Russian Middle East And Mediterranean

How would it be possible for Russia to have land in the Middle East, but on the Mediterranean as well? POD is earliest it is needed.
 
Constantinople and possibly more of the coast there and/or the Black Sea aside, why would Russia want to expand into the Middle East or Mediterranean?

That's awfully far from Moscow, and unlike the areas to the East it took OTL, needs far more than a company of Cossacks to hold down.
 
Constantinople and possibly more of the coast there and/or the Black Sea aside, why would Russia want to expand into the Middle East or Mediterranean?

That's awfully far from Moscow, and unlike the areas to the East it took OTL, needs far more than a company of Cossacks to hold down.
The British held down areas for quite some time without particularly massive foces and could resupply them from distances no further than what Russia woud have to deal with. I would imagine that a Russian army attacking an ailing Ottoman empire might be able to occupy land in the middle east for a time. As for the motivation behind it, that's another issue.

The only areas on the mediterannean that are usually considered part of the Middle East are the Levant and maybe Egypt. I apologize in advance if I'm jumping to conclusions here but I get the feeling the OP might be asking us how Russia could have ended up occupying Palestine and is wondering whether they would have allowed for the creation of Israel. The amount of change to Russia as we know it needed for such a thing to happen would make it almost impossible to predict how this issue would have unfolded.
 
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The British held down areas for quite some time without particuularly massive foces. I would imagine that a Russian army advancing through the former Ottoman emppire might be able to occupy land in the middle east for a time.

But then, Arabs had been stirred against the Ottomans for some time, not to mention there were no longer foreign powers which would intervene in the Middle East: No Strong Persia, Unfriendly France, or (independent) Egypt to possibly upsurp the Brits.

The French and British would take serious issue with the Russians getting anything too close to the Holy Land.
 
The British held down areas for quite some time without particularly massive foces and could resupply them from distances no further than what Russia woud have to deal with. I would imagine that a Russian army attacking an ailing Ottoman empire might be able to occupy land in the middle east for a time. As for the motivation behind it, that's another issue.

The British held down areas with actual forces of some size (not "massive", but more significant than I was referring to), not "a company of Cossacks". And they had the fact most of the distance we're talking about is by sea. Russia doesn't have that - which makes it a pretty substantial issue. X distance by land is longer (time-wise) than the same by sea.

So, not a comparable situation. Especially given that Russian government is already inefficient (I wouldn't want to say "ineffective", but its lack of administrative structure capable comparable to what Britain had is not to be dismissed)
 
The British held down areas with actual forces of some size (not "massive", but more significant than I was referring to), not "a company of Cossacks". And they had the fact most of the distance we're talking about is by sea. Russia doesn't have that - which makes it a pretty substantial issue. X distance by land is longer (time-wise) than the same by sea.

So, not a comparable situation. Especially given that Russian government is already inefficient (I wouldn't want to say "ineffective", but its lack of administrative structure capable comparable to what Britain had is not to be dismissed)
I understand your point but I'm not sure why you are making the assumption that they wouldn't be able to field more forces for an occupation than a company of cossacks like in Siberia. Anyway, the issue of supply by sea is not a problem at all provided Russia has some kind of guarentee to able pass whatever it wants through the straits, in which case resupply would be doable. Perhaps not worth the effort but doable nonetheless. Then again, this whole scenario is kind of bizarre anyway so who knows what such a Russia would be capable of.
 
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I understand your point but I'm not sure why you are making the assumption that they wouldn't be able to field more forces for an occupation than a company of cossacks like in Siberia. Anyway, the issue of supply by sea is not a problem at all provided Russia has some kind of guarentee to able pass whatever it wants through the straits, in which case resupply would be doable. Perhaps not worth the effort but doable nonetheless. Then again, this whole scenario is kind of bizarre anyway so who knows what such a Russia would be capable of.

I'm making the point that it would be considerably more difficult than their OTL expansion, and the issue of it being much more distant from Moscow, aka the capital/the center of control, is significant enough to actually be worth considering.

It's not just supplying a garrison, it's keeping an eye on the place - both the governor and the locals.
 
The British held down areas with actual forces of some size (not "massive", but more significant than I was referring to), not "a company of Cossacks". And they had the fact most of the distance we're talking about is by sea. Russia doesn't have that - which makes it a pretty substantial issue. X distance by land is longer (time-wise) than the same by sea.

They took over most of central Asia, which was far away, (Samarkand is further from Moscow than Baghdad), inaccessible save by lengthy land travel through the steppe, and took more than a company of Cossacks to conquer and hold. Russia took (albeit temporarily) Iranian territory on the south shore of the Caspian as early as Peter the Great's reign. Further Russian expansion into the middle east isn't that improbable, as long as there aren't powerful European competitors ready to fight them for it. (Which means we need to gimp the British Empire at least, but butterflies could quite well do the job if we have PODs back in, say, the 16th century)

And if the Russians have both sides of the Black Sea straits, they have Mediterranean territory. A Russian land expansion through Romania and Bulgaria (or just Bulgaria, if we cut Wallachia and Moldova away from the Black Sea) to the Med is also possible.

On the other hand, if you want Russia in the Levant or Egypt, that's a lot harder. The logical route of Russian expansion is through Iran and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf: if some other power doesn't stop them, they have their thumb on the world's oil jugular (which is probably why this needs to happen _before_ everyone realizes this area is swimming in oil), and there is no incentive to expand west: they already have an indigestibly large number of Muslim subjects, why add more that don't even have oil? Similarly, annexing all of Anatolia is too big a mass of Muslims to easily swallow: once they have the straits and maybe a bit more of the eastern "Armenian" bits, there's no incentive and plenty of disincentives to go further.

Hm. If we go waaay back, could we get a united kingdom of Russia and Byzantium?

Bruce
 
They took over most of central Asia, which was far away, (Samarkand is further from Moscow than Baghdad), inaccessible save by lengthy land travel through the steppe, and took more than a company of Cossacks to conquer and hold. Russia took (albeit temporarily) Iranian territory on the south shore of the Caspian as early as Peter the Great's reign. Further Russian expansion into the middle east isn't that improbable, as long as there aren't powerful European competitors ready to fight them for it. (Which means we need to gimp the British Empire at least, but butterflies could quite well do the job if we have PODs back in, say, the 16th century)
Further away as the horse canters or the crow flies?

And Central Asia is in general less populated than the valuable parts of the Middle East, if I'm not mistaken.

Plus, very temporally occupying a place and holding it long term against rebellions and attempts to take it back are not the same thing.

I wouldn't say it's impossible - I'm just saying it's difficult for no particular gain (having a strangehold on oil would be nice, but by the point anyone knows that's happening from any given conquest, Russia's European rivals would be trying to stop it).

Also, I should note that my comments are based on Russia trying to do this and what it did OTL - there's such a thing as overextension and Russia trying to move everywhere is going to find out about that. There's not enough men or money to manage all individually possible conquests, I think, at least not without serious consequences.
 
What are the prospects for the Russians expanding on their foothold on the southern shore of the Caspian, to eventually assimilate Persia?

The key here I think would be if the Tsar could somehow position himself to be accepted by the Persians as the protector of Shi'ite Islam against Ottoman power. The barrier is that the Persians had their own dynasties that did that, thank you very much. Initially the Russians would surely be seen as infidel interlopers. It could be though that the Russians themselves, in breaking the power of the Shi'ite Persian Shahs, discredit the domestic dynasty and then if they are astute enough (a big if when we are dealing with the Romanovs!:rolleyes:) take up the mantle, reassure the Persians they have no designs on conversion to Christianity, and build up their reputation as protectors of Shi'ites from Sunni domination. This might give them the opening to dominate Persia, and from there move into Mesopotamia, which also has large majority-Shi'ite regions. So does the eastern, Persian Gulf shore region of Arabia.

I'm thinking this all happens after the reign of Peter the Great but before the end of the 18th century and the French Revolution, which probably would not be much butterflied by all this. The British would be aware the Russians are moving toward the Indian Ocean and be alarmed by this, but they'd have other concerns too that would distract them and make them balance this concern against others; if during the Napoleonic wars for instance Russia and France get at odds as they did OTL, the British are going to welcome Russian alliance and set aside many quarrels they have with them.

Quite obviously, oil has nothing to do with any of this; the Russian goals are to opportunistically expand into an important territory that borders their current conquests and then gain a warm-water port for naval ambitions. They can pretty well get control of the whole Persian Gulf this way; their next hurdle is to secure passage out of its straits, which means either coming to an understanding with Oman or conquering it, both of which the British (when they are not allied with Russia) will be intriguing to prevent. But even if the British keep control of Oman they don't control the other shore, they can't stop Russian ships from using the strait without being at open war with them.

Now if the Russians can do this and the dynasty survives and keeps control of the Shi'a lands into the 20th century, then all of a sudden the oil becomes a big issue. At that point, it all depends on how firmly the various Shi'ite people under Russian control these past couple centuries identify with the Russian regime; if their allegiance is weak then intrigues of other European nations to split them off will be rife and could lead to big continental or world wars, or certainly become a front of them. If the Shi'ite lands are loyal to the Tsar, or some successor Russian regime, then mission partially accomplished.

As for getting onto the Med--well, a long-standing Russian goal is to get control of the Dardanelles, particularly Constantinople. They've been frustrated first by Ottoman power and later by other Europeans, notably the British, seeking to deny them this access. It doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that there are plausible timelines where they succeed, and perhaps ally with Greece to get a firm foothold on a small part of the Med that way, again gaining them the benefit of their warm water ports on the Black Sea, making them in effect ports on the Med--in fact Constantinople itself would be the main port, if they don't also get Greek ports like Salonika.

In OTL of course they accomplished neither of these things, but the question is, what stopped them, and how hard would it have been for things to go otherwise. In particular if they could reach either the Persian Gulf or the Aegean well before 1800, I daresay that even in the 18th century the British would have been ill situated to stop them, and Russian presence on these shores would be a fact they'd have to live with.

I think placing themselves as defenders of the Shi'ites would be unlikely and difficult, but if it were done, Russian power would be leveraged by the aid of the Shi'ite peoples themselves, so the question of overextension which otherwise would be a very pointed one is to some extent addressed. By becoming the champions of a minority sect of Islam they'd probably intensify their problems with the other Muslim peoples they face, in Central Asia particularly. They'd have to defend their Persian holdings against Afghan raiders and the whole steppe flank would be that much more hostile against them.

Holding to the idea that the Russians have limited resources and have to pay for this sort of success with falling short elsewhere, I suppose we can assume they are somewhat less successful at securing Central Asian territory and eastern Siberia; their foothold on the Pacific is thinner. They'd still control the northern tier of Siberia, probably by default, unless they fail to secure vital routes that run southward.

Also, these moves of theirs would tend to assume they had some naval ambitions, and having invested and sacrificed to gain access to two warm-water seas, they probably would follow through and develop navies and merchant fleets operating out of these ports. This again sets them at odds with the British. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that the British will pen them up in their ports, but to break out of British encirclement Russia would have to invest a lot in its naval enterprises and it is not clear just why they would or how it would pay off. Perhaps they can set themselves up as a rival merchant power, but the British do have a long head start. One reason British merchant ships reigned supreme on the high seas was that the RN had established itself as the supreme naval power; with two navies of comparable strength at odds with each other the seas would simply be less safe for either side, transport would be more costly, and global development would be slowed down considerably.

It seems fairly likely then that if they did manage these two gains, control of the Dardanelles and access to the Persian Gulf by say 1800, that they would still wind up pretty much conceding mastery of the high seas to Britain. Control of the Dardanelles would then basically mean security on the Black Sea, which would be a Russian lake albeit with some hostile shores, while the Persian Gulf would be a trading port giving the Russians some cut in a portion of world trade even if its mainly British ships doing the carrying. If the Persian Gulf region is securely loyal to the regime then when oil becomes important, oil revenues will go a long way toward reviving the fortunes of Russia, which would be sitting on top of essentially all of it in the whole Persian Gulf region--Iran, Iraq, and the OTL Saudi fields as well. Plus of course Russia's OTL fields on the Caspian which OTL were important long before the Persian Gulf fields were discovered and developed!
 
How would it be possible for Russia to have land in the Middle East, but on the Mediterranean as well? POD is earliest it is needed.

During Crimean War Russian somehow could win and incorporate Black sea coast region of Romania and Bulgaria. Also they will get Gallipoli peninsula and whole Western Thrace, and Part of Eastern Thrace (maybe Kirklareli and Edirne Province, though not region around Constantinople) and part of Northern Thrace. From there Russians could get incorporate Cyprus. Russians will be Powerful Mediterranean Empire.

As for Middle East, I could see Russians expand to greater Armenian land then incorporate Kurdish territory. Now you can have firm hold on Middle east. From there if you want Mediterranean Sea then go to Adana region and Coastal region of Syria. If you want Indian Ocean port expand through Mesopotamia till Persian Gulf. It is more easy route than Persian mountains.
 
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Collapse the Ottoman Empire and it would likely be direct Russian intervention against Egypt, with Syria and Anatolia the battleground.

I could go on but this seems a thread for nay-sayers and I'm a yay-sayer

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Winnabago

Banned
Byzantine empire lasts longer, asks for Russian vassalage, so does Trebizond.

The Russians expand into the Mediterranean and Mideast, promoting Greekness and establishing Russian colonies. It would be tough, though.
 
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