No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)

Moreover, the Russian government granted a long-term credit to France by subscribing 50 million of state bonds,

Well by now French should know who their true friends are.

Of course, the biggest “theater” was the HRE in which it took form of the uncoordinated events in the numerous German states with the various degrees of violence.

Nothing against HRE, but shouldn't revolution spread in other parts of "French Empire", like Batavia and N. Italy should at least have nationalist revolutions ? To gain more independence from Paris and to unify .
The Hungarians, being understandably pissed off with the Hapsburgs, declared their independence and the war kept going on.

It will be interesting if we see demise of Austrian empire after this, other thing i want to mention is that some form of Polish independence movement should happen, especially given the existence of Independent Polish state, heck even a war isn't out of question.

Are German possessions and Baltic province's peaceful? Or will we see some form of uprising? I could imagine that German problem could speed up solution to Prusso- Swedish dispute?

Generally while Austrian war is fine i believe that other powers should be in good position to receive some more spice , while Austria should have it even worse given current geopolitical situation.
 
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Well by now French should know who their true friends are.



Nothing against HRE, but shouldn't revolution spread in other parts of "French Empire", like Batavia and N. Italy should at least have nationalist revolutions ? To gain more independence from Paris and to unify .

Could not find anything about serious troubles in the Netherlands and left Italy out intentionally: did not decide how the republics would behave against Piedmont and Austria. With Lombardy not being Austrian it should be quite different from OTL. So maybe later.
It will be interesting if we see demise of Austrian empire after this, other thing i want to mention is that some form of Polish independence movement should happen, especially given the existence of Independent Polish state, heck even a war isn't out of question.

The same reason as with Italy: needs extra thinking.
Are German possessions and Baltic province's peaceful?

Why not?
Or will we see some form of uprising?

The region was quite conservative with a powerful nobility firmly in charge. No reason for them to be less loyal to Sweden than in OTL they were to Russia.
I could imagine that German problem could speed up solution to Prusso- Swedish dispute?

Good point. What’s the solution? Just sell the land or exchange it?
Generally while Austrian war is fine i believe that other powers should be in good position to receive some more spice , while Austria should have it even worse given current geopolitical situation.
The conflict is definitely more prolonged but did not decide upon the outcome. Hungary defeated as in OTL, equivalent of AH is being negotiated or Hungary independent (perhaps with Grand Duke Constantine as a king). Suggestions acceoted. 🤗
 
Good point. What’s the solution? Just sell the land or exchange it?

I would say both, i don't know what is equivalent to Bremen that Prussia would like to give up in the east and just selling the territory probably wouldn't sit well with Sweden, so i would say some minor, but strategically and economically important concession in the east paired with the purchase .
 
When Paris sneezes (cont. 1)
227. When Paris sneezes (cont. 1)

“strong without despotism, free without anarchy, independent without conquest”
Louis Napoleon
“Every punishment, which goes beyond the limit of necessity, enters the jurisdiction of despotism and revenge.”
“But , it will be observed , it would be hazardous to abolish capital - punishment ; for should a criminal , who is imprisoned for life , escape , it would be exceedingly dangerous , as he could not be corrected by any higher punishment , than that to which he is already condemned . “

Oscar Bernadotte, ‘On Punishments and Prisons’
“God has entrusted me with the honor of the Poles, to him only I will give it”
Joseph Poniatowski
Great revolutions are the work rather of principles then bayonets”
Giuseppe Mazzini
Italy is only a geographical expression”
Metternich
Now I am a liberal not only in foreign but in a domestic policy as well”
‘Silva’ (
movie 1981) Prince Leopold von Wellerheim


Italy.

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Situation in Italy was confusing and messy. The French Revolution left it with two “sister republics”, Ligurian and Cisalpine, and Austrian-occupied territory of the Venetian Republic protected by the famous Quadrilatero, a rectangle formed by 4 powerful fortresses of Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago and Verona between the Mincio, the Po, and the Adige Rivers.
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The republics had been founded by General Bonaparte (then a revolutionary general) with 3 main goals in mind:
  • To have a buffer between the Hapsburg territories and France.
  • Convenience of looting.
  • Pure demagoguery (spreading the revolutionary values beyond the French borders, etc.).
The republics had been governed by the directories (composed out of the local prominent figures) of five directors who had been appointing the ministers and there were parliaments. The French had control over the local police and left in each republic an army financed by the sister-Republic. In addition, each republic was under obligation to raise its own army upon request of the French Republic. Small wonder that the local enthusiasm was not exactly overwhelming.

After the Revolutionary Wars were over, the Consulate gradually removed the French troops from Italy and eventually the relations evolved into the simple treaties of mutual defense (upon the request). This was enough to keep the Austrians out and the economic ties were quite limited on both sides. Over the four decades of peace the directories of both republics turned into the oligarchies and by 1848 neither had any strong leadership nor any political idea beyond business as usual. As pretty much everybody else, the republics had been hit by an ongoing crisis for which, justifiably or not, the governments had been blamed.
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The only strong figure with the agenda was King Charles Albert, who ruled Piedmont-Sardinia. As king, he started with being very conservative in his foreign and domestic policies and concluded an anti-French military alliance with Austria. However, later he started adopting more liberal views on the domestic policies. In 1834, the tax on grain was reduced and the next year, the export of raw silk was made legal. Duties on the import of raw materials (coal, metals, textiles) were subsequently reduced and the acquisition of industrial machinery from abroad was supported. Despite having impinged on some minor sources of state income, the balance of the kingdom was positive from 1835, and it was possible to entertain ambitions for the improvement of agriculture, roads, railroads, and ports. Charles Albert also reformed the army, reformed the law codes, instituted a Court of cassation, and eliminated feudalism in Sardinia, in 1838. He enabled the opening of institutes of credit, he reformed the public agencies and the state, and reduced the control of the religious hierarchy somewhat. The royal court, however, was full of clerics - at least fifty of them. And he strongly disapproved of all types of the revolutionary parties not being shy of executing their members.

However, during the Oriental Crisis he began thinking about a programme of territorial expansion in the Po valley. In the same year, a commercial crisis erupted between Turin and Vienna, regarding an old treaty in which the Kingdom of Sardinia undertook not to provide salt to Switzerland. Following the breach of this treaty, Austria increased the customs duty on Piedmontese wine entering Lombardy-Veneto by 100%. Approximately at that point Charles Albert decided that from now on he is going to be a liberal not only in domestic but also in foreign policy. In this he conveniently found support from a new Pope Pius IX who also disliked the Hapsburgs. The beliefs being reconciled with the practical considerations, Charles Albert expressed his hope that God would grant him the power to undertake a war of independence in which he would take command of the army and the Guelph cause. These declarations made Charles Albert far more popular in and outside his territories, especially in Cisalpine Republic where the Austrians were considered a permanent menace.


In 1848 he granted the Albertine Statute making his kingdom a representative monarchy. Legislative power was exercised collectively by the King, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Executive power was vested in the King alone, who was declared to be "sacred and inviolable". The Statute declared all citizens equal before the law, with equal civil and political rights regardless of ranks and titles, and made all citizens eligible for civil and military offices, except for the restrictions provided by the law. All citizens were required to pay taxes in proportion to their possessions. This opened the door for communication with the two republics regarding unification of the Northern Italy. While these discussions were still going on Piedmontese army began to mobilize and government in Milan was assured that he will intervene on their behalf if they agreed to join the Kingdom of Sardinia. The directory agreed on a condition that he will adopt the tricolor of the republic as his flag, which he did asking only that the flag of the house of Savoy be placed in the middle of the tricolor. On 23 March 1848, the proclamation of Charles Albert was published, in which he assured them that the Piedmontese troops, "... go now to offer, in the final trials, that help which a brother expects from a brother, a friend from a friend. We will comply with your just requests, trusting in the aid of God, who is clearly with us, of God, who has given Italy Pius IX, of God, whose miraculous prompting places Italy in the position to act for itself." Thus, the war began.

The Austrians, predictably, moved their main forces within Quadrilatero to wait for the reinforcements so for a while Charles Albert was advancing successfully winning few encounters on his way. But on 2 May, in the midst of this triumphant atmosphere, news arrived that Pius IX had withdrawn his military and political support for the Italian cause. This deprived Charles Albert of the moral justification for his mission. His dream of becoming the sword of the papacy and king of an Italy united under the Pope was thwarted.
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Then on 25 May, the Austrian reinforcements which had been travelling through Veneto, joined Radetzky's troops at Verona. Somebody with a greater strategic talent would understand that now he is in a very serious trouble and started retreat but this did not happened and Radetzki won a battle of Custoza which lasted from the 22 to 27 July. This was not a decisive victory: the seriously outnumbered Italian forces inflicted more casualties than suffered and retreated in a good order. But in a following rearguard action, Battle of Volta Mantovana, the Second Austrian army corps of General Konstantin D'Aspré won decisively against the 3d Piedmontese division of general Ettore De Sonnaz, which seriously damaged morale of the Italian army.


In a meantime both republics on 8 June had voted with an overwhelming majority to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, as had the citizens of the Duchy of Parma on 2 May. But for Charles Albert, things were going sour: the soldiers were angry about the recent defeat and were hungry and exhausted. A council of war suggested seeking a truce but the soldiers kept retreating and Milan was lost by the conditions of armistice (actually, the locals had been willing to defend the city but Charles Albert gave up). Earlier the next year Charles Albert broke the armistice trying to get a revenge but was defeated at Novara and after making a peace by which Lombardy was lost, he abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emmanuel and went into the exile. Austria scored a serious success in the midst of its troubles annexing the former Cisalpine Republic.

The French Provisional Government, still being in the midst of a crisis (or rather combination of political and financial crisises), could not and did not want to interfere. As some kind of a justification Lamartine declared that France helps only to the republics (which the CR ceased to be after joining Piedmont).

Poland
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The economic crisis hit Poland hard. On the first stage there was a certain optimism because the grain prices soared and landowners made good money. But then the British textiles flooded the Polish market and the manufactures of Lodz could not compete with the cheaper imports. At the same time the foreign purchases of grain shrunk due to the shortage of the funds. Government of King Joseph was under the spell of the free trade mantra and did not risk to introduce the high import tariffs out of fear of spoiling relations with Britain. As a result, the country found itself between a rock and hard place because, to prevent re-import of the British products, Russia set the high import tariffs on most of the manufactured goods imported both by land and sea (except those produced in Sweden) and Sweden had similar policy.

France was not in condition to provide big loans and Poland with its rather fragile economy was not considered a reliable investment area even before the crisis.

Prussia was never friendly in that area and it also suffered from the same invasion of the British goods and its government also was not strong enough to close the borders.

The main (and only) area of the Prussian industry which stood to the foreign competition was “Krupp empire”: both in the quality and cost of its metal and especially in its manufactured products it could compete on equal terms with anybody in the world.

Then, when the Lodz manufacturing already was under a big pressure, the grain bonanza was over due to the shrinking purchasing abilities and situation became really lousy across the board.
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The lending capacity of Bank of Poland, founded in 1828, were far from being limitless and aggregated equity of the private banks was even smaller. In the 1830 BoP was burdened by the Treasury with a liability to subsidize the failing mining and metallurgy industries on a temporary basis and they were still there by the 1840’s requiring the new loans due to their unprofitability.
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The same situation existed for most of the new metallurgical enterprises open after 1830. The Bank, being formally only administrator, of the state-owned plants, bumped these liabilities back to the Treasury which had to issue bonds worthy of 60 millions zloty. The Bank directors had been dismissed, accused of embezzlement, put on trial and jailed. The Bank withdrew from the investments and focused on short-term transactions. By the 1840s the Bank had approximately 53 millions zloty (approximately 8 millions silver rubles) of a share capital and up to 260 millions of investments (40M rubles).

Someone came with a seemingly great schema of founding a special state-owned bank which will be buying a cheap grain from the landowners who will keep it in their own warehouses (saving government expenses) and when the prices go up the grain is going to be sold, etc.[1] The idea produced a considerable enthusiasm among the landowners but did not solve the remaining problems.

There were some hunger riots in the cities and government to use the troops to disperse the crowds but eventually some of the bought grain ended up being distributed and the State Bank began, as in 1830s, giving loans to the surviving domestic companies. These paper money were not fully backed by anything but it was better than nothing. With Poland being a predominantly agricultural country physical availability of the food itself was not a major issue, just the purchasing power. Finally, the King and his government decided to disregard all other considerations and introduced high import tariffs on the textile imports and negotiated a deal with the Russian government by which the tariffs on the cotton-based textiles produced in Poland had been lowered.

While being a big exporter of the textiles into Asia, Russia was routinely buying the Polish ones as a high end of the domestic consumption market: the Lodz production was of a better quality than the average Russian textiles.

Slowly the things were getting back to normal.

France. Elections.
The first elections into the National Assembly, held in April 1848, and two members of the Bonaparte family, Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte and Pierre Napoléon Bonaparte were elected. Both Joseph and Lucien were already dead but as a political clan closely associated with Bernadotte the Bonapartes still had been popular. Oscar Bernadotte did not participate in these elections..

After marriage and retirement from the army Oscar went into a private life. He became interested in improvement of the prisons and even published a book “On Punishments and Prisons” [2] with a thorough review of the penal systems in Europe and the US. However, connections made by his father were carefully preserved and this includes one to the Russian court: the Generalissimo was dead but Oscar’s brother in law and Eugene of Wurttemberg still were around and there were numerous other sympathetic to him all the way to Nicholas himself.

So-called Moderate Republican leaders of the provisional government, Lamartine and Cavaignac, would like to remove him from a political scene as being directly associated with the Consulate, which they now hated, but this did not work out because the people tended to have the warm memories about the “First Consulate”. Then came a trump card: Oscar was directly involved in negotiating the Russian credit for grain purchases. Well, of course, formally, the negotiations were conducted by the official figures but the ministers of the Provisional government were pretty much (suspicious) nobodies for the Russian government so in a reality the French side was represented by the reputable bankers providing necessary guarantees and the formal introductions had been made by his Serene Highness Oscar Bernadotte who got all the credit [3] because the public perception was that the whole thing happened mostly due to his (and his wife’s) influence in the Russian court, a notion which he vocally denied getting the extra points for modesty.

It just happened that during the June Days Uprising he was not in Paris (visiting with his wife her Wurttemberg relatives) and as a result had not been connected either with the uprising, or with the brutal repression that had followed. When the next elections had been held in September he was a candidate in 13 departments and elected in 5. In Paris, he received 110,000 votes of the 247,000 cast, the highest number of votes of any candidate. His election base was unusually broad, from the peasants and working class all the way to the major financial figures so his place in the National Assembly was quite visible.

The Presidential election was scheduled on September and Oscar promptly announced his candidacy. There were four other candidates for the post: General Cavaignac, who had led the suppression of the June uprisings in Paris; Lamartine, the poet-philosopher and leader of the provisional government; Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, the leader of the socialists; and Raspail, the leader of the far left wing of the socialists.
His campaign appealed to both the left and right. His election manifesto proclaimed his support for "religion, family, property, the eternal basis of all social order". But it also announced his intent "to give work to those unoccupied; to look out for the old age of the workers; to introduce in industrial laws those improvements which do not ruin the rich, but which bring about the well-being of each and the prosperity of all" [4]. His more than just “considerable” wealth (Jean Baptist never was obnoxiously greedy like Soult, finding that principle “live and let live” produces much better results ; plus there was a very big dowry of his wife) allowed to finance numerous agents traveling all over the country and even without them he had a great name recognition.

The elections were held on 10–11 December. Results were announced on 20 December. Oscar was widely expected to win, but the size of his victory surprised almost everyone. He won 5,572,834 votes, or 74.2 percent of votes cast, compared with 1,469,156 for Cavaignac. The socialist Ledru-Rollin received 376,834; the extreme left candidate Raspail 37,106, and the poet Lamartine only 17,000 votes. Oscar won the support of all segments of the population: the peasants unhappy with rising prices; unemployed workers; small businessmen who wanted prosperity and order; and intellectuals such as Victor Hugo. He won the votes of 55.6 percent of all registered voters, and won in all but four of France's departments.

He moved his residence to the Élysée Palace at the end of December 1848 and immediately hung a portrait of his father in his office. Adolphe Thiers recommended that he wear clothing of "democratic simplicity", but following the model of his father, he chose instead the uniform of the General-in-Chief of the National Guard, and chose the title of "Prince-President".

When the news reached St.Petersburg, Nicholas commented “finally, he achieved something on his own!” and sent a congratulatory letter addressed “Dear friend” (to the crowned persons it would be “dear cousin”) with an explanation: “we are choosing the friends, not relatives”.

By the time of the presidential elections the financial crisis was actually already subsiding with the numerous bankruptcies of the Banks and discount houses lacking their own resources of deposits in sufficient quantity, depended too much of discounting by the Bank of France (in 1846-48 alone, the 829 banking bankruptcies accumulated 207 million francs of global liabilities) and a new "financial system” coming to life. This system involved centralization of the rediscount and the creation of paper money with repu rchases from provincial issuing banks by the Bank of France which reinforced the latter and tended to consolidate its mission of regulation of credit and monetary circulation. Number of the state bond holders started growing and the measures limiting risk of the railroad speculations already had been taken. But all these actions did not produce the overnight change and the delayed visible effect was attributed to the new government and especially the Prince-President.

___________
[1] Stolen from ‘Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy’ by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz
[2] Tried to read it, but got bored. However, he clearly studied a lot: description of some of the penal institutions in the US is very thorough. Seemingly, his was against the corporal punishment and believed in person’s improvement by hard work and spiritual advice. Or something of the kind.
[3] Front man always getting credit for other people’s work.
[4] In OTL it was declared by Louis-Napoleon.
 
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While Europe is on fire
228. While Europe is on fire

“The firefighters are doing their job and we just keep dancing.”
“- Do you know, - said he after a brief silence, - what just came to my mind? … That there are no revolutions, and never were!”

Saltykov-Schedrin

«Если можешь, угадай,
Что нам скажет попугай.
То и скажет, полагаю,
Что вдолбили попугаю.»

Б. Заходер [1]

Don’t spell out everything that comes to your mind”
an old play​
Intermission.
There is a need to explain why the following is not ASB, taking into an account the OTL reputation of Nicholas I as a paragon of a conservatism. What struck me when I started doing more reading about him was a seemingly complete absence of any significant political ideas of his own [2]. He was acting strictly within the pre-existing framework as was the case with his coronation in Warsaw, he was strongly against it [3]. Taking into an account a terrible education that he got [4], it is not a big surprise that his view of the world boiled down to few basics:
  • Religion as a base of all virtues. Not something unique at that time but when placed into otherwise empty head without any extra knowledge, the results are well-known: education is considered a source of the dangerous “free thinking” and should be controlled and severely restricted.
  • Extreme conservatism - Holy Alliance created by Alexander as a cornerstone of the foreign and domestic policy. Any deviation must be crushed or at least protested against. Actually, this course was one of the serious reasons for conflict with NIII (and resulting CW).
  • Mantra of Russia being #1 military power in Europe. The parade ground drill as a top priority also was inherited from AI and eventually becoming a convenient ideological base for neglecting everything else (actually, by the 1850s Russian economy was lacking both technological base and money for the rearmament but why worry if everything can be solved by a bayonet charge).
  • Continuation of the inherited insanities on the Caucasus and Danube/Balkans without ever bothering to ask question “why?”
OTOH, it is only fair to notice that, unlike his predecessor on the throne, NI was personally honest person with a strong sense of duty and quite sincere attempt to fix things that were going wrong. Pretty much like his father (and grandfather) who had a lot of the right ideas but no clue how to implement them. Another feature, which was not necessarily an advantage or even just a good thing for a head of the state, was his straightforwardness. He had all flexibility and subtlety of telegraph pole and tended to behave accordingly.

So it is not unrealistic to assume that with a different set of the source data filling this specific mental void, a much less obnoxious and tragic (for Russia) figure would emerge with much more relaxed attitudes and more pragmatism than ideology. And ITTL the framework is different:

  • There is no Holy Alliance and Russian foreign policy is much more opportunistic.
  • No memory of the Napoleonic Wars and resulting mania grandiosa.
  • Russia is noticeably more “liberal” than in OTL. Religion is still a “cornerstone” but not up to the same degree.
  • Technology already started playing a noticeable role in the military affairs (the latest Ottoman-Egyptian crisis).
1848 and later

A big part of Europe being “on fire” with the financial/industrial crisis and revolutions, Britain and Russia were relatively OK.
Britain
Britain, after the first huge wave of the bankruptcies, started getting its industries back on track dumping its manufactured products into the European and American markets. There were already some troubling symptoms which prompted Palmerston as early as in 1841 to write:

The rivalship of European manufacturers is fast excluding our productions from the market of Europe, and we must unremittingly endeavour to find in other parts of the world new vents for the products of our industry. The world is large enough and the wants of the human race ample enough to afford a demand for all we can manufacture: but it is the business of government to open and secure the roads for the merchant.”

With the growing number of the European countries trying to prevent their own manufacturing from a complete collapse by abandoning the free trade paradigm, this started sounding as a prophesy and the British government started looking more closely into the opportunities existing in Asia and Africa.

“Opening” of China did not provide the anticipated results. China was importing the British manufactured goods but not in the expected volumes and was opting for the “technological” things and know-how rather than for the textiles and household items.

Ottoman/Egypt schema also did not work out to the full intended e tent, at least so far: under the bad influence from the Northern neighbor Sultan Abdul refused to sign a free (for Britain) trade treaty and there were strong indications that, under the French influence, Muhammed Ali of Egypt is not going to adopt the proposed tariffs and abolish the monopoly system even if there will be orders from Istanbul. As of now, Egypt was a major exporter of the high quality cotton and its ruler was not going to make any moves undercutting his sources of income. The French did subsidize some of Egypt’s manufacturing and so did the Brits but in both cases it was a drop in a bucket with no visible chance to saddle Egypt with a big foreign debt allowing to control its government: the country kept maintaining a healthy positive balance of its trade and so far its only weak point, a dropping production of wheat [5], was not an area which either France or Britain could use as a leverage, especially taking into an account that this niche was already filled. The Ottomans somewhat adjusted to old tariffs and allowed British trade on the Danube but, even worse than in the case of China, the shining perspectives described by the enthusiasts, proved to be mostly a wishful thinking. Almost the only “enterprises” in Walachia were plants for processing production of its agriculture and for the rest the “natives” had very little interest and even less skills.

It looked like France already made some significant steps toward creating its own market base in Africa and even made a few not too significant but annoying acquisitions in Asia and the Dutch, backed by the French, had been holding their positions in South Africa and Indonesia. Which meant that Britain should not procrastinate and have to look for its own colonial acquisitions and dependent states. Africa started looking as the top priority both to secure the route to India and to get new markets.
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One of the obvious staring points was the coastal Sierra Leone colony founded in 1808 for returning Africans after the abolition of slavery. This holding could and should be expanded inland and there were outposts in Gambia and Gold Coast.
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However, this was too little, especially in the terms of potential markets, so more areas had to be explored both on the Western and Eastern coasts of the continent, Madagascar being one of the seemingly attractive options.

Then, a renewed attempt must be made for “opening” Persia to the British trade. The earlier diplomatic attempts failed, especially after the British help against Russia proved to be ineffective. But perhaps it would make sense to try again, this time using a brutal force?
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Afghanistan, even after the revenge campaign, did not look as a promising market which meant that the potential markets further in the CA were cut off even if it was not quite clear up to which degree the Russians are really controlling the surviving khanates and if an access to them from the South through Persia and/or Afghanistan is realistic to start with. This had to be investigated by the special agents sent to the area as the “researchers”.

Russia.

So far, Nicholas was quite happy with what was going on. There was a troublesome moment when situation in Prussia was seemingly deteriorating and Nicholas was fully prepared to help his father-in-law [6], if needed but the crisis was over without causing need for some drastic actions. In France things came to what was probably the best possible outcome from Nicholas’ point of view: son-in-law of the late Generalissimo became a President so what could be a better outcome? Restoration of the Bourbons? But they were never liked in Russia and their close links to Britain could create unnecessary problems. OTOH, Prince-President was a known figure and one of his first steps was to indicate that he is planning to continue his father’s foreign policy which included friendly relations with the Russian Empire.
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Even more so because the younger brother of his wife, Josephine, Maximillian de Beauharnais, was married to Nicholas’ daughter Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia and now was not just the head of the “Russian branch” of the Dukes of Wurttenberg but also Prince Romanowsky and highly favored by Nicholas.
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The credit for grain purchases was duly noticed and appreciated. Of course, the 4 years term prescribed by the French Constitution looked absurdly short but, OTOH, a lot of things could happen within 4 years and, to Nicholas’ pleasant surprise, it started looking like Oscar was capable of making things happening.



Of course, there were few bothersome things, how without them…

There were repeated British attempts to renegotiate the existing tariffs. Rejecting them while retaining the friendly relations was not an easy task especially in a view of the continued British attempts to encroach into what by now was something of the Russian traditional sphere of influence: the Black Sea markets and Persia. Nomenclature of the Russian-British trade also had been steadily changing. The Age of Steam and growing percentage of the fully metal ships decreased demand on the Russian hemp and flax and Swedish tar and the booming British metallurgy needed little of the Russian and Swedish iron. But demand for the timber still was high and even growing and the same goes for grain even if there was growing competition from the US and Argentine. OTOH, with the growing domestic manufacturing, the British imports into the Baltic Alliance mostly amounted to the colonial goods and some technological items. So both sides still had been interested in each other and, short of some embarrassing situations in not too remote past, remained reasonably friendly. Which, of course, did not mean that either side would miss an opportunity to get some advantage at other side’s expense. But se la vie. Nothing personal, just business.

There were some silly things going on just across the border, in Poland. Surprisingly (or not), the ongoing crisis strengthened the “revenge party” clamoring for return of the lands lost since the early XVIII. The whole thing did not look quite rational and, of course, it was not but the Polish nobility was famous for being emotion-driven and insanity of a schema did not mean that something unpleasant is not going to happen. It was reported that the “revanchists” are making advances to Vienna proposing to leave alone an issue of Galicia in exchange for a tangible help [7]? Probably this all was a pure nonsense and so far King Joseph preferred to treat it this way expecting that, if push comes to shove, the army will remain loyal to its hero.
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There were also some officers with the sincerely liberal ideas who resigned from the army and joined various causes. The most (and perhaps the only) remarkable figure of those was Brigadier General Jozef Bem who, besides clearly possessing military talents, also was an engineer, a mathematician and historian of some prominence ( a member of the Historical and Literary Society of France). But it can be said that he was a classic “professional revolutionary”. In 1833 he went to Portugal to assist the liberal Dom Pedro against the reactionary Dom Miguel, but abandoned the idea when it was found that a Polish legion could not be formed there. In 1848 he started with the attempt to defend Vienna against the imperial troops of Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, and, after the capitulation, hastened to Pressburg to offer his services to Lajos Kossuth.

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Then, there was Austria, a greatest mess of all. The war in Italy was seemingly going in its favor and the uprisings in Vienna and Prague had been crushed but Hungary was a completely different story. To start with, Kingdom of Hungary was historically in a personal union with Kingdom of Croatia and, being a “junior partner” in this union, Croatia alway wanted to “upgrade status” by being a direct subject of the Hapsburg monarchy. Then, there was a very mixed population in Transylvania with the pro-Hungarian Szeklers, generally pro-Hapsburg Germans, Rumanian majority with the mixed sympathies but a general wish for retaining its cultural identity (an issue to which the Hungarians historically were not too sympathetic). Then there were Slovakia, the western part of which was pro-Hapsburg and eastern pro-Hungarian, and the Serbs of Vojvodina who would rather prefer a direct autonomy under the Hapsburgs.

In other words, the revolting Hungary had to defend itself on all sides because its “oppressor-oppressed” relations within the Hapsburg monarchy were anything but uniform and required an individual approach in each specific case.

At the beginning the main problem of the Hungarian government (who initially wanted just an autonomy and union with Archduke of Austria) was an absence of its own army. There were some Hungarian troops throughout the empire but very few in Hungary and a strong Austrian presence on its territory. On May 7, 1848, the Hungarian government approved the formation of 10 battalions of honvéd (10,000 people); on June 29, the recruitment of 200,000 people was announced, of whom 40,000 immediately; in August, the establishment of a mobile national guard of 32,000 people was established. In September, the Hungarian government had only 18,000 people at its disposal; in October, the number of Hungarian troops increased to 25,000. The number kept growing over the time with the regular Hungarian units of the Hapsburg army joining the rebellion. In 1849 its regular troops amounted to 25 battalions, 18 hussar regiments (144 squadrons), 50 batteries (400 guns); plus there was honved militia - 147 battalions and various volunteers up to 190,000 total.

The long-term problem was Hungarian economy. The country was predominantly agrarian with very little in the terms of manufacturing and even less in the terms of a weaponry production. It did not matter too much on the first stages when the Hungarian army could rely upon the existing weaponry but in a long term the regular supplies of the arms and gunpowder would be necessary and so far it was not clear where and how to get them.

Of course, Nicholas could not completely ignore what was going around but he learned well and never forgot what the late Generalissimo told him: “never let your principles to be an obstacle”. Nicholas was personally a honest person with the principles but he was also a ruler of the Russian Empire and this capacity had a priority. So, while he generally disliked an idea of a revolution, he easily digested one in France: one form of a republic being replaced with a different form of the same with a seeming gain for the Russian Empire.
The events in Prussia were regrettable but all is well that ends well so his father-in-law received congratulations on his victory. The same sentiment had been expressed to the rulers of minor German states who dealt with their own cases of the revolutionary disease. Gustav of Sweden was, of course, congratulated but disturbance in Sweden was so minor that the only congratulation could be (and was) about his personal role in facing the angry mob. The Ottomans asked and got help against the rebelling Principalities, which allowed to consider his role as defender of the legitimate regimes being fulfilled.

But the Hapsburg Empire and specifically Hungary was a different kettle of fish and so far Nicholas was carefully avoiding any political statement on the issue. Of course, on one side there was a principle of legitimacy while on the other there was a potential. But that potential was a very tricky and politically complicated issue which, in the case of mistake, could produce the negative consequences much more serious than potential benefits. The events has to be watched carefully before making any further steps even if personally Nicholas did not like the trickery and preferred the simple and straightforward actions. OTOH, an example of the recent Ottoman-Egyptian war convincingly demonstrated that maneuvers can be at least as effective as a bayonet charge.
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So, while various parts of Europe still had been on fire or tried to deal with the economic crisis, the Emperor of Russia was busy giving the court balls. And this was a very serious business: an imperial ball occupied an intermediate position between the solemn imperial appearance and informal entertainment of the high society with the participation of members of the imperial family.

The scheme of the ball (as well as the behavior of the participants) was strictly regulated, starting from official and unofficial rules of conduct. This also applied to the dress code for men and women participating in the ball. There was an established schedule of balls, at least the "big" ones, held in the Winter Palace. Traditional balls were held in the winter season, starting with Christmas and continuing until the beginning of Lent.

First of all, it is the Big Ball in the Nikolaev Hall of the Winter Palace, or, as it was called, the "Big Ball of the Nikolaev Hall". The entire patrimonial, military and bureaucratic aristocracy of St. Petersburg gathered at this ball. It was an official ball, the main basis for the invitation to it was the "Table of Ranks".

Secondly, the Middle Ball in the Concert Hall of the Winter Palace. For this ball, more restrictive selection of the public took place and, as a rule, there was a so-called "three-class aristocracy", that is, persons who held the first three class positions in the "Table of Ranks". However, persons who were not part of the official hierarchy, but personally close, for one reason or another, to members of the imperial surname, could also be invited to this ball.

Thirdly, Small Balls in the Hermitage. As a rule, in terms of the number of guests, it was a very restrictive ball. Therefore, the very fact of the invitation to it was a direct evidence of belonging to the cream of the St. Petersburg aristocracy. This ball was given a special importance due to the mandatory presence of the diplomatic corps at it.

After the "winter" balls, "summer" were also held. When the Imperial Court moved to Tsarskoye Selo in May, several balls were organized there in the ceremonial halls of the Grand Palace.

For the first time I saw the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace in all the brilliance of the ball. We danced in the Great Hall, and in the gallery there was dinner for countless guests. Gilded wooden columns, intertwined with garlands in the taste of the last century, were burning with lights.”

The listed "formats" of the balls were mandatory and ritual. The frequency of their implementation did not depend on the desire or unwillingness of the sovereign. It was a tradition, the importance and significance of which was recognized by everyone: "This is a legend that should not be forgotten, and the balls continued: Concert, Hermitage, Anichkovsky"

Besides the official big balls there were small ones given by the imperial family for the inner circle. They were usually given in Anichkov Palace. The number of home balls was not strictly established and depended on many reasons. In the "good" years, there were several of them. Their main feature was that people personally pleasant to the imperial family or those who are part of the "inner circle" of the family were invited to such balls. Accordingly, these balls "distinguished themselves by a limited number of people invited and were somewhat homely, family-like.”

Children's balls were held for children of the aristocracy. Parents, as a rule, were not present at these children's balls. The children were watched by educators. However, there also had been “status” balls on which the young children of the imperial family had been present and these balls could be visited by the whole imperial family.

Members of the Imperial Family also attended numerous balls and dance evenings in the houses and palaces of the St. Petersburg aristocracy, in the Noble Assembly, in women's institutes. Speaking of numerous balls, it should be remembered that there was an informal regulation of balls that were acceptable or not acceptable for the members of the growing imperial family. It was a very subtle gradation, and periodically, due to character and temperament, "mistakes" were made when they attended the balls of a lower than acceptable status.

Traditional January-February large and small imperial balls for Shrovetide ended with the last ball before the beginning of Great Lent. The end of the last ball before the beginning of Great Lent was a kind of ritual, which was repeatedly recorded by contemporaries. Under Nicholas I, on Sunday before fasting on Shrovetide, exactly at 12 a.m., the trumpeter trumpeted the rebound, and at the request of Nicholas I, the dances stopped, even if the trumpet sounded among the figure of the cotillon.

Now, there was a family problem: Nicholas did not really like dances and participated in a mandatory minimum but the empress adored dances. As a result, the “family” Anichkov balls could be continue until 4 o'clock in the morning. Contemporaries recalled that when "the cotillon lasted too long, and the Empress did not want to end dancing, the emperor came up with a special means. The musicians were ordered to leave one by one, the orchestra weakened until the music finally fell silent. Everyone looked around in bewilderment, the ball stopped by itself."


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Of course, the balls routinely included the dinners or suppers. Thus, in total, in 1848, tables were set at the imperial large balls 24 times for 7,226 people but this was peanuts comparing to the next year when there were 29 occasions with 11,532 participants. The largest single events involved over 2,240 people.

In between there were numerous balls given by the top aristocratic families so the “season” was quite taxing. French artist O. Berne, who personally observed the turbulent life of the St. Petersburg high society in early 1843, assessed the "labor costs" of the aristocrats as follows: "Finally, Shrovetide is over, fasting is coming, and we return to the path of the Lord. It's time - a few more such days, and half of St. Petersburg society would go to the next world."

Court balls had a very specific monetary component. The monetary calculation of the ball included a fairly extensive list, ranging from the cost of thousands of candles to buffet equipment and dinner facilities for ball participants. However, the cost of court balls, for all their splendor and luxury, was relatively low. This was due to the fact that "their organization did not require to make special purchases and there was no need to hire special servants to help. Wine was delivered by the Main Directorate of Estates, flowers - by numerous greenhouses of the Palace Department, the music orchestra was constantly maintained by the Ministry of the Court. What most struck the foreigners who received an invitation to court balls was the splendor surrounding them rather than the significance of the expenses incurred."

The circle of those invited to large imperial balls was formally determined by the ranks. In addition to court ranks, generals and officers (VII class and below - according to special lists), civilian ranks of I-III classes (sometimes IV), St. George's cavaliers, governors, leaders of the nobility and chairmen of zemstvo councils (who were in St. Petersburg), as well as spouses and daughters of those of these persons who had the rank of IV class and above, spouses of colonels and former ladies-in-waiting (with husbands) had the right to be present at the balls. If we follow only these formal signs, thousands of people, both men and women, had the right to attend the imperial balls.

As you can see from the numbers above 1849 was unusually busy in the terms of the balls and a number of their participants. Among other reasons, Nicholas wanted to be visibly busy to minimize chance of being forced into some inconvenient commitment. [8]


__________
[1] - If you can, try to guess what the parrot will tell us. - I assume that he’ll tell what it was taught to say.
[2] Or, if he had them, extreme reluctance to implement them, as was the case with serfdom reform: he understood the need but did close to nothing.
[3] This was a legacy left by Alexander and his rather questionable policy and NI considered this his duty and played nice even if he himself had very strong negative feelings and his closest circle considered this procedure humiliating.
[4] A person assigned to oversee his and Michael’s education, general Lamsdorf, believed that education consisted of discipline and military training and his methods, besides “conventional” flogging included beating his charges’ heads against a wall.
[5] For the convenience of export, MA enforced an extensive cotton cultivation in the Lower Egypt thus cutting the grain producing areas.
[6] In OTL NI had very good relations with his wife’s family and liked visiting Prussian court with its atmosphere of a military camp.
[7] In OTL after the death of Alexander there were serious discussions about transferring the throne to the Duke of Reichstadt (who would be backed by Austria) so there were all types of ideas regardless of their plausibility.
[8] In OTL AIII came with a convenient formula “when the Emperor of Russia is fishing, European affairs can wait” but NI was not into the fishing or even a popular past time of the hunting (which was something of a sacred ritual in Russia).
 
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I love this, I'm learning a lot and it's very interesting. Even though I'm with Nicky, balls are horrible. I can see how Russia can be seen as wanked, because not doing the stupid thing is already a huge benefit, but I agree, what I've read about Nicky makes him very much driven by the ideas given to him during his education. It could easily be the cult of the Machine God over regular religion, democratic (but limited!) over all power to the Monarch, depending on the hand on the tiller.
 
I love this, I'm learning a lot and it's very interesting. Even though I'm with Nicky, balls are horrible

The people did enjoy them and it is not like the balls were something unique for Russia. Look at it from a different perspective: they were a good way to socialize and to find matches to the young generations and not only (in “Eugene Onegin” a 16 years old girl gets herself the whole general with a princely title 😉 ). Well, and quite a few people do love dances.
Then, look at the alternatives: cards, drinking, hunting (this one would require going to the estate and actually was a very expensive affair, probably more so than even the British version, if there is enough interest, I can squeeze Russian dog hunting somewhere). The balls are least harmful.
. I can see how Russia can be seen as wanked, because not doing the stupid thing is already a huge benefit, but I agree, what I've read about Nicky makes him very much driven by the ideas given to him during his education. It could easily be the cult of the Machine God over regular religion, democratic (but limited!) over all power to the Monarch, depending on the hand on the tiller.
That’s the point. If someone is driven by the sense of duty and principles instead of brain, he is just like a tape player: change the tape and you’ll get a different music.
 
I do wonder which scheme does Nicky plans for Austria? Getting Hungary independent would be bad for balance of power in HRE and would be a major shake up in Europe, on second hand otl result that formed A-H would be good.

From two parts of the empire Hungary was less adventuristic and saw expansion towards the Ottoman's as a threat to it's position in the empire (one could say it saw Germany in that way as well...).

Afghanistan, even after the revenge campaign, did not look as a promising market which meant that the potential markets further in the CA were cut off even if it was not quite clear up to which degree the Russians are really controlling the surviving khanates
I mean don't Russians control most of the CA at this point and they have done so for almost a century.

That’s the point. If someone is driven by the sense of duty and principles instead of brain, he is just like a tape player: change the tape and you’ll get a different music.
So we get more, or less continuation of Russian previous policy through Nicky's Len's which is in a way could be a good thing as given his personality we will not see some grand scheme.
 
The players
229. The players

In matters of state affairs, feelings and gratitude are silent”
N. M. Karamzin
“Recognition of someone's generosity would humiliate yourself, and therefore it is clear that it will produce the anger of those obliged against those to whom they are obliged”

N. Novosiltsev
Money really is a great power, only one must know how to use it.”
Bolesław Prus
Neutrality, as a lasting principle, is an evidence of weakness.”
The policy of the house of Austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of Hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years.”
Lajos Kossuth
The midwife of history is violence”
Emperor Franz Joseph I
“A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets."
Napoleon Bonaparte



For a while the events in Hungary did not attract too much attention outside the Hapsburg territories. The reasons were manifold:
  • First of all, practically every country worth mentioning had plenty of its own problems to attend to, either some domestic revolutionary activities or economic crisis or both. In the case of Spain there was a full-scale civil war and Piedmont managed to launch an aggressive war which it lost (well, Genoa was not a bad “consolation prize” for an abysmal performance). Of course, the US managed to finish war with Mexico before the revolutionary activities in Europe really started but the economic crisis still hit them and they were too far away from the only place which truly mattered, Europe.​
  • With the Hapsburg Empire beating all European records by the number of insurrections, Hungary was initially overshadowed by those in Vienna and Prague and Austro-Piedmontese War.​
  • The first stages of the Hungarian rebellion did not look as a rebellion at all leaving most of the educated public to wonder what the noise is about? The kingdom which is officially and undeniably in personal union with the Archduchy of Austria wants to be recognized as being in … a personal union with the Archduchy of Austria. And the problem is where exactly?​
Eventually, it became more entertaining when the Croatians, who were in a personal union with Hungary and, as a byproduct, with the Hapsburgs, invaded Hungary because they wanted to be in a direct union with the Hapsburgs. At that point everybody, except for some professional politicians, gave up on looking for some sense and logic and their attitudes were based predominantly by the emotions and available “visuals”. Of course, everybody was agreeing that a new Emperor, Franz Joseph, is handsome and as such deserves certain sympathy.
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But OTOH, everybody (especially the females) were agreeing that the Hungarians are dashing, with their splendid uniforms and very tight pants. Even most of the males agreed with that assessment: after all, in every European army worth mentioning there were either hussar units or at least some units wearing hussar-like uniforms.

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France.
So, at least initially, the political sympathies of the educated classes throughout Europe were split more or less equally, except for Paris where the most politically active social group, vaguelly referenced as “ladies of negotiable affection”, was unanimously for “these cute hussars”. Taking into an account the extremely high importance of the said group in Paris’ “social life” and economy, a rare politician would dare to express opinion to the contrary without a risk of becoming a social pariah.

The said social group encompassed a broad range of the occupations and income levels, one can say “most of the gainfully employed females”, and as a result, its influence was not limited to one particular class of the male population of Paris. To incite their wrath could mean anything from being deprived of the vitally important services or being booed in public and all the way to being beaten and thrown out of a cabaret or drinking establishment. Taking into an account that many of them (those on the upper income layer of the group) had been close friends with the prominent political and financial figures, the damage could be not just physical. [1]
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Even without this powerful backing the newly-established French government had been feeling certain sympathy to the Hungarian cause by two main reasons:
  • Austria was the French traditional pet enemy.
  • The resent Italian debacle, while formally not involving France (Cisalpine Republic by joining Piedmont ceased to be the French liability), still was clearly to the Austrian advantage and as such destroyed the regional power balance.
There were some other considerations, which Prince-President for a time being preferred to keep to himself. Position of the Russian court on the issue was not, yet, completely clear but there was a firm promise to keep him up to date: after all, he was a member of the extended imperial family and a dear friend. Austria was not only the French pet enemy but Nicholas, so far, was reluctant to get directly involved by invading the Austrian territory without getting at least Prussia on board: having independent Hungary was not worthy of a major European war. Which, however, did not exclude some other types of help but they also required a well-prepared plan of actions.

If the whole schema (whatever it is going to be) works out then France gains by the fact of Austria being weakened and this will present an opportunity to restore the French influence in Italy.

In a meantime the red-white-green ribbons became quite popular in Paris and other major cities and even Mme. President (who was often referenced just as Grande-Duchesse) had been noticed wearing them or the flower arrangements with this combination of colors during the public appearances.

Britain.
The main personalities in charge of British diplomacy in 1848 were the prime minister, Lord John Russell, and the foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston. They were mainly inspired by a profound fear of France and Russia, Britain's most dangerous commercial rivals. Revolution in France was not considered a problem as soon as the new government confirmed the existing treaties. Once that assurance was given, the British government simply regarded the immediate results of the February Revolution in Paris as a fait accompli.

More complicated was British policy with respect to the other upheavals which occurred on the continent. These revolutions threatened the peace and stability of the continent and were therefore resisted by Great Britain. The Victorians were by nature a conservative people and did not believe in the idea that governments could be dissolved by threats and violence. They felt that constitutions should be conferred from above and not extracted by force from below. Hence their violent reaction to the Chartist challenge in 1848. The parliamentary leaders emphasized the need for protecting private property and threatened to suppress that demonstration by force. Not surprisingly, therefore, in responding to the revolutions on the continent, Great Britain resolved to remain neutral in every instance and to insist on the preservation of law and order. Palmerston viewed the continent from the vantage point of a pragmatist and did not want serious disturbances of the existing balance. An idea of acting out of gratitude for the Austrian help in the last Ottoman-Egyptian War was plain silly. He saw Austria as an essential element in the continental system, capable of serving as a buffer both to French designs in the west and Russian ambitions in the east. He was convinced, however, that Austrian possessions south of the Alps were a basic source of weakness to the Habsburg monarchy. But in his opinion unification of Italy could happen only with the French help, which would make Italy the French satellite thus changing a power balance in the strategically important region. As a result, British policy in Italy was a curious mixture of bluster, mediation and procrastination in the hope of frustrating the Austrians, French and Italians alike. Had Britain chosen to give material assistance to the Italian revolutionaries in 1848, the Austrians would assuredly have been expelled at once from that peninsula.

As far as Hungary was involved, Palmerston assumed (quite correctly) that without Hungary Austria will lose its status as a Great Power (or at least most of it), which will strengthen both France and Russia. Hence his expressed position was that he has “no knowledge of Hungary except as one of the component parts of the Austrian Empire”. Maximum of what he was prepared to do to please the British liberals was to convince the Ottomans not to extradite the Hungarian refugees after inevitable, in his opinion, defeat of the uprising.

But the obvious question was what Britain can do to impact the events one way or another or to prevent Russia and/or France from doing whatever they want to do? The honest answer was not too much besides blustering unless there is some other major European player ready to interfere on the Austrian behalf. Which, in that scenario, would mean Prussia.

Prussia.
Prussia passed through the revolutionary 1848 reasonably easily. The King though initially inclined to use armed forces to suppress the rebellion, ultimately declined to leave Berlin for the safety of military headquarters at Potsdam. There had been a "rattling of sabres in their scabbards" from Prussian officers when they learned that the King would not suppress the revolution by force. Instead, he offered numerous concessions to the liberals: he wore the black-red-gold revolutionary colors, promised to promulgate a constitution, agreed that Prussia and other German states should merge into a single nation-state, and appointed a liberal, Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen, as Minister President. Soon enough he rolled back some of his liberal measures and when an attempt to create some kind of the German Parliament, Erfurt Parliament, demonstrably failed, promoted creation of “Erfurt Union” between Prussia, Saxony and Hanover, which was guaranteeing Prussian domination in Northern Germany.

This happened in 1849 and Austria could not actively resist but its opposition to the idea was well-known. As a result, Prussian intervention on Austrian behalf was extremely unlikely. More than that, in the postponed but almost inevitable confrontation with Austria position of Nicholas I is going to be critical. Of course, in the case of Hungarian victory and resulting independence Austria may not be in a position to confront Prussia, especially if not only Russia but a government of independent Hungary as well are friendly to Prussia. This looked as the best case scenario.

There was also an option of helping Austria and then expecting, as a gratitude, acceptance of Erfurt Union. Of course, this option, especially the “gratitude” part, could not be considered seriously.

The Ottomans.
The uprisings in the Danubian principalities had been crushed with the Russian help but that did not mean that the Sultan should just relax and ignore the events across the border as irrelevant.

Serbia was an autonomous Ottoman vassal with already uncomfortable relations to Austria. Of course, it was logical for the Serbs to sell their pork (pretty much main export item) to the fellow Christians but, OTOH, the economic ties may easily evolve into the political ones. Within this framework the Serbs of Voyevodina fighting on Austrian side, if they end up with a generous accommodation from Austria, may give their Turkish brethren the wrong ideas.

Pretty much the same but on a bigger scale goes for Walachia: who knows how events in Transylvania turn up and if the example of the presently Hungarian Romanians across the border may excite, again, those in Walachia.

OTOH, an independent Hungary will be doomed to be nice to the Ottoman Empire because otherwise it ends up being squeezed between two more powerful hostile states.

Of course, a direct war with Austria should be avoided but if, by the reasons of his own, Nicholas decides to make the Austrian life more “interesting”, the Porte may provide some help.

Russia.
Decision regarding the side to take was made which left only the question “how?” As everybody else outside the Hapsburg lands, Nicholas was reluctant to start a major war. But helping the rebels was a different story and, speaking of principles, it was a laudable thing to help the rebellious Greeks so why not the Hungarians? Precedent was already established and Europe applauded so, even without the European ovations, he can repeat the same thing. Well, better without going to war. The last Ottoman-Egyptian conflict demonstrated that by the right placement of the resources and their skillful manipulation a victory can be achieved without a direct involvement in the ongoing fighting.

The first step was obvious, if not necessarily easy to accomplish. With the Ottoman cooperation and 12,000 Russian troops still in Moldavia it was just a matter of the Hungarian control of Transylvanian border: the military supplies can be transported by land to the Szekler territory
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or, if Sultan Abdülmecid guarantees good behavior of his Serbian subjects, they can also be shipped up the Danube all the way from its mouth to the Hungarian-controlled territory, which, of course, would require Hungarian control over Vojvodina. OTOH, for the river option few armored “monitors” could be brought to protect the shipping (if the Brits start yapping, security of the river trade was their idea) and dissuade anyone on any bank of the Danube from the rash actions.
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In a meantime, “an observation army” is going to be placed in Podolia to provide Austrians with a food for some creative ideas and something tells me that Prince-President of France will conduct the big scale military maneuvers somewhere in Provence, just to keep all Radetzky’s troops in Italy.
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A squadron of the Black Sea Fleet is going to steam to the Russian-Ottoman naval base on Corfu, accompanied, if Sultan is willing, by some Ottoman ships. If few French warships are going to drop in for a friendly visit, they will be welcomed.
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His Majesty the King of Prussia already expressed a need to conduct a major review of his Landwehr.

Then we’ll see because the next steps, if any, will depend upon the fighting sides.

The “Left”
It was officially defined by two Founding Fathers of communism that the whole thing in Austria is an attempt by the (barbaric, reactionary and Asiatic) Slavs to crush the German and Hungarian revolutions. So the “Left” knew whom they should morally support.

Don’t ask me how the Czechs ended up being Germans or how the Romanians and Germans of Transylvania became Slavs. Or how the Germans suppressing the Czechs and Hungarians ended up as something ethnically different. 😜


_________
[1] Even a superficial familiarity with the writings of Maupassant will tell you that they were the most patriotic members of the French society.
 
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I do wonder which scheme does Nicky plans for Austria? Getting Hungary independent would be bad for balance of power in HRE and would be a major shake up in Europe, on second hand otl result that formed A-H would be good.

Bad and good for whom? Russia, France and Prussia at that point are interested in a different balance of power in which each of them is planning to gain something. Why AH is “better” for any of them at this point I don’t see. And even in Prussia there is at least some movement undermining the HRE (Erfurt Union).

Which leaves Britain but you can’t please everybody and Britain has no means to dictate the borders on continent. In general the current British government is, to some degree, a victim of its own pseudo-liberal demagoguery: it supports creation of the constitutional monarchies but here the Hungarians are offering one and are being rejected. FJI is a clear-cut bad guy by Palmerston’s own logic (well, he tended to be very flexible with it but nonetheless).

From two parts of the empire Hungary was less adventuristic and saw expansion towards the Ottoman's as a threat to it's position in the empire (one could say it saw Germany in that way as well...).
Hungary may have its uses. Don’t rush the events. 😜
I mean don't Russians control most of the CA at this point and they have done so for almost a century.

But at that point the British knowledge of the area is rather sketchy and pretty much formal: they simply did not have a serious reason to be there, yet. It is known that Russia annexed some of the territories and claimed that it established overlordship over some other. But what that claim means in a reality? After all, the Ottomans are claiming that they are overlords of the “Circassia” but most of the natives are not even aware that they are the Ottoman vassals.

Pretty much the same can be the case there. What if this relation is formal and can be easily broken and substituted with the British? What about their markets? Are they open or tightly controlled? Etc.
So we get more, or less continuation of Russian previous policy through Nicky's Len's which is in a way could be a good thing as given his personality we will not see some grand scheme.
More or less but don’t discount influence of the Generalissimo who also put some ideas into his head and taught him some useful tricks.
 
Bad and good for whom? Russia, France and Prussia at that point are interested in a different balance of power in which each of them is planning to gain something. Why AH is “better” for any of them at this point I don’t see. And even in Prussia there is at least some movement undermining the HRE (Erfurt Union).

That sounds right, i suppose even in otl helping Austria didn't made sense outside of London, St Petersburg acting outside it's own interests long term by helping it's rival in the Balkans (despite the fact that Austria outlived it's usefulness).

On second hand i do hope to see independent Hungarian state.

Otherwise ...
Of course, the US managed to finish war with Mexico

When did Mexico gain it's independence from Spain? And what happened to Louisiana? I could see this being first in Long series of American- Spanish war's, but i believe we need an update on the America's .
 
That sounds right, i suppose even in otl helping Austria didn't made sense outside of London, St Petersburg acting outside it's own interests long term by helping it's rival in the Balkans (despite the fact that Austria outlived it's usefulness).
NI saw the whole thing within framework of the Holy Alliance and principle was more important than practical considerations. He also backed up Austria against Prussia in 1850 by the similar reason.

On second hand i do hope to see independent Hungarian state.
So do I. 😉
Otherwise ...


When did Mexico gain it's independence from Spain? And what happened to Louisiana? I could see this being first in Long series of American- Spanish war's, but i believe we need an update on the America's .
Honestly, this was “oops” but OTOH, the former colonies are in some kind of the union with Spain so the war with each of them is possible and Spain has its own 2nd Carlist war and can’t interfere.

You are more than welcome to propose your own schema of Louisiana and other things “american” because I’m trying to avoid the world-wide TL: there is already at least one ongoing thread of that type.
 
NI saw the whole thing within framework of the Holy Alliance and principle was more important than practical considerations. He also backed up Austria against Prussia in 1850 by the similar reason.

With such diplomatic policy who needs the enemies.


You are more than welcome to propose your own schema of Louisiana and other things “american” because I’m trying to avoid the world-wide TL: there is already at least one ongoing thread of that type.

Generally I'm more, or less in favor of Louisiana purchase (Spain probably wasn't able to hold it and US would have taken it down the way anyway) paired with American -Mexican/Spanish war with similar outcome as peer otl given that Spain has it's own problems at home, plus their traditional ally of France is busy with it's own internal problems.


So do I. 😉
Yea geopolitically such state kills any Austrian pretensions towards the Balkans (or Poland) and given that Hungary itself is opposed to further expansion towards Balkans due to its own internal reasons (Croatia and Transilvania) and is pro Turkish, so status quo on Balkans is more, or less preserved.

Regarding bogeyman for the Ottoman's, well Russia has the Egyptians , British and various other nationalities seeking to secede and due to good relationship with Prussia and dear father in law Nick probably would see Prussian domination of German state's as a good thing.

In French case their rival for Italy is weakened, basically every significant continental power has Austria as a thorn in it's side .
 
With such diplomatic policy who needs the enemies.

It is called “acting upon principle”. 😂

But in OTL the foreign and domestic policies of AI also were “strange”, to put it mildly, so this should not be a big surprise.


Generally I'm more, or less in favor of Louisiana purchase (Spain probably wasn't able to hold it and US would have taken it down the way anyway) paired with American -Mexican/Spanish war with similar outcome as peer otl given that Spain has it's own problems at home, plus their traditional ally of France is busy with it's own internal problems.

Reasonable. You have a deal. 😉

I’ll try to squeeze this somewhere.
Yea geopolitically such state kills any Austrian pretensions towards the Balkans (or Poland) and given that Hungary itself is opposed to further expansion towards Balkans due to its own internal reasons (Croatia and Transilvania) and is pro Turkish, so status quo on Balkans is more, or less preserved.

Which leaves Poland itself. In OTL to a great degree its flourishing between 1815 and 1830 was due to the very serious financial injections from Russia and extremely favorable economic treatment. Notice that Lodz manufacturing started in 1820s, Warsaw population at least doubled between 1812 and 1825, the state debts were never paid of, etc. This was Alexander’s explicit policy based upon the motivations which do not exist ITTL and even if I put (as planned) something about Alexander’s lenient policies toward the independent Polish state with a purpose to keep it friendly, they will be a far cry from OTL reality. The same goes for ITTL Nicholas’ willingness of getting Poland out of economic crisis of 1848: it is a foreign state and free cheese can be found only in the mousetraps.

Now, in OTL the Poles, while liking Alexander personally, did not feel any gratitude toward Russia in general or remorse for their behavior in 1812 (their record was quite nasty). ITTL, it will be even less so and cutting the help, which they used to take for granted, will produce a serious negative reaction. And here goes the issue on which I did not make a decision yet: what is going to be the Polish behavior in the ongoing conflict for which, so far, there are two possible lines: (a) Russia & co limit their participation to the diplomatic maneuvers, blackmail and help with the materials and (b) there is a direct military intervention prompted by certain Hungarian diplomatic activities. In (a) there is no reason for Poland to get involved but in (b) it may be tempted to side with Austria regardless the costs.

Regarding bogeyman for the Ottoman's, well Russia has the Egyptians , British and various other nationalities seeking to secede

And Russia already provided help in the case of the Principalities and kind of “moderated” conflict with Egypt out of which the Ottoman Empire got out with some gains.
and due to good relationship with Prussia and dear father in law Nick probably would see Prussian domination of German state's as a good thing.

Well, yes: short of the “principles” there were no objective reasons for Russia to resist such a domination (in OTL even after creation of the German Empire the relations were good for a while).
In French case their rival for Italy is weakened, basically every significant continental power has Austria as a thorn in it's side .
Exactly.
 
In (a) there is no reason for Poland to get involved but in (b) it may be tempted to side with Austria regardless the costs.

I mean if Russia & co (France/Prussia) join in and gang up on Austria Poland would be pretty stupid to side with Austria against most powerful land armies in Europe.

If anything logical choice would be to join coalition in hopes of getting Galicia back.

Technically if we want to expand it to option c) , you could have Poland jump in on Austria to get it's territories back while Russian & co stick to diplomatic and other help to Hungarian cause, maybe some limited Franco/Russian/Prussian/Ottoman military involvement aimed at helping Hungary, but generally idea is to find a fool that would take the fall and any potential negative diplomatic backlash over dissolution of Habsburg dominion (remember most states generally had revolution and Nick styles himself as protector of legitimate regime's, so making any intervention a fait accompli would be good).

Otherwise for the note Austria still holds Venedig and Dalmatia and there is a republic under joint Russo -Turkish overlordship that styles itself as a successor to Venedig, so theoretically something could be done about it as well.
 
I mean if Russia & co (France/Prussia) join in and gang up on Austria Poland would be pretty stupid to side with Austria against most powerful land armies in Europe.

Sorry, I may sound cynical but stupidity of action hardly was a deterrent in 1794, 1830 and 1863 so on itself it is not a decisive argument. Of course, there were “milder” cases like during the Ottoman War of 1787-94 when the Polish landowners sabotaged supply of the Russian troops marching through the PLC. So, if there is an outright war the PLC is not necessarily joins but there could be some hostile actions because the sector of a direct Russian-Austrian border is very short and the “Northern route” to the Austrian territories is almost doomed to pass through the PLC.

So, if the government is weak, say, Joseph I dies being succeed by a son who is much less authoritative or, even better, by an underage grandson, then the traditional Polish enthusiasm may took over with the actions being driven by the emotions and sincere belief in the Polish military virtues rather than reason.

Withdrawal of the massive Russian funding may be considered as a hostile act (if you used to taking something for granted and it was revoked, it is a hostile action).



If anything logical choice would be to join coalition in hopes of getting Galicia back.

The magic word is “logic”. 😂 Well, I did not make up my mind, yet. The possibility came to my mind because I’m still reading a book on the Polish-Russian relations in 1815-30.
Technically if we want to expand it to option c) , you could have Poland jump in on Austria to get it's territories back while Russian & co stick to diplomatic and other help to Hungarian cause, maybe some limited Franco/Russian/Prussian/Ottoman military involvement aimed at helping Hungary, but generally idea is to find a fool that would take the fall and any potential negative diplomatic backlash over dissolution of Habsburg dominion (remember most states generally had revolution and Nick styles himself as protector of legitimate regime's, so making any intervention a fait accompli would be good).
This is also a good option. Probably a very good one (whom I’m kidding, the best one) because it solves a lot of problems I was struggling with. May not even cost too much: as a major “installment” Russia may lower the rate on state debt from 6% to 5 or even 4, which would not make any difference for the Russian Treasury because Poland was not paying the debt off anyway. 😂 Of course, King Joseph has to go (sorry, completely forgot to bury him earlier): he was born in 1763 and now is 1849. There will be succession by a relatively young grandson (son, if still alive, would be old enough to develop some brain power) and the nation will have a new hero. 😂


So there is going to be a boring explanation of the Polish financial and economic situation to explain why attack on a Great Power did make sense.

Otherwise for the note Austria still holds Venedig and Dalmatia and there is a republic under joint Russo -Turkish overlordship that styles itself as a successor to Venedig, so theoretically something could be done about it as well.
Getting from these islands into the mainland would require a serious military campaign with the logistics being rather complicated for Russia and even the Ottomans. But a strong naval presence at Corfu and increased Ottoman presence in Bosnia, together with the French military presence in Provence would pin Radetzky's troops to where they are, instead of sending reinforcements to the Austrian troops in Hungary.
 
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paired with American -Mexican/Spanish war with similar outcome as peer otl given that Spain has it's own problems at home, plus their traditional ally of France is busy with it's own internal problems.
Given the logistic problems of an US-Mexican war I find doubtful that the result would be the same as OTL if in TTL Mexico has some measure of stability since independence unlike OTL Mexico that were a mess of infighting and changing governments.

In addition to this if Spain can lend some naval support the US invasion would be very difficult given the small fleet of US in OTL.
 
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