Tsarist Russian Success/survival in World War one?

The search function has turned up no results so forgive me if this has been discussed before. Is Russian success possible in the First World War? Perhaps a less disastrous battle of Tannenberg could help turn the odds in the Russian's favor? If Imperial Russian success is simply too unlikely is it possible for Tsarist Russia to survive World War One with no territorial losses? It seems to me that if Russia simply manages to survive the war it will gain at the peace table and this would do a lot to help keep the Russian lower class docile.
 
At this point in time, Tsarist Russia existed pretty much upon the prestige of the army. When the Russo-Japanese war was lost 1905, revolution followed. Then the army was still mostly intact and crushed the revolt. 1917, the army had been defeated even worse, was in shreds and parts of it even joined the revolt.

Yes, if the Russian army is victorious in ww1, I could see Tsarist Russia surviving, especially if Stolypin's land reforms continue and form a substantial class of Kulak farmers on which to rest power on for any Tsarist government.

However, I find it unlikely - you probably need someone either far more competent, ruthless and decisive than Nicholai II or someone more inclined to give in to constitutional reform on the throne.
 
It's been discussed in quite a few threads; no harm in starting a new one.

Russia made many unnecessary, costly mistakes in WWI starting with the Tannenberg campaign. The invasion of East Prussia in 1914 might have succeeded -- von Prittwitz seriously thought about evacuating the whole territory after the battle of Gumbinnen. However, the Russian First Army stopped their advance after that battle when there wasn't much in front of them, allowing the Germans to destroy the Second Army at Tannenberg. Compounding the error, the Russian armies maintained contact by radio and failed to code their messages, so it was child's play for the Germans to know what they were doing.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You can probably save the Tsar if peace is made in the Winter of 1915/16. Once you get past the planting season in Spring 1916, it is really too late to expect the Tsar to survive. Without food, things have a strong tendency to collapse.

Now if you want to write greatly different WW1, you can have some hopes of saving the Tsar in a longer war but you have to fix the food issues, rail issues, and have the Russians attack much less aggressively. It is very hard to do all three and not have the CP win. If the Tsar attacks in better order in 1914 (slower), the A-H likely keeps the fortress cities and has the experience cadre of NCO for later in the war. German takes more land in France but does not win in 1914 or early 1915 (logistical issue for Germans mostly). To get more food, you have two routes. One is to mobilize fewer men and horses. So this means the Russians fall back to the defensive line and largely leave Poland undefended. Same effects as slower attack but even greater effect. Germany will be able to pound France at its leisure and likely knock France out of the war. Or you can have food imports, which means the Ottomans go Entente. Complicated POD. What exactly made the Ottomans switch sides? Given Egypt back? unlikely. Maybe the Tsar could give the Ottomans the Turkish areas of Persia and Russia. Complicated post war impacts. And to get more railcars, you need the Ottoman solution.

Russia was not really ready for this war. It could not mobilize such a large army and avoid hunger in the 3rd year. It had too few rail cars for a long war. You need a plan on the scale of Stalin's industrial works to fix.
 
I fear that once the war started, winning is the only option, unless a peace is brokered which returns the complete status quo. Now that would have been reasonable, but WW1 wasn't started or led by reasonable people.
A separate peace would most probably not be victorious and even with pre-war borders would still entail losing the Balkan-influence.

So...winning. I think they managed against A-H what they could, and it was not little. That leaves Germany. Germany had quite little at hands. If the Russians had done a decent job in East-Prussia in 1914, plus Hindenburg/Ludendorff miscalculating their sparse forces somewhere along the line - they could have had a situation in which the Eastern Front would be wiiiiiiiide open to Tsarist troops.
Either Berlin panics then and does things which makes them lose the war faster than Russia does, or the Russian Army finds a way to hold their ground subsequently on favourable positions (Weichsel from Danzig onwards, Karpaten) - and the whole show might go a rather different way.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I fear that once the war started, winning is the only option, unless a peace is brokered which returns the complete status quo. Now that would have been reasonable, but WW1 wasn't started or led by reasonable people.
A separate peace would most probably not be victorious and even with pre-war borders would still entail losing the Balkan-influence.

I assume you mean status quo pre-war. I can't see this option. It was not two alliance systems dominated by two superpowers, but instead two alliance of Great Powers. So in some ways you have 3 CP powers and 5+ Entente powers all negotiating a peace deal that will have to be done very fast. The problems with Prewar status quo.

1) France wants A-L.

2) Japan will not give back its gains unless it believes the UK will go to war over it.

3) The UK dominions will not want to give up its gains.

4) The Russians want Poland back. At times they hold part of A-H, so this maybe doable depending on what date the peace offer is made.

5) Reparations will be an issue.


Quite Frankly, I can't see the Entente even agreeing to unified negotiating position to make peace offer. The Entente could probably live with status quo prewar in Europe plus German reparations plus some German naval restrictions plus keeping the colonies captured. The problem is that in a negotiation, you have to give something to get something. The only issue I see as workable is the reparations. Germany could probably agree to excessively large payments to Belgium and France if Germany got the Belgium Congo. I don't see how to get around the German colonies taken.

So now we have to move for status quo prewar to status quo date of negotiations. And once we do this, then we have to give Germany something for evacuating France. (Germany thinks it is winning at this time). Germany can probably accept a "independent" to client state Poland. And since most of the time, Germany was fighting on enemy soil, we have moved from Entente win terms to CP win terms.

And I see the same problem if German extended its interpretation of "status quo" prewar. It would ask for all its colonies back, for Serbia to be puppet of A-H, prewar French/German borders, removal Belgian forts on German borders. Now I could sort of see German offering Russia its prewar borders in the east as a way to try to split the Entente. But this offer is shot down on a couple of reasons. France will not sign on Reparations and A-L issues. UK will not like the forts term. And its dominions + Japan will not want to give back colonies. Japan in particular will want some British Colony or other equivalent concession for giving back Tsingtao, and for the life of me, I don't see what the UK can offer Japan.
 
Or you can have food imports, which means the Ottomans go Entente. Complicated POD. What exactly made the Ottomans switch sides? Given Egypt back? unlikely. Maybe the Tsar could give the Ottomans the Turkish areas of Persia and Russia. Complicated post war impacts. And to get more railcars, you need the Ottoman solution.
Well you don't really need the Ottomans in the Entente, all you need is for them to stay neutral and keep the Bosphorus open to shipping. IIRC when this has come up in the past the Ottoman cabinet were against participating in the war and the Sultan likewise advocated neutrality but the Three Pashas went behind their backs when making the pact with Germany, many of them only learning of it all after hearing about bombardment of Sevastopol. Hell, only a couple of years before the war they sent Ahmed Djemal on a diplomatic mission to France but it came to naught. Perhaps he does better or the rest of the cabinet catches wind of what's happening and are able to scotch the Ottoman-German alliance?

If you want the Tsar to survive then best way is to have the Russians avoid the clusterfuck of Tannenberg and related battles, Pritwitz panics and pulls his forces back behind the Vistula - which IIRC was actually part of possible German plans, and things settle down to a fairly stable stalemate like in the west. Couple it with the Ottomans staying neutral so that shipping can still get through allowing the Russians to export their grain and bring in supplies and trains/rolling stock to get it where it needs to go. Aside from a few probing attacks every now and again the situation in the north stays fairly stable allowing the Russians to concentrate on the Austro-Hungarians, hopefully able to ride things out until the war ends.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Well you don't really need the Ottomans in the Entente, all you need is for them to stay neutral and keep the Bosphorus open to shipping. IIRC when this has come up in the past the Ottoman cabinet were against participating in the war and the Sultan likewise advocated neutrality but the Three Pashas went behind their backs when making the pact with Germany, many of them only learning of it all after hearing about bombardment of Sevastopol. Hell, only a couple of years before the war they sent Ahmed Djemal on a diplomatic mission to France but it came to naught. Perhaps he does better or the rest of the cabinet catches wind of what's happening and are able to scotch the Ottoman-German alliance?

If you want the Tsar to survive then best way is to have the Russians avoid the clusterfuck of Tannenberg and related battles, Pritwitz panics and pulls his forces back behind the Vistula - which IIRC was actually part of possible German plans, and things settle down to a fairly stable stalemate like in the west. Couple it with the Ottomans staying neutral so that shipping can still get through allowing the Russians to export their grain and bring in supplies and trains/rolling stock to get it where it needs to go. Aside from a few probing attacks every now and again the situation in the north stays fairly stable allowing the Russians to concentrate on the Austro-Hungarians, hopefully able to ride things out until the war ends.

I disagree. If the Ottomans are "neutral" they will still be slightly pro-German. So they likely are doing a lot of little things to slow down the food movement. But even if this is not true, the Germans will be acquiring a complete list of ships passing through and their cargo from spies. This information will go out to the U-boats who at first will attack these ships as the leave the choke points. The UK will not be able to use Turkish ports as bases for escorts. And the escorts will not be allowed through the straights. Later after Bulgaria enters, they will be attack from both sides. It will become the main focus of the U-boat war, and with such an easy target, might actually help Germany by reducing chances of USW that angers USA. Few Americans will be traveling to the Crimea.

You need active Ottoman support (join Entente) for this to work.
 
The UK will not be able to use Turkish ports as bases for escorts.
If Turkey is truly neutral then neither would the Austrians or Germans, the Allies can use Italian ports which puts them slightly closer to the straits - and IIRC escorts have a much longer range than u-boats, and later Greek ones right next door. Bulgaria's entry is a very good point. If the Austrians and Germans attack in Ottoman territorial waters then that would put them in a very tricky situation, especially if they either can't or don't take effective steps to counteract them. You've certainly given me something to think about.
 
I assume you mean status quo pre-war. I can't see this option.

Actually, neither do I. It was a theoretical thought.

---

Concerning submarines. I do not see a possibility for the CP to effectively choke the route to Istanbul with Turkey neutral, but Greece and Italy in the Entente.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
If Turkey is truly neutral then neither would the Austrians or Germans, the Allies can use Italian ports which puts them slightly closer to the straits - and IIRC escorts have a much longer range than u-boats, and later Greek ones right next door. Bulgaria's entry is a very good point. If the Austrians and Germans attack in Ottoman territorial waters then that would put them in a very tricky situation, especially if they either can't or don't take effective steps to counteract them. You've certainly given me something to think about.


They will attack right out side. The U-boats have plenty of range. The blockade Saloniki for most of the war. They used USW rules from day one with few to no complaints from the USA. Once ships rounded the Greek isle, they sank everything. Same is likely here. It is just a target rich environment on both sides of the straights. Then we get into the Russian navy escorts, which are few. Easy, easy shooting for CP. It is not that it is not help, it is that it will be expensive help of modest value.
 
Top