DB challenge: Russian Koenigsberg

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to get the Baltic port of Koenigsberg under Russian control by the present day with a POD no earlier than 1850. Here's the catch: Russia must take Koenigsberg yet also lose Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic provinces, and Finland, as in OTL.

OOC: Listen up, I have 2 things to tell you and they're important:

1) "DB" stands for double-blind. If you don't know what that is, resist the urge to be a smart-ass and tell me that this actually happened; check the AH.com wiki to find out what it means.

2) The ATL from which this challenge is posted did not diverge from OTL earlier than 1850. Don't let me catch you talking about the Norse-Byzantine border conflicts or Columbus' journey to India or whatever. You'll only get my blood boiling.
 
2) The ATL from which this challenge is posted did not diverge from OTL earlier than 1850. Don't let me catch you talking about the Norse-Byzantine border conflicts or Columbus' journey to India or whatever. You'll only get my blood boiling.
OOC: Note that Dr Pervez is one of the very few to use this system, whereas point number 1 is universal.
 
your challenge is unsane, I mean kow the Hell do you want to keep Könisberg russian without land connection with "main Russia"?

This is a tricky one, certainly, but not impossible. I mean, Germany doesn't have a land connection to Könisberg either, but they managed to hold onto it for almost fifty years.
 
This is a tricky one, certainly, but not impossible. I mean, Germany doesn't have a land connection to Könisberg either, but they managed to hold onto it for almost fifty years.

But Eastern Prussia only separated from the main German territory by a tiny pocket called Gdansk. Where as Pervez are asking us to make Konigsberg Russian, but separated from Russia by q quite well-sized chunks of Poland and Baltic States......
 
your challenge is unsane, I mean kow the Hell do you want to keep Könisberg russian without land connection with "main Russia"?

I don't see why it would be so hard, it worked well enough with Dairen for all 99 years that the lease lasted. And it'd still be working if Russia tried harder to convince China to renew it. (I know some of the Russians on this board are still angry that their government was so restrained, but let's not get into that.)

OOC: That was a sort-of reference to the OTL cession of the Panama Canal.

This is a tricky one, certainly, but not impossible. I mean, Germany doesn't have a land connection to Könisberg either, but they managed to hold onto it for almost fifty years.

OOC: What about West Prussia? Or is this from the ATL?
 
I don't see why it would be so hard, it worked well enough with Dairen for all 99 years that the lease lasted. And it'd still be working if Russia tried harder to convince China to renew it. (I know some of the Russians on this board are still angry that their government was so restrained, but let's not get into that.)

No, Dairen wasn't technically seperated from the other territories of Russian Empire.
The entire Inner Manchuria was a russian influence zone and Dairen was connected with the main territories of the Russian Empire via the Chinese Eastern Railway.
 
okay, russian königsberg, let's see....just have to think about why it's russian now and make up a similar plot --> full scale horrifying european war with prussia as the main aggressor, gets beaten, and russia gets königsberg as access to the baltic sea (say st.petersburg was totally destroyed and burnt to the ground by german troops)....et voila.

what if 1848 was successful and germany, drunken with chauvinism and finally united, goes totally rampage in europe?
 
No, Dairen wasn't technically seperated from the other territories of Russian Empire.
The entire Inner Manchuria was a russian influence zone and Dairen was connected with the main territories of the Russian Empire via the Chinese Eastern Railway.

There's nothing in the challenge that says you can't have the same situation here.

what if 1848 was successful and germany, drunken with chauvinism and finally united, goes totally rampage in europe?

Too early.
 
OOC: What about West Prussia? Or is this from the ATL?

OOC: Definitely ATL. Assuming 'proper' German unification on schedule - albeit minus Gdansk - in 1871, this comment means that Germany lost control of Koenigsberg at some point between 1919 and 1921. Possibly something to do with the aftermath of a world war analogue?

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to get the Baltic port of Koenigsberg under Russian control by the present day with a POD no earlier than 1850. Here's the catch: Russia must take Koenigsberg yet also lose Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic provinces, and Finland, as in OTL.

Do the Baltic provinces in this scenario include those which never fought for independence in OTL, i.e. Russian Courland and Semigallia? Because if Russia holds onto them, then - if we established some kind of codominion or neutral (say League-administered) political entity centered on Memel / Klaipeda and the surrounding region, then there'd territorial continuity, and Russian access to Koenigsberg.

Thoughts?
 
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Seems simple enough to me: Lithuania, the Baltics, Finland & Poland are influenced by Russia a lot more than OTL and so are de facto Russian, basically. If that's the case then they won't really be able to object to Konigsberg being de-facto Russian.

By the way, when you say "Russian Konigsberg" do you mean all of East Prussia, or just the city of Konigsberg? And which scenario do you think would be more easily maintained?
 

Rockingham

Banned
Well...perhaps a Russian personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia, and a civil war causes Russia to lose Prussia, the Baltics, Poland and Finland, apart from Konigsberg (it would be useful as a warm-water port .
 
How about, when Russia has a war in the Baltic, they are able to hold Konigsberg, even when they are driven out of everywhere else?

Or else you could go back to the Great warwar, where Russia was struggling to hold on to the remnants of it's western frontier. If
the general in charge had held his ground, I believe there would have been a good chance of holding it. Despite that Lituania was independent, they didn't have the capacity to threaten Russia, and were only trying to ensure that Russia couldn't occupy them. Poland was also tired of war at this time, if I recall. The Russian negotiator was just too weak, and caved in to demands to have Kojegraz(as thePoles call it) to hand it over.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Well...perhaps a Russian personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia, and a civil war causes Russia to lose Prussia, the Baltics, Poland and Finland, apart from Konigsberg (it would be useful as a warm-water port .

Would be hard to do with a PoD after 1850, I could make upsom story about romance between Friedrich II. and Katharina the Great, but I don't want to get my nose bloody.
 
Do the Baltic provinces in this scenario include those which never fought for independence in OTL, i.e. Russian Courland and Semigallia?

All of them: Courland, Livonia and Estonia. Not the Province of St Petersburg, though. (Some 19th century maps count it as a Baltic province.)

By the way, when you say "Russian Konigsberg" do you mean all of East Prussia, or just the city of Konigsberg?

The city and as much hinterland as you can get for it. If it's all of East Prussia, good for you.

And which scenario do you think would be more easily maintained?

The smaller the area, the easier the challenge.
 
Between 1795 and 1867, Russia bordered Prussia/Germany quite near Koenigsberg, so its not impossible for them to win eastern Prussia in a war. Taking it AND losing the surrounding territories? Ridiculous.

Maybe the 1867 Polish and Lithuanian revolutions fail the way similar ones in the Ukraine, Estonia, and Livonia did? And then, Russia wins a war with Prussia, but later loses to Austria and Sweden (and Finland, if its still independent")? Austria gaining Poland and Lithuania, Sweden freeing or taking the Baltics, but they dispute Koenigsberg and let the Russians have it?

Not especially plausible...
 
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