Feeble Constitution - A Red-and-Green Russia 1917 Timeline

[lukedalton]

That, too. Its status still being that of having been conceded to Italy by the Ottomans, with the implication that Italy could somehow at some point hand it over to Greece maybe... That status is too uncertain for it to be explicitly included in the MedLeague, or as full territory of the Italian metropolis. So far, Italy's reasoning is: if the British don't give Cyprus to the Greeks, why should we? It's hovering between "bargaining chip", "status object" and "marine outpost".

I was not aware that this is a taboo topic or something?
Aircraft carrier boom IOTL had something to do with the provisions of the Washington Naval Treaty which ITTL does not exist yet, if I'm not mistaken. But principally, to me, it would make good sense. What are the counter-arguments? (Except for the costs, so at least the socialists are probably opposed because they want the money elsewhere? But that applies to every country...)

Well, maybe some kind of exchange between Dodecanese and agree to the prewar Albanian border...still an hard sell and will probably also asked somekind of DMZ at the Albanian - Greek border (Corfù included).
But the more the relations with Greece go down the more will be currently difficult to give up something to Athens

Yes AC boom were much related to the WNT, still there were plan before that to transform a ship in a AC like one of the Carracciolo

 

[Salvador79]

Well perhaps it's time for the British to do so.

I doubt that this is realistic at the moment. If anything, Cyprus is even more important for the British foothold in the Eastern Med now than IOTL: Palestine is not a British LoN Mandate, but an embattled part of the (now hostile) Hashemite Kingdom/Emirate of Syria, and while newly independent Egypt has allowed British military bases (which is the most important spot in the entire region from a British point of view) and Britain is official party to the International Commission for the Control over the Straits, they certainly don't want to risk the strength of their control over the region to hinge on others.
Maybe Cyprus does not become an official crown colony like IOTL 1925, though, because the Treaty of Constantinople ITTL has also reaffirmed previous arrangements between the Ottomans and Britain concerning Cyprus. Britain sending financial aid to Cyprus so that the Cyprus Tribute is paid to the Ottomans who in turn must pay off their debts to the British is a perfect left pocket-middle pocket-right-pocket money move, but as long as neither side is upending it...
How strong was the Cypriot nationalist movement in the early 1920s IOTL, btw?

Well, maybe some kind of exchange between Dodecanese and agree to the prewar Albanian border...still an hard sell and will probably also asked somekind of DMZ at the Albanian - Greek border (Corfù included).
But the more the relations with Greece go down the more will be currently difficult to give up something to Athens

Yes AC boom were much related to the WNT, still there were plan before that to transform a ship in a AC like one of the Carracciolo

Regarding the latter, wikipedia says:

That year, the Regia Marina considered converting the ship into a flush-decked aircraft carrier similar to the British HMS Argus. The poor economic situation in Italy in the aftermath of World War I, and the heavy expenses of the Italian pacification campaigns in Libya, forced severe reductions in the naval budget. As a result, a modern carrier conversion could not be completed. The Ansaldo shipyard proposed converting Franceso Caracciolo into a floatplane carrier, a cheaper alternative. It was nevertheless still too expensive for the Regia Marina.

As well as the budgetary problems, the senior Italian navy commanders could not agree on the shape of the post-war Regia Marina. One faction advocated a traditional surface battle fleet, while a second believed a fleet composed of aircraft carriers, torpedo boats, and submarines would be ideal. A third faction, led by Admiral Giovanni Sechi, argued that a balanced fleet with a core of battleships and carriers was the most flexible option. To secure budgetary space for new construction, Sechi drastically reduced the number of older ships in service; he also cancelled the battleships of the Francesco Caracciolo class. Francesco Caracciolo was sold on 25 October 1920 to the Navigazione Generale Italiana shipping company. The firm planned to convert her into a merchant ship, but the work was deemed too expensive, and so she was temporarily mothballed in Baia Bay outside Naples.

By this time, the Regia Marina had returned to the idea of converting the ship into an aircraft carrier. In the ongoing negotiations at the Washington Naval Conference, the proposed tonnage limit for the Regia Marina was to be 61,000 metric tons (60,000 long tons), which was now to include a converted Francesco Caracciolo and two new, purpose-built ships. A new conversion design, featuring an island superstructure, was prepared for Francesco Caracciolo but Italy's chronic budgetary problems prevented the navy building any of these ships. Francesco Caracciolo was subsequently broken up for scrap, starting in late 1926. The other three ships had been dismantled shortly after the war, with some of the machinery from Cristoforo Columbo used in the construction of the ocean liner Roma.

From among the factors mentioned above, Italy might avoid the heavy expenses of the pacification campaign in Libya, although its participation in Montenegro isn't for free, either, it might cost less. What I have no clue about is who these three "factions" were politically aligned to, how good their arguments were etc. and how they'd interact with the Italian governments of TTL.

 

[Lascaris]

I doubt that this is realistic at the moment. If anything, Cyprus is even more important for the British foothold in the Eastern Med now than IOTL: Palestine is not a British LoN Mandate, but an embattled part of the (now hostile) Hashemite Kingdom/Emirate of Syria, and while newly independent Egypt has allowed British military bases (which is the most important spot in the entire region from a British point of view) and Britain is official party to the International Commission for the Control over the Straits, they certainly don't want to risk the strength of their control over the region to hinge on others.
Maybe Cyprus does not become an official crown colony like IOTL 1925, though, because the Treaty of Constantinople ITTL has also reaffirmed previous arrangements between the Ottomans and Britain concerning Cyprus. Britain sending financial aid to Cyprus so that the Cyprus Tribute is paid to the Ottomans who in turn must pay off their debts to the British is a perfect left pocket-middle pocket-right-pocket money move, but as long as neither side is upending it...
How strong was the Cypriot nationalist movement in the early 1920s IOTL, btw?

Very strong actually. Leaving aside the 1931 revolt, Cypriots there were official petitions in 1920-21 for union with Greece, which the colonial office obviously ignored, and this comes in the aftermath of 2-3,000 Cypriot volunteers including several MPs serving in the Greek army in the Balkan wars, that is ~1.5% of the island's Greek Cypriot population voluntarily going to fight for Greece, and of course Britain offering the island to Greece twice in 1913 and 1915.

TTL dunno, Greece is of course a close British ally and it can provide Britain bases not just in Cyprus but also Crete and the Ionian islands (not to mention Trebizond, why Russia is an ally we don't need Royal Navy bases against them right? 😛 ) but the colonial office wasn't exactly known for giving up territory it had put its hands on.

 

[Salvador79]

Very strong actually. Leaving aside the 1931 revolt, Cypriots there were official petitions in 1920-21 for union with Greece, which the colonial office obviously ignored, and this comes in the aftermath of 2-3,000 Cypriot volunteers including several MPs serving in the Greek army in the Balkan wars, that is ~1.5% of the island's Greek Cypriot population voluntarily going to fight for Greece, and of course Britain offering the island to Greece twice in 1913 and 1915.

TTL dunno, Greece is of course a close British ally and it can provide Britain bases not just in Cyprus but also Crete and the Ionian islands (not to mention Trebizond, why Russia is an ally we don't need Royal Navy bases against them right? 😛 ) but the colonial office wasn't exactly known for giving up territory it had put its hands on.

That's what I gathered, too. Rationality and even political decency might dictate something else, but I think I'll have Cyprus stay British for the moment. I'll think about whether an earlier revolt is likely or not.

Now we have a situation in which Venizelist Greece is a lot stronger, larger, more powerful and less burdened with a refugee crisis than IOTL (and of course the Venizelists can be happy that they are in power at all compared to OTL), but TTL's Venizelos does not know this. He has brought the Megali Idea a lot closer to reality, yes, but it is still an unfinished business and there are tensions with practically all neighbors to some degree, not to mention determined opposition from all quarters domestically.

 

[Salvador79]

And the lockdown continues...
I am currently doing some research to answer Nuka1's question regarding Canadian elections, which I find interesting, but I have next to no time for anything really.
Won't change until the end of January.
Hope you guys stay interested in this world's feeble constitution, and stay healthy everyone!

 

[Nuka1]

I am currently doing some research to answer Nuka1's question regarding Canadian elections, which I find interesting,

Happy to hear.

stay healthy everyone!

Same to you!

 

[Lascaris]

That's what I gathered, too. Rationality and even political decency might dictate something else, but I think I'll have Cyprus stay British for the moment. I'll think about whether an earlier revolt is likely or not.

Now we have a situation in which Venizelist Greece is a lot stronger, larger, more powerful and less burdened with a refugee crisis than IOTL (and of course the Venizelists can be happy that they are in power at all compared to OTL), but TTL's Venizelos does not know this. He has brought the Megali Idea a lot closer to reality, yes, but it is still an unfinished business and there are tensions with practically all neighbors to some degree, not to mention determined opposition from all quarters domestically.

On many quarters sure but his domestic position has been much improved TTL arguably. Why? Because no matter electoral results in old Greece, Thrace, Pontus and Ionia are all voting overwhelmingly for the Liberals. And even in old Greece he is getting at least somewhat more support with Alexander... and Dragoumis still alive.

 

[Salvador79]

On many quarters sure but his domestic position has been much improved TTL arguably. Why? Because no matter electoral results in old Greece, Thrace, Pontus and Ionia are all voting overwhelmingly for the Liberals. And even in old Greece he is getting at least somewhat more support with Alexander... and Dragoumis still alive.

I think so, too.
Though about Alexander, any world's challenge is to keep him from finding a crazy early death...

 

[Nuka1]

I think so, too.
Though about Alexander, any world's challenge is to keep him from finding a crazy early death...

Well Lascaris solved it by giving him early death that was not crazy at all for young man interested in fast cars and opportunity to indulge it.

 

[Archangel]

stay healthy everyone!

Same to you!

Wish the same to everyone!

 

[Salvador79]

Well Lascaris solved it by giving him early death that was not crazy at all for young man interested in fast cars and opportunity to indulge it.

True, though for a Monarch it is Kind of crazy...

 

[Salvador79]

I am still not finished with Canada (besides background sources, I have found the wiki pages on which all constituency results can be found, and I am looking into various biographies and the make-up of the various constituencies so as to determine how things might diverge, and I'm not even half-way through with my recalculations and shufflings.

But in the meantime, I've been able to cobble together a small regular update - here it is!


Seattle (USA): The Call, January 23rd, 1922, p. 1:

POLITICAL AMNESTY IN RUSSIA – WHEN WILL OUR COMRADES BE FREED?

Last week, Russia’s socialist government [1] has enacted an amnesty for a large number of the country’s prisoners who had been convicted for high treason during the Great War and the Revolution in 1917 and 1918. Among them are prominent figures like former parliamentary leader Alexander Rodzyanko, the former Tsar’s War Minister Alexander Guchkov, former industrialists and old order politicians Alexander Konovalov and Pavel Ryabushinsky, and bourgeois intellectual Peter Struve. President Volsky’s amnesty had been preceded by protest marches in Petrograd and Moscow. Already, some of the released politicians have addressed crowds of their followers and announced their intention to form a new political party and participate in this year’s parliamentary and presidential elections with it. The presidential amnesty is controversially discussed among fellow socialists since the released prisoners had participated in attempts to overthrow the People’s Commission. Excluded from the amnesty were only inmates convicted for their collusion in atrocities committed by Markov’s pro-German regime.

This magnanimous gesture of the socialist government vis-à-vis its bourgeois enemies [2] forms the starkest possible contrast to the oppression and persecution under which we suffer here. When will the thousands of political prisoners in the U.S. be able to breathe free air again? When will comrades Debs, O’Hare, or even Haywood be able to resume their elected party offices, and the elected councilors and members of the House of Representatives be able to take their seats and speak up for the American workingman again?! It is high time for President Harding to follow the example of his counterpart Volsky. It appears as if we, the workers and disenfranchised citizens of this American Republic, must once again take to the streets, resuming the great protest waves of two years’ ago, and this time also lay down our tools and neither go home, nor back to our workplaces again before our representatives, our speakers, our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, our co-workers and comrades are released and all their rights restored.


[1] In fact, it was the President of the Union of Equals, Vladimir Volsky.

[2] Initially I had the term “class enemy” here. Then I realized that this was a Leninist coinage, so I dropped it as non-frequent ITTL.

 

[Nuka1]

Debs is still in prison? If not released soon he will die in there!
Talking about deaths... This could have been butterflyed. 🤔

 

[Salvador79]

Debs is still in prison? If not released soon he will die in there!
Talking about deaths... This could have been butterflyed. 🤔

Debs was sentenced to ten years, like IOTL. As mentioned before, the US Red Years are scarier for the establishment. Harding pardoned Debs in Dec21 IOTL. We'll have to see. But, yes, Debs is ill.

As for the popes, would you expect a big difference?

 

[Nuka1]

As for the popes, would you expect a big difference?

Nah just saying that Benedict XV could playsible live year or two longer. I only mentione it because ITL he died around the same time than your latest update.

 

[Salvador79]

So, here is finally the answer to @Nuka1 's question about Canadian elections 1921!

I’ve done a full check on all constituencies (or “ridings”, as they are evidently called in Canada). The background reasoning was the coagulation of a more decidedly leftist alliance of Farmer-Labour lists, catalyzed by the council movement which ITTL is more widespread and endures after the Winnipeg general strike and becomes a vehicle for engagement of farmers on the prairies, too, where it takes on not socialist, but populist content. Now this means that some of the least leftist figures among OTL’s Progressive Party (specifically Burt Wendell Fansher in Lambton East, Robert Henry Halberth in Ontario North, William Elliott in Waterloo South (all in Ontario) and Robert Forke in Brandon (Manitoba)) are not attracted by this coalition and instead might run as Independent Farmer or United Farmers of X candidates. Along the same lines, Andrew Johnson and John Frederic Knox stay with the Liberals and win their Saskatchewan ridings for them instead of for Progressives. On the other hand, William Thomas Lucas enters the Commons as a Farmer-Labour candidate instead of a United Farmer of Alberta.

Also, Liberal candidates will not stand aside for Progressives like IOTL in various ridings, contesting them against the Farmer-Labour candidates instead. Thus, where Progressive candidates won by small margins against Conservatives without Liberal competitors, I reasoned that Liberal counter-candidacies would turn these ridings into Conservative victories: Dufferin, Dundas, Frontenac, Muskoka and Port Arthur/Kenora in Ontario, and Lisgar as well as Portage-la-Prairie in Manitoba. The last one of these is really important since it means that the Conservative MP Arthur Meighen does not lose his seat to the moderate Progressive Harry leader.

Where Liberals ran against Progressives and the run was very, very close IOTL, I decided that some voters would swing from the Progs to the Libs ITTL compared to IOTL, so such ridings would go the Liberals ITTL. This was only really the case in Huron South.

On the other hand, where there were separate candidacies of Progressive and Labour candidates, I checked and, if I could see no personal reasons standing against it, added up both numbers and subtracted a little. This produced united Farmer-Labour gains in a few ridings which IOTL were won by other parties: Hamilton East (Charles Goodenough Booker for Farmer-Labour instead of Sydney Chilton Mewbourne for the Conservatives), Lincoln (Edwin John Lovelace for Farmer-Labour instead of James Dew Chaplin for the Conservatives), South Renfrew (John Henry Finlay for Farmer-Labour very narrowly beating Liberal Thomas Andrew Low). Also, with some supra-regional help, Labour candidates James Singer and A. A. Heaps could win Wellington South and Winnipeg North respectively on Farmer-Labour lists.

This yields the following nation-wide results:

Party	Popular vote OTL	Seats OTL	Popular vote TTL	Seats TTL
Liberals	41.15 %	118	42.85%	119
Conservatives	29.95 %	49	30.16 %	54
Progressives IOTL; Farmer-Labour ITTL	21.09 %	58	19.75 %	54
Labour	2.73 %	3	(above)	(above)
Others	5.07 %	7	7.23 %	8

The Farmer-Labour list is smaller than OTL’s Progressive and Labour combined. But then again, TTL’s Farmer-Labour alliance does not know about OTL and that an even bigger breakthrough could have been possible with more moderate Progressives. They will celebrate their triumph greatly: achieving as many seats as the Conservatives! And their parliamentary faction is leaning decidedly more to the left. In addition to tariffs, who are still the dominant plank which also won them the Prairies, the two other big topics for Farmer-Labour are direct democracy (also quite like IOTL), support for co-operatives, and, for their comparatively slightly stronger “Labour” wing, a repeal of the Industrial Disputes Resolution Act of 1907.

Especially the latter is going to be a demand that will fall on deaf ears since it was, if we can trust The Canadian Encyclopaedia, “the brainchild of William Lyon Mackenzie King”, and this King is going to become the next PM of Canada.

And in contrast to OTL, he has a majority. A slim majority of three, but better than IOTL, where he had a majority of one, and then Arthur Lucien Beaubien (Provencher / Manitoba) crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Progressives. ITTL, with the chasm between the two parties larger, I don’t think this is going to occur. So, King has a majority of his own, and he might also lean on one or two independent agrarian MPs, too, while Farmer-Labour and the Conservatives are equally strong opposition parties.

 

[Nuka1]

I have to say that I did not expect that my question would necessitate such indepth research. 😅 Perhaps I should have asked about map of Centrall-Asia...

 

[Salvador79]

I have to say that I did not expect that my question would necessitate such indepth research. 😅 Perhaps I should have asked about map of Centrall-Asia...

Don't mention the map... 😈
Thing with Canada was that FPTP electoral system makes different regional and even local shifts in electoral behavior have effects on seat outcome which are difficult to predict globally. And since the outcome was so close IOTL, I guessed I had to do a consituency-by-constituency analysis. (Well, I skipped over all the very clear victories.)

I've learned something about the very different traditions of "anti-establishment" political thought and engagement in the prairies on the one hand and in the industrial cities on the other hand. I'm not sure how far they'll travel together in this TL, but given that they're unambiguously in opposition now, their chances for coherence are somewhat greater.

The implications of these 1921 Canadian elections on the US left are self-evident, I think. But it also gave me an inspiration for an aspect of the electoral campaign in the UoE 1922, which the next couple of updates will focus on, which I had not anticipated.

So, thanks for asking!

 

[Nuka1]

Thinking about literaly world ITL, have Jaroslav Hašek and Mikhail Bulgakov made it out alive? Just curious but Bulgakovs career could playsible be quite different.

 

[Salvador79]

Thinking about literaly world ITL, have Jaroslav Hašek and Mikhail Bulgakov made it out alive? Just curious but Bulgakovs career could playsible be quite different.

Hasek was a heavy drinker already before the PoD, even if returning with the Czechoslovak Legions in 1918, his health is going to be awful by 1922 anyway ITTL, too.
Bulgakov, on the other hand, had until 1940 IOTL, and the freedom of press and literature in TTL's UoE provide him with many good opportunities. I haven't come up with alternative biographies for him, but I'm open for suggestions.

Generally, I'm glad that people are still interested in this TL, but it looks as if the whole rest of February is going to be locked down, too, here, which means the hiatus of the TL continues. I am absolutely sorry for that, and I have already thought about quitting it on an endnote of unfinished ideas. But I'll postpone that decision. If March is going to be easier again, I'll try to give it another shot. I have too many ideas about the UoE, the US, Germany, China, Arabia, Spain and other places in my head that I really don't want to throw away. Still, under the present circumstances I have absolutely no time.