Intro and 1904
Hey all!
About a year and a half ago I started a timeline about what if the Dogger bank incident had led to a war between Russia and Great Britain in 1904: link here
I have decided that that TL was flawed and made fatal errors, and so I am starting version 2 here in a different format. I will be keeping some stuff from version 1 but discarding nearly everything else
So here is entry 1 of Version 2
1904 The break in the timeline
January: Russo-Japanese negotiations over the status of Korea and Manchuria break down. Japan begins preparing for an offensive against the Russians in Far East Asia
February: Japan recalls their ambassador and severs diplomatic ties with Russia. The Japanese Navy attacks Port Arthur
February: Due to the Anglo-Japanese alliance and current Russophobia in Great Britain, the Japanese and British agree to share intelligence regarding Russian war efforts
April: Anglo-Russian relations, never good to begin with, steadily deteriorate
April: Battle of the Yalu River: The Japanese advance through Korea arrives at the Yalu River
May: Battle of the Yalu River: The Japanese cross the Yalu River and majorly defeat the Russian Eastern Detachment, who retreat north
July: Due to the tensions with Russia, Vice Admiral Lord Charles Beresford begins conducting regular training exercises and patrols in the North Sea with the British Channel Fleet
August: Battle of The Yellow Sea: The Russian First Pacific Squadron attempts to break out of the siege of Port Arthur, but they are forced back to Port Arthur with heavy damage to the Russian ships
October: The Russian Baltic Fleet is renamed the Second Pacific Squadron and is redeployed under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky with orders to overwhelm the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Second Pacific Squadron sets sail from St Petersburg with Vladivostok as it’s destination
October: POD The Battle of Dogger Bank: The lead battleship of the Second Pacific Squadron, the Oryol, fires on the British Cruiser Dido, believing it to be a Japanese Cruiser operating in the North Sea. The Dido is sunk but radios word of the attack to Beresford, who orders his battleships north.
October: The Battle of Dogger Bank: Utilising their superior speed, the British Channel Fleet engage the Russians and cross the T. The ensuing barrage sees the battleships Oryol and Navarin fatally damaged. The Imperator Aleksander II and the Oslyaba are crippled by a torpedo run by several destroyers, while the Kynaz Surovov and the Sissoi Veliky are left dead in the water. The British battleship Swiftsure explodes from a magazine detonation caused by fire from the Borodino, which explodes several minutes later from another torpedo run. The remaining Russian battleship Imperator Nikolai I, as well as two destroyers manages to disengage by nightfall. The Battle of Dogger Bank is a decisive British victory.
October: Russophobe hysteria grips Great Britiain. Anti-Russian protests threaten to break into riots outside the Russian embassy. Tsar Nicholas II sends vague offers of peace and compensation upon the advice of his cabinet
October: Hartlepool incident: The Russian ship Kamchatka, who appeared to have avoided the Battle of Dogger Bank, shells the seaside town of Hartlepool, killing 10 and wounding several more. Anti-Russian hysteria reaches its peak. The captain of the Kamchatka is known to have regularly been drunk while commanding his ship
October: Russian offers of peace and negotiations are rejected by British Parliament and are followed up by a declaration of war. The Anglo-Russian War, more commonly known as the War of Dogger Bank, begins on the 22nd of October 1904
October: With the outbreak of war between Russia and Great Britain, France declares neutrality, declaring that Russia was the aggressor. The French ledearship acknowledge their incapacity to go to war with Great Britain
October: The Royal Navy issues a commission investigating greater protection for battleship magazines, an oversight that doomed the Swiftsure
November: Tsar Nicholas II fires his cabinet, crucially including Sergei Witte, chairman of the committee of ministers. Nicholas II claims that it was the advice of his cabinet that caused the war.
November: The Royal Navy begins operations in the White, North and Mediterranean Seas, blockading Russian commerce. They sink any ship flying the Russian flag
November: Theodore Roosevelt is re-elected President of the United States for a second term
December: Losses from the wars with Japan and Great Britain, as well as an inability to break the British blockade cause the already fragile Russian economy to crumble
December: Port Arthur, disheartened after news of the war with Britain, surrenders to the Japanese. The siege of Port Arthur ends after five months
December: Anti-war protests begin organising across Russia in response to the worsening economic conditions. These protests, however, remain largely peaceful and the protesters have not yet turned against the Tsar
December: The Finns remake their constitution and form a new national Diet based on universal suffrage. They begin negotiations with the Tsar for greater autonomy, with little headway
December: Polish militias begin an insurgency, seizing Lodz, with little resistance from the demoralised Russian army
As always constructive feedback is welcomed, and I will be attempting to upload updates fortnightly
About a year and a half ago I started a timeline about what if the Dogger bank incident had led to a war between Russia and Great Britain in 1904: link here
I have decided that that TL was flawed and made fatal errors, and so I am starting version 2 here in a different format. I will be keeping some stuff from version 1 but discarding nearly everything else
So here is entry 1 of Version 2
1904 The break in the timeline
January: Russo-Japanese negotiations over the status of Korea and Manchuria break down. Japan begins preparing for an offensive against the Russians in Far East Asia
February: Japan recalls their ambassador and severs diplomatic ties with Russia. The Japanese Navy attacks Port Arthur
February: Due to the Anglo-Japanese alliance and current Russophobia in Great Britain, the Japanese and British agree to share intelligence regarding Russian war efforts
April: Anglo-Russian relations, never good to begin with, steadily deteriorate
April: Battle of the Yalu River: The Japanese advance through Korea arrives at the Yalu River
May: Battle of the Yalu River: The Japanese cross the Yalu River and majorly defeat the Russian Eastern Detachment, who retreat north
July: Due to the tensions with Russia, Vice Admiral Lord Charles Beresford begins conducting regular training exercises and patrols in the North Sea with the British Channel Fleet
August: Battle of The Yellow Sea: The Russian First Pacific Squadron attempts to break out of the siege of Port Arthur, but they are forced back to Port Arthur with heavy damage to the Russian ships
October: The Russian Baltic Fleet is renamed the Second Pacific Squadron and is redeployed under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky with orders to overwhelm the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Second Pacific Squadron sets sail from St Petersburg with Vladivostok as it’s destination
October: POD The Battle of Dogger Bank: The lead battleship of the Second Pacific Squadron, the Oryol, fires on the British Cruiser Dido, believing it to be a Japanese Cruiser operating in the North Sea. The Dido is sunk but radios word of the attack to Beresford, who orders his battleships north.
October: The Battle of Dogger Bank: Utilising their superior speed, the British Channel Fleet engage the Russians and cross the T. The ensuing barrage sees the battleships Oryol and Navarin fatally damaged. The Imperator Aleksander II and the Oslyaba are crippled by a torpedo run by several destroyers, while the Kynaz Surovov and the Sissoi Veliky are left dead in the water. The British battleship Swiftsure explodes from a magazine detonation caused by fire from the Borodino, which explodes several minutes later from another torpedo run. The remaining Russian battleship Imperator Nikolai I, as well as two destroyers manages to disengage by nightfall. The Battle of Dogger Bank is a decisive British victory.
October: Russophobe hysteria grips Great Britiain. Anti-Russian protests threaten to break into riots outside the Russian embassy. Tsar Nicholas II sends vague offers of peace and compensation upon the advice of his cabinet
October: Hartlepool incident: The Russian ship Kamchatka, who appeared to have avoided the Battle of Dogger Bank, shells the seaside town of Hartlepool, killing 10 and wounding several more. Anti-Russian hysteria reaches its peak. The captain of the Kamchatka is known to have regularly been drunk while commanding his ship
October: Russian offers of peace and negotiations are rejected by British Parliament and are followed up by a declaration of war. The Anglo-Russian War, more commonly known as the War of Dogger Bank, begins on the 22nd of October 1904
October: With the outbreak of war between Russia and Great Britain, France declares neutrality, declaring that Russia was the aggressor. The French ledearship acknowledge their incapacity to go to war with Great Britain
October: The Royal Navy issues a commission investigating greater protection for battleship magazines, an oversight that doomed the Swiftsure
November: Tsar Nicholas II fires his cabinet, crucially including Sergei Witte, chairman of the committee of ministers. Nicholas II claims that it was the advice of his cabinet that caused the war.
November: The Royal Navy begins operations in the White, North and Mediterranean Seas, blockading Russian commerce. They sink any ship flying the Russian flag
November: Theodore Roosevelt is re-elected President of the United States for a second term
December: Losses from the wars with Japan and Great Britain, as well as an inability to break the British blockade cause the already fragile Russian economy to crumble
December: Port Arthur, disheartened after news of the war with Britain, surrenders to the Japanese. The siege of Port Arthur ends after five months
December: Anti-war protests begin organising across Russia in response to the worsening economic conditions. These protests, however, remain largely peaceful and the protesters have not yet turned against the Tsar
December: The Finns remake their constitution and form a new national Diet based on universal suffrage. They begin negotiations with the Tsar for greater autonomy, with little headway
December: Polish militias begin an insurgency, seizing Lodz, with little resistance from the demoralised Russian army
As always constructive feedback is welcomed, and I will be attempting to upload updates fortnightly
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