This is a timeline I have had in the works for a while but which is now in a semi-ready form (any corrections/critique is of course welcome and will probably be written into the final version, which I will post in Finished Timelines). The timeline starts in 1904, when the Russian Baltic Fleet opens fire on a fleet of British fishing trawlers. In OTL, the incident results in the death of three British fishermen and nearly caused a war between Russia and Britain. In this timeline, due to a few random roles of the dice (so to speak) going the wrong way, the Russians kill many more British sailors and the demand for war in Britain becomes unstoppable. At the moment, my plan is for the timeline to run until 1935/36 by which time TTL's First World War and its immediate aftermath will have ended. Whether the timeline continues past that point depends on how much time I can put into the project.
So without further ado:
So without further ado:
Angry Cats Productions Present:
THE DOGGER BANK WAR
By Thomas Goodwin
THE DOGGER BANK WAR
By Thomas Goodwin
The Outbreak of the War of 1904
On February 8th 1904, Japanese torpedo boats initiated the first major international conflict of the 20th century with an attack on the Russian base at Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. Tensions between Japan and Russia had existed since the 1890s when Russia had conspired with France to rob Japan of its gains in the Sino-Japanese War. Although no oriental power had ever defeated a European state in modern times, Japan had formed an alliance with Britain which protected it from French intervention. Any doubts that the Japanese had a serious chance of winning the war were dispelled further in early May when the Japanese army defeated the Russian army in Manchuria at the Battle of the Yalu River. A string of further setbacks occurred and by the autumn of 1904, the Russian position in the Far East was looking extremely precarious.
The Baltic Fleet Redeploys and the Entry of Britain into the War
With the Russian Pacific Fleet trapped in Port Arthur and the Black Sea Fleet unable to pass through the Dardanelles, the only major strategic naval asset Russia could call upon against Japan was the Baltic Fleet. Despite having to travel half way around the world to reach the war zone, an unprecedented distance for steam powered warships, it was decided that the Baltic Fleet would be redeployed as the Second Pacific Squadron. After a number of false starts, the fleet sailed on October 15th under the command of Vice Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Its destination was on the other side of the world but in reality, the fleet would not get much further than the other side of Europe.
Problems began almost the moment the fleet sailed. Discipline was lax and there were rumours that a squadron of Japanese torpedo boats was waiting in a British port to ambush the Russian fleet. Rozhestvensky's attempts to calm his men were not entirely successful. Extra vigiliance did nothing to quell the paranoia sailors felt about torpedo boats, which dated from the Spanish-American War a few years previously, and his orders that no ships be allowed to get in amongst the fleet almost led to a Danish fishing boat carrying consular dispatches being sunk. On the evening of October 21st 1904, the disaster began when a Russian supply ship misidentified a passing Swedish ship and reported it was under attack. Fog rolled in, further limiting the vision of the fleet and in the darkness, a small group of British trawlers were mistaken for Japanese warships. The result was chaos. In the melee, the Russian fleet even managed to fire on two of its own ships, the Aurora and Dmitrii Donskoi being shelled by the battleships. This fire led to the death of a Russian chaplain and several Russian sailors being injured. As bad as the 'battle' was for the Russians, it was worse for the British fishermen who suffered nearly fifty casualties in the twenty minute conflagration. This was more due to luck than the calibre of the Russian gunnery, which was terrible (the battleship Oryol allegedly fired over 500 shells without managing to hit anything). While Rozhestvensky did manage to stop his ships firing, in the immediate aftermath of the incident he made a fatal error. Rather than attempting to rescue the remaining British sailors or leaving them lifeboats, the vice admiral ordered his ships to steam at full speed for the Straits of Dover in what was apparently an attempt to escape.
It did not take long for news to reach London of the Russian action and the response in the press was overwhelmingly angry. The Times commented:
“It is almost inconceivable that any men calling themselves seamen, however frightened they might be, could spend twenty minutes bombarding a fleet of fishing boats without discovering the nature of their target.”
The British government was scarcely less scathing with the Russian ambassador being summoned to Downing Street and then Buckingham Palace for a long dressing down from the prime minister Arthur Balfour and then from King George V himself. An attempt to apologize for the incident by Tsar Nicholas II himself appears to have been brushed off by the King, who stated bluntly, “I considered him the foulest villain king the world has ever seen at this time.” Given the widespread public anger, it is unlikely that war was preventable after Rozhestvensky ordered his ships to flee the scene of their crime. By the middle of October 22nd, the Home Fleet had been ordered to prepare for action, placing twenty-eight battleships between Rozhestvensky and the open sea. British hostility also meant that the Baltic Fleet would have to sail around Africa rather than through the Mediterranean, as well as avoiding British South Africa. The odds of a Russian victory in the Far East were shrinking rapidly. In an emergency cabinet meeting in London, it was agreed that an ultimatum would be presented to the Russian government. The demands were harsh; the Russian government was to pay reparations to the families of the fishermen killed on the Dogger Bank; the Baltic Fleet would be interned for the whole of the war; Rozhestvensky and his senior officers would be tried in Britain for piracy and other offences; the British government would be brought in to mediate an end to the current conflict between Russia and Japan. The Russian response was swift and for the most part conciliatory. The issue of reparations and the interning of the Baltic Fleet was accepted without question. The Russian government also agreed to ask for mediation but requested, given the state of 'high emotion' in Britain, that another one of the major powers be brought in to end the war in the Far East. Only the demand that Rozhestvensky and his officers be tried in a British court was rejected out of hand. Unfortunately, when news of the Russian response reached the British public on October 25th 1904, it sparked angry riots in parts of the country and a number of Russian businesses were attacked. Faced with growing hostility from the public and the press, Balfour rejected the Russian response as unacceptable. On October 26th 1904, Britain declared war on Russia.
The Battle of Thanet
Rozhstvensky had steamed at speed to try and reach the Straits of Dover but he found his path blocked by the Royal Navy's Home Fleet. Rather than turn tail, however, Rozhstvensky ordered his ships to remain in position and await further instructions. It was only on the morning of October 25th, when news reached him that a war with Britain was likely, that Rozhstvensky ordered the Baltic Fleet to turn around and make for the relative safety of the Baltic. Unfortunately, the Home Fleet, which was better organized and had been given orders to not let Rozhstvensky escape, was able to tail the Baltic Fleet until a formal declaration of war was made by the British government. At 10.07 AM, the British fired a salvo at Rozhstvensky's rear ships. These did not hit anything but forced Rozhstvensky to realize that he would not be able to escape the Home Fleet in time. In a desperate attempt to even the odds, Rozhstvensky ordered his ships to turn nearly 180 degrees and place themselves between the Home Fleet and the Isle of Thanet. The logic behind this decision appears to have been that the Home Fleet would be reluctant to risk firing upon British houses, although no one on the bridge of Knyaz Suvorov survived long enough to explain their decision making.
In any event, the Battle of Thanet was short and catastrophically one sided. The British lost two torpedo boats and one of their cruisers suffered minor damage. Total British casualties were less than two hundred killed and a few hundred injured. In contrast, only a single Russian destroyer survived long enough to surrender although thousands of Russian sailors were saved from drowning by the actions of the Royal Navy. Vice-Admiral Gerard Noel, the commander of the Home Fleet at this point, acted his considerable professionalism although the scale of the British victory owed more to the incompetence of the Russian Navy than to his brilliance as a commander. The battle drew a large number of spectators, although less than if it had taken place during the summer when the Isle of Thanet was teaming with visitors. One such spectator commented, 'It was more like a shooting gallery than Traflagar'. Any of the spectators who stayed until the end of the day near Ramsgate got an additional surprise when a lifeboat containing a number of Russian officers washed up. Among the survivors were a number of officers including Vice Admiral Rozhstvensky himself. The Russian admiral had seen his ship disabled almost immediately when a shell struck the bridge, injuring him in the process. He was rescued by a Russian destroyer, the Buinyi only to have for that ship to be sunk by numerous torpedo strikes latter in the day. By the time that the Buinyi was sunk however, there were hardly any Russian ships left and the few survivors were heavily damaged or immobilized. According to the other survivors, Rozhstvensky attempted to surrender to one of the British destroyers but the current dragged the lifeboat to the shore. This indignity marked the end of the line for Rozhstvensky. While the other Russian officers were quickly interned by the local police, by the time the police had reached the scene, the admiral was already hanging from a tree. To this day, it is unknown who killed Rozhstvensky. The surviving police records from the period do not provide much illumination; several bystanders claimed that Rozhstvensky hanged himself out of hang while a number of others claimed they had killed him personally.
The Strategic Situation in late-1904
The British victory at Thanet effectively destroyed the Russian navy and greatly lengthened the odds against a Russian victory in the war. However, while Vice-Admiral Noel and his men were lauded as heroes, their actions had done little to bring an end to the war. The Russian Army, if it could be fully deployed in the far east, was considerably larger than either the Japanese or British armies, and apart from Manchuria, there were relatively few places where British forces could be brought to bear against the Russian Army. Germany was reluctant to allow free passage for British ships through the Baltic and nobody wanted British troops to land in the Baltic provinces.2 Central Asia, while relatively open to British troops, would be logistically difficult and would not threaten any of Russia's major industrial areas. Landing in northern Russia, particularly on the Kola peninsula and around Arkhangelsk was the most promising alternate route into Russia but it would be closed until at least the late spring of 1905 when the weather improved. With few good options open, the British government was forced to settle for reinforcing the Japanese positions in Manchuria. Initially these reinforcements came from Australia and the British posessions in the Far East but by early 1905, the first troops directly from Britain had begun to appear. At the very least, there was little chance of a shortage of troops; the outbreak of war with Russia had brought about a major upswing in recruitment for the army. The British foreign secretary, Lord Landsdowne, was able to secure the neutrality of France by promising to support them if a crisis broke out involving Germany. None of the other European powers were interested in directly intervening in the war themselves.
On December 28th, with Japanese shells landing in the harbour and no hope of relief, the commander of the Russian garrison in Port Arthur asked for terms. With its southern flank now secure, the Japanese forces were able to focus their attention on pushing further into central Manchuria.
The Revolution of 1905 – Part I
On January 22nd 1905, a large crowd of demonstrators converged on the Winter Palace under the leadership of Father Gapon. While the protest was not political in nature, merely being aimed against the worsening living conditions and the losing war against Britain and Japan, the march caused a great deal of alarm among the guards of the Winter Palace. Although the aim of the protesters was to present a petition to the tsar, the tsar was not in fact in the Winter Palace that day and the protesters were met with lowered rifles. As the protesters headed towards the Winter Palace, they collided with a number of police and army checkpoints intended to keep them away from the palace. The first shooting began between 10 and 11 am in the morning with the most dramatic incident taking place on the Nevsky Prospekt when Father Gapon himself faced the soldiers but was unable to prevent the violence spilling over. By the time the shooting ended, as many as 4000 people were dead and the already tense situation had been inflamed.
Another wave of strikes, which were already numerous due to the tsarist government having to close a number of munitions factories due to lack of funds, broke out and spread across the entire country. It is estimated that 500,000 people participated in strike action during January 1905 alone and the figure continued to increase as the year went on. The tsar initially tried to calm the situation by offering to form a state duma with consultative powers but he backed away, apparently believing that the entire revolution was a British plot. By the end of February, disturbances had erupted in Congress Poland Finland, and were starting to take on distinctly nationalist character. In St. Petersburg, a worker's montaje was formed the name of the St. Petersburg Soviet.
The North-west Russian Campaign
Unknown to the British forces which descended on Arkangelesk in late May 1905, the northern reaches of Russia had often considered themselves to be relatively separate from the rest of Russia. The heavy-headed reaction by the tsarist government to the disturbances since late 1904 had not helped the situation and by the spring of 1905, many in the north-west were becoming inspired by the Finnish uprisings which had taken control of Helsinki and the other major cities. All of this meant that, to their surprise, the initial British landings were met with considerable approval and in some villages and towns by honour guards. Resistance from the Russian Army was negligible, with the scattered Russian units proving to be less of a nuisance than the appalling infrastructure.
The British landings around Arkangelesk caused panic in St. Petersburg. With the Manchurian campaign going no better than it had done the previous year and revolutionary groups contesting many areas of the country, it was becoming clear that the tsarist regime was on the brink of collapse. Some of the tsar's advisors were suggesting that he should flee St. Petersburg or even Russia itself. While the tsar had no time for such suggestions, he was increasingly convinced that his personal presence on the front would turn the situation around. On June 22nd, the tsar rode out with a detachment of Cossack troops with the intention of crushing the British army. While an objective observer would have said that the British were too entrenched at Arkangelesk by this point to be thrown back into the sea by the relatively small force the tsar could bring to bear against, it appears that Tsar Nicholas II was a firm believer in the maxim that the British Army could be arrested by the local police if it dared land on the continent. Some revisionists have claimed that the tsar realized he was doomed and that his decision to take personal command was essential an honourable suicide, which would allow the more moderate elements of the tsarist to make reforms, but this is not supported by the available evidence. The tsar rode off to battle the British in the full belief that he could throw back into the sea.
The Russian marched from St. Petersburg to the Northern Dvina River and then used rafts to move north until they reached the junction between the Northern Dvina and the River Pinega. It was here that the Russians met their first British resistance in the form of a fortified position where the two rivers met. Rather than besieging the emplacement, the tsar ordered his forces to storm the emplacement. The British only numbered about two thousand, the majority of the British Army in Russia was consolidating its positions around Arkangelesk, but they were better organized than the Russians and had good morale. What happened next has been the source of considerable debate among historians. The Russian assaults on July 9th and 10th were beaten with heavy casualties but on July 11th, the Russians received a number of new artillery pieces. This inspired the tsar to virtually lead from the front the next day when the Russians launched a new attack. During the fighting, the tsar's was struck by a heavy artillery barrage which killed everyone there except for a Cossack junior officer, who suffered from shell-shock because of the event. Controversy has abounded since July 1905 because the Cossack officer was convinced that the barrage came from Russian lines. This view was rejected by the Russian high command, who accused the British of firing on the tsar deliberately. The British government responded angrily to this accusation but never formed a clear line on the issue, swinging between stating that the tsar had chosen to put himself in the firing line and was therefore responsible for his fate or arguing that revolutionary agents within the Russian army initiated the barrage. These official explanation explanation that was eventually adopted by the Lvov-Kornilov Report, that the tsar had been killed by British artillery, has not satisfied everyone with just about everyone from the Bolsheviks to the United States secret service being accused of plotting the assassination. Other less ludicrous theories have suggested that the British knew full well that the tsar was there but wished to kill him to end the war quickly. In any case, Tsar Nicholas II has become known as the one of the first suspected victims of shelling [OTL term: fragging] as well as the worst tsar in recent Russian history.
The July Declaration
The fallout from the tsar's death was immediate. The Russian troops fighting alongside him immediately fell back to prepare for a more concerted assault on the British positions as soon as reinforcements arrived. It did not take long for news to reach St. Petersburg of the tsar's death. Fortunately for Russia, the tsarina was at the Summer Palace, away from the increasingly unstable capital, and the news reached Grand Duke Mikhail, the tsar's brother and second in line to throne, first. Recognizing that reforms were needed to stabilize the Russian state; inflation was spiralling out of control, transport was struggling to cope, food stocks were low in the cities, and the Russian economy was running out of money due to a de facto financial blockade by the British government. Mikhail quickly proclaimed his nephew, the infant Alexis as tsar and then summoned Sergei Witte and a number of other Russian statesmen and military commanders to discuss what to do. In a long meeting through the night of July 14th, it was agreed to offer the dissident groups a package of moderate but decisive reforms, with the hope of detaching the moderates from the extremists, who could then be defeated in detail. An elected Duma was to be established with some legislative powers and a broad franchise, although nowhere near as radical as some of the protesters would have liked. It was also agreed that a land bank should be established to allow peasants to buy their own land with the powers of the local councils (the zemstvo) were to have their powers extended. The reforms were less generous in the cities, where although the right to form trade unions and to strike was recognized, there was no protection against employers simply suing the unions to cover damages caused by the strikes. The national minorities were hardly treated better. No protections were provided for the Jews and autonomy of any degree was ruled out by Mikhail and his advisors. It was agreed that the Dowager-Empress should be kept out of any Russian government, Mikhail would serve as regent alone. The legality of such a decision was questionable but few in the Russian military were willing to tolerate the Dowager-Empress as ruler. Above all, a peace deal would have to be signed with Britain and Japan, whatever the cost. Peace would create some breathing space for the Russian Empire to restructure itself.
The reception of the July Declaration was neither as positive as optimists such as the Grand Duke had hoped or as negative as pessimists within the Russian military and Pyotr Stolypin feared. Liberal Russians reacted to the news with joy but they were in the minority. For many conservatives, the July Declaration went too far in undermining tsarist authority, while only the more moderate socialists saw the declaration as anything but a sign of desparation by the autocracy. (which in truth it was.) Among the socialist ranks, even comparative moderates such as Alexander Kerensky and the Trudoviks, the Declaration was merely seen as 'a step in the right direction'. After a week in which only a handful of groups came forward to support the July Declaration, Grand Duke Mikhail and Witte found themselves being forced to make more concessions. Most notable of these was a law that the Duma could only be dissolved by its own consent (except when its five year term expired). Even with these additional concessions, the July Declaration did not gain enough support for an election to the first Duma to be called until mid-October 1905.
The Treaty of Portsmouth
On July 16th 1905, the Russian ambassador in Washington contacted the US President, Theodore Roosevelt, to mediate a peace treaty between Britain, Japan and Russia. Roosevelt accepted the request for mediation and was ultimately able to persuade the Japanese and British to come to the table. The final treaty, signed a month later, stated as its key points:
Russian legislative election of November 1905
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets): 179
Trudoviks: 103
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party: 21
Conservative Liberals: 10
National Minorities: 45
Indepenents: 110
240 seats need for a majority
Outcome: Kadet/Trudovik coalition government (282 seats, majority of 22)
UK General Election, January 1906 (aka, the Second Khaki Election)
Unionist Party: 337 seats (-65)
Liberal: 213 seats (+30)
Irish Nationalist: 82 seats (+5)
Labour: 34 seats (+32)
Independent Conservative: 1 seat (+/-)
Independent Nationalist: 1 seat (+/-)
336 seats needed for majority
Outcome: Unionist majority government (337 seats, majority of 1)
In OTL, the Conservative and Unionist government of Arthur Balfour was essentially exhausted by 1906 and was defeated in a landslide defeat. In this timeline, a split in the Liberal party over the war with Russia as well as aggressive campaigning by the Daily Mail and other right-wing papers was enough to give the Unionists a small majority in the House of Commons. The Unionsts are also aided by the outbreak of the First Moroccan Crisis in early 1905 with Balfour claiming that “the Liberal plans for social insurance will make the maintenance of the Royal Navy at a level which can meet the German fleet impossible.” Compared to OTL, the Labour Party does better, gaining five more seats at the expense of the Independent Liberals and Independent Labour.
Coming next:
The First Moroccan Crisis; British domestic politics from 1906 to 1916; Russian domestic politics up until 1915.
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Any comments and criticisms are welcome.
teg
On February 8th 1904, Japanese torpedo boats initiated the first major international conflict of the 20th century with an attack on the Russian base at Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. Tensions between Japan and Russia had existed since the 1890s when Russia had conspired with France to rob Japan of its gains in the Sino-Japanese War. Although no oriental power had ever defeated a European state in modern times, Japan had formed an alliance with Britain which protected it from French intervention. Any doubts that the Japanese had a serious chance of winning the war were dispelled further in early May when the Japanese army defeated the Russian army in Manchuria at the Battle of the Yalu River. A string of further setbacks occurred and by the autumn of 1904, the Russian position in the Far East was looking extremely precarious.
The Baltic Fleet Redeploys and the Entry of Britain into the War
With the Russian Pacific Fleet trapped in Port Arthur and the Black Sea Fleet unable to pass through the Dardanelles, the only major strategic naval asset Russia could call upon against Japan was the Baltic Fleet. Despite having to travel half way around the world to reach the war zone, an unprecedented distance for steam powered warships, it was decided that the Baltic Fleet would be redeployed as the Second Pacific Squadron. After a number of false starts, the fleet sailed on October 15th under the command of Vice Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Its destination was on the other side of the world but in reality, the fleet would not get much further than the other side of Europe.
Problems began almost the moment the fleet sailed. Discipline was lax and there were rumours that a squadron of Japanese torpedo boats was waiting in a British port to ambush the Russian fleet. Rozhestvensky's attempts to calm his men were not entirely successful. Extra vigiliance did nothing to quell the paranoia sailors felt about torpedo boats, which dated from the Spanish-American War a few years previously, and his orders that no ships be allowed to get in amongst the fleet almost led to a Danish fishing boat carrying consular dispatches being sunk. On the evening of October 21st 1904, the disaster began when a Russian supply ship misidentified a passing Swedish ship and reported it was under attack. Fog rolled in, further limiting the vision of the fleet and in the darkness, a small group of British trawlers were mistaken for Japanese warships. The result was chaos. In the melee, the Russian fleet even managed to fire on two of its own ships, the Aurora and Dmitrii Donskoi being shelled by the battleships. This fire led to the death of a Russian chaplain and several Russian sailors being injured. As bad as the 'battle' was for the Russians, it was worse for the British fishermen who suffered nearly fifty casualties in the twenty minute conflagration. This was more due to luck than the calibre of the Russian gunnery, which was terrible (the battleship Oryol allegedly fired over 500 shells without managing to hit anything). While Rozhestvensky did manage to stop his ships firing, in the immediate aftermath of the incident he made a fatal error. Rather than attempting to rescue the remaining British sailors or leaving them lifeboats, the vice admiral ordered his ships to steam at full speed for the Straits of Dover in what was apparently an attempt to escape.
It did not take long for news to reach London of the Russian action and the response in the press was overwhelmingly angry. The Times commented:
“It is almost inconceivable that any men calling themselves seamen, however frightened they might be, could spend twenty minutes bombarding a fleet of fishing boats without discovering the nature of their target.”
The British government was scarcely less scathing with the Russian ambassador being summoned to Downing Street and then Buckingham Palace for a long dressing down from the prime minister Arthur Balfour and then from King George V himself. An attempt to apologize for the incident by Tsar Nicholas II himself appears to have been brushed off by the King, who stated bluntly, “I considered him the foulest villain king the world has ever seen at this time.” Given the widespread public anger, it is unlikely that war was preventable after Rozhestvensky ordered his ships to flee the scene of their crime. By the middle of October 22nd, the Home Fleet had been ordered to prepare for action, placing twenty-eight battleships between Rozhestvensky and the open sea. British hostility also meant that the Baltic Fleet would have to sail around Africa rather than through the Mediterranean, as well as avoiding British South Africa. The odds of a Russian victory in the Far East were shrinking rapidly. In an emergency cabinet meeting in London, it was agreed that an ultimatum would be presented to the Russian government. The demands were harsh; the Russian government was to pay reparations to the families of the fishermen killed on the Dogger Bank; the Baltic Fleet would be interned for the whole of the war; Rozhestvensky and his senior officers would be tried in Britain for piracy and other offences; the British government would be brought in to mediate an end to the current conflict between Russia and Japan. The Russian response was swift and for the most part conciliatory. The issue of reparations and the interning of the Baltic Fleet was accepted without question. The Russian government also agreed to ask for mediation but requested, given the state of 'high emotion' in Britain, that another one of the major powers be brought in to end the war in the Far East. Only the demand that Rozhestvensky and his officers be tried in a British court was rejected out of hand. Unfortunately, when news of the Russian response reached the British public on October 25th 1904, it sparked angry riots in parts of the country and a number of Russian businesses were attacked. Faced with growing hostility from the public and the press, Balfour rejected the Russian response as unacceptable. On October 26th 1904, Britain declared war on Russia.
The Battle of Thanet
Rozhstvensky had steamed at speed to try and reach the Straits of Dover but he found his path blocked by the Royal Navy's Home Fleet. Rather than turn tail, however, Rozhstvensky ordered his ships to remain in position and await further instructions. It was only on the morning of October 25th, when news reached him that a war with Britain was likely, that Rozhstvensky ordered the Baltic Fleet to turn around and make for the relative safety of the Baltic. Unfortunately, the Home Fleet, which was better organized and had been given orders to not let Rozhstvensky escape, was able to tail the Baltic Fleet until a formal declaration of war was made by the British government. At 10.07 AM, the British fired a salvo at Rozhstvensky's rear ships. These did not hit anything but forced Rozhstvensky to realize that he would not be able to escape the Home Fleet in time. In a desperate attempt to even the odds, Rozhstvensky ordered his ships to turn nearly 180 degrees and place themselves between the Home Fleet and the Isle of Thanet. The logic behind this decision appears to have been that the Home Fleet would be reluctant to risk firing upon British houses, although no one on the bridge of Knyaz Suvorov survived long enough to explain their decision making.
In any event, the Battle of Thanet was short and catastrophically one sided. The British lost two torpedo boats and one of their cruisers suffered minor damage. Total British casualties were less than two hundred killed and a few hundred injured. In contrast, only a single Russian destroyer survived long enough to surrender although thousands of Russian sailors were saved from drowning by the actions of the Royal Navy. Vice-Admiral Gerard Noel, the commander of the Home Fleet at this point, acted his considerable professionalism although the scale of the British victory owed more to the incompetence of the Russian Navy than to his brilliance as a commander. The battle drew a large number of spectators, although less than if it had taken place during the summer when the Isle of Thanet was teaming with visitors. One such spectator commented, 'It was more like a shooting gallery than Traflagar'. Any of the spectators who stayed until the end of the day near Ramsgate got an additional surprise when a lifeboat containing a number of Russian officers washed up. Among the survivors were a number of officers including Vice Admiral Rozhstvensky himself. The Russian admiral had seen his ship disabled almost immediately when a shell struck the bridge, injuring him in the process. He was rescued by a Russian destroyer, the Buinyi only to have for that ship to be sunk by numerous torpedo strikes latter in the day. By the time that the Buinyi was sunk however, there were hardly any Russian ships left and the few survivors were heavily damaged or immobilized. According to the other survivors, Rozhstvensky attempted to surrender to one of the British destroyers but the current dragged the lifeboat to the shore. This indignity marked the end of the line for Rozhstvensky. While the other Russian officers were quickly interned by the local police, by the time the police had reached the scene, the admiral was already hanging from a tree. To this day, it is unknown who killed Rozhstvensky. The surviving police records from the period do not provide much illumination; several bystanders claimed that Rozhstvensky hanged himself out of hang while a number of others claimed they had killed him personally.
The Strategic Situation in late-1904
The British victory at Thanet effectively destroyed the Russian navy and greatly lengthened the odds against a Russian victory in the war. However, while Vice-Admiral Noel and his men were lauded as heroes, their actions had done little to bring an end to the war. The Russian Army, if it could be fully deployed in the far east, was considerably larger than either the Japanese or British armies, and apart from Manchuria, there were relatively few places where British forces could be brought to bear against the Russian Army. Germany was reluctant to allow free passage for British ships through the Baltic and nobody wanted British troops to land in the Baltic provinces.2 Central Asia, while relatively open to British troops, would be logistically difficult and would not threaten any of Russia's major industrial areas. Landing in northern Russia, particularly on the Kola peninsula and around Arkhangelsk was the most promising alternate route into Russia but it would be closed until at least the late spring of 1905 when the weather improved. With few good options open, the British government was forced to settle for reinforcing the Japanese positions in Manchuria. Initially these reinforcements came from Australia and the British posessions in the Far East but by early 1905, the first troops directly from Britain had begun to appear. At the very least, there was little chance of a shortage of troops; the outbreak of war with Russia had brought about a major upswing in recruitment for the army. The British foreign secretary, Lord Landsdowne, was able to secure the neutrality of France by promising to support them if a crisis broke out involving Germany. None of the other European powers were interested in directly intervening in the war themselves.
On December 28th, with Japanese shells landing in the harbour and no hope of relief, the commander of the Russian garrison in Port Arthur asked for terms. With its southern flank now secure, the Japanese forces were able to focus their attention on pushing further into central Manchuria.
The Revolution of 1905 – Part I
On January 22nd 1905, a large crowd of demonstrators converged on the Winter Palace under the leadership of Father Gapon. While the protest was not political in nature, merely being aimed against the worsening living conditions and the losing war against Britain and Japan, the march caused a great deal of alarm among the guards of the Winter Palace. Although the aim of the protesters was to present a petition to the tsar, the tsar was not in fact in the Winter Palace that day and the protesters were met with lowered rifles. As the protesters headed towards the Winter Palace, they collided with a number of police and army checkpoints intended to keep them away from the palace. The first shooting began between 10 and 11 am in the morning with the most dramatic incident taking place on the Nevsky Prospekt when Father Gapon himself faced the soldiers but was unable to prevent the violence spilling over. By the time the shooting ended, as many as 4000 people were dead and the already tense situation had been inflamed.
Another wave of strikes, which were already numerous due to the tsarist government having to close a number of munitions factories due to lack of funds, broke out and spread across the entire country. It is estimated that 500,000 people participated in strike action during January 1905 alone and the figure continued to increase as the year went on. The tsar initially tried to calm the situation by offering to form a state duma with consultative powers but he backed away, apparently believing that the entire revolution was a British plot. By the end of February, disturbances had erupted in Congress Poland Finland, and were starting to take on distinctly nationalist character. In St. Petersburg, a worker's montaje was formed the name of the St. Petersburg Soviet.
The North-west Russian Campaign
Unknown to the British forces which descended on Arkangelesk in late May 1905, the northern reaches of Russia had often considered themselves to be relatively separate from the rest of Russia. The heavy-headed reaction by the tsarist government to the disturbances since late 1904 had not helped the situation and by the spring of 1905, many in the north-west were becoming inspired by the Finnish uprisings which had taken control of Helsinki and the other major cities. All of this meant that, to their surprise, the initial British landings were met with considerable approval and in some villages and towns by honour guards. Resistance from the Russian Army was negligible, with the scattered Russian units proving to be less of a nuisance than the appalling infrastructure.
The British landings around Arkangelesk caused panic in St. Petersburg. With the Manchurian campaign going no better than it had done the previous year and revolutionary groups contesting many areas of the country, it was becoming clear that the tsarist regime was on the brink of collapse. Some of the tsar's advisors were suggesting that he should flee St. Petersburg or even Russia itself. While the tsar had no time for such suggestions, he was increasingly convinced that his personal presence on the front would turn the situation around. On June 22nd, the tsar rode out with a detachment of Cossack troops with the intention of crushing the British army. While an objective observer would have said that the British were too entrenched at Arkangelesk by this point to be thrown back into the sea by the relatively small force the tsar could bring to bear against, it appears that Tsar Nicholas II was a firm believer in the maxim that the British Army could be arrested by the local police if it dared land on the continent. Some revisionists have claimed that the tsar realized he was doomed and that his decision to take personal command was essential an honourable suicide, which would allow the more moderate elements of the tsarist to make reforms, but this is not supported by the available evidence. The tsar rode off to battle the British in the full belief that he could throw back into the sea.
The Russian marched from St. Petersburg to the Northern Dvina River and then used rafts to move north until they reached the junction between the Northern Dvina and the River Pinega. It was here that the Russians met their first British resistance in the form of a fortified position where the two rivers met. Rather than besieging the emplacement, the tsar ordered his forces to storm the emplacement. The British only numbered about two thousand, the majority of the British Army in Russia was consolidating its positions around Arkangelesk, but they were better organized than the Russians and had good morale. What happened next has been the source of considerable debate among historians. The Russian assaults on July 9th and 10th were beaten with heavy casualties but on July 11th, the Russians received a number of new artillery pieces. This inspired the tsar to virtually lead from the front the next day when the Russians launched a new attack. During the fighting, the tsar's was struck by a heavy artillery barrage which killed everyone there except for a Cossack junior officer, who suffered from shell-shock because of the event. Controversy has abounded since July 1905 because the Cossack officer was convinced that the barrage came from Russian lines. This view was rejected by the Russian high command, who accused the British of firing on the tsar deliberately. The British government responded angrily to this accusation but never formed a clear line on the issue, swinging between stating that the tsar had chosen to put himself in the firing line and was therefore responsible for his fate or arguing that revolutionary agents within the Russian army initiated the barrage. These official explanation explanation that was eventually adopted by the Lvov-Kornilov Report, that the tsar had been killed by British artillery, has not satisfied everyone with just about everyone from the Bolsheviks to the United States secret service being accused of plotting the assassination. Other less ludicrous theories have suggested that the British knew full well that the tsar was there but wished to kill him to end the war quickly. In any case, Tsar Nicholas II has become known as the one of the first suspected victims of shelling [OTL term: fragging] as well as the worst tsar in recent Russian history.
The July Declaration
The fallout from the tsar's death was immediate. The Russian troops fighting alongside him immediately fell back to prepare for a more concerted assault on the British positions as soon as reinforcements arrived. It did not take long for news to reach St. Petersburg of the tsar's death. Fortunately for Russia, the tsarina was at the Summer Palace, away from the increasingly unstable capital, and the news reached Grand Duke Mikhail, the tsar's brother and second in line to throne, first. Recognizing that reforms were needed to stabilize the Russian state; inflation was spiralling out of control, transport was struggling to cope, food stocks were low in the cities, and the Russian economy was running out of money due to a de facto financial blockade by the British government. Mikhail quickly proclaimed his nephew, the infant Alexis as tsar and then summoned Sergei Witte and a number of other Russian statesmen and military commanders to discuss what to do. In a long meeting through the night of July 14th, it was agreed to offer the dissident groups a package of moderate but decisive reforms, with the hope of detaching the moderates from the extremists, who could then be defeated in detail. An elected Duma was to be established with some legislative powers and a broad franchise, although nowhere near as radical as some of the protesters would have liked. It was also agreed that a land bank should be established to allow peasants to buy their own land with the powers of the local councils (the zemstvo) were to have their powers extended. The reforms were less generous in the cities, where although the right to form trade unions and to strike was recognized, there was no protection against employers simply suing the unions to cover damages caused by the strikes. The national minorities were hardly treated better. No protections were provided for the Jews and autonomy of any degree was ruled out by Mikhail and his advisors. It was agreed that the Dowager-Empress should be kept out of any Russian government, Mikhail would serve as regent alone. The legality of such a decision was questionable but few in the Russian military were willing to tolerate the Dowager-Empress as ruler. Above all, a peace deal would have to be signed with Britain and Japan, whatever the cost. Peace would create some breathing space for the Russian Empire to restructure itself.
The reception of the July Declaration was neither as positive as optimists such as the Grand Duke had hoped or as negative as pessimists within the Russian military and Pyotr Stolypin feared. Liberal Russians reacted to the news with joy but they were in the minority. For many conservatives, the July Declaration went too far in undermining tsarist authority, while only the more moderate socialists saw the declaration as anything but a sign of desparation by the autocracy. (which in truth it was.) Among the socialist ranks, even comparative moderates such as Alexander Kerensky and the Trudoviks, the Declaration was merely seen as 'a step in the right direction'. After a week in which only a handful of groups came forward to support the July Declaration, Grand Duke Mikhail and Witte found themselves being forced to make more concessions. Most notable of these was a law that the Duma could only be dissolved by its own consent (except when its five year term expired). Even with these additional concessions, the July Declaration did not gain enough support for an election to the first Duma to be called until mid-October 1905.
The Treaty of Portsmouth
On July 16th 1905, the Russian ambassador in Washington contacted the US President, Theodore Roosevelt, to mediate a peace treaty between Britain, Japan and Russia. Roosevelt accepted the request for mediation and was ultimately able to persuade the Japanese and British to come to the table. The final treaty, signed a month later, stated as its key points:
- Russia would accept responsibility for the deaths of the British sailors on the Dogger Bank in October 1904 as well as for violating Japanese interests in Manchuria. As a consequence, Russia would pay reparations to Japan and Britain until 1920.
- Russia would yield its zones of influence in Manchuria and Persia to Japan and Britain respectively. Port Arthur and other Russian assets in Manchuria were to become property of the Empire of Japan.
- Russia was forced to cede he entirety of Sakhalin Island and Karaginsky Island to Japan.
Russian legislative election of November 1905
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets): 179
Trudoviks: 103
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party: 21
Conservative Liberals: 10
National Minorities: 45
Indepenents: 110
240 seats need for a majority
Outcome: Kadet/Trudovik coalition government (282 seats, majority of 22)
UK General Election, January 1906 (aka, the Second Khaki Election)
Unionist Party: 337 seats (-65)
Liberal: 213 seats (+30)
Irish Nationalist: 82 seats (+5)
Labour: 34 seats (+32)
Independent Conservative: 1 seat (+/-)
Independent Nationalist: 1 seat (+/-)
336 seats needed for majority
Outcome: Unionist majority government (337 seats, majority of 1)
In OTL, the Conservative and Unionist government of Arthur Balfour was essentially exhausted by 1906 and was defeated in a landslide defeat. In this timeline, a split in the Liberal party over the war with Russia as well as aggressive campaigning by the Daily Mail and other right-wing papers was enough to give the Unionists a small majority in the House of Commons. The Unionsts are also aided by the outbreak of the First Moroccan Crisis in early 1905 with Balfour claiming that “the Liberal plans for social insurance will make the maintenance of the Royal Navy at a level which can meet the German fleet impossible.” Compared to OTL, the Labour Party does better, gaining five more seats at the expense of the Independent Liberals and Independent Labour.
Coming next:
The First Moroccan Crisis; British domestic politics from 1906 to 1916; Russian domestic politics up until 1915.
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Any comments and criticisms are welcome.
teg
