DBWI:St Petersburg stays Russian

samcster94

Banned
The Finnish annexed St. Petersburg after winning independence from Russia during the 1905 Revolution(OOC:it is the one you are thinking of, but it succeeds). What can be done to keep it Russian???
 
The only reason things got that bad in Russia was the affair at Dogger Bank which brought the full might of the British Empire into the Russo-Japanese War. If he wasn't facing enemies on all sides, Tsar Nick might've been able to get something resembling a lid on the civil unrest, and so the Finnish revolts would have been successfully suppressed. And so, Petersburg stays!
Of course, there is also the fact that the city was overwhelmingly comprised of disgruntled ethnic Russians until the "Finnish Union" movement rose to ascendency in the 1920s and began their infamous ethnic cleansing campaigns (that were somehow kept under wraps until that Freedom of Information request in 2011). As vile as they were, those monsters in Helsinki were correct in believing that as long as Russians dominated St. Petersburg, Russia would dominate St. Petersburg, and so in order to perpetually affirm their claim, the Russians had to go. And indeed, should the Russians have stayed, Petersburg would most likely have been returned at some point as the Finnish hold on the city becomes more untenable with unrest and separatist movements (akin in methodology to those that operated in the few years after Finnish Independence through 1910-15) gaining ascendency in local politics, with Russia reclaiming their Imperial Capital by the late 30s.
Any time for the return of Petersburg after the Finnish Union had completed their bloodthirsty work is borderline ASB--there's no way 60, 000 ethnic Finns are going to break from the country that rebuilt their city from the ground up, and continues to subsidise every aspect of their lives to keep them there to the present day. Moscow certainly wouldn't give them a better deal, and for good reason!
TLDR Have Britain stay out of the Russo-Japanese War to stop Finland's independence, or have the Finnish Union movement kept out of power (or moderated in a governing coalition) to ensure the Russians stay in St. Petersburg.
 
If the aim is to keep it from being annexed/overrun by the Finish revolutionary Jägeri, there are a few decisions as to troop placements that would have gone a long way. The Finish pretty much could walk into the city uncontested simply by outflanking the Russian troops moving North to quell the rebellion and then taking the barracks they just vacated. If the Tsaar would just have left half of its troops in St. Petersburg to wait until the rebels would have made their next move, not only would St. Petersburg be safe, it would probably have ended the revolution before it began.

As to the Finish retaining St. Petersburg, it is my honest opinion that the revolutionaries wanted only Finland proper, but used St.Petersburg as a bargaining chip to be returned in the peace treaty in exchange for some other territory or some assurances. But then the English and French took over the negotiations and they just wanted to stick it to the Tsaar...
 
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