How much? Do they get Kingsepp and Pskov? The eastern shore of Lake Peipus?
Es Geloybte Aretz Continuation Thread
- Thread starter carlton_bach
- Start date
Newfoundland is too small and poor for them to even host nukes on their territory. They're not a threat.
Ah, but Carlton is actually just pulling our legs here. He didn't mean the dominion. He meant the DOG.
Seriously, you could could mount a Davy Crockett on the back of these. The Russians will never know what hit 'em.
Holy Jesus. That dog can crush anyone or anything it lays down on.Ah, but Carlton is actually just pulling our legs here. He didn't mean the dominion. He meant the DOG.
Seriously, you could could mount a Davy Crockett on the back of these. The Russians will never know what hit 'em.
I envision it basically being a safety buffer against Narva, but sure, throw in Pskov. A border on the Luga river looks good on a map, but I don't know the facts on the ground well enough. Maybe some other feature would do better. Somewhere halfway down Ingermanland, with a lot of the actual Ingrian population included. They are not going to give them Novgorod, Gatchina or Peterhof, but they can turn those into border towns. The German strategic goal is to neutralise Narva Bay in future conflicts and keep Russian gunboats off of Lake Peipus.
btw what do the ottomans get out of the second war? There going to get there ass handed to them, but survive so crimean state?
To be honest, I'm not sure what its realistic for the Ottoman Empire to get. They do survive, the state actually proves itself despite everything and there are hard-fought victories. But their borders are very unfortunately placed. Turkestan, Chiva and Bokhara would be the natural direction except those areas are effectively Persian protectorates now. All they might actually want - Tabriz, Suez, Oman, Aden - is out of the question. The Caucasus did not end well the first time around - they get to keep their satellites, obviously, but these countries are a burnt-over wasteland by the time the Russians, the Ottomans, the Armenians, Azeris, and various other militias are finished with them. So, Baku, Tblisi, Batumi, not exactly a kingly prize to show for what the country went through. I can't see them getting the Crimea or Astrakhan.
Moshe Dayan was born on 20 May 1915 in Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee in Palestine, in what was then Ottoman Syria within the Ottoman Empire, one of three children born to Shmuel and Devorah Dayan, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Zhashkiv.
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Baku is always a kingly price, even if the last two inhabitants died strangling each other. It has something like an 1/8th of the global oil production at this time. Until the survey of Ghawar, it has more oil production capacity than all the holdings of the Ottoman empire, by a factor of 3 or so.
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It is, but they got it in the first round so basically it's a case of getting back what the Russians took away.
wait the ottomans rule lower Caucasus countries? independent crimea. They probably would want more independent caucasus nations such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and maybe a Cossack state. Also a lot of money.
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Yes, the Russians had to hand over a good part of the Caucasus in 1908. These areas became notionally independent states under Ottoman protection. It wasn't exactly a stellar success, but the oil money is good and it beats Integralist rule. Unless you're Armenian.
I recall an IOTL Charles Sch*lz cartoon, where Sally suffers from amblyopia, has to wear an eye patch, and her legend was "No Arab shoot at me".
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He was mid-century iconic. There was a joke circulating in Germany:
David Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan are sitting on the porch.
"David, I'm bored. What do we do?" says Dayan.
Ben Gurion ponders. then his face lights up. "I know. Let's have a war!"
Dayan considers this unenthusiastically. "All right. " he says. "And what do we do in the afternoon?"
While most potted histories of the Second Russo-German War focus on the titanic struggles of the Northern front, many tend to overlook the importance of fighting in the Ottoman Empire, and even more frequently the considerable contribution of the Ottoman Empire to the Allied cause.
1944 found the Empire exhausted by years of brutal war in Thrace and mired in self-doubt over the losses the Monaco conference had imposed on a country that – with some justification - considered itself militarily undefeated. Disappointment with Germany and Austria-Hungary was rife and a significant party in the cabinet supported an alliance with Russia, even at the price of losing the Caucasus. In the end, the Porte decided to pursue a stance of friendly neutrality that would respect both Germany's position as foremost oil customer and Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christian population. It needless to repeat here that this policy proved an abject failure.
It is doubtful whether such a stance would have been feasible even if the Russian government had been acting in good faith. As it was, it only served to delay the inevitable and improve the initial position of the enemy. Russian money and weapons emboldened national insurgents in the remaining Ottoman Balkans, troops took position in treaty cantonments throughout the Caucasus to prepare the assault, and intelligence agents sought to foment unrest throughout the country. As a desperate Vienna general staff indicated that they could not hope to handle both the Balkans and a likely Ruthenian front, Berlin found itself locked in an internecine struggle between advocates of an early intervention hoping to draw the Empire to their side and advocates of neutralising the southern flank with the expected help of the British and their Persian satellite. In the end, the shocking success of the Russian army in the northern offensive meant that no troops or equipment for a possible Ottoman offensive could be spared in the autumn of 1944. The Sultan's forces were left to face Moscow's offensive on their own.
In contrast to the military debacle of these months, the diplomatic lightning offensive that Berlin launched in the course of the year bore unexpectedly rich fruit. Russian intelligence had been confident that the ability to promise territorial gains at Ottoman expense would ensure allies in the region, but trust in Moscow's word had all but evaporated. The Shah, though known to be eyeing the Shia Arab areas of Mesopotamia as possible additions to his realm, declared a strict neutrality that in effect boiled down to a hostile stance against Russia. Given Tehran's dependence on London, this did not come as a great surprise. The decision in Athens and Sofia to also embrace neutrality was a greater blow to Russian intentions. Though Serbia never made an official declaration to this effect, it made it known through diplomatic channels that it had no intention of joining hostilities. Thus Russia's hoped-for Orthodox coalition came to nothing, to the great relief of the Italian government which is still widely believed to have taken a hand in this outcome.
The autumn of 1944 saw the beginning of an undeclared war undertaken by Russian troops and secret agents across the north of the Empire. Incidents of sectarian violence, some doubtlessly real, many more manufactured, served to justify interventions designed to secure neuralgic points and paralyse Ottoman government. On 19 October, a column of Russian motor rifles left their cantonment in Van bound for Mosul with the aim to secure the railway to Baghdad and Basra for a future invasion. Another significant force was despatched from Kars a week later to interdict any possible Ottoman moves from Erzerum against the exposed flank of a Russian thrust into Mesopotamia. On 12 November, the Russian cantonment commander at Baku disarmed the Ottoman garrison and police and declared he was temporarily placing the oil facilities under Russian control as surety against compensation claims forwarded on behalf of Armenian and Georgian victims of persecution. While the sultan protested, a force of two armoured divisions crossed the border, moving along treaty corridors to secure the pipeline to Batumi and its port. Declaring war, at this point, was a formality, but the tenuous pretense of neutrality lasted until March.
Despite the considerable gains made in the face of often intimidated, confused local officials and second-tier military forces left without orders or leadership, the Russians did not have everything their way even in the very early stages of the attack. One key reason for this was the conduct of troops and administrators under the command of General Semyon Kotilov. Kotilov had gained a reputation for unswerving loyalty, bravery, and audacious operations, but nobody had ever accused him of diplomacy, temperance, or foresight. As such he would probably have been better placed on the German front where these qualities were not much needed. Placed in command of Treaty Forces East, he quickly proceeded to alienate even sympathetic Azeris and Chechens before moving south into majority Kurdish areas. Russian intelligence had cultivated a nascent national movement for years and as their troops entered Mosul, they called on its leaders to convene. Yet within two months of their triumphal entry, Kurdish guerillas throughout the region were ambushing Russian convoys and slitting the throats of soldiers and collaborators. The reasons for the is policy failure were complex, rooted not least in a complete misunderstanding of the role political religion played in the Ottoman sphere, but Kotilov's bone-headed insistence on imposing what amounted to colonial government with the help of Armenian 'legions' contributed greatly to the speed with which Moscow's hopes were dashed.
In purely military terms, the first line of Russian forces were successful beyond the wildest hopes of their planners. Armoured spearheads reached Diyarbakir and Urfa before the end of the year. The Baghdad railway was cut, much of the oil production capacity under Russian control, and a victory-drunk Kotilov ordered operations across the Syrian desert in the confident expectation to cripple the Empire's railway infrastructure. In theory, the idea was sound. The Damascus, Hijaz and Port Said railways were vulnerable to interdiction in the sparsely populated regions beyond the coastal hills. In practice, it turned out that the distances involved across hostile terrain, increasingly away from the carefully prepared logistical network Russia had woven across the Caucasus, entirely defeated the technical and martial capabilities of the invaders. Even the fact that Kotilov, probably under the influence of French intelligence, adopted a far more conciliatory attitude towards the Arab population did not help. This, too, was owed to a momentous misunderstanding: The Arab nationalists who Paris had been cultivating for decades were mostly based in cities, modernist intellectuals and often Syrian and Palestinian Christians. The men Kotilov hoped to gain as auxiliaries were of a different calibre. They might have been willing to join him in return for immediate promises of political power and independent kingship, but he had nothing like that to give. The Russian thrust petered out, not in a climactic battle, but in a hundred humiliating retreats, abandoning broken-down chars and surrendering starving outposts to local militias. In a final bitter irony, it was lack of winter gear that accounted for massive casualties in the Diyarbakir force. STAVKA, of all people, had underestimated how cold January could be in what they considered 'desert country'.
Nonetheless, the scale of defeat was staggering. Surrender was mooted as a reasonable course of action in the dark days of December, and the tale immortalised on stage and screen today that Kemal Pasha at one point physically threatened the the sultan with his pistol to prevent such diplomatic overtures being made may actually be true. It was, ultimately, the very success of the Russian advance that turned the tide against them. Facing the imminent loss of one of its main sources of oil, Berlin took the dive. Promises of subsidies, arms, and troops steeled the resolve of the council and led to a declaration of war on 2 March 1945. The road to victory would be an arduous and bloody one, but the prospect felt real for the first time.
1944 found the Empire exhausted by years of brutal war in Thrace and mired in self-doubt over the losses the Monaco conference had imposed on a country that – with some justification - considered itself militarily undefeated. Disappointment with Germany and Austria-Hungary was rife and a significant party in the cabinet supported an alliance with Russia, even at the price of losing the Caucasus. In the end, the Porte decided to pursue a stance of friendly neutrality that would respect both Germany's position as foremost oil customer and Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christian population. It needless to repeat here that this policy proved an abject failure.
It is doubtful whether such a stance would have been feasible even if the Russian government had been acting in good faith. As it was, it only served to delay the inevitable and improve the initial position of the enemy. Russian money and weapons emboldened national insurgents in the remaining Ottoman Balkans, troops took position in treaty cantonments throughout the Caucasus to prepare the assault, and intelligence agents sought to foment unrest throughout the country. As a desperate Vienna general staff indicated that they could not hope to handle both the Balkans and a likely Ruthenian front, Berlin found itself locked in an internecine struggle between advocates of an early intervention hoping to draw the Empire to their side and advocates of neutralising the southern flank with the expected help of the British and their Persian satellite. In the end, the shocking success of the Russian army in the northern offensive meant that no troops or equipment for a possible Ottoman offensive could be spared in the autumn of 1944. The Sultan's forces were left to face Moscow's offensive on their own.
In contrast to the military debacle of these months, the diplomatic lightning offensive that Berlin launched in the course of the year bore unexpectedly rich fruit. Russian intelligence had been confident that the ability to promise territorial gains at Ottoman expense would ensure allies in the region, but trust in Moscow's word had all but evaporated. The Shah, though known to be eyeing the Shia Arab areas of Mesopotamia as possible additions to his realm, declared a strict neutrality that in effect boiled down to a hostile stance against Russia. Given Tehran's dependence on London, this did not come as a great surprise. The decision in Athens and Sofia to also embrace neutrality was a greater blow to Russian intentions. Though Serbia never made an official declaration to this effect, it made it known through diplomatic channels that it had no intention of joining hostilities. Thus Russia's hoped-for Orthodox coalition came to nothing, to the great relief of the Italian government which is still widely believed to have taken a hand in this outcome.
The autumn of 1944 saw the beginning of an undeclared war undertaken by Russian troops and secret agents across the north of the Empire. Incidents of sectarian violence, some doubtlessly real, many more manufactured, served to justify interventions designed to secure neuralgic points and paralyse Ottoman government. On 19 October, a column of Russian motor rifles left their cantonment in Van bound for Mosul with the aim to secure the railway to Baghdad and Basra for a future invasion. Another significant force was despatched from Kars a week later to interdict any possible Ottoman moves from Erzerum against the exposed flank of a Russian thrust into Mesopotamia. On 12 November, the Russian cantonment commander at Baku disarmed the Ottoman garrison and police and declared he was temporarily placing the oil facilities under Russian control as surety against compensation claims forwarded on behalf of Armenian and Georgian victims of persecution. While the sultan protested, a force of two armoured divisions crossed the border, moving along treaty corridors to secure the pipeline to Batumi and its port. Declaring war, at this point, was a formality, but the tenuous pretense of neutrality lasted until March.
Despite the considerable gains made in the face of often intimidated, confused local officials and second-tier military forces left without orders or leadership, the Russians did not have everything their way even in the very early stages of the attack. One key reason for this was the conduct of troops and administrators under the command of General Semyon Kotilov. Kotilov had gained a reputation for unswerving loyalty, bravery, and audacious operations, but nobody had ever accused him of diplomacy, temperance, or foresight. As such he would probably have been better placed on the German front where these qualities were not much needed. Placed in command of Treaty Forces East, he quickly proceeded to alienate even sympathetic Azeris and Chechens before moving south into majority Kurdish areas. Russian intelligence had cultivated a nascent national movement for years and as their troops entered Mosul, they called on its leaders to convene. Yet within two months of their triumphal entry, Kurdish guerillas throughout the region were ambushing Russian convoys and slitting the throats of soldiers and collaborators. The reasons for the is policy failure were complex, rooted not least in a complete misunderstanding of the role political religion played in the Ottoman sphere, but Kotilov's bone-headed insistence on imposing what amounted to colonial government with the help of Armenian 'legions' contributed greatly to the speed with which Moscow's hopes were dashed.
In purely military terms, the first line of Russian forces were successful beyond the wildest hopes of their planners. Armoured spearheads reached Diyarbakir and Urfa before the end of the year. The Baghdad railway was cut, much of the oil production capacity under Russian control, and a victory-drunk Kotilov ordered operations across the Syrian desert in the confident expectation to cripple the Empire's railway infrastructure. In theory, the idea was sound. The Damascus, Hijaz and Port Said railways were vulnerable to interdiction in the sparsely populated regions beyond the coastal hills. In practice, it turned out that the distances involved across hostile terrain, increasingly away from the carefully prepared logistical network Russia had woven across the Caucasus, entirely defeated the technical and martial capabilities of the invaders. Even the fact that Kotilov, probably under the influence of French intelligence, adopted a far more conciliatory attitude towards the Arab population did not help. This, too, was owed to a momentous misunderstanding: The Arab nationalists who Paris had been cultivating for decades were mostly based in cities, modernist intellectuals and often Syrian and Palestinian Christians. The men Kotilov hoped to gain as auxiliaries were of a different calibre. They might have been willing to join him in return for immediate promises of political power and independent kingship, but he had nothing like that to give. The Russian thrust petered out, not in a climactic battle, but in a hundred humiliating retreats, abandoning broken-down chars and surrendering starving outposts to local militias. In a final bitter irony, it was lack of winter gear that accounted for massive casualties in the Diyarbakir force. STAVKA, of all people, had underestimated how cold January could be in what they considered 'desert country'.
Nonetheless, the scale of defeat was staggering. Surrender was mooted as a reasonable course of action in the dark days of December, and the tale immortalised on stage and screen today that Kemal Pasha at one point physically threatened the the sultan with his pistol to prevent such diplomatic overtures being made may actually be true. It was, ultimately, the very success of the Russian advance that turned the tide against them. Facing the imminent loss of one of its main sources of oil, Berlin took the dive. Promises of subsidies, arms, and troops steeled the resolve of the council and led to a declaration of war on 2 March 1945. The road to victory would be an arduous and bloody one, but the prospect felt real for the first time.