda-Pest. Kossuth now controlled the government, but as yet disclaimed the post of Prime Minister waiting for Batthyani to prove that he was no longer able to exercise his office. The Croatian invasion would prove to be the first time that regular formations of the Habsburg army, commanded by generals, fought against each other (the previous Serb actions had been lower level affairs). It would take a month, but the Hungarians would see off and defeat the Croats, who then retired to Vienna. In the midst of this a decree in the name of Emperor Ferdinand (ie decided by his advisors since he was not exactly compus mentis) appointed a royal procurator, since the Palatine had resigned in despair. The appointment of this fellow, a Count named Lamberg, was seen in Hungary as a devilish plan to undermine the kingdom, and Lamberg was assassinated. This was the final blow to Batthyany and on October 8th, the assembly essentially elected Kossuth as dictator, in the manner of the French Revolution vesting powers in the president of the committee of national defence
Few international observers believed that Hungary would survive, but the Vienna revolt, forcing the court out again for some weeks, gave them the rest of the year as a breathing space. Its genesis was the decision to send Austrian units to aid the Ban of Croatia deep within Hungary in a campaign he was clearly losing. The units rebelled, already saturated in liberal and radical sentiment, and crisis gripped the centre of the Habsburg domain. Although soon dealt with, the breathing space allowed the Hungarians to gather sufficient strength to survive the onslaught in the final months of 1848, and although Buda-Pest had to be evacuated, the government reconvened at Debrecen and reorganised its defence.
Having got to October in some detail, it is probably necessary now to pull all the strands together. I wrote the above to show that WHEN something happens elsewhere is of vital importance during 1848, and HOW it happens also in terms of who it draws in and in what way, shape or form. For example, if something happened BEFORE July 1848 to bring Russia and the Ottoman Empire into war, the Habsburg centre would see this as evidence of some vast Tsarist plan and pan-Slavic conspiracy, ally with Hungary, and try to drag Frankfurt into an almighty alliance against such perfidy. After the victory in Italy in July, though, their understanding of events diverges significantly from that of the Hungarians
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Most interestingly, Istvan Deak gives us a POD for an 1849 Crimean War. I feel I should examine this first before looking at some of my more esoteric ideas.
The Habsburgs had managed to portray events within their empire as a threat to law, order and stability, something which played especially well with the Russians who detested such dangerous unsettlement. The Hungarian revolution was thus from the start seen in Saint Petersburg as being dangerous, whilst eventual Habsburg success was hoped for. But it was more than hoped for. By November 1848 there was an agreement in place that any Austrian commander, dangerously pressed by the Hungarians near the borders, could request the intervention of the neighbouring Russian army
In January 1849 General Bem drove the Austrians out of most of Transylvania and into Bukovina. The Austrian General Puchner asked for help, and 6000 Russians from Wallachia intervened. Remember, the Russians had entered Wallachia in September 1848 in the wake of the Ottomans.
This was MOST UPSETTING to the Porte. The Ottomans viewed the Principalities as their territory, and it had been an Ottoman army which had put down the Wallachian revolution. That the Russians now used Wallachian territory to launch an invasion of a power friendly to Istanbul was intolerable. Intriguingly and somewhat amusingly, Kossuth himself refused to believe reports about Russian troops in Transylvania. He had always believed in the abstract that Russia was planning a pan-Slavic crusade, but when faced with seemingly nonsensical reports of Russians in Transylvania he, and his advisors, dismissed them at first as being Romanians dressed up in gear similar to Russians. The government's refusal to believe didn't matter in truth, since Bem defeated the Russians anyway
This had the effect of being such a blow to Russian prestige that Nichola I no longer agreed to intervene locally at need - instead he looked at the idea of recapturing glory by a massive and invicible army to crush the Hungarians once and for all
But that cannot be our story
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If we accept the POD as offered by Istvan Deak, then it is remarked that "When the Ottoman mobilised their army and navy against Russia, war was prevented only by the energetic intervention of Palmerston in Istanbul"
Its obvious what needs to be changed there !!!
This would put the war in FEBRUARY 1849 but rather than the need to create a POD, much less a brainfart in Nicholas' head, we have a ready-made almost war just waiting for us here
Best Regards
Grey Wolf