@Karelian,
thank you for all the very helpful background info!
On the map you've linked to, there's a railroad which I cannot find on newer maps anymore, going from Vyborg to somewhere near Priozersk on Lake Ladoga. If that rail connection really existed, it's North of the territory controlled by Germans. Thus, shipments to Murmanks could be packed onto freight trains and carried to a rail-connected port on the Swir River (Lodeinoye Polye?), and from there shipped again across Lake Ladoga to whichever port it was that was connected by rail to Vyborg back then apparently. Or not? This looks cumbersome, too, but on the other hand, we have Trotsky's under-employed reserve workforce to lend their hands. This doesn't change the fact that the Murmansk rail was single-line, rolling material has probably been reallocated to other places earlier in the war already, ports are probably not suited...
On the other hand, Russia has more than just an angry Finnish populace to fear here; they also need to maintain all the military forces (naval and land-based) currently in Karelia and Finland, so this should be seen as a priority.
Now, of course it would make sense for a German offensive to try and take out the Murmansk Railroad...
Trotsky, on the other hand, might not resolve himself to just sitting in Southern Finland, urging for an offensive to relieve him and liberate Petrograd and otherwise waiting for relations with the Finns to turn sour and his men to get so hungry he can't control them. I'll give his options a few long throughts...

I'm also currently trying to go through the possibilities of Finno-Russian relations turning sour vs. remaining OK, and through the likelihood of the Finnish government keeping the situation under control. To that end, I'm trying to sort out who is in which position, which of course depends on the question of whether I stick with the socialist-agrarian coalition or switch to a "Union Sacrée"-style great coalition.
 
No, I think the Western port town on Lake Ladoga is Sortavala on the old Vyborg-Joensuu railroad.
So, the connection would go Murmansk - Lodeinoye Polye - Sortavala - Vyborg.
 
I share your views regarding Italy’s situation as it looks at the moment. What I think is most insightful about this comment of yours is the choice of the word “battle” with regards to intra-Entente relations. IOTL already the Entente barely managed to pull in the same direction when the CP threat was greatest, but once that disappeared, there were so many divergent interests and developments that I think it is, frankly, quite a miracle that there were international covenants concluded in Paris at all. ITTL, the Entente is even more diverse… already the next regular newspaper update after the maps will deal with one aspect along this line, I think.

Well, even if heated and fought very hard, in the end everybody (hell even the Germans) desired the somewhat new stable world order that the Wilson's League promise due to the war being so horrible and costly; so in the end an agreement will be found and the they will sign it, what the treaty will imply depend on how the negotiation will go this time, even with the russian presence. Probably there will be a lot of tension/hard negotiation regarding Poland (that want out of Russia whatever the type of goverment and i personally doubt that they will trust anybody from Petrograd/Moscow with promise of autonomy as already being burned by the Tsar badly) exact border and the Baltic (at least Lithuania).

It will be interesting the fate of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Treasure

Speaking of the future, a socialist russia as a member of the entente and international community and not perceived as the first stage of the world revolution, can also mean a lot less trouble in the immediate postwar, with all the revolution and border wars, at least in Italy this will mean that the moderate lead by Turati will be stronger of OTL and that will have a lot of butterflies at the socialist national congress in september 1918 and the immediate postwar both in economic and social term
 
Now, Baltic is a German lake at this point, so that is out of the question. Sweden had food riots at this time as well: https://portal.research.lu.se/ws/files/5982259/4698857.pdf
Yet the only open route comes through Norway and Sweden, via Narvik. The grain ships would still have to somehow go around the British naval blockade, the grain would have to be unloaded at the small port of Narvik that is busily shipping iron ore for Britain, then transported to Övertorneå, and reloaded to Finnish trains using the 1524 mm Old Russian standard (Five foot) gauge. Shipping the grain to Murmansk is no longer an option, because the Germans have now severed all railroad connections between Finland and rest of Russia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Map_of_russian_railroads_1916.jpg
All Swedish ports are behind the British naval blokade as well.
Wait, why are the British blocking their own allies from shipping food to their other allies? Did they lose their mind and declare war on the rest of the Entente when I wasn't looking?
 
Probably there will be a lot of tension/hard negotiation regarding Poland (that want out of Russia whatever the type of goverment and i personally doubt that they will trust anybody from Petrograd/Moscow with promise of autonomy as already being burned by the Tsar badly) exact border and the Baltic (at least Lithuania).
Poland's borders (and Lithuania's, too) are indeed a difficult question. This is not just a matter of international negotiations; it also depends a lot on who comes out on top in the inner-Polish rivalries (both within established Polish parties and between armed factions). IOTL you had Pilsudski who pushed Eastwards to fulfill his dream of a big multi-national, Polish-headed "Intermarium" empire (PLC-resurrection map-wise), and the Russian Civil War made this a promising route for a while, and you had Dmowski and his NDs, who looked to a Westward expansion at Germany's cost because they favoured an ethnically more homogeneous Polish nation state. Politically, Pilsudski pushed (and then abandoned) the socialists to whom he belonged until the end of the war into an expansionist policy, and when they wouldn't follow, he went his own ways (terminal station: Sanacja), then there were countless agrarian factions, and the NDs of course. It is quite true that neither Germany, nor Austria-Hungary, nor Russia are viewed by many Poles as anything other than hostile powers, but the question of who is the lesser evil is answered differently by them, and this answer shifted over time as the balance tilted. When A-H broke apart, the successors weren't quite as pro-Polish as Pilsudski had hoped, but that was already predictable.
ITTL, the situation is different already by now. Ukraine is not a nascent sovereign nation state plagued by civil war, there is no peace and demobilisation along the entire front, German Ober Ost is still very much there even if it has instituted a few more puppet governments. There are Polish Legions all over the continent in different camps. The Germans uphold a "Regency government" which is quite as unpopular as IOTL. So, inner-Polish developments are going to be just as exciting as international hagglings about it.

The Romanian gold, as well as the second train's load of more immaterial value, are still safely kept in the Kremlin. Russia and Romania are allies, in fact, in spite of misgivings about Brest-Litowsk, Romania is one of Russia's staunchest allies.

Speaking of the future, a socialist russia as a member of the entente and international community and not perceived as the first stage of the world revolution, can also mean a lot less trouble in the immediate postwar, with all the revolution and border wars, at least in Italy this will mean that the moderate lead by Turati will be stronger of OTL and that will have a lot of butterflies at the socialist national congress in september 1918 and the immediate postwar both in economic and social term
I am still unsure about the PSI. I tend to think that the Maximalists all together are at least as strong as IOTL as a consequence of TTL's Russian Revolution, but their internal divisions might be even more pronounced. Also, I wonder which "moderate" Russian socialist leader Turati will look to for inspiration - Fyodor Dan, the Menshevik whose staunch Defensism could be said to have been proved right by the course of events and German intransigence? Iulius Martov, the Internationalist Menshevik parliamentarian, who is still not quite convinced about the war effort and who criticises the Kamkov coalition for what we'd call "violation of human rights" today? Someone from the former Menshevik "Bread faction" of Skobelev, who, driven by the inner dynamics within the trade unions and urban soviets, combines more radically anti-capitalist economic measures with a continued support of the defensive war effort since November? Or someone else from among the Unifiers? Also, I wonder what lesson not only the Italian socialists, but also other socialists across the world will learn from the first socialist revolution succeeding in establishing its own federal state being led not by one of their parties, but by an agrarian-populist party? Kamkov, the actual head of the Russian state, leans very much to the left, but he is an SR, not a member of one of the RSDLP splinter products, but of a party whose roots and traditions lie in Narodnichestvo. Kamkov himself is not an agrarian romanticist, he is from the party's urban, ultra-pro-industry wing and one of the architects behind a coalition of the SRs with as many groups from the industrial labour movement as possible. Yet, he is still an SR - the party has not split ITTL -, and the most fundamental reforms enacted both by his predecessor (land reform) and himself (urban housing "reform") are not focusing on socialising the "means of production" (although empowering the soviets has allowed this and this has occurred here and there), but on redistributing immobile property. Not an easy role model for socialist labour leaders...!

When we come nearer to September 1918 and the background of events against which the party convention happens have become established, would you be interested in covering TTL's party convention in a newspaper article of your own, @lukedalton? (I'm sure @Betelgeuse wouldn't mind looking over it language-wise, too.)

Oh, and before I forget to address it:
World Revolution!
This concept is present ITTL, but it has not yet taken on the notion it did by September 1918 already and even more so by 1919.
The conviction that the overturning of capitalism by the proletariat cannot be a local or national phenomenon, that it has to be necessarily a worldwide phenomenon in all developed capitalist countries, is not a Leninist idea, it is Marx's and Engel's own. Such a staunch World Revolution-Internationalist position can be found in socialist parties in almost all countries by 1917/18; in many of the larger parties, it is a minority position, sometimes of a strong, sometimes of a more isolated fringe minority.
What this means, and what it has meant IOTL until 1917, too, is
a) the theoretical assumption that capitalism is a global phenomenon which, when it collapses, collapses on a global scale, and
b) the practical conclusion that local proletarian action should be coordinated as much as possible across the world so as to help each other in the way most conducive to causing the ultimate breakdown of capitalism and the building of a new society.
IOTL, after the Bolshevik coup, the humiliation at Brest-Litowsk and the intervention of the Entente in the incipient Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites (whatever its main reason was - hoping to bring Russia back into the war on the Entente's side, or eliminating a danger to capitalist bourgeois democracy, doesn't matter: the effect on the Bolshevik psyche went with the latter), "World Revolution" very specifically meant protecting the Soviet Union and undermining those who conspired against it, and then the Left splintered and splintered, with some continuing along this Muscovite interpretation, and others replacing it with other notions, more and more theoretical ones really.

ITTL, "world revolution" is still very much a hot topic among socialists in 1918, but while it does carry notions of "supporting Russia", "Russia" is not equivalent with a total systemic transformation, nor with a pacifist exit from the Great War. That makes it complicated for socialists in Entente countries: should they hope that their country's government's war effort against the CP is successful because this would give Russia a chance to build its new society and support revolutions elsewhere? Or should they continue to protest against the war, sabotage it, because it's an imperialist war and because their government must be brought down first if they want socialism in their country, too? So, practically, "world revolution" becomes hotly contested even within those who favour it, while theoretically at least, imperialist capitalism does appear like it's on its last legs in mid-1918, with even the Entente governments having taken control over vast sectors of the economy in order to gear it towards a smoothly running war economy, with debts piling up so high everyone knows they'll never be paid back, with so much destruction caused, confidence among the labour movement growing that they couldn't possibly do a worse job running their countries than their bourgeois governments even if they tried, with hunger and diseases spreading like it's the last days of the world described by Revelations...

So, while I expect the Internationalist Left to debate quite intensively throughout 1918 (there will be articles documenting it), interesting changes of opinion might also occur among those whom the former like to call "Revisionists", both among the Right and the Centre within the socialist movement. Kautsky is on the way out either way, so the Centre is reorienting, and the Zimmerwaldian "Peace without annexations or indemnities" formula might soon become replaced by something else. The Right, advocating parliamentarian reform and unionist negotiations, will be watching events in Russia with interest, too (and not just with horror, like IOTL), and all those favouring national over international perspectives will not only follow the federalisation of Russia closely... if Austria-Hungary is collapsing in any way even remotely resembling OTL in 1918, then what happens there is going to be highly relevant to their worldview, too. (After all, not only the horrors of the Great War, but also the post-war hagglings often with socialist parties in coalition government fighting against each other was what made explicitly nationalist stances a rather isolated position within social democracy in the course of the 1920s, even if the Komintern's internationalism was also anathema to them.) And as of April 1918, Austria-Hungary is looking even weaker ITTL without Ukraine, even if not quite as overstretched as IOTL.

Wait, why are the British blocking their own allies from shipping food to their other allies? Did they lose their mind and declare war on the rest of the Entente when I wasn't looking?
I don't know what @Karelian thought about here, but the British sea blockade caused high risks even for neutral or friendly shipping and created costs (for convoying) and delays (for British inspections), too.
 
Poland's borders (and Lithuania's, too) are indeed a difficult question. This is not just a matter of international negotiations; it also depends a lot on who comes out on top in the inner-Polish rivalries (both within established Polish parties and between armed factions). IOTL you had Pilsudski who pushed Eastwards to fulfill his dream of a big multi-national, Polish-headed "Intermarium" empire (PLC-resurrection map-wise), and the Russian Civil War made this a promising route for a while, and you had Dmowski and his NDs, who looked to a Westward expansion at Germany's cost because they favoured an ethnically more homogeneous Polish nation state. Politically, Pilsudski pushed (and then abandoned) the socialists to whom he belonged until the end of the war into an expansionist policy, and when they wouldn't follow, he went his own ways (terminal station: Sanacja), then there were countless agrarian factions, and the NDs of course. It is quite true that neither Germany, nor Austria-Hungary, nor Russia are viewed by many Poles as anything other than hostile powers, but the question of who is the lesser evil is answered differently by them, and this answer shifted over time as the balance tilted. When A-H broke apart, the successors weren't quite as pro-Polish as Pilsudski had hoped, but that was already predictable.
ITTL, the situation is different already by now. Ukraine is not a nascent sovereign nation state plagued by civil war, there is no peace and demobilisation along the entire front, German Ober Ost is still very much there even if it has instituted a few more puppet governments. There are Polish Legions all over the continent in different camps. The Germans uphold a "Regency government" which is quite as unpopular as IOTL. So, inner-Polish developments are going to be just as exciting as international hagglings about it.

Poland ehm appetite and aggressivness for land in OTL Versailles conference made Italy look non-interested at any compensation; IRC it was more a 'what place get our attention first' situation than an 'we go there or here...must decide', basically the Polish delegation regardless of political belief (except the communist) were on the 'we want every possible inch of terrain' train, attitude understable if your neighbourgh are Germany and Russia, you don't have historically a great relationships with either and so desire as much buffer you can. Even Dmowki wanted get east (Lithuania in primis), the principal difference between him and Pilsudky was that the second desired a true multinational entity with Poland something more than a first among equal, while the first was more a proto-fascist that wanted a strong Polish core and the various minority under them, as ex: he was ready to absorb Lithuania and at max giving them some autonomy.

While the situation in Russia is much different than OTL and so the possiblity of expansion in the east are less, it's very probable that something like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_Uprisings will also happen in ByeloRussia and Ukraine as POland will try to get the most.

Regarding what will be considered the lesser evil, well in OTL with Russia in the civil war they have basically attached themselfs to France, ITTL they can try to get an alliance with Italy or the UK (much better the second) or even France if things with Russia go bad between them...basically much also depend on what will Russia will do at Versailles and in the post-peace treaty in term of foreign relations.

Probably it will be more or less like the OTL Italian general negotiation regarding Austria-Hungarian spoil and so i expect they will be long and very stresfull
 
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OK, I am no map-wizard, and the following maps may both contain some slight border inaccuracies and not look super-cool. They're supposed to give us a rough idea of the front line and of the relative areas of the unoccupied federative republics. Credits to @Qazaq2007 for an old blank map of his of Russia 1914 (which is why there all sorts of governorates appear within Russia).

Here is the overall map:
Russia-April-1918.png

And this is a map of how the front line has moved from 1917 to 1918 (blue is before the Revolution, purple is advances in later 1917, red is the advances of the Operations Peter and Paul (and a botched A-H offensive which has just about gained Lutsk). Created on the basis of a military map available under CC on Wikimedia Commons.
1918-04-Ostfront.jpg

Next regular newspaper update will be submitted for editing over the course of the next days.
 
Super-size Armenia is not an error, at least not roughly: the Armenians had the advantage of being among the first with ethnic military units when the Revolution came, and they negotiated in a pragmatic way (Petrograd has always been more than happy about them holding the front in the Caucasus), and now they've gained control over lots of territory inhabited by Zaza, Pontic Greeks, Azeri, Kurds etc. etc. both within former Ottoman Empire and Turkey as well as within various former Imperial Russian governorates.
 
Eighteen: Armistice with the Ottomans? (May 1918)
Thessaloniki (Kingdom of Greece): Makedonia [1], May 13th, 1918:

WHY ALEXANDROS‘ INVITATION WAS A GAFFE

Alexandros I has invited the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and his pashas to Lemnos Island to hold the negotiations with the governments of Great Britain, France, and Italy over an armistice which the Ottomans have recently offered to these three powers. Mehmet Talaat Pasha has taken a desperate step to save what he can after British and Arab forces have crushed two of his armies in Palestine and occupied the Levante up to Beirut and Daraa [2], and our young monarch has fallen into his political trap.

Alexandros’ offer of hospitality was extremely unwise and will prove detrimental to Greek national interests. By signaling Greece’s acceptance of Ottoman-Entente negotiations without even having been approached, he continues his father’s fatal policies, which have given the British and the French the impression that our country is afraid of the war and is ruled by cowards. He has done a disservice to our elected government, which has so far managed our contribution to the war effort alongside our international allies to the best of its abilities. Alexandros has communicated that Greece makes no demands. This, while Prime Minister Venizelos is desperately attempting to save the lives of our two million compatriots threatened by continuing massacres at the hands of Ottoman authorities and groups of bandits encouraged by the former. Whatever Alexandros thought his offer would earn - our country would have been served better had it presented an impression of firmness, courage, and resolution to the Great Powers.

Even more so because neither the British, nor the French, nor the Italians have responded to the Ottoman overtures as of yet [3], and there are good reasons for this. Mehmet Talaat Pasha has not included Russia among the addressees of his armistice offer. While there may be factions in the British, French, and Italian governments inclined to play tit-for-tat with the Russians for their Eastern truce and separate negotiations of the past winter, and enticed by the prospect of dividing the spoils of the conquests in the Levante among themselves, it is in the vital interest of our country not to strengthen these tendencies, and instead to bolster the position of the Treaty of Paris and insist on an armistice which includes Russia as well. Half a million Pontic Greeks are living in areas currently protected only by the Russian military and by the self-defense forces of its Armenian Federative Republic. If the Ottomans sacrifice their holdings in the Levante and make peace with Britain and France, they can throw their still significant might into the Caucasus front, where Enver Pasha dreams of erecting his Greater Turanian Empire of All Turks – a tyranny in which the lives of our co-nationals and other Christian minorities would be threatened by mass murder and annihilation. Should the British and French truly agree to armistice talks even without Russian participation, then our government will be coerced into throwing its entire weight behind our vital demands of security for the Greeks of Ionia and Pontos, and for open and unfettered passage through the Straits for our ships. The young king’s unconditional invitation to Mehmet Talaat has pulled the carpet from under our government’s feet, and all of this perhaps only because the boy fancies showing off to and with foreign diplomats more than he holds the lives and livelihoods of his subjects in any regard. [4]


[1] This is a newspaper which supports the anti-royalist Liberal Party of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who has brought about Greece’s entry into the Great War on the side of the Entente in 1917.

[2] This is an important consequence of the German Operations Peter and Paul being directed against Russia, instead of a German Spring Offensive commencing in March like IOTL, or even in April. The Germans have only now, by mid-May, assembled their slight numerical overweight along the Western Front, and no major offensive operation has begun yet. While the blow may come any day now, the absence of a Spring Offensive for six weeks now compared to OTL means the British do not have to pull back so many troops from the Levante to strengthen their divisions in Flanders and prevent the Germans from capturing important strategic points in Flanders or even pushing the BEF back to the Channel ports. My conclusion: The British and their Arab allies are continuing their offensive in Palestine unabated, which might very well lead to an alt-Battle of Megiddo already taking place in late April or early May: an encirclement and full collapse of two entire Ottoman armies in what is today Northern Israel and Lebanon, making any Ottoman defense of the remaining Levantine territories a rather hopeless endeavor. The British and their allies have not yet taken Damascus, so the situation is not yet quite as desperate as it was IOTL when the Ottomans called for the Armistice which would be concluded at Moudros. On the other hand, the Ottomans must also defend their Armenian Front ITTL, too. Therefore, I thought it would be plausible for them to ask for an armistice. Observe, though, who they have asked (and who they haven’t).

[3] On the other hand, King Alexandros of Greece was practically in military custody, with British and French agents abounding in his “court” – without at least covert toleration by some of them, Alexandros’ message would never have left the Tatoi Palace.

[4] Yes, the Venizelists were staunch anti-monarchists, and by 1918 they could insult and ridicule the king without any fear.
 
If my phrasing and the whole situation is ambiguous - the order of events was as follows:
1) The Brits have hammered the Ottomans in the Levante.
2) The Ottomans have sued for an armistice.
3) The Anglo-French have not yet answered to that offer.
4) The King of Greece has offered to host armistice talks, should they happen, on Lemnos.
5) The Venizelist newspaper criticises (4) as unwise.
 
Because I am really undecided how the Entente would react to such an offer, I've created an external Poll. Dear Readers, you can decide:
Will the Anglo-French accept an armistice at lighter Terms compared to Moudros? Will they Accept but demand the same as iotl?
Or will they insist on Russia being included in the Talks, too?
Here is the Poll (closing in Sunday):
https://www.strawpoll.me/17913625
Thanks for participating - and especially for arguing and explaining your choice Here!
 
I can actually see arguments for all three sides! Here the Russians are still fighting, but they're being pressed hard--so an armistice opening up a route for Allied troops and, perhaps even more importantly, supplies to reach southern Russia would be very valuable, even if Russia doesn't get very much out of the armistice directly (there's always the peace treaty later). At the same time, the Ottomans, while in a bad position, still have a positive situation on the European side and there appears the possibility that the Russians might collapse soon, so they might not be quite as willing to just take whatever they can get and hope that they can handle things afterwards. So all that presses for lighter terms (in a relative sense...the terms of OTL were very harsh!)

On the other hand, the Ottomans are in a bad situation and while the European front is stable for now, the Russians aren't going anywhere and the Americans are starting to show up--not in Ottoman territories, but their arrival still means an increasingly bad strategic situation for the Turks based on the ability of American troops to free up British and French troops for service in Ottoman territories, along with directly supplying the British, French, and Russian militaries. It would be reasonable for the Ottomans to suppose that the situation is only going to get worse for them from here on out, therefore driving them back to the position of taking whatever they can get. The Allies are probably still going to ask for a lot with the idea of conceding if the Ottomans push back, I suppose in this case

And, on the gripping hand, Russia is still in. And a major combatant occupying a large amount of Ottoman land as well as swallowing up a large amount of German and Austrian men and supplies, no less. So the western Allies want to keep them in, and there's certainly the possibility that concluding a separate peace--well, armistice, but still--with the Turks, especially after the Russians themselves refused a peace with the Germans will cause the alliance grief. So that argues for bringing Russia in. Still, the British and French could argue that ending the war straight away allows the Russians to redirect large portions of their forces and much more easily receive supplies and equipment from them, so it's better not to wait...plus, they can always include some plums for the Russians, like allowing them to keep occupying the land they control.
 

Hnau

Banned
It is a very interesting turning point. Makes sense that Pasha decided to hop on the peace wagon at this point. I think the British and French would agree that peace would be fruitless if it only focused the Ottomans to turn up their war effort against Russian Armenia. While the British could move their troops ALL the way back to the Western Front, at this point the Americans are already turning up in France and the additional British troops fresh from Mesopotamia won't be as significant of a force multiplier. If the extra effort leads to the collapse of the Russian war effort against the Central Powers, then the war might go on longer with the transfer of troops and supplies back to the West (at this point, the Allies don't know whether they're truly getting to the reserves of manpower and resources of the massive German Empire). The Allies would guess correctly that it's better to turn the screws on the Ottomans and continue the war effort until at least the offer the armistice to Russia... and it will probably work given some more time!
 
Wait, why are the British blocking their own allies from shipping food to their other allies? Did they lose their mind and declare war on the rest of the Entente when I wasn't looking?
Ah sorry, missed this one. Finland is not blockaded, as it's considered an ally. But Sweden is, and has been from November 1914, due the neutrality policy of Hammarskjold. By TTL this has lead to severe food shortages. So shipping enough grain to feed millions through Sweden when Sweden is already suffering from bread riots isn't exactly a realistic scenario.
 
@Karelian,
thank you for all the very helpful background info!
On the map you've linked to, there's a railroad which I cannot find on newer maps anymore, going from Vyborg to somewhere near Priozersk on Lake Ladoga. If that rail connection really existed, it's North of the territory controlled by Germans. Thus, shipments to Murmanks could be packed onto freight trains and carried to a rail-connected port on the Swir River (Lodeinoye Polye?), and from there shipped again across Lake Ladoga to whichever port it was that was connected by rail to Vyborg back then apparently. Or not? This looks cumbersome, too, but on the other hand, we have Trotsky's under-employed reserve workforce to lend their hands. This doesn't change the fact that the Murmansk rail was single-line, rolling material has probably been reallocated to other places earlier in the war already, ports are probably not suited...
Kartta_Suomen_rautateist%C3%A4_vuoden_1917_lopulla.jpg
Laatokka doesn't have any large freighters to transfer any meaningful amounts of grain. Nor do the Finnish coastal towns of Käkisalmi and Sortavala have any kind of harbour facilities to unload such cargo, even if such ships existed. The area between Petrozavodsk and Sortavala is a howling wilderness, lacking even dirt roads.

On the other hand, Russia has more than just an angry Finnish populace to fear here; they also need to maintain all the military forces (naval and land-based) currently in Karelia and Finland, so this should be seen as a priority.
Now, of course it would make sense for a German offensive to try and take out the Murmansk Railroad...
Trotsky, on the other hand, might not resolve himself to just sitting in Southern Finland, urging for an offensive to relieve him and liberate Petrograd and otherwise waiting for relations with the Finns to turn sour and his men to get so hungry he can't control them. I'll give his options a few long throughts...
He _has_ to get his army out, or risk an uprising when food runs out. German control of Petrograd has severed all viable transport routes of food.

I'm also currently trying to go through the possibilities of Finno-Russian relations turning sour vs. remaining OK, and through the likelihood of the Finnish government keeping the situation under control. To that end, I'm trying to sort out who is in which position, which of course depends on the question of whether I stick with the socialist-agrarian coalition or switch to a "Union Sacrée"-style great coalition.
If you need names or key figures, just let me know. All leading Finnish politicians of the era naturally have lot of experience from Czarist autocracy, but in OTL they really struggled on how to deal with the new revolutionary Russian authorities.
 
Because I am really undecided how the Entente would react to such an offer, I've created an external Poll. Dear Readers, you can decide:
Will the Anglo-French accept an armistice at lighter Terms compared to Moudros? Will they Accept but demand the same as iotl?
Or will they insist on Russia being included in the Talks, too?
Here is the Poll (closing in Sunday):
https://www.strawpoll.me/17913625
Thanks for participating - and especially for arguing and explaining your choice Here!

Honestly i think that while they will reject it initially and ask (not demand) that Russia will be included, or at least accept an armistice after having previously coordinated with the Russian goverment as it's still an official member of the entente and still fightingin, due the possibility to quickly supply south Russia, divert troops (and low the cost of the war), plus there will be positive consequence even in the balkan front (making A-h and Bulgaria more nervous).

The terms can and probably will be more lenient, at least in relative speaking, maybe the Mosul vilayet and Aleppo will be kept (in OTL the first was contested but the situation was resolved with an agreement to share resources and the second give back in the 30's), maybe they can convince Italy to limit herself to economic influence than true annexation/colonization (basically OTL Treaty between Italy and the OE, later reneged by Ataturk) and just kept the Dodecanese.

Between that and the continued fight in the east with the following diminished or slowed transfer of troops from east to west, this mean that the British conscription crisis in 1918 can be butterflyed away and that the sping offensives of Germany and A-H will be more desperate and with less men.
Frankly if i was in charge of Germany, i will ask for an armistice now as even in this moment A-H and Bulgaria are on the verge to do the same of the OE and things in the internal front are very very bad; now they can get some lenient term in relations at OTL
 
Laatokka doesn't have any large freighters to transfer any meaningful amounts of grain. Nor do the Finnish coastal towns of Käkisalmi and Sortavala have any kind of harbour facilities to unload such cargo, even if such ships existed. The area between Petrozavodsk and Sortavala is a howling wilderness, lacking even dirt roads.

Mkay. I think the Ladeinoye Polye shipyards could provide Ladoga with the necessary vessels, but Sortavala's "harbour" does look unsuited to the task indeed.
Thanks for the valuable in-depth background info and the excellent map! So, we can assume grain is becoming scarce in Finland throughout April and May.

He _has_ to get his army out, or risk an uprising when food runs out.
That uprising might be interesting to explore, though...

If you need names or key figures, just let me know. All leading Finnish politicians of the era naturally have lot of experience from Czarist autocracy, but in OTL they really struggled on how to deal with the new revolutionary Russian authorities.
I'll PM you later today. Thanks!
 
Nineteen: Constitutional referendum (late May 1918)
You, dear readers, have decided (with eight votes against four):
The governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Italy will not accept separate armistice negotiations with the Ottoman Empire, as long as Russia / the Union of Equals is not included, too!

In Istanbul, this has caused some severe haggling between factions of the Committee of Union and Progress - for the moment, Enver Pasha and his dreams of Greater Turan have prevailed over the more realistic views of e.g. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who would have preferred armistice talks with Russia, too, before Entente troops would be in a position to attack and occupy the Turkish core lands in Anatolia. Before attacking on the Armenian front, though, Enver and his Turanianist allies have managed to incite a rebellion in Azerbaijan, where dissatisfaction with aggressive Armenian land-grabbing and an endless postponement of final negotiations on resp. the conclusion of a Compact had boiled over; the latter, many had hoped, would establish either an Azerbaijani Federative Republic, or a Federative Republic of (all) Turkestan, which would not only be able to establish laws based on Islamic tradition, but also give them a greater degree of control over the oil fields near Baku and a chance to defend themselves against Armenian encroachment, but with every month in which neither path was taken, resentment had grown, and in May 1918, the Musavat Party had finally openly embraced Young Turkic assistance, and called its supporters to the arms in a holy war to shake off the Russian yoke.

While the first flames of revolt are flickering on the Southern rim of the former Russian Empire, the Ottomans are also paying dearly for Enver Pasha's stubbornness: the British and their Arab allies are rolling on Northwards, and by the end of May, Damascus has fallen into their hands.

In the North, there is also no end to the war in sight for Russia. While Germany has de jure concluded a peace treaty with their puppet "Provisional All-Russian Government" in Petrograd, Boris Kamkov's People's Commission backed by the Constituent Assembly, now in Moscow, is gathering its strength for a desperate attempt to wipe Markov's puppet dictatorship off the face of the Earth and push the remaining German military presence to the West, too.

In the midst of war and turmoil, Supreme Commissioner Boris Kamkov has taken a controversial decision: He is not postponing the referendum on the constitutional draft any longer (it had been postponed from February to May; another postponement into August has been discussed among the majority factions of the Constituent Assembly, but Kamkov ultimately decided against asking the CA for another postponement). Therefore, on May 25th and 26th, 1918, the people living in the unoccupied territories of the former Russian Empire, plus the inhabitants of the new lands held by the Armenian Federative Republic beyond the former empire's pre-war borders, are asked to vote for or against the constitutional draft which the CA had taken almost a year to compose.

screenshot-very-new.png

Overall turnout was not very high, but given the circumstances of war and internal turmoil, nothing else was to be expected.
With a majority - albeit not a very comfortable one -, the new constitution has been accepted, and the new federal state is now officially named "Union of Equals". Elections for the various institutions of the new state are planned by the Commission for summer 1918. Until they gather, the People's Commission remains in office.
Here is a map of how the different regions have voted:
Russia-votes-for-the-new-constitution.png

Dark green: over 60 % YES
Light green: over 50 % YES
Orange: over 50 % NO
Red: Over 60 % NO

Finland is coloured in grey because in Finland, the referendum was not held; the Finnish Federative Republic's Senate has postponed Finnish participation in the referendum due to the events unfolding in the country. What exactly these events are, you'll learn in next week's update. I am very grateful to @Karelian for the massive amounts of valuable background information with which he has provided me in the preparation of that update, which will, like this week's, also not be in newspaper format, because it is going to include a bit of retconning with regards to the post-PoD developments in Finland.
 
I mind that given the timing of the referendum and the 'closeness' of the result ('only' 6.5 million votes and 9.4pp margin, combined with limited turnout), there is going to be serious disturbance.
The main arguments advanced by opponents of the new constitution are the de facto exclusion of votes from occupied territories, Finland, not to mention the inclusion of votes from Turkish and Persian parts of Armenia without prior legal annexation (these are still de jure Ottoman Turkish lands and no peace treaty has yet come to sanction the transfer of these lands, not to mention the little piece of Persia that is still de jure a neutral country even though nobody is actually caring about it). These arguments could be put forward to say that the margin is not large enough to warrant that with these claims considered, it would stay that way.
 

Hnau

Banned
Shoot, I have a fear that there’s going to be a Russian Civil War after all in this timeline! It seems to be shaping up to just be the Russians and Armenians against the Turks and Kazakhs, a more ethnic conflict, an early politically supercharged Basmachi Revolt. Without anarchy from the October Revolution, they may have been in a position to do so. Yet, I still feel like the Union of Equals could pull back from the brink. The Russians could convince the Turks and other restless ethnic minorities to keep more autonomy and settle for peace in the face of German invasion
 
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