What if Russia entered the Austro-Prussian War on Austria's side?

Who would in this war?

  • Austria and her allies

    Votes: 37 82.2%
  • Prussia and her allies

    Votes: 8 17.8%

  • Total voters
    45
In 1866, Austria and Prussia fought with each other and victory ended for Prussia which eventually united with German states and fought France too. But what if in this alternate scenario, Russia joins the war to help out Austria due to fear of Prussia's power. How would that turn out?

According to historical numbers, Prussia mobilized 400,000 troops against Austria, backed by 300,000 Italians and 100,000 German allies. Austria mobilized 400,000 troops, and her allies provided another 200,000. Russia had 500,000 active troops defending her empire. 120,000 were in Asia, fighting in India, and another 130,000 in the far east, patrolling her Siberian and Chinese colonies. If her 200,000 reservists were called up she would have 450,000 troops to invade Prussia with. Prussia had another 200,000 troops facing the French across the Rhine, and another 200,000 troops defending East Prussia and Silesia from the Russians, as well as another 130,000 reservists being prepared to be thrown into service at any time.
 
Hello, this is my first time so be gentle with me. I am sure that the Austro-Russian coalition would decisively defeat Prussia, but I have to question why you think that Russia would want to get involved in this German rivalry. From a historical viewpoint Russia tended to stay out of German politics. Why would they want to get involved. The acquisition of new territories (East Prussia, West Prussia and Posen presumably) so soon after yet another Polish insurrection was probably most undesirable. The general consensus of opinion in Europe at the time was that Austria should comfortably win a war against Prussia. Prussia had to back down against Austria only 16 years earlier and its army's performance against the Danes was not that stunning. Moltke's strategy of dividing his forces gave a well led Austrian army the opportunity to deal with the enemy formations one at a time, Austria's misfortune was that her army was not well led, at least not in the northern theatre of operations. Should Russia wish to enter the conflict she might well have chosen to side with Prussia. The opportunity to gain Galicia and advance her frontier to the Carpathians would probably be a much better war aim.
 
I doubt Russia would back Austria as the latter betrayed the former during the Crimean war just 12 years earlier when they were still allies.
 
If the Russians make it clear they'l get involved before hand on Austria's behalf (although they wouldn't without a pod as they preferred Prussia at this time) then there won't be a war.
If they jump in after the fact and that's the only change there is a definite chance that Prussia would smash the Austrian army at koniggratz and then whip around and also beat the Russians.
I'm unsure as to what the Russians can field with any kind of speed or what the quality of their army was at the time however.
 
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I'm not sure why everyone assumes Prussia would lose.

Prussian military had a logistic advantage. In the next war 5 years later, the Prussian logistic proved to be superior to the French one let alone the Russian one. That in combination on how relatively weak the Russian military is in comparison to the Prussian one. All the Prussians need to do is hurt the Russian Armies three or four times and they'll start abandoning Austria. Russia won't lose anything more than prestige and soldiers (the latter could be replaced).
 
If the Russians make it clear they'l get involved before hand on Austria's behalf (although they wouldn't without a pod as they preferred Prussia at this time) then there won't be a war.
If they jump in after the fact and that's the only change there is a definite chance that Prussia would smash the Austrian army at koniggratz and then whip around and also beat the Russians.
I'm unsure as to what the Russians can field with any kind of speed or what the quality of their army was at the time however.

You can look to their wars before and after 1866 (1853 and 1878).

During the Crimean War, the Russian army wasn't the most modern force. Definitely not more than the Prussians. In 1877 the Ottomans were close to beat the Russians.
 
I think that I am correct in saying that the Prussians overran their supply lines during the 1866 campaign. Logistically much better in 1870-71, they had a lot of lessons to learn from. I also think that most people believe that the Prussians would lose because they can only really fight in one theatre at a time, their army is just not big enough for a multi-front war. Whilst campaigning against Austria's allies in Western Germany they can either match the Austrians in Bohemia or face the Russians in Poland. Not both. Which means whatever power isn't facing the Prussian army can march towards Berlin pretty much unhindered. The campaign of 1866 was not as one-sided as it seemed. Austria had chances to defeat the Prussians and even Koeniggraetz, although ultimately a victory, was for a long time quite an even contest. The arrival of Second Army, under the Crown Prince, tilted the result in Prussia's favour but until the result of the battle was in the balance. So the answer to the question "Who would win this war?" is Austria and her allies 99 times out of a 100.
 
The Prussians wouldnt want to face both simultaneously anyway and unless the pod changed the battle in an unforseen way the Austrians would still get smashed and then the Prussians would be free to turn around and steam roll the Russians, assuming the Russians were even in a position to mobilizes sufficient forces to invade Prussia in a timely manner.
 
Let me get this right. The Prussian Army, after smashing the Austrian North Army would just turn around and march back across Bohemia. Marching through the same countryside that it had been living off for weeks it would then file through the mountains and “steam roll” the Russians whilst leaving the victorious Austrian South Army in its rear. I doubt that it would be in a fit state to offer much resistance to the Russians. I think that the danger here is that the 1866 campaign is being looked at in the same way as the 1914 campaign, unfortunately for Prussia there would be no Tannenberg. Russian troops in Berlin before the Prussians reach Silesia is my bet.
 
Let me get this right. The Prussian Army, after smashing the Austrian North Army would just turn around and march back across Bohemia. Marching through the same countryside that it had been living off for weeks it would then file through the mountains and “steam roll” the Russians whilst leaving the victorious Austrian South Army in its rear. I doubt that it would be in a fit state to offer much resistance to the Russians. I think that the danger here is that the 1866 campaign is being looked at in the same way as the 1914 campaign, unfortunately for Prussia there would be no Tannenberg. Russian troops in Berlin before the Prussians reach Silesia is my bet.
Perhaps but as I've been alluding to this entire time it depends entirely on what the Russians can mobilize with any kind of speed
 
Perhaps but as I've been alluding to this entire time it depends entirely on what the Russians can mobilize with any kind of speed

More to the point; can they mobilize and make a meaningful impact on the battlefield before Paris and London decide that this affair has gone behyond the bounds of a local conflict about the internal structure of the German Confederation and spilled into the international arena to the point that mediation/intervention was justified? Neither one has the desire to see the continued expansion of Russia (or a system of her allies) into Eastern Europe to the point of establish absolute hegemony, nor seeing the broader idea of the "Concert of Europe" fully broken down, and news tends to travel faster than armies. You could very well see the Austro-Prussian war end not in a bi-laterial treaty, in that case, but sent to a Congress where a new, mutually acceptable balance of power/structure was established in the German Confederation to prevent either Austria or Prussia from fully dominating it.
 
Compared to the OTL, I think this counts as an Austrian win. It's certainly a win for her allies.

Its certainly a HUGE win for the minor German states, and a (net) positive result for Vienna, but it would be more about preventing the affair from becoming a major Russian victory and keeping Austria independently powerful enough/with enough of her own interests counter to Moscow to keep Eastern or Central Europe from falling entirely under the control of a tight single faction.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
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Wouldn't it be against Alexander II's personality to get himself tangled in Western European affairs. The expansion direction he cared about was south towards the Ottomans, and basically even then was careful with his casus belli, to make sure it didn't end up Another Crimean War.
 
The chances of a Russian intervention on the Austrian side were non-existent.

Austria's failure to support Russia in the Crimean war has been already mentioned: it was considered a major betrayal, the more so since Russia had intervened in Hungary in 1849 to quell the anti-Habsburg insurrection. Alexander II believed that it had a direct impact on the death of his father, and was so incensed that he ordered the portrait of Franz Joseph to be moved from the imperial palace to the stables.

Even more damning, however, was Austrian failure to support Russia during the Polish insurrection of 1863: not only Austria refused to intervene, but they lined up behind France and Great Britain to condemn the harshness of the repression. Prussia's behavior was rather different: as soon as the insurrection started, Bismarck sent to St. Petersburg gen. von Alvensleben to propose to the czar a convention, which was signed on 8 February 1863, granting to Russian and Prussian troops the right of hot pursuit across the border and guaranteeing a quick extradition of all Polish insurgents who might escape to Prussia. The Alvensleben convention was never utilized, but Prussian behavior (which was condemned by France, the UK and Austria) was much appreciated in Russia.

In 1865, prince Gorchakov, the Russian foreign minister, went to Paris and London to try to mend the fences (and also to regain the right to send warships in the Black sea), but was very badly received and pilloried by the British and French press. The only place where he got a good reception was in Berlin, where both the king and Bismarck lionized him. It's no surprise if Gorchakov promised Bismarck, who was an old friend of him, Russian neutrality in case of a war between Austria and Prussia.
 
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