Place In the Sun: What If Italy Joined the Central Powers? (1.0)
- Thread starter Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
- Start date
I did a serch in the scribblemaps using the id in the link as searchword and did get the link to map as the result of search https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/discover?page=1&type=relevant&when=forever)&q=ZcI3eaJ8eZ
Welcome back! I hope the break did you some good, because there's always a lot of detail in these updates and it is appreciated. Now, on to the next soul-crushing remind of Russia's bleak future (And I mean that in the best way possible)
What I think is clear from this, and it's something I've not brought up before nor have I seen it brought up, is that the end results of these vicious civil wars is going to result in a lot of screwed up people. Consider this is the early twentieth century, and consider that some of the nastiest people to be active in this century aren't even eighteen yet, it's not a conductive atmosphere to be living in. That scene where the Petrograd assailants finally see what it is they have done to the people inside the city is proof enough. You can't forgive, though the food does help. Certainly history is written by the victors, but there will always be someone to remember the atrocities. And as long as that person cannot forget, nor too can the guilty, no matter how much you try.
That bit about the two Captains comiserating for a moment, and then immediately returning to the fighting is great. It's a moment of sanity, a moment of "....Huh. Boy, this is stupid." and then the immediate realization of "Fuck it." wiping out the last. It's pretty much a summation of the entire Russian disaster.
Man, Lenin is in a really unique position in the timeline at this point. By all accounts, he is in the best position he has been in his life, he is the highest up the ladder that he can be. And yet, he is constantly being locked out of meetings, behind on information and the like. OTL, he's perhaps the most forward of the Troika, he's got his own cult of personality, here he's constantly dancing upon the verge of being Someone but never quite reaching that pinnacle. Nominally, he is primed to take his rightful place. But in reality? ...Well, reality is never quite what it seems,, is it?
As per usual, it is the Jews who get the blame. Fuck.
Well, at least thing seem to be calming
This was brutal, and I really liked it. Can't wait to see what fresh horrors are to come.
What I think is clear from this, and it's something I've not brought up before nor have I seen it brought up, is that the end results of these vicious civil wars is going to result in a lot of screwed up people. Consider this is the early twentieth century, and consider that some of the nastiest people to be active in this century aren't even eighteen yet, it's not a conductive atmosphere to be living in. That scene where the Petrograd assailants finally see what it is they have done to the people inside the city is proof enough. You can't forgive, though the food does help. Certainly history is written by the victors, but there will always be someone to remember the atrocities. And as long as that person cannot forget, nor too can the guilty, no matter how much you try.
Oh my god, that really is saying something.
That bit about the two Captains comiserating for a moment, and then immediately returning to the fighting is great. It's a moment of sanity, a moment of "....Huh. Boy, this is stupid." and then the immediate realization of "Fuck it." wiping out the last. It's pretty much a summation of the entire Russian disaster.
Man, Lenin is in a really unique position in the timeline at this point. By all accounts, he is in the best position he has been in his life, he is the highest up the ladder that he can be. And yet, he is constantly being locked out of meetings, behind on information and the like. OTL, he's perhaps the most forward of the Troika, he's got his own cult of personality, here he's constantly dancing upon the verge of being Someone but never quite reaching that pinnacle. Nominally, he is primed to take his rightful place. But in reality? ...Well, reality is never quite what it seems,, is it?
As per usual, it is the Jews who get the blame. Fuck.
Well, at least thing seem to be calming
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
This was brutal, and I really liked it. Can't wait to see what fresh horrors are to come.
1913 contemporary map of st petersburg
Happy to be back.
Thanks for the insightful reply.
Yes, Russia is really going to be in a bad way after the end of the war... but not necessarily worse than OTL. As of right now, the 'core' of the Soviet Union- ie, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, the Stans, etc- is all under the control of one of the two warring factions. A year removed from the May Day General Strike, and no foreign power has intervened. What I'm getting at is that, provided there is no intervention to bite off, say, Ukraine or Central Asia, whichever faction wins the war will end up with more or less the same technological, agrarian, and industrial base as OTL's Soviet Union... which subsequently rebounded. So Russia can definitely recover in the right set of hands.
Regarding Lenin, you're basically correct. He obviously had enemies aplenty in the real world, but here Julius Martov and the Mensheviks hate his guts (though they've more or less been sidelined). Kerensky is *officially* collaborating with him as a senior partner, but doesn't trust him one bit (and for good reason!). Grigory Zinoviev.... it's complicated. On the one hand, they're both Bolsheviks and leaders of the same bloc, but Zinoviev is far too friendly with Kerensky for Lenin's taste. Perhaps his rivals have been weakened enough by the loss of Petrograd that he can make his move... perhaps.
Nope, no respite for Russia yet...it will come, though...
Russian Civil War Map
This is another bad map which (sort of) depicts the situation at the end of the last chapter. I'll likely post one or more other maps depicting events as they develop....
Well crap, the Republicans are being beaten back at every front, the Republicans will need some miracle if they can get saved from the onslaught of incoming Tsarists.
Minor nitpick: Kingisepp would still be named Yamburg TTL, the renaming only took place in 1922, and with Lenin in charge.
(No, I'm no maestro of place names, I just Google them if I don't know them)
(No, I'm no maestro of place names, I just Google them if I don't know them)
I'm rooting for the monarchy here because at least with the Tsar you know what you can expect. With the Republican government's bad foundations, lack of legitimacy, and the lack of any sort of democratic tradition/history within Russian history/culture (excluding the Novogorod Republic as that doesn't really count), I see it eventually devolving into some sort of dysfunctional and corrupt dictatorship later down the line.
The Russian Civil War seems to be ttl's Spanish Civil War, though I'm surprised that there isn't much foreign intervention at all.
700 calories a day... that's my frickin' breakfast!
Great update, glad you're back.
Agreed; the Kerensky regime whether IOTL or TTL was essentially just the Weimar Republic on steroids. Only, unlike the Weimar Republic, which had some measure of a democratic tradition to stand on (despite Entente propaganda, the Kaiserreich was never an absolute monarchy, given the Reichstag's absolute control of the purse strings), the Kerensky regime had absolutely none. It would almost certainly have turned into a fascist mirror of the Soviet Union given time, if not outright simply fallen apart.
The Tsarist regime might have been a brutish autocracy, but it at least had the advantage of having centuries of tradition and history buttressing it in place. It's certainly telling that ITTL, when the Tsarists rallied under Alexander Mikhailovich and his son Andrei, Siberia and the Russian Far East immediately threw their support behind the Romanov Dynasty.
I think I've asked this question before, but that makes me wonder if a divided Russia is a possible result of this civil war. The Republicans are popular in Russia's historical heartland, while the Tsarists are popular outside of that area. If the Republicans win in the European heartland of Russia, I could see the Czar retreating behind the Urals to set up a rump Tsardom in Siberia (with a capital somewhere like Irkutsk, just for a safe distance from the Republicans should another war break out).
That would require herculean efforts on the part of whichever Republican/Communist is in charge at Moscow and the Upper Volga. The Tsarists have just retaken Petrograd and forced the Republican and Communist leaders there running overseas. And with winter in full swing, things are about to get worse for the 'pubs/commies in the Upper Volga, cut off as they are by Imperial troops on all sides.
I definitely will - this is one of my favourite timelines, and every update is always well worth the wait
