PC/WI: Napoleon liberates Ukraine

Nothing spectacular...
Just wondering the plausibility of Napoleon shooting for the liberation of Ukraine as a strategic goal of his Invasion of Russia, instead if forcing a surrender after a decisive pitched battle.
And for a PoD, let's say this decision to do so is made immediately after Vitebsk.
 
Nothing spectacular...
Just wondering the plausibility of Napoleon shooting for the liberation of Ukraine as a strategic goal of his Invasion of Russia, instead if forcing a surrender after a decisive pitched battle.
And for a PoD, let's say this decision to do so is made immediately after Vitebsk.


I don't think Ukrainian nationalism had got very far in 1812.

It would also have offended the Poles, who had ancient claims on major chunks of Ukraine.
 
Russia acknowledges Ukraine's independence and Napoleon leaves contingent Russia accepting that among other things. Russia and Ukraine make a treaty so the latter annexes the former rendering all treaties signed by it null and void. Ukraine promptly changes name to Russia.
 

ATP45

Banned
I don't think Ukrainian nationalism had got very far in 1812.

It would also have offended the Poles, who had ancient claims on major chunks of Ukraine.
There was not any Ukrainian nationalism.But there was polish gentry,who had land there.Many polish magnats want their own small kingdoms,so Napoleon could make deal with them.Peasants did not care either way.
 
@ATP45 remember that it didn't work like that OTL. Szlachta and magnates had their own "kingdoms" which were part of Commonwealth but magnates had own castles, private army and peasants working for them. They were self-suifficient but still they were one nation. And also if Napoleon had any goal other than defeating Russia it would be feeding Poland with it's lost lands.
 
What would that Ukraine consist of? The former Hetmanate? The PLC's part (half of it is owned by Austria anyway)? Both?
 
There was not any Ukrainian nationalism.But there was polish gentry,who had land there.Many polish magnats want their own small kingdoms,so Napoleon could make deal with them.Peasants did not care either way.


How could Napoleon protect them?

If the GA is all gathered in one place, the Polish magnates who live elsewhere are at the Cossacks' mercy. If the GA is spread out over the former PLC, its scattered units can be defeated in detail.
 
There was not any Ukrainian nationalism.
There wasn't 'nationalism' as we know it now, the modern nationalism.
But there was some form of Ukrainian self-identity, the country trying to have independence or some kind or real autonomy. The guys like Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Mazepa and some others might confirm that.

...(Ukrainian) peasants did not care either way.
They did care.
May be there was little Ukrainian nationalism but there was definitely a lot of Ukrainian religiosity.
The majority of the Ukrainians were Orthodox Christians, and their religious feeling had been hurt by the Polish Catholics and their Jewish clerks (that's the source of the famous Ukrainian antisemitism of the time). The Russian extortion was probably the same but at least the Russians did not add insult to injury; the Russians were Orthodox themselves, having the same religion was extremely important those days.

Ye, there was some Ukrainian minority who belonged to Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, but the Ukrainian Greek Catholics were considered as 'second rate' Catholics by the 'real' Catholic Poles, so there was less support here. And there were some 'true' Ukrainian Catholics but they were too few.
 
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