If they do, they’ll have a great chance to become professional lumberjacks exercising this useful profession somewhere seriously to the East of Ural Mountains until the rest of their lives. And an idea of being fed according to productivity can be easily invented ITTL. 😜
No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
It has chance to become even more “interesting”. In the Chinese sense.
The Russian ones had not been wearing the horse tails on their headgear and as a result could not be glorious.
Of course, I am. 😜
Russia is (at least for now) is out of their territory and is supplying them with various boom-boom thingies, which they can throw at the Brits.
Wurttemberg is Protestant. OTL Bavaria also included the Protestant region of Franconia as its northern quarter. That area was awarded to Bavaria by Napoleon, which ITTL didn't happen, but what did happen?
There could be some territorial consolidation within the HRE after Revolutionary wars. IIRC, there were some posts regarding this subject. Wurttemberg and Hesse can be protected by the links to the Russian imperial family, which ITTL is more influential than in OTL. France also may be unhappy with having new Germany too close to its border. ITTL Prussia is victorious but not overwhelmingly so and is not as intimidating as in OTL.
Anyway, IIRC, in 1848-49 Bismarck was very critical of the Southern states as having the wrong “values”. In OTL he eventually changed his mind but ITTL he may be more consistent.
I admit alexmilman I'm quite grateful for this timeline for showing me how very hard or rather impossible it is for states to have ideologies in this period that last and affect them for more than a decade with the rest mainly being a mix of larping, confusion and ego.
Actually, in OTL Russia stuck with the ideology that lasted from Congress of Vienna till the CW. The results were spectacularly disastrous and with the crash of that ideology country found itself completely unprepared to a smooth switch to a meaningful alternative.
I mean but it's still Bismarck and he should be practical enough to see beyond his prejudice and find a practical solution that appeases all.
Personally formation of Prussian led German Empire in North Germany will probably pass, but the fact that France will probably oppose further Prussian expansion in Germany and the fact that Russia probably won't be giving further Blank checks is there .
I believe that formation of German Confederation between German empire and Southern state's should be satisfactory solution for everyone. Prussia and by extension German empire can maintain it's interests in Southern Germany and be truly German empire with nominal overlordship over most of Germany while southern states get to maintain their independence, on second hand without Prussia directly adding those territories to the Empire France doesn't have a reason to oppose Prussian influence.
Not to mention this won't be some archaic arrangement for Prussia as it will still maintain freedom of action and will keep influence of Southern state's out of the empire proper while keeping the leadership of German affairs, prestige of it's title having a real weight and military and economic alliance with S.Germany.
Of course as Prussian national strength is growing together with German identity down the line it's possible for Southern state's to join the empire but that would probably be past the 1900 th.
But man... I didn't expect Spanish empire to collapse on it's self and while it's noted that Spanish colonies need Spain to be mediator to solve disputes i somehow have a feeling that at this point Spain cannot meditate it's own situation, let alone that from it's colonies.
If anything the fact that Spain is just nominal overlord probably means that it's colonies can just ignore the events, but still the fact remains that Spanish crown is nominal head of every Spanish viceroyalty so Spain becoming republic basically means official end of the empire and every single viceroyalty would need to choose new form of government, not to mention that the question of legitimate dynasty still remains, from the looks of it Spanish overthrew their Queen and choose Italian heir for the throne without consulting it's viceroyalties that are more, or less independent.
At this point just for the sake of united front against the British and USA and stability viceroyalties should really rethink their relationship with Spain and Spanish position in their commonwealth with question being weather Spain should be their nominal overlord, or just an member of the commonwealth as it more, or less threw it's position out of window.
Last edited:
Times keep being interesting…
270. Times keep being interesting…
The family matters. One of the first domestic actions of AIII was Ukaz of the Imperial Family. From now on the Grand Dukes and Duchesses with the title of “Imperial Highness” were only the direct descendants of a ruling emperor up to the grandchild level. The great-grandchildren were just Dukes/Duchesses of imperial blood, simple “Highness”, and down the line even the “Highness” was dropped. The practical meaning was obvious: only the Imperial Highnesses had a right to the huge benefits coming from the estates of Romanov family. With the extended Romanov family growing in size it was getting increasingly difficult to keep providing these mandatory benefits and AIII was intended to secure interests of his own “personal” family.
Second part of the ukaz was defining the sums to which the remaining members of the family had been entitled. Of course, for the ordinary people these allowances would be enormous but within the family they were considered rather meager. Each son of the reigning emperor (except for the heir), upon reaching the age of majority, was assigned 150 thousand rubles per year and one-time grant of one million rubles for arranging a residence; upon marriage allowed by the emperor, 200 thousand rubles and for the maintenance of the court 35 thousand rubles annually. Grand Dukes - grandchildren of the emperor - until adulthood or before marriage allowed by the emperor, 15 thousand rubles a year; upon reaching the age of majority, if they do not marry before, they receive 150 thousand rubles per year and, in addition, 600 thousand rubles at a time for the arrangement of the premises.
Predictably, this ukaz causes a huge tempest in a teaspoon. Maria Pavlovna (senior), Vladimir Alexandrovich's wife, said: "If the Empress asks me to give a ball, I will answer that I do not have the means for this, as I have to make savings for my grandchildren..." Mikhail Nikolaevich admitted that he and Olga Fedorovna regret that "our grandchildren, whom we probably will still be able to see, will not bear the same title with us." There were even unhappy noises from Hungary. Nevertheless, the sovereign was adamant.
Emperor’s personal accommodations were rather modest, especially personal apartments of the family in his preferred residence at Gatchina. Some of the visitors had been commenting that they looked like those of a middle class. The Empress initially was not too happy but later started liking the cozy atmosphere with the low ceilings and a comfortable old furniture which she personally picked up.
Alexander’s own working office was along the same lines: just a comfortable place for the long working hours.
Of course, the family did not stuck to Gatchina: AIII was visiting various regions of the empire, some time had been spent in Livadia Palace and there were annual family visits to Denmark. However, comparing to the previous reigns, this was quite frugal.
A “relaxed” attitude of Alexander’s brothers toward the family property (“borrowing” furniture, unsanctioned usage of the palaces in Peterhof, etc.) was put to the end and number of the big imperial balls had been cut to the bare minimum.
State security.
Assassination of AII provided AIII with a carte blanche in dealing with the issues of “state security” with the terrorists being pretty much the only group openly unhappy with the drastic measures because almost everybody else was on government’s side. Rather paradoxically, outside the “revolutionaries” themselves, the main group opposing government’s drastic measures were … state prosecutors. Which was actually somewhat predictable by two reasons:
A newly created department needed its own cadres and these cadres had to include two seriously different types of specialists:
Admission into the Department was the next step involving assessment of the professional suitability of the position so these officers had been highly trained and very intelligent professionals with the IQs generally higher than those of their revolutionary opponents. A separate, less conspicuous, group had been assembled from the people suitable for traveling abroad (and acting there).
One of the main function of the “political branch” was finding and recruiting the agents among revolutionary movements or among those ready to join these movements as undercover agents. In these activities the “branch” proved to be remarkably successful and within few years “Narodnaya Volya” will be neutralized. [4]
Persia. Stress on the domestic affairs did not mean that Russian Empire is going to completely abandon its interest abroad and one of its closest neighbors was Persia. The trade between the two countries existed for centuries and even if its volume was not too big, it was not negligible either and it increased since the Russian conquest of the khanates of CA. In the “classic” times the Russian and Persian merchants had the common fundamental trade principle “you can’t sell without a cheating”, which was shaping rather friendly attitudes on both sides. Unfortunately for the Persian merchants, application of this principle to the trade with the culturally-impaired European merchants started causing serious problems. In Istanbul they lost all credit and when the Brits pushed their way into the Persian markets, they were trying to bypass the local merchants altogether but this did not work because only these merchants knew what could be sold and when. In 1838 the Persian representative in Istanbul had to pay 600,000 tumans to settle the debt to the British, French, Greek and Ottoman merchant houses and at least partially restore the Persian trading reputation.
In 1856 Britain declared a war to force Persia to return Herat to Afghanistan. From India the Brits sent a naval expedition to Southern Persia and forces Shah Naser-ad-Din to return Herat to Afghanistan, apologize to the British ambassador and conclude a trade treaty. The British in exchange agreed not to grant asylum at the British embassy to Shah's opponents. The unequal treaties with France (1855), US (1856), Denmark, Batavian Republic, Sweden and Austria (1857) followed. Of course, a signed treaty meant very little to the Shah (as long as they were not backed by a military force) and the foreign capital had a very hard time to settle in Persia. Britain, for a while was busy with its own problems: the 2nd Opium War was closely followed by the Sepoy Uprising and both events had been resource consuming.
At that time Russia was rather busy with the domestic issues and left the trade with Persia in its traditional status: there were few Russian merchant companies in Tabriz but most of the Russian goods were imported by the minor Armenian traders. Trade was mainly concentrated in Nizhny Novgorod, where Persian traders sold their raw materials and bought Russian goods, but in small quantities. Russian goods were sold mostly in the provinces adjacent to Russia: Mazandaran, Gilan, Azerbaijan and Khorasan, but even there in limited quantities. Obviously, the trade by the caravans implied the small quantities and high expenses making the British textiles cheaper. However, the Age of the Steam made things more equal. The British ambassador at Teheran reported: “The position of Russian trade in Persia is very favorable. In recent years, steam navigation has been well developed on the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and Russia can now deliver its goods along the northern coast of Persia at very low prices in Enzel [5], which is 100 miles from Kazvin and 200 miles from Tehran.”
Starting from the early 1860s Russian merchant fleet on the Caspian grew its capacity to a degree allowing a massive shipping of the textiles and other merchandise from the Russian Caspian ports to Bandar-e Anzali and from here via Rasht further to the Northern Persia.
Intermission. In OTL Trans-Caspian Railways did not increase Russia's competitiveness in Persia. On the contrary, they were able to flood the Northern Persia with the German and Austrian goods transported by the Black Sea to Batumi and from here through the Caucasus to Tabriz. Commercial transit brought Russia from 800 thousand to 900 thousand rubles annually even before the annexation of Batumi and the construction of the railway from Tiflis to the Black Sea. Revenues from this source grew rapidly, but the Russian mission in Tehran was dissatisfied with the increase in the level of European trade in Persia. In 1883. I.A. Zinoviev, who became director of the Asian department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, presented his superiors with a report about this commercial situation, convincing him to impose restrictions on European transit goods going to Persia in order to reconquer the north for Russian commerce. Alexander III accepted Zinoviev's offer, and a burdensome tariff was set. ITTL Batumi is in the Ottoman hands and there is no railroad going through the Caucasus except for one from Kerch to Baku, which would require additional reloading to make the rest of a trip to Persia by the sea. Russia is going to extend its railroad in the CA westward all the way to Tehran.
The textile imports to Iran were, however, not the main British interest. Back in the late 50s, the British appealed to the Shah with a proposal to lay several telegraph lines throughout the country, at the expense of the Persians, but for the benefit of the British. The British felt the need to pass through Persia during the suppression of the Sepoy uprising in India in 1857-1859: the telegraph would significantly improve interaction between parts of the English colonial army. The uprising was defeated without a telegraph, but the turbulent situation in India and constant problems with the Afghans pushed to the need to lay wires for the future. The British quickly found a partner in the Persian government: Minister of Public Works Mokhber od-Doule promised to help the British for an “immodest” bribe. As a result, in 1862 and 1865 at the suggestion of Mokhber, Shah Nasser ed-Din granted the British the rights to lay several telegraph overpasses, the first of which connected Hanekin in the north-east of the country, the capital of Tehran and the port of Bushehr (on the Persian Gulf). According to the agreements, all work was carried out at the expense of the Persian treasury, although the wire was operated mainly by the British. In 1865, a telegraph cable connected Jask on the coast of the Gulf of Oman and Gwatar in southern Baluchistan and thus directly connected Persia with British colonial possessions. The Indo-European Telegraph Company has built a telegraph line connecting London with Calcutta through Berlin, Warsaw, Odessa, Kerch, Julfa, Tabriz, Qazvin, Tehran, Isfahan, Karachi. The telegraph was fully managed by the Indo-European Company, while the Persian government was provided with a third of the revenues from the operation of the line passing through Iranian territory, and a preferential tariff when submitting telegrams.
Russia also did not forget about its interests in Persia, but did not show diligence in laying telegraph cables in Persia: the telegraph was more necessary in the Russian provinces, and Russia did not have colonies. Therefore, Russia's cabling initiatives were mainly related to the needs of Russian traders and the need to connect the territory of Central Asia with Moscow and St. Petersburg. So, in the late 1860s Russia stretched a telegraph wire through Odessa, Tiflis and Tehran to Alexandrovsk, a port on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. In 1870, Russian entrepreneurs achieved a concession for the construction of a telegraph line in the north of Persia between the cities of Astrabad and Kishlyar. There were no visible clashes of interests with the British about telegraph lines, everyone acted in their own interests.
Thing were more or less balanced but in 1868 [6] the Shah went on the European tour an on the route he was greatly impressed by the Cossacks who were providing security of his travel through the Russian part of the Caucasus. Shah appealed to the Caucasian governor Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich with a request to send Russian officers to Persia to create and train Persian Cossack cavalry. The Russian authorities granted this request, considering it as an opportunity to strengthen Russian influence in Persia. The next year the first regiment of the Persian Cossack Brigade had been created followed by two more regiments, artillery, the guards and, of course, the military orchestra. The total number did not exceed 900 but this was the best and only fighting capable unit in the whole Persian army and, due to the fact that most of the officers and noncoms had been Russians, it became a powerful instrument of the Russian influence in the Persian politics. Even more so when it was expanded into the division and the Persian government undertook to invite only Russian military instructors and not to interfere into its internal proceedings.
__________
[1] “Usually, there's war around us everywhere... And we are in a peaceful paradise.” Quoted absolutely out of context. 😉
[2] A revolutionary (member of “Narodnaya Volya”) who later turned into a monarchist.
[3] State Security law just converted the Supreme Criminal Court, without changing its name, from a high-ranking judicial institution assembled on the rare occasions by special imperial decree into the permanently functioning tribunal with the offices in Moscow, St.-Petersburg and few other major cities. Convenience of this arrangement was in the plain fact that the original court was outside the general judicial system and retaining this name for a brand new institution allowed to preserve this arrangement.
[4] A.I. Spiridovich, “Memoirs of a gendarme”. Of course, he was writing about post-1899 period but we are ahead of the schedule.
[5] Probably Bandar-e Anzali, the biggest Persian port on the Caspian Sea.
[6] In OTL in 1878.
«Бывало, как не прослышишь - кругом нас везде война … А у нас - благодать.» [1]
Салтыков-Щедрин
“Previously, being an enemy of the government did not mean being an enemy of Russia. Now the government has begun to be increasingly identified with Russia, so, feuding with it, a person at heart began to ask himself if he was at war with his people?”
Tihomirov [2]
“Terrible medicines are needed for terrible diseases... Terrorists should be tamed as wild animals are tamed...”
Andrie, Prefect of the Police of Paris in his letter to AIII
“The Emperor will devote himself primarily to the cause of internal state development, closely related to the success of citizenship and economic and social issues, which are now the subject of special concerns of all governments.”
Instruction to the Russian diplomatic representatives abroad after accession of AIII
Салтыков-Щедрин
“Previously, being an enemy of the government did not mean being an enemy of Russia. Now the government has begun to be increasingly identified with Russia, so, feuding with it, a person at heart began to ask himself if he was at war with his people?”
Tihomirov [2]
“Terrible medicines are needed for terrible diseases... Terrorists should be tamed as wild animals are tamed...”
Andrie, Prefect of the Police of Paris in his letter to AIII
“The Emperor will devote himself primarily to the cause of internal state development, closely related to the success of citizenship and economic and social issues, which are now the subject of special concerns of all governments.”
Instruction to the Russian diplomatic representatives abroad after accession of AIII
The family matters. One of the first domestic actions of AIII was Ukaz of the Imperial Family. From now on the Grand Dukes and Duchesses with the title of “Imperial Highness” were only the direct descendants of a ruling emperor up to the grandchild level. The great-grandchildren were just Dukes/Duchesses of imperial blood, simple “Highness”, and down the line even the “Highness” was dropped. The practical meaning was obvious: only the Imperial Highnesses had a right to the huge benefits coming from the estates of Romanov family. With the extended Romanov family growing in size it was getting increasingly difficult to keep providing these mandatory benefits and AIII was intended to secure interests of his own “personal” family.
Second part of the ukaz was defining the sums to which the remaining members of the family had been entitled. Of course, for the ordinary people these allowances would be enormous but within the family they were considered rather meager. Each son of the reigning emperor (except for the heir), upon reaching the age of majority, was assigned 150 thousand rubles per year and one-time grant of one million rubles for arranging a residence; upon marriage allowed by the emperor, 200 thousand rubles and for the maintenance of the court 35 thousand rubles annually. Grand Dukes - grandchildren of the emperor - until adulthood or before marriage allowed by the emperor, 15 thousand rubles a year; upon reaching the age of majority, if they do not marry before, they receive 150 thousand rubles per year and, in addition, 600 thousand rubles at a time for the arrangement of the premises.
Predictably, this ukaz causes a huge tempest in a teaspoon. Maria Pavlovna (senior), Vladimir Alexandrovich's wife, said: "If the Empress asks me to give a ball, I will answer that I do not have the means for this, as I have to make savings for my grandchildren..." Mikhail Nikolaevich admitted that he and Olga Fedorovna regret that "our grandchildren, whom we probably will still be able to see, will not bear the same title with us." There were even unhappy noises from Hungary. Nevertheless, the sovereign was adamant.
Emperor’s personal accommodations were rather modest, especially personal apartments of the family in his preferred residence at Gatchina. Some of the visitors had been commenting that they looked like those of a middle class. The Empress initially was not too happy but later started liking the cozy atmosphere with the low ceilings and a comfortable old furniture which she personally picked up.
Alexander’s own working office was along the same lines: just a comfortable place for the long working hours.
Of course, the family did not stuck to Gatchina: AIII was visiting various regions of the empire, some time had been spent in Livadia Palace and there were annual family visits to Denmark. However, comparing to the previous reigns, this was quite frugal.
A “relaxed” attitude of Alexander’s brothers toward the family property (“borrowing” furniture, unsanctioned usage of the palaces in Peterhof, etc.) was put to the end and number of the big imperial balls had been cut to the bare minimum.
State security.
Assassination of AII provided AIII with a carte blanche in dealing with the issues of “state security” with the terrorists being pretty much the only group openly unhappy with the drastic measures because almost everybody else was on government’s side. Rather paradoxically, outside the “revolutionaries” themselves, the main group opposing government’s drastic measures were … state prosecutors. Which was actually somewhat predictable by two reasons:
- Many of them, especially the young deputy prosecutors, graduated from the extremely liberal faculty of Jurisprudence of the Moscow University (not that one in St-Petersburg was much more conservative but in 1862 it was closed for few years due to the students’ disorderly behavior) and as a result tended to consider themselves not as much the prosecutors but rather a first line of a public defense, especially when it was smelling politics.
- During the reign of AII they were in charge of the investigative process even in the cases handled by the Corps of Gendarmes and were anything but happy when the new State Security law diminished their position to one of the plain observers during investigation of the non-violent state crimes and fully excluded them from the cases of violent state crimes, which had to be handled by the special non-public court operating under the direct control of the Imperial Personal Chancellery [3]. This arrangement was diminishing “visibility” of the prosecutors, especially in the cases which could be the most advantageous for promoting their careers. Taking into an account that in most cases the initial steps of investigations had been handled by the ordinary police, which was under prosecutorial control, and which would transfer the cases to the state security only if the political component was discovered or at least strongly suspected, the prosecutors had a considerable leverage in steering the cases in a direction they wanted.
A newly created department needed its own cadres and these cadres had to include two seriously different types of specialists:
- Specialists in what could be defined as a routine police work: the detectives and the people skilled in discretely following the suspects and collecting information. This part of functionality had been handled by the former professional police detectives, a group created by the famous detective Putilin. The group was staffed with the best police specialists in the relevant areas and already had an extensive informers’ net in a criminal world as well as among employees of the various branches of the “service industry”. The Bertilon System was not yet invented and detective work had to rely heavily upon the personal knowledge rather than vague and imprecise filed descriptions so was the high profile security work one would need very good professionals.
- Specialists in the political aspect of the work. These people had been selected from the Corps of Gendarmes. Their function was picking up the work when the first group established the needed facts and continue to work in cooperation with them and, when warranted, with the prosecution, in a continued investigation. Depending on the case, they would decide who and if should do the arrest: persecution through police or their department through the Gendarme Corps. Together with the first group they would recruit the paid or volunteer agents provocateurs and control their activities. This was, actually, a somewhat touchy part because, being officers and the nobles, they had to subdue a personal feeling of repulsion in dealing with such category of people to the state interests.
Admission into the Department was the next step involving assessment of the professional suitability of the position so these officers had been highly trained and very intelligent professionals with the IQs generally higher than those of their revolutionary opponents. A separate, less conspicuous, group had been assembled from the people suitable for traveling abroad (and acting there).
One of the main function of the “political branch” was finding and recruiting the agents among revolutionary movements or among those ready to join these movements as undercover agents. In these activities the “branch” proved to be remarkably successful and within few years “Narodnaya Volya” will be neutralized. [4]
Persia. Stress on the domestic affairs did not mean that Russian Empire is going to completely abandon its interest abroad and one of its closest neighbors was Persia. The trade between the two countries existed for centuries and even if its volume was not too big, it was not negligible either and it increased since the Russian conquest of the khanates of CA. In the “classic” times the Russian and Persian merchants had the common fundamental trade principle “you can’t sell without a cheating”, which was shaping rather friendly attitudes on both sides. Unfortunately for the Persian merchants, application of this principle to the trade with the culturally-impaired European merchants started causing serious problems. In Istanbul they lost all credit and when the Brits pushed their way into the Persian markets, they were trying to bypass the local merchants altogether but this did not work because only these merchants knew what could be sold and when. In 1838 the Persian representative in Istanbul had to pay 600,000 tumans to settle the debt to the British, French, Greek and Ottoman merchant houses and at least partially restore the Persian trading reputation.
In 1856 Britain declared a war to force Persia to return Herat to Afghanistan. From India the Brits sent a naval expedition to Southern Persia and forces Shah Naser-ad-Din to return Herat to Afghanistan, apologize to the British ambassador and conclude a trade treaty. The British in exchange agreed not to grant asylum at the British embassy to Shah's opponents. The unequal treaties with France (1855), US (1856), Denmark, Batavian Republic, Sweden and Austria (1857) followed. Of course, a signed treaty meant very little to the Shah (as long as they were not backed by a military force) and the foreign capital had a very hard time to settle in Persia. Britain, for a while was busy with its own problems: the 2nd Opium War was closely followed by the Sepoy Uprising and both events had been resource consuming.
At that time Russia was rather busy with the domestic issues and left the trade with Persia in its traditional status: there were few Russian merchant companies in Tabriz but most of the Russian goods were imported by the minor Armenian traders. Trade was mainly concentrated in Nizhny Novgorod, where Persian traders sold their raw materials and bought Russian goods, but in small quantities. Russian goods were sold mostly in the provinces adjacent to Russia: Mazandaran, Gilan, Azerbaijan and Khorasan, but even there in limited quantities. Obviously, the trade by the caravans implied the small quantities and high expenses making the British textiles cheaper. However, the Age of the Steam made things more equal. The British ambassador at Teheran reported: “The position of Russian trade in Persia is very favorable. In recent years, steam navigation has been well developed on the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and Russia can now deliver its goods along the northern coast of Persia at very low prices in Enzel [5], which is 100 miles from Kazvin and 200 miles from Tehran.”
Starting from the early 1860s Russian merchant fleet on the Caspian grew its capacity to a degree allowing a massive shipping of the textiles and other merchandise from the Russian Caspian ports to Bandar-e Anzali and from here via Rasht further to the Northern Persia.
Intermission. In OTL Trans-Caspian Railways did not increase Russia's competitiveness in Persia. On the contrary, they were able to flood the Northern Persia with the German and Austrian goods transported by the Black Sea to Batumi and from here through the Caucasus to Tabriz. Commercial transit brought Russia from 800 thousand to 900 thousand rubles annually even before the annexation of Batumi and the construction of the railway from Tiflis to the Black Sea. Revenues from this source grew rapidly, but the Russian mission in Tehran was dissatisfied with the increase in the level of European trade in Persia. In 1883. I.A. Zinoviev, who became director of the Asian department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, presented his superiors with a report about this commercial situation, convincing him to impose restrictions on European transit goods going to Persia in order to reconquer the north for Russian commerce. Alexander III accepted Zinoviev's offer, and a burdensome tariff was set. ITTL Batumi is in the Ottoman hands and there is no railroad going through the Caucasus except for one from Kerch to Baku, which would require additional reloading to make the rest of a trip to Persia by the sea. Russia is going to extend its railroad in the CA westward all the way to Tehran.
The textile imports to Iran were, however, not the main British interest. Back in the late 50s, the British appealed to the Shah with a proposal to lay several telegraph lines throughout the country, at the expense of the Persians, but for the benefit of the British. The British felt the need to pass through Persia during the suppression of the Sepoy uprising in India in 1857-1859: the telegraph would significantly improve interaction between parts of the English colonial army. The uprising was defeated without a telegraph, but the turbulent situation in India and constant problems with the Afghans pushed to the need to lay wires for the future. The British quickly found a partner in the Persian government: Minister of Public Works Mokhber od-Doule promised to help the British for an “immodest” bribe. As a result, in 1862 and 1865 at the suggestion of Mokhber, Shah Nasser ed-Din granted the British the rights to lay several telegraph overpasses, the first of which connected Hanekin in the north-east of the country, the capital of Tehran and the port of Bushehr (on the Persian Gulf). According to the agreements, all work was carried out at the expense of the Persian treasury, although the wire was operated mainly by the British. In 1865, a telegraph cable connected Jask on the coast of the Gulf of Oman and Gwatar in southern Baluchistan and thus directly connected Persia with British colonial possessions. The Indo-European Telegraph Company has built a telegraph line connecting London with Calcutta through Berlin, Warsaw, Odessa, Kerch, Julfa, Tabriz, Qazvin, Tehran, Isfahan, Karachi. The telegraph was fully managed by the Indo-European Company, while the Persian government was provided with a third of the revenues from the operation of the line passing through Iranian territory, and a preferential tariff when submitting telegrams.
Russia also did not forget about its interests in Persia, but did not show diligence in laying telegraph cables in Persia: the telegraph was more necessary in the Russian provinces, and Russia did not have colonies. Therefore, Russia's cabling initiatives were mainly related to the needs of Russian traders and the need to connect the territory of Central Asia with Moscow and St. Petersburg. So, in the late 1860s Russia stretched a telegraph wire through Odessa, Tiflis and Tehran to Alexandrovsk, a port on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. In 1870, Russian entrepreneurs achieved a concession for the construction of a telegraph line in the north of Persia between the cities of Astrabad and Kishlyar. There were no visible clashes of interests with the British about telegraph lines, everyone acted in their own interests.
Thing were more or less balanced but in 1868 [6] the Shah went on the European tour an on the route he was greatly impressed by the Cossacks who were providing security of his travel through the Russian part of the Caucasus. Shah appealed to the Caucasian governor Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich with a request to send Russian officers to Persia to create and train Persian Cossack cavalry. The Russian authorities granted this request, considering it as an opportunity to strengthen Russian influence in Persia. The next year the first regiment of the Persian Cossack Brigade had been created followed by two more regiments, artillery, the guards and, of course, the military orchestra. The total number did not exceed 900 but this was the best and only fighting capable unit in the whole Persian army and, due to the fact that most of the officers and noncoms had been Russians, it became a powerful instrument of the Russian influence in the Persian politics. Even more so when it was expanded into the division and the Persian government undertook to invite only Russian military instructors and not to interfere into its internal proceedings.
__________
[1] “Usually, there's war around us everywhere... And we are in a peaceful paradise.” Quoted absolutely out of context. 😉
[2] A revolutionary (member of “Narodnaya Volya”) who later turned into a monarchist.
[3] State Security law just converted the Supreme Criminal Court, without changing its name, from a high-ranking judicial institution assembled on the rare occasions by special imperial decree into the permanently functioning tribunal with the offices in Moscow, St.-Petersburg and few other major cities. Convenience of this arrangement was in the plain fact that the original court was outside the general judicial system and retaining this name for a brand new institution allowed to preserve this arrangement.
[4] A.I. Spiridovich, “Memoirs of a gendarme”. Of course, he was writing about post-1899 period but we are ahead of the schedule.
[5] Probably Bandar-e Anzali, the biggest Persian port on the Caspian Sea.
[6] In OTL in 1878.
So riding them and eating scooby snacks?
Ah good to know he found a better job ITTL
Rome agrees
Nope. He was proposing extermination. This is just a lousy Google translation, which I did not bother to correct.
It is Putilin. 😤
Rome agrees
It could end up as this, why not? Especially if the confederacy does not mean an automatic participation in the Prussian/German military adventures. Something like the mutual defense treaty added to the already existing customs union. This will make the imperial title more plausible because the Southern states have two kings and it is logical for Germany to have a ruler with the higher rank.
Indeed.
If it makes sense for all sides involved.
Not being able to sort out ones domestic affairs does not automatically mean inability to be useful in settling others’ affairs.
Not necessarily. It may depend upon the general attitude. If the colonies are truly attached to the crown and monarch than you are 100% right but if the former colonies are actually the members of a “commonwealth” system, then each of them already used to handling its own affairs pretty much independently and the “mother country” surely has the same rights and the form of its government is not a vital factor. For the fun of it, we can imagine scenario in which the exiled Isabella remains the titular head of the Spanish Empire minus Spain. But this will require a whole TL describing how this combination is going to function so it is much easy to me to imagine that much earlier some kind of a council had been created to handle the affairs of the member-<whatever>: for quite a few decades Spain was in a rather turbulent state and the former colonies need some reasonably stable arrangement. A council in which all members are being represented and chairman is appointed by the government of Spain seems to be a plausible option.
See above.
Spain holding a chairman position makes sense because it does not have any territorial quarrels with any of the members and also because, being European country and having closer diplomatic and economic connections, it may be useful in arranging all types of the deals.
Between telegram lines, more railways and all that entails that, the military reforms and all it entails, the industry skills set of Russia is vastly superior to OTL. But the other skills like law and government participation from the non-nobility is still a recipe for disaster. I look forward to reading more about that tempest.
But for now: Happy holidays!
But for now: Happy holidays!
Oh, in these areas <youknowwhat> really hit the fan in OTL and the more I’m reading on a subject the more confused I am on how to navigate out of that crap without ending up in a complete la-la-land with AIII having absolutely nothing in common with a real one. So far, the only seemingly plausible scenario is him being pissed off with the responsible and irresponsible conservatives telling him what to do not only in the areas you mentioned (where he was tended to be on the same page with them) but also on the subjects of the economics, military, naval and foreign policy.
In OTL AIII more or less caved in on the economic retiring Bunge whom he highly respected but OTTL he may put his feet down and, because Pobedonostsev, Katkov & Co were excessively emboldened and simply could not stop, he may react in a way contrary to what they expected. Does this sound plausible? After all, while AIII was considering himself a defender of the nobility interests, he also was taking his own dignity quite seriously and being taught by a publisher, however well-intended, could be rather humiliating.
Perhaps some other ideas?
The same to you!