Intervention in the Russo-Japanese War?

Hey Guys,

I'm looking to do something of a Japan-wank TL but within a set of reasonable diversions from OTL. Essentially I'm looking for a good reason for another major power to intervene in the Russo-Japanese War on the side of the Russians, thus prompting the UK to honour the terms of her treaty with Japan.

France, with lots of money tied-up in Russia is an obvious option - but what would prompt them to risk the growing entente with the UK? Could it be limited to some sort of colonial conflict?

Germany is another choice, but again, what would make them care enough about the Far East and the Czar to get involved?

All ideas are welcome, I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys think.
 
Well since you have a pre 1900 Divergence point simply have Kaiser Wilhelm be slightly less dumb and there is no entente cordiale, as such France could actually intervene

The problem with this is that you have to make sure this does not butterfly away the Great Rapprochement or Japan will have huge problems down the road
 
France is the most likely but, there's no way they'd risk the entente

France is very unlikely as their nearest colony is in Indochina and there is no way, they will risked to offend the United Kingdom, even it was before the Entente Cordiale, this alliance was prepared from a long time...

The most plausible is a chinese intervention to try to avenge the defeat of 1894-1895... Chinese will also try to avenge the defeats during the Opium Wars...

If your goal is to wank Japan, the result of a major defeat for the Russian and the Chinese will be the annexion by the Japanese of the Mandchuria plus additionnal ports and coastal regions of China...
 
As a model I would refer you to Fight and Be Right, a timeline on this very site.

Which rhymes.

The sentence. Not the timeline. That would be silly.

Obviously.
 
maybe a few years earlier the Fashoda incident did get hot and although not escalating to a full war between Britain and France, but souring relations enough to prevent the Entente Cordial in 1904 from happening and causing some simmering resentment against Britain. So now they wouldn't care about what the british thought and support the Russians.

I only doubt if a japan wank will go far in era, if japans gets too big it will very soon trigger a reaction from other players in the pacific.
If it is a bigger jap wank than the russo-japanese war from otl it will spell doom in the long run for the japanese.
But the british honouring the treaty with japan depends if they see use in it, as all parties have proven, they only keep to treaties when it suits them.
 
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With regard to intervention in the Russo-Japanese war: I doubt quite strongly that the British would actually intervene in the fighting itself, regardless of how badly the Japanese were doing. At this stage of the game, British policy revolved around the protection of the Empire, and the Japanese didn't quite qualify. But they would have intervened at the peace conference sometime in 1905 (for, given Russia's social instability and Japan's financial instability, practically any conflict between them, regardless of issue, would have to end there). I can see Britain seriously limiting Russia's gains from victory at the eventual peace conference in order to prop up Japan. In fact, I have written a timeline that employs that as the PoD, which I should probably post on this site.

That doesn't really qualify for your Japan-wank, but I view it as the most likely potential British course of action. I have to ask, though, why you're trying to improve on a situation that, historically, did qualify as a Japan-wank anyway. :p
Well since you have a pre 1900 Divergence point simply have Kaiser Wilhelm be slightly less dumb and there is no entente cordiale
hahahano.

And precisely how would that have happened?
 
hahahano.

And precisely how would that have happened?
From what I figure if he had kept up Bismark's good relations with Britain and not tried a huge building contest he might have prevented Britain from abandoning its "Splendid Isolation", and picking an alliance with FRANCE of all countries

Of course knowing Kaiser Wilhelm that is extraordinarily unlikely, but I fell this is a viable possibility if a rather slim one.

I also forgot to put in my usual weasel words there
 
From what I figure if he had kept up Bismark's good relations with Britain and not tried a huge building contest he might have prevented Britain from abandoning its "Splendid Isolation", and picking an alliance with FRANCE of all countries

Of course knowing Kaiser Wilhelm that is extraordinarily unlikely, but I fell this is a viable possibility if a rather slim one.

I also forgot to put in my usual weasel words there
"Splendid Isolation" was abandoned in response to French, Russian, American, and Japanese threat more than anything else, and the British response to all was to co-opt the parties that were threatening them and unite them against a lesser threat. Germany's efforts at Weltpolitik were actually part of a clumsy effort to get the British to do the same for them; it didn't work, because no matter how big the High Seas Fleet was and no matter how many Schütztruppen the Germans stationed overseas, Germany never posed an existential danger to the British Empire.

The British, for all their talk of "balance of power", knew that forming a bloc against their strongest potential opponents was lunacy. Why would you want to fight on relatively even terms with anybody? (Invariably, "balance of power" is actually a cover for "whatever foreign policy we feel like following". It's a term without any actual meaning; nobody actually agrees on what a "balance" constitutes anyway.) Best to make any potential fight as unfair as it possibly can be. Where the British screwed up was in failing to realize that the fight wasn't as unfair as they thought it would be.

It would not have mattered if the Germans had not built a High Seas Fleet (a decision which, by the way, wasn't simply due to the "kaiser being stupid" or whatever) because Germany was still the great enemy of France and Russia, and to keep France and Russia focused on Europe instead of Africa and Central Asia, the British had to align with them against Germany. Besides, let's take a look at what happened when Germany deliberately took foreign policy actions that were designed to conciliate the British:

During the Boer War, the Germans ostentatiously decided to not support the Boers despite cultural ties and an excellent chance for messing with the British empire in southern Africa. Instead, Germany "let itself be bought off" (wink wink) with an agreement that divided the Portuguese colonies. The kaiser repeatedly mentioned this to the British ambassador and various dignitaries, along with his efforts to suppress anti-British feeling in the German press. If these efforts had an effect in British government circles, it was that Germany was increasingly viewed with disdain, attempting to curry favor.

In both 1906 and 1911, legitimate German claims in Morocco, enforced by treaties, were dropped, sometimes in favor of nominal colonial territorial concessions. Germany made a stand and didn't stick to it, allowing Britain and, most importantly, Britain's ally France to rewrite the treaties and expand France's colonial empire. This merely increased Anglo-French annoyance with Germany; some historians argue that the Algeciras conference in particular was where the entente itself transformed into an anti-German accord instead of a mere colonial agreement.

In 1912 and 1913, Germany's ally Austria saw its security gravely threatened by the enlargement of Serbia at the expense of the Ottoman Empire (a key German trading partner) and then Bulgaria (Austria's ideal ally). Both times, Austria prepared to mobilize against Serbia; both times, the Germans refused to support Austria in order to maintain their detente with Russia and France, and the Austrians angrily backed down. (This played a key role in Austria's July 1914 decision to go to war whether Germany supported Austria or not, something that makes the so-called "blank check" utterly irrelevant.) Both times, Russia did not respond with any sort of warm relations with Germany; the Russians instead pushed further, trying to rebuild a Balkan alliance in 1914 whose enemy could only have been Austria.

Basically, Germany suffered setbacks regardless of whether the German government's actions were conciliatory to the entente powers or confrontational to them. This is mostly because the international system, such as it was, was stacked against Germany and Austria-Hungary. It doesn't mean that the Central Powers were "innocent" of starting the First World War or anything, or that German policy was somehow less objectionable than anybody else's (it was equally as objectionable as everybody else's), but it does explain their actions; in 1914, the Austrians and Germans finally recognized that playing by the rules screwed them over, so they simply broke the rules.

Realistically, avoiding such a disastrous setup probably was in the hands of Russia, not Germany. Had the Germans and Russians managed to work out their differences and keep some semblance of the Three Emperors' League alive, both Germany and Austria would be under significantly less pressure and certainly would not have had to take the actions that they eventually did. Of course, France and Britain would be in the hot seat if that occurred.

As to the weasel words, well, fair point. :p
 
Thanks for all the ideas so far, and it seems like I have some other TL to read for inspiration as well!

With regards to how I want this to develop, perhaps calling it a Japan-wank was a bit too strong, considering the Draka-esque proportions some people take those too. Basically I want a way to seal the UK and Japan together perhaps even with the blessing of the US (if only for the time being) so that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance does not break down, and the Japanese militarists cannot later sabotage the Taisho Democracy.

That all being said, perhaps I should make a post in the 'Post:1900' section as well, seeing as the lead-up to these events and their consequences straddle that divide.
 
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