DBWI: Nicky goes to war with Austria Hungary

kernals12

Banned
In 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary went to war with Serbia in the Third Balkan War. Russia was an ally of Serbia but Tsar Nicholas II chose not to declare war fearing the response from Germany. What if Nicky chose to defend Russia's ally?
 
It would've been very bad for Russia, at the time they weren't the superpower they are today and were still beginning to modernise and reform. A decisive defeat against Germany could've proved disastrous and some say that German strategists knew this and wanted to provoke Russia into a crippling war.
 

kernals12

Banned
It would've been very bad for Russia, at the time they weren't the superpower they are today and were still beginning to modernise and reform. A decisive defeat against Germany could've proved disastrous and some say that German strategists knew this and wanted to provoke Russia into a crippling war.
OOC Russia was most certainly a superpower back then.
 

kernals12

Banned
It would've been very bad for Russia, at the time they weren't the superpower they are today and were still beginning to modernise and reform. A decisive defeat against Germany could've proved disastrous and some say that German strategists knew this and wanted to provoke Russia into a crippling war.
Not necessarily, such a war would've brought in France and probably Great Britain and possibly even the United States. I don't know whether this would've been better or worse than a quick defeat by Germany.
 
You have to prevent the British Civil War that broke you shortly afterwards. After that Russia had no support for a war that would draw in Germany. The French Poincare knew that Britain was in no position to fight a war with German and thus France could not support Russia causing Nicolaus to back down. It is interesting to think what would have happened if the Home Bill had been delayed even by a month or two and France had hopes for British support against Germany. I remember reading one timeline in which such a war leads to no Imperial Federation and with America, of all places, being the leader of the English-Speaking Peoples
 
Not necessarily, such a war would've brought in France and probably Great Britain and possibly even the United States. I don't know whether this would've been better or worse than a quick defeat by Germany.

France, certainly, but The British Empire and America? The former MAYBE, if somebody tries for a "rally round the Flag" tactic to handle the domestic powder keg set off by the Plot Against Ulster , Royal Assent Crisis, and Dublin riots long enough to stop radicals on both sides from escalating things into the Civil War, as serdog mentioned. But isolationist America? What about a war mainly in the boonies of Eastern Europe over the assassination of a monarch's heir could possibly attract them of all nations, particularly with things still as chaotic as they were in Mexico? I mean, such a war would certainly not be better for those counteries, particularly France, but it'd no doubt be better for Russia in the medium term.

Still, The Third Balkan War's biggest impact was always on (surprise) the Balkans, and the biggest winner of the series of wars after only 3, as opposed to 7,would no doubt be the local Balkan Orthodox nations. The sheer economic exhaustion, infastructural destruction, debt accumulation/inflation, and casualties suffered by Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Romania from those oppritunistic spats and the "circular firing squad" of backstabbing the weaked rival/winner of the last war went a long way towards the resurgence of the Ottomans and their Albanian clients in the region, to say nothing of the ethnic stress lifted off the Hapsburgs as the more troublesome Romanian and Serb nationalists migrated to the economic oppritunities in the region in a mockery of American carpet bagging.
 
You have to prevent the British Civil War that broke you shortly afterwards. After that Russia had no support for a war that would draw in Germany. The French Poincare knew that Britain was in no position to fight a war with German and thus France could not support Russia causing Nicolaus to back down. It is interesting to think what would have happened if the Home Bill had been delayed even by a month or two and France had hopes for British support against Germany. I remember reading one timeline in which such a war leads to no Imperial Federation and with America, of all places, being the leader of the English-Speaking Peoples

The Imperial Federation was the idea of the Carson dictatorship as an alternative to Home Rule and devolution of the empire so without the British Civil War and the Imperialist victory the British Empire would've probably continued to devolve. Economically the United States is the leader of English-speaking peoples even if it is committed to neutrality, the Imperial Federation has a stronger military and likes to throw its weight around but it's a mess politically and finanically.
 
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