Why fachist France?

Eurofed

Banned
Hmm. I broadly agree, but I have to question whether it's really fair to call all three dynasties "far right". The Legitimists invented the phrase, of course, and their ideological heirs include the NF and quite possibly some sort of fascist French movement in the intebellum. That actual House of Bourbon would alienate people unnecessarily, but as with General Boulanger, the ideological agreement and overlap of personnel could be significent.

The "Orleanists" as a movement had splintered by the late 1870s. The more liberal had generally accepted the republic and become part of its politics, or else drifted away to ideological "Legitimists". And "Bonepartism" was more a statement of a personal conviction about France and politics than a coherent programme. After all, Napoleon III's own regime had been somewhat scatterbrained and ended up thoroughly discredited.

Well, of course you are broadly right as well. I should have more properly spoken of the "far right" fringes of the three traditional factions of the French right. Also that the French far right was mostly fueled by the Legitimist and Bonapartist traditions in the 20th century. Of course, this is mostly true in the broad sense of a general political worldview and set of attitudes and feelings, than in the strict sense of supporters of the various pretender dynasties. The ultra-Catholic, reactionary-authoritarian "Legitimists" and the militarist-imperialist populist-charismatic "Bonapartists". In various combinations, these two components would make up the framework of any French "fascism". And most likely it would end up involving some kind of more talented and resolute Boulanger figure. It may or may not restore the monarchy as a figurehead, even if the true power would be in the hands of the generals and politician strongmen that accomplish the regime change, or the restoration may be promised for the distant future, with the lead strongman officially becoming some kind of "Regent", or the President for life (depending which faction gets the upper hand).

Highly questionable. Ukraine is where the goodies are, and the oil is to be had firstly in the Caucasus. If Russia was to keep the Caucasus and at least Donbas, it might work, but the less the lose, the less reason they have to automatically plot against Germany.

Well, in a CP-cum-Italy victory TL, I would generally expect a CP victory in 1916-17. The war would have gone on long enough for the CPs to build up the animosity and enforce some kind of Brest-Litovsk & reverse Versailles harsh peace of Russia and France. Therefore I expect that Ukraine would almost surely be lost to Russia, including the Donbas. Heck, I would most likely expect a "Greater Ukraine" to be created, with the Don, Rostov, and Kuban regions as well (there were large amounts of Ukrainians in those regions before Stalin wiped them out in the 1930s). Concerning the Caucasus, it may or may not be lost as well, although with the Ottomans in the CPs, and the CPs not as exhausted as the OTL Entente, I think it most likely that the victors would be albe and willing to support the independence of Transcaucasia Federal Republic and the Mountain North Caucasus Republic as their vassals.

However, in this istuation I do expect that Russia would make a concerned effort to develop the natural resources of Siberia and Central Asia ealier than OTL, to fuel its industrialization, economic recovery, and rearmament. If those resources are put to good use, I assume that Russia can grow back mighty enough to unleash its challnege to the CP-led European order, even without Greater Ukraine and the Caucasus.

A possibility not given enough consideration, it seems to me, is "Green Russia" or "Pink Russia": the Bolshevik success was hardly predestined. The "whites" couldn't win the RCW in an Entente victory world, but what if we did something in the style of "A Leninless World"? Menshevik-SR flavoured people take over in the absense of Bolshevik energy and organisation and sign the original B-L. Russia is a lot stronger (the civil war will be a far-right fizzle-out, most likely), ideologically hostile to Germany, yet much more able to find friends.

Well, this is a definite possibility. I agree that Russia would be stronger. Of course, it remains to be seen whether a Green/Pink Russia would be as willing and determinate as a Red/Brown one to follow the revanchist path all the way to a WWII rematch. Its ideological hostility to a German-AH-Italian block that is most likely to evolve towards British-style liberal conservative constitutional monarchies (quite possibly with socialists as influential as in OTL Sweden) might not be so radical. It would find less ideological hostility from the rest of the world, but so would the CPs. The USA would remain aloof (unless Japan brings it in the fray, of course). Britain would have gotten a rather lenient peace, only losing some minor, mostly Mediterranean stuff: Malta, Cyprus, Somaliland, little else, and giving back the German and Italian colonies. As such, I assume that the British Empire would made its peace with the CP hegemony long ago when WWII looms, and appetite in Britain for a rematch would be rather limited.
 
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Well, of course you are broadly right as well. I should have more properly spoken of the "far right" fringes of the three traditional factions of the French right. Also that the French far right was mostly fueled by the Legitimist and Bonapartist traditions in the 20th century. Of course, this is mostly true in the broad sense of a general political worldview and set of attitudes and feelings, than in the strict sense of supporters of the various pretender dynasties. The ultra-Catholic, reactionary-authoritarian "Legitimists" and the militarist-imperialist populist-charismatic "Bonapartists". In various combinations, these two components would make up the framework of any French "fascism". And most likely it would end up involving some kind of more talented and resolute Boulanger figure. It may or may not restore the monarchy as a figurehead, even if the true power would be in the hands of the generals and politician strongmen that accomplish the regime change, or the restoration may be promised for the distant future, with the lead strongman officially becoming some kind of "Regent", or the President for life (depending which faction gets the upper hand).

Ah, I see what you mean.

Well, in a CP-cum-Italy victory TL, I would generally expect a CP victory in 1916-17. The war would have gone on long enough for the CPs to build up the animosity and enforce some kind of Brest-Litovsk & reverse Versailles harsh peace of Russia and France. Therefore I expect that Ukraine would almost surely be lost to Russia, including the Donbas.

But the German offer to Russia in 1916 was white peace (under exceptional circumstances, admittedly), and the intial B-L offer was pretty much the frontline after Gorlice-Tarnow. The Germans weren't aware of the extent of the rot Russia and their own capacity to move in to those areas. And the earlier Germany wins, the less that rot has taken effect and the more likley Russia to have a functioning state, a secure military hold on Kiev, and experiences, conventional negotiators.

The Ukraine hardly did include Donbas at the time. The Directorate, which in fact existed only in Kiev and was paid lip-service by the post-imperial authorities in much of Ukraine, had its authority recognised by Petrograd in the Dniepr valley but not Kharkov or New Russia, and in the industrial areas and port cities the power belonged to Soviets which were rapidly Bolshevised (about 10% of Ukrainians were Bolsh, overwhelming in those and a few other major urban centres: a small number in a healthy democracy, but a large number when it comes to taking command of the streets). The authority of Hetman Skoropadskiy, who ran a neo-Tsarist regime wearing a stolen blue-gold shirt, was only brought to these regions by German bayonets briefly and was met by mass industrial sabotage.

Heck, I would most likely expect a "Greater Ukraine" to be created, with the Don, Rostov, and Kuban regions as well (there were large amounts of Ukrainians in those regions before Stalin wiped them out in the 1930s).

That's a major oversimplification. Those Ukrainian minorities (and that's already by the 1897 census: the continuous trend, of course, was Russification) are still there, it's just that the great bulk of them now speak Russian. As did the great bulk of people in 1991 Kharkov or Odessa or even Kiev. That's not evidence of ethnic cleansing.

To say nothing of how ethnicity in "New Russia", taking the widest definition that includes the seaboard provinces from Besserabia to the Kuban, were extremely ill-defined. Village dialects, costumes, musical tradition etcetera varied between Great Russian and Ukrainian along a spectrum, as they naturally do (are the people in Polesia Russian? Ukrainian? Belarussian? Confused Poles? You, the political authority, decide!),politics less so.

The intellectual climate at Odessa University was rather differant from that of Kiev, and the whole Ukrainian national movement was basically middle-clas leftist anyway. It wasn't a matter of enormous concern to peasants which arbitrary language they spoke, compared to, say, getting their mitts on the land. Ukrainian Hetmanate, Red/Pink Russia? Russians. Ukrainian Directorate, White Russia? Ukrainians. Works like a charm.

The Holodomor did spill over into adjacent Russian regions (and that these oblasts were majority-Russian is an argument against an ethnic motivator for it), and there as everywhere the people on the countryside starved to feed the people in the cities, as was becoming to the Soviet state. That educated people in cities would be more likley to speak Russian (and that held true in Zhitomir as in Krasnodar) was not an ethnic motive. Sahaidak has given a rather fuller explanation of the whole thing somewhere.

Concerning the Caucasus, it may or may not be lost as well, although with the Ottomans in the CPs, and the CPs not as exhausted as the OTL Entente, I think it most likely that the victors would be albe and willing to support the independence of Transcaucasia Federal Republic and the Mountain North Caucasus Republic as their vassals.

If Russia melts down, sure. The Ottomans sent scouts to Petrovsk as it was. But until the collapse, Russia was actually winning in the Caucasus, and the initial B-L only ceded Kars and Batum. The Ottomans went further simply because the Armenian and Georgian leadership went rougue and tried to fight a quixotic holding action.

However, in this istuation I do expect that Russia would make a concerned effort to develop the natural resources of Siberia and Central Asia ealier than OTL, to fuel its industrialization, economic recovery, and rearmament. If those resources are put to good use, I assume that Russia can grow back mighty enough to unleash its challnege to the CP-led European order, even without Greater Ukraine and the Caucasus.

The raw materials are there, the population is not. Russia would still be significant power, but I'd question whether it can mount a military challenge with allies very far away.

Of course, depending on the regimes in Russia and Mitteleuropa, they might be able to stir up a lot of trouble without or before a direct declaration of war.

Well, this is a definite possibility. I agree that Russia would be stronger. Of course, it remains to be seen whether a Green/Pink Russia would be as willing and determinate as a Red/Brown one to follow the revanchist path all the way to a WWII rematch. Its ideological hostility to a German-AH-Italian block that is most likely to evolve towards British-style liberal conservative constitutional monarchies (quite possibly with socialists as influential as in OTL Sweden) might not be so radical. It would find less ideological hostility from the rest of the world, but so would the CPs. The USA would remain aloof (unless Japan brings it in the fray, of course). Britain would have gotten a rather lenient peace, only losing some minor, mostly Mediterranean stuff: Malta, Cyprus, Somaliland, little else, and giving back the German and Italian colonies. As such, I assume that the British Empire would made its peace with the CP hegemony long ago when WWII looms, and appetite in Britain for a rematch would be rather limited.

True, most likely.
 
The two biggest problems for France is the lack of heavy industry and manpower. Couldn't France turn to its colonies to deal with those problems.
If France keeps most of its colonies, then a smart government might realize the best way to gain strategic depth would be industrializing key areas of the colonies, and getting more colonial troops. This would make the French industry much more dispersed. But if the French had factories making guns, planes and tanks all around the world, they could build up slowly but steadily and ship the weapons straight to France. Combine this with soldiers who have practiced in multiple diverse environments, and France could in the late forties or early fifties be comparable to Germany.
Or is this too unlikely due to fear of colonial uprisings?
 

Eurofed

Banned
But the German offer to Russia in 1916 was white peace (under exceptional circumstances, admittedly), and the intial B-L offer was pretty much the frontline after Gorlice-Tarnow. The Germans weren't aware of the extent of the rot Russia and their own capacity to move in to those areas. And the earlier Germany wins, the less that rot has taken effect and the more likley Russia to have a functioning state, a secure military hold on Kiev, and experiences, conventional negotiators.

OTOH, Russia is going to collapse harder and faster ITTL. Besides switching the side of Italy, which already spells a lot of indirect trouble for Russia (A-H throwing its whole weight on Russia, Serbia being completely wiped out, Greece being at least a CP-friendly neutral, the Balkans becoming a CP playground, Germany and perpahs Italy too being able tothrow more weight East) a stronger CPs are quite likely to reposition either Romania, Sweden, or both, in the CP camp. So Russia is going to rot at least as quickly as IOTL, despite the accelerated schedule of *WWI. Therefore, IMO it is unwise to assume that CP aims and demands on Russian stuff are going to remain short of Brest-Litovsk stuff for long. Also because if, in all likelihood, Russia is starting to noticeably crumble in late 1915-eaqrly 1916, the Entente blockade would not have gone so bad on the CPs that would be too eager to finish the war ASAP as to throw around lenient peace offers. They would want to cripple France and Russia for good.

The Ukraine hardly did include Donbas at the time. The Directorate, which in fact existed only in Kiev and was paid lip-service by the post-imperial authorities in much of Ukraine, had its authority recognised by Petrograd in the Dniepr valley but not Kharkov or New Russia, and in the industrial areas and port cities the power belonged to Soviets which were rapidly Bolshevised (about 10% of Ukrainians were Bolsh, overwhelming in those and a few other major urban centres: a small number in a healthy democracy, but a large number when it comes to taking command of the streets). The authority of Hetman Skoropadskiy, who ran a neo-Tsarist regime wearing a stolen blue-gold shirt, was only brought to these regions by German bayonets briefly and was met by mass industrial sabotage.

Perhaps, but I remain terribly skeptical that those Bolshevik minorities would be able to exercise their opposition with much success, in the face of a strong Germany applying its geopolitical diktat. Mass industrial sabotage scarcely availed Communists anything really significant, outside of Russia in those years, it is not going to be anything really significant in the face of CP bayonets. In any case, if the Bolsheviks make themselves too much of a troueble for the Brest-Litovsk order, and quite possibly even otherwise, a CP expeditionary corps intervening in the Russian Civil War can make them a lot of damage. The Red victory in the RCW was not so guaranteed.

That's a major oversimplification. Those Ukrainian minorities (and that's already by the 1897 census: the continuous trend, of course, was Russification) are still there, it's just that the great bulk of them now speak Russian. As did the great bulk of people in 1991 Kharkov or Odessa or even Kiev. That's not evidence of ethnic cleansing.

To say nothing of how ethnicity in "New Russia", taking the widest definition that includes the seaboard provinces from Besserabia to the Kuban, were extremely ill-defined. Village dialects, costumes, musical tradition etcetera varied between Great Russian and Ukrainian along a spectrum, as they naturally do (are the people in Polesia Russian? Ukrainian? Belarussian? Confused Poles? You, the political authority, decide!),politics less so.

The intellectual climate at Odessa University was rather differant from that of Kiev, and the whole Ukrainian national movement was basically middle-clas leftist anyway. It wasn't a matter of enormous concern to peasants which arbitrary language they spoke, compared to, say, getting their mitts on the land. Ukrainian Hetmanate, Red/Pink Russia? Russians. Ukrainian Directorate, White Russia? Ukrainians. Works like a charm.

The Holodomor did spill over into adjacent Russian regions (and that these oblasts were majority-Russian is an argument against an ethnic motivator for it), and there as everywhere the people on the countryside starved to feed the people in the cities, as was becoming to the Soviet state. That educated people in cities would be more likley to speak Russian (and that held true in Zhitomir as in Krasnodar) was not an ethnic motive. Sahaidak has given a rather fuller explanation of the whole thing somewhere.

Well, I was not necessarily referring just to ethnic cleansing. You are right that Stalin wiped out those Ukrainian minorities also by hardcore Russification to a large amount. Sorry if I was unclear about this. Notwithstanding our long-standing kinda disagreement about the extent of Stalinist atrocities otherwise, this is beside the point. Those Ukrainians were not anymore so, after the 1930s. But ITTL it is not going to happen.

If the Brest-Litovsk order, including Greater Ukraine, is not going to collapse after scarcely a year as IOTL, but it is going to be entrenched by CP outstanding might, I can see all those uncertain ethnicities from Odessa to Rostov being redefined as Ukrainians, not to mention a good amount of those pre-1897 Russifications being reversed. As you said, Ukraine was where the goodies were, both as it concerns OTL Ukraine and the Don region, and I can't really see victorious CPs failing ot make a concerned effort to pull them in their own orbit. As you say, the situation was still rather fuzzy in 1917 as it concerns the prevailing national self-identification in those regions. IOTL it went towards Russia to a large extent (albeit nowhere so much that it porevented an independent, albeit "little", Ukraine in the end). ITTL it can easily go the other way.

If Russia melts down, sure. The Ottomans sent scouts to Petrovsk as it was. But until the collapse, Russia was actually winning in the Caucasus, and the initial B-L only ceded Kars and Batum. The Ottomans went further simply because the Armenian and Georgian leadership went rougue and tried to fight a quixotic holding action.

True, but again, there is not very much reason to assume that Russia does not melt down ITTL. It would require a rather different Russian leadership, to wisely bail out of WWI as soon as the Empire starts to come out at the seams. The most likely outcome is that they stay in, out of hidebound static stubborness like IOTL, till everying starts to collapse.

The raw materials are there, the population is not.

Well, once Belarus, Ukraine, and Caucasus are lost, and Russia is only left Siberia and Central Asia to grow back, and a government has stabilized that is willing to do something serious about national rebirth, why it should not do a concerned major effort about colonizing those areas ? Differently from post-1991, they are not going to have a demographic collapse, so they have the population to colonize.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
The two biggest problems for France is the lack of heavy industry and manpower. Couldn't France turn to its colonies to deal with those problems.
If France keeps most of its colonies, then a smart government might realize the best way to gain strategic depth would be industrializing key areas of the colonies, and getting more colonial troops. This would make the French industry much more dispersed. But if the French had factories making guns, planes and tanks all around the world, they could build up slowly but steadily and ship the weapons straight to France. Combine this with soldiers who have practiced in multiple diverse environments, and France could in the late forties or early fifties be comparable to Germany.
Or is this too unlikely due to fear of colonial uprisings?

Colonial uprisings would not be the main problems, not in the 1930s-1940s anyway. The main difficulty that I foresee about this strategy is that all the really valuable French colonies, resourcewise, are going to be snatched away by the CPs at the peace table. Morocco, Middle Congo & Gabon, Tunisia, most or all of Algeria, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Indochina, they are all going to end up in the Italo-German maw. They may be left stuff like the Sahel or Madagascar precisely because they are perceived as so low-value, but good luck about doing major industrialization of the Sahel. Also a Brown France may have serious political quibbles about propping up the lowly blacks so much, although those kind of regimes are typically eager about colonial settlement, so they can try to implement that industrialization strategy with French colonial settlers. OTOH, postwar France is going to have a serious demographic obstacle about major settlement of colonies, but they can always implement natalist policies. But again, the main problem is that they are going to have a very shrunken-down, low-value colonial empire after WWI.
 
Colonial uprisings would not be the main problems, not in the 1930s-1940s anyway. The main difficulty that I foresee about this strategy is that all the really valuable French colonies, resourcewise, are going to be snatched away by the CPs at the peace table. Morocco, Middle Congo & Gabon, Tunisia, most or all of Algeria, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Indochina, they are all going to end up in the Italo-German maw. They may be left stuff like the Sahel or Madagascar precisely because they are perceived as so low-value, but good luck about doing major industrialization of the Sahel. Also a Brown France may have serious political quibbles about propping up the lowly blacks so much, although those kind of regimes are typically eager about colonial settlement, so they can try to implement that industrialization strategy with French colonial settlers. OTOH, postwar France is going to have a serious demographic obstacle about major settlement of colonies, but they can always implement natalist policies. But again, the main problem is that they are going to have a very shrunken-down, low-value colonial empire after WWI.
Fair enough.
So if this was to happen France would have to lose, but not lose really badly, or bring Germany almost as close to the edge and realize it cannot control the colonies.
Hard to achieve, but possible.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Eurofed, when's the victory take place?

That will determine what the CPs wring out of France.

Well, my most likely assumption about this common scenario is: with CP Italy and USA out PoD, give or take military butterflies, some minors (e.g. Sweden, Greece, Romania) switching places or not, the other belligerants and neutrals in their OTL roles, and generalship not being really different from IOTL, I generally assume that the CPs are going to win in 1916 or 1917.

Not likely earlier, because IMO the Schliffen Plan is most likely going to fail, if by an hairbreadth, even if Italy joins the CPs in 1914. Not later because France and Russia do not have that much life in them, regardless of what Britain does. This is going to mean that the war most likely lasts long enough to make the CPs want to enforce the Brest Litovsk/reverse Versailles deal on unlucky France and Russia, while Britain gets out almost scot-free, but not so exactly exhausted in the immediate post-war as the OTL Entente to enforce it. Ie. I assume that they would make a concerned successful effort to stabilize things in Mitteleuropa (regardless of whether A-H is eventually stabilized or more likely partitioned), ex-Russian space, and avoid a Communist France. They may or may not let a Red Russia be, that's quite subject to butterflies.

Although, in order to have a WWII at all, we need to assume that later the CPs sleep at the helm enough, because they have economic troubles, colonial overextension, a pacifist spell, second thoughts about the harsh peace, victory overconfidence, whatever, so that France and Russia can rearm without interference.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Fair enough.
So if this was to happen France would have to lose, but not lose really badly, or bring Germany almost as close to the edge and realize it cannot control the colonies.
Hard to achieve, but possible.

Indeed, as I said in the post above, it is possible but hard to achieve. That's why I cast Russia in the main Hitler-like role for this *WWII, and France as the Mussolini-like sidekick, it is easier to accomplish. IMO the best chance to do what you seek is to make the CPs be really lucky, so that they crush France in 1914, Russia goes down in 1915, and are willing to give a relatively lenient peace. Of course, this in turn requires France and/or Russia to go psychotic over a relatively lenient peace. But looking at their post-1870 performance, this looks possible, at least for France.
 
OTOH, Russia is going to collapse harder and faster ITTL. Besides switching the side of Italy, which already spells a lot of indirect trouble for Russia (A-H throwing its whole weight on Russia, Serbia being completely wiped out, Greece being at least a CP-friendly neutral, the Balkans becoming a CP playground, Germany and perpahs Italy too being able tothrow more weight East) a stronger CPs are quite likely to reposition either Romania, Sweden, or both, in the CP camp. So Russia is going to rot at least as quickly as IOTL, despite the accelerated schedule of *WWI.

But there were two entirely parallel processes military failure and social failure. Military failure only became total when social failure did and the state ceased to exist.

In 1914, the Russian state was functioning and the army blundered into Tannanenberg.

In 1915, the Russian army had to abandon vast tracts of land and discontent started in the state.

But in 1916, the Russian army recovered, won in the Caucasus, went on the attack, and launched some of the most succesful offensives of the war, possibly saving France. All this time, the state was beginning to shake itself apart. Stuermer knew it, and wanted to save the state by taking advantage of Russian military success to ditch France.

In 1917, the Russian army was holding its lines well enough until the wholesale disintegration of the state.

Total German military victory before Russia has had the opportunity to fail as a state and destroy itself from inside means a negotiated peace. All the factors you've named contribute to a faster military failure, not a faster social one.

Therefore, IMO it is unwise to assume that CP aims and demands on Russian stuff are going to remain short of Brest-Litovsk stuff for long.


The Germans were offering the original B-L when they were, as we saw, completely capable of conquering Estonia and the Ukraine. They were simply not full aware of this, and had no particular desire to conquer territory which would be a drain on their resources (sure, you can take grain from the Ukraine, but you can buy it from your neighbour, Russia, without those pesky Ukrainians trying to stop you from taking it, which is ba big concern if you need every fighting man in France).



Also because if, in all likelihood, Russia is starting to noticeably crumble in late 1915-early 1916,


As I said, military failure is not social failure. The greatest military failure was in 1915, but social failure wasn't yet too advanced to prevent the military from recovering.



the Entente blockade would not have gone so bad on the CPs that would be too eager to finish the war ASAP as to throw around lenient peace offers. They would want to cripple France and Russia for good.

States have always tried to end wars to their best advantage weighing up gains, time, risk, lives, the lot, and statesmen always think more about risk and time. That total war is total victory is a very "age of excess" idea. Versailles wasn't "totaly victory" when the allies had the resources to do what they did in 1945, and Clemenceau for one wanted just that to be done. Germany wasn't planning on it for Russia in 1916 or 1917. The Bolsheviks made that possible themselves.

Perhaps, but I remain terribly skeptical that those Bolshevik minorities would be able to exercise their opposition with much success, in the face of a strong Germany applying its geopolitical diktat. Mass industrial sabotage scarcely availed Communists anything really significant, outside of Russia in those years, it is not going to be anything really significant in the face of CP bayonets.

True. I was making a general observation. Part of it OTL was that the Germans urgently needed to take food and so stridently supported the landowners, and they had only enough reserve troops available to hold down the borders, so inside the Hetmanate was a very angry populace and widespread lawlessness. A Germany that feeds itself and has troops to spare could do what it likes with Ukraine.

In any case, if the Bolsheviks make themselves too much of a troueble for the Brest-Litovsk order, and quite possibly even otherwise, a CP expeditionary corps intervening in the Russian Civil War can make them a lot of damage. The Red victory in the RCW was not so guaranteed.

There was nobody else in Russia whou could have convincingly won, which is not to discount the possibility of Bolshevik loss. But large-scale foreign involvement changes the game.

Well, I was not necessarily referring just to ethnic cleansing. You are right that Stalin wiped out those Ukrainian minorities also by hardcore Russification to a large amount.

Not really. There is still Ukrainian spoken there today, in pockets, Ukrainian features of the accent (Gorbachjov, from Stavropol Oblast' on the furthest edge of what might be termed New Russia, often pronounced his own name more like Horbachjov), and the playing of that Ukrainian harp-type-thing.

"Russification" is a process which occured naturally and doesn't say anything about politics: Kuchma had notoriously terrible Ukrainian. Up until '91, Russian was the language of utility and prestige, so educated people in cities looking for advancement in the Soviet system spoke it; however unlike in Tsarist times the Ukrainian language was not proscribed. UNDO in Galicia were the first to acknowledge that the Soviet promotion of Ukrainian language and culture in the USSR stood in contrast to their own situation in Poland. That was the 20s, of course, and then (as now) active Ukrainianisation was going on. But in the 30s all that happened was that Russian was restored to its status of prestige and utility. You could still publish in Ukrainian. Shevchenko was still a Proletarian Poet. The anthem was still in Ukrainian.

If Stalin had actually wanted to Russianise Ukraine, why did he allow it to exist as a seperate SSR? He could easily have declared it part of Russia and actively attacked Ukrainian language and culture. The Tsars did.

Sorry if I was unclear about this. Notwithstanding our long-standing kinda disagreement about the extent of Stalinist atrocities otherwise, this is beside the point. Those Ukrainians were not anymore so, after the 1930s. But ITTL it is not going to happen.

Lingual "Russianisation" for purposes of prestige and utility isn't going to happen under a Ukrainianising German regime. This doesn't guarantee loyalty to a Ukrainian regime nor distaste for a Russian one.

If the Brest-Litovsk order, including Greater Ukraine, is not going to collapse after scarcely a year as IOTL, but it is going to be entrenched by CP outstanding might, I can see all those uncertain ethnicities from Odessa to Rostov being redefined as Ukrainians, not to mention a good amount of those pre-1897 Russifications being reversed. As you said, Ukraine was where the goodies were, both as it concerns OTL Ukraine and the Don region, and I can't really see victorious CPs failing ot make a concerned effort to pull them in their own orbit. As you say, the situation was still rather fuzzy in 1917 as it concerns the prevailing national self-identification in those regions. IOTL it went towards Russia to a large extent (albeit nowhere so much that it porevented an independent, albeit "little", Ukraine in the end). ITTL it can easily go the other way.

Our Ukraine isn't really little. The Petrograd authorities in 1917 acknowledged the Ukrainian nation, its special status, its right to autonomy, and the legitimacy of the Rada, so it was obviously not a Russifier government, but it still claimed all Kharkov and New Russia as outside Kiev's authority.

True, but again, there is not very much reason to assume that Russia does not melt down ITTL. It would require a rather different Russian leadership, to wisely bail out of WWI as soon as the Empire starts to come out at the seams. The most likely outcome is that they stay in, out of hidebound static stubborness like IOTL, till everying starts to collapse.

But Stuermer tried to get Russia out in 1916. He was stymied by the detached-from-reality Tsar, the overconfident generals, and his political rivals, but he might well not have been if Ludendorff hadn't deliberately sabotaged Hollweg's peace process by proclaiming a sham kingdom of Poland.

Anyone but Lenin and Trotskiy would have taken the first B-L offer.

Well, once Belarus, Ukraine, and Caucasus are lost, and Russia is only left Siberia and Central Asia to grow back, and a government has stabilized that is willing to do something serious about national rebirth, why it should not do a concerned major effort about colonizing those areas ? Differently from post-1991, they are not going to have a demographic collapse, so they have the population to colonize.

They have people, but a drastically smaller number than the OTL Soviet Union. Russia can become a prosperous and modern country with a modern army and all that jazz, but it can't get back the distances and numbers that the Soviet Union had in 1922.
 

Eurofed

Banned
But there were two entirely parallel processes military failure and social failure. Military failure only became total when social failure did and the state ceased to exist.

In 1914, the Russian state was functioning and the army blundered into Tannanenberg.

In 1915, the Russian army had to abandon vast tracts of land and discontent started in the state.

But in 1916, the Russian army recovered, won in the Caucasus, went on the attack, and launched some of the most succesful offensives of the war, possibly saving France. All this time, the state was beginning to shake itself apart. Stuermer knew it, and wanted to save the state by taking advantage of Russian military success to ditch France.

In 1917, the Russian army was holding its lines well enough until the wholesale disintegration of the state.

Total German military victory before Russia has had the opportunity to fail as a state and destroy itself from inside means a negotiated peace. All the factors you've named contribute to a faster military failure, not a faster social one.

Your argument is valid, but some serious amount of that accelerated military failure can translate into accelerated social failure. E.g. demoralization and unrest from greater casualties and military defeats in general. I won't say it is a given, but I have strong expectations that in this scenario, the 1916 comeback can become a demoralizing failure of a last-ditch effort.

The Germans were offering the original B-L when they were, as we saw, completely capable of conquering Estonia and the Ukraine. They were simply not full aware of this, and had no particular desire to conquer territory which would be a drain on their resources (sure, you can take grain from the Ukraine, but you can buy it from your neighbour, Russia, without those pesky Ukrainians trying to stop you from taking it, which is ba big concern if you need every fighting man in France).​

Again, a valid point. Not an overwhelming one, though, since buying grain from independent Ukrainian clients beats buying it from former enemy Russia. And with the combined whole manpower of the Triple Alliance, the CPs can easily spare some men to do occupation duty in Ukraine, and still have plenty to overwhelm the Anglo-French (the latter almost surely desperately scraping the bottom of their manpower barrel by this point) without excessivr effort.

Ah, and for the record, after further thought, I've come to the conclusion that the lower hand of a plausible lenient peace that the CP may offer to teetering Russia in this scenario is being pushed back to pre-Napoleonic borders: no Congress Poland, Finland, Lithuania, quite possibly no Baltic states at all, and no Bessarabia, esp. if Romania is CP.

In comparison, France is going to get it somewhat harsher, because Germany would want to punish its revanchist recidivism and make it more difficult in the future, and because almost all the booty for Italy comes from French hide (and if they are going and have to let A-H alone, they would want to cut France down to size to rise in its place as continental beta dog and Mediterranean regional alpha dog). Lorraine, eastern Walloonia, Luxemburg, Nice, Savoy, Corsica, Riviera, Morocco, Tunisia, Equatorial Africa, Djibouti, Belgian Congo, quite possibly Ivory Coast.

True. I was making a general observation. Part of it OTL was that the Germans urgently needed to take food and so stridently supported the landowners, and they had only enough reserve troops available to hold down the borders, so inside the Hetmanate was a very angry populace and widespread lawlessness. A Germany that feeds itself and has troops to spare could do what it likes with Ukraine.

A good point in general. In the specific case, I may argue that Germany has many more troops from its allies on hand, and it is winning faster, so the CPs are a bit less desperate for food (the effects of Entente blockade were cumulative). So it may easily be able to manage Ukraine better.

There was nobody else in Russia whou could have convincingly won, which is not to discount the possibility of Bolshevik loss. But large-scale foreign involvement changes the game.

True as well. I gladly concede that the possibility of large-scale CP involvement being widely subject to political and strategic butterflies. However, it remains a definite possibility, if the CPs won within 1917 and therefore are nowhere so exhausted as OTL Entente.

But Stuermer tried to get Russia out in 1916. He was stymied by the detached-from-reality Tsar, the overconfident generals, and his political rivals, but he might well not have been if Ludendorff hadn't deliberately sabotaged Hollweg's peace process by proclaiming a sham kingdom of Poland.

True. OTOH, I perceive no obvious reason why he would have to be more successful ITTL (the Tsar and generals essentially remained that way practically all the way to February 1917), and Germany is not really going to be more accommodating on Poland ITTL.

Anyone but Lenin and Trotskiy would have taken the first B-L offer.

Quite true.

They have people, but a drastically smaller number than the OTL Soviet Union. Russia can become a prosperous and modern country with a modern army and all that jazz, but it can't get back the distances and numbers that the Soviet Union had in 1922.

Conceded. So it seems that in order to make the scenario most plausible, we ought to limit German demands to the first B-L offer, and hence basically the 1922 borders, more or less.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
There was nobody else in Russia whou could have convincingly won, which is not to discount the possibility of Bolshevik loss. But large-scale foreign involvement changes the game.

I am sick to death of this myth that the Whites could not have "won" the Russian Civil War.

While I will agree that the window for a White "victory" was very small and basically nonexistant after the winter of 1919, people on this board tend to forget that the window existed at all.

In October of 1919, Denikin was launching his offensive on Moscow. While the Whites were by not what one would necessarily call "unified," they were far from the splintered warlords they would become in 1920 and for the remainder of the war.

Wrangel had fairly solid control over the majority of White forces in Southern Russia/the Ukraine since his spat with Denikin hadn't yet flared up (it was by and large caused by the decisive failure of the Moscow campaign), and the same goes for Yudenich in the Baltics and Kolchak in Siberia. In fact, up until 1920, Kolchak was still (officially) regarded by Denikin, Wrangel, and Yudenich as the legitimate Commander-in-Chief of all White forces.

If Denikin is not betrayed by Makhno while he's en route to Moscow, or if he just decides not to send a couple regiments back to fight Makhno (which they never wound up doing, the anarchists basically having just pulled off a hit-and-run before the reinforcements could do anything about it), Denikin would most likely have defeated the Bolsheviks at the Battle of Orel.

A White victory at Orel that means that the Bolsheviks are going to reconsider the forces they sent to beef-up Petrograd (which they had previously thought of abandoning and were only dissuaded by Trotsky basically just ignoring their opinions and sending them anyways) and call them back to the capital. This means that Petrograd will fall to Yudenich and, even if the Red forces make it back in time, Moscow will probably fall to Denikin.

We should remember that in OTL, the Whites only really started to come undone after 1919 (corruption, drug abuse, arms-dealing, black marketeering, etc. was already endemic to the Whites, but not yet cripplingly so). The winter of 1919 is when Yudenich bowed out, basically leaving Whites in the Baltics and northwestern Russia without a leader. It's also the year that Denikin and Wrangel started fighting over what to do with their forces, a fight that would lead to Wrangel's resignation (and later brief re-installment) and Denikin and his cronies-cum-warlords grabbing land, wantonly looting, alienating Ukrainians with cultural chauvinism, and basically reversing all of the progress that the reform-minded Wrangel had initiated, thereby losing the support of most of the peasantry. And Kolchak? Well, he just got more and more autocratic when he realized he was the Whites' last chance at achieving anything.

In a world where the Central Powers are victorious, I have a hard time seeing them just sitting back and watching the Bolsheviks win. More likely they'd try to help out the Whites who, while not the best blokes, at least did not advocate international revolution and aristocide/regicide. We shouldn't forget that Lenin was used by the Germans pragmatically; once the Reds had done their job (i.e. knocking Russia out of the war) then they'd most likely get the boot themselves if not through outright CP intervention, then by CP client troops aiding the Whites (think the Czech Legion, only now there are more of them and they're comprised of Poles and Finns).
 
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I am sick to death of this myth that the Whites could not have "won" the Russian Civil War.

While I will agree that the window for a White "victory" was very small and basically nonexistant after the winter of 1919, people on this board tend to forget that the window existed at all.

That was the time I was thinking of when I imagined "Bolshevik loss", with their resources spread very thin at the time. I'm not saying that the White movement couldn't defeat the Reds at this point, but what I mean by "convincingly won" is that nobody except the Bolsheviks was in a position to quickly establish total control of Russia and all the bits of the empire that were salvageable. A "White" regime wouldn't come immediately into international politics as a new strong "Russian" polity as the red one did.

In October of 1919, Denikin was launching his offensive on Moscow. While the Whites were by not what one would necessarily call "unified," they were far from the splintered warlords they would become in 1920 and for the remainder of the war.

Wrangel had fairly solid control over the majority of White forces in Southern Russia/the Ukraine since his spat with Denikin hadn't yet flared up (it was by and large caused by the decisive failure of the Moscow campaign), and the same goes for Yudenich in the Baltics and Kolchak in Siberia.

True, there were certainly three unified armies that were capable of co-operation at the time, nobody's denying that.

If Denikin is not betrayed by Makhno while he's en route to Moscow, or if he just decides not to send a couple regiments back to fight Makhno (which they never wound up doing, the anarchists basically having just pulled off a hit-and-run before the reinforcements could do anything about it), Denikin would most likely have defeated the Bolsheviks at the Battle of Orel.

Of course, there's no obvious reason for Makhno not to turn against the Whites. Every soldier sent again him is one less against the Reds, and the White model with a solid core of hardened veterans and a large number of questionably useful conscirpt units was very vulnerable to coming apart after nasty losses.

But the Volunteers could get very lucky.

A White victory at Orel that means that the Bolsheviks are going to reconsider the forces they sent to beef-up Petrograd (which they had previously thought of abandoning and were only dissuaded by Trotsky basically just ignoring their opinions and sending them anyways) and call them back to the capital. This means that Petrograd will fall to Yudenich and, even if the Red forces even make it back in time, Moscow will probably fall to Denikin.

We should remember that in OTL, the Whites only really started to come undone after 1919 (corruption, drug abuse, arms-dealing, black marketeering, etc. was already endemic to the Whites, but not yet cripplingly so). The winter of 1919 is when Yudenich bowed out, basically leaving Whites in the Baltics and northwestern Russia without a leader. It's also the year that Denikin and Wrangel started fighting over what to do with their forces, a fight that would lead to Wrangel's resignation (and later brief re-installment) and Denikin and his cronies-cum-warlords basically reversing all of the progress the reform-minded Wrangel had initiated, thereby alienating most of the populace. And Kolchak? Well, he just got more and more autocratic when he realized he was the Whites' last chance at achieving anything.

True.

In a world where the Central Powers are victorious, I have a hard time seeing them just sitting back and watching the Bolsheviks win. More likely they'd try to help out the Whites who, while not the best blokes, at least did not advocate international revolution and aristocide/regicide. We shouldn't forget that Lenin was used by the Germans pragmatically; once the Reds had done their job (i.e. knocking Russia out of the war) then they'd most likely get the boot themselves if not through outright CP intervention, then by CP client troops aiding the Whites (think the Czech legion, only now there are more of them and they're comprised of Poles and Finns).

I didn't deny it. Note that I said that CP victory changed the game altogether.
 
Your argument is valid, but some serious amount of that accelerated military failure can translate into accelerated social failure. E.g. demoralization and unrest from greater casualties and military defeats in general. I won't say it is a given, but I have strong expectations that in this scenario, the 1916 comeback can become a demoralizing failure of a last-ditch effort.

But once Russia has no hope of military victory, it will immediately try to make peace. An early breakdown is possible, but it's liable to be less severe (sheer exhaustion, for one thing), and in OTL the Russians, though it failed were still able to launch the Kerenskiy offensive months after the fall of the Tsar. The breakdown was a gradual process.

Again, a valid point. Not an overwhelming one, though, since buying grain from independent Ukrainian clients beats buying it from former enemy Russia. And with the combined whole manpower of the Triple Alliance, the CPs can easily spare some men to do occupation duty in Ukraine, and still have plenty to overwhelm the Anglo-French (the latter almost surely desperately scraping the bottom of their manpower barrel by this point) without excessivr effort.

But again, would the idea ever occur to them, if Russia offers an otherwise satisfactory peace deal? The Germans were hardly convinced ideological believers in Ukraine.

Ah, and for the record, after further thought, I've come to the conclusion that the lower hand of a plausible lenient peace that the CP may offer to teetering Russia in this scenario is being pushed back to pre-Napoleonic borders: no Congress Poland, Finland, Lithuania, quite possibly no Baltic states at all, and no Bessarabia, esp. if Romania is CP.

That sounds pretty plausible. Besserabia is a strategic area with a ready-made justification for being detached from Russia, and Congress Poland was an aspiration of some in the CP (the Austro-Pole leadership, for instance) from day one. Lithuania and Courland would certainly come with it, and probably some of the core governorates following the Gorilice-Tarnow sort of line.

The Russians would do a lot to keep Estonia. They may not succeed, but did have their troops along the Dvina at Riga and Daugavpils until very near the end.

In comparison, France is going to get it somewhat harsher, because Germany would want to punish its revanchist recidivism and make it more difficult in the future, and because almost all the booty for Italy comes from French hide (and if they are going and have to let A-H alone, they would want to cut France down to size to rise in its place as continental beta dog and Mediterranean regional alpha dog). Lorraine, eastern Walloonia, Luxemburg, Nice, Savoy, Corsica, Riviera, Morocco, Tunisia, Equatorial Africa, Djibouti, Belgian Congo, quite possibly Ivory Coast.

The borders in Lorraine and the colonies were, in the September Programme, basically left to the generals, who were of course harsher than the civilian leadership. I should imagine them being very vulnerable to the hows and whys.

A good point in general. In the specific case, I may argue that Germany has many more troops from its allies on hand, and it is winning faster, so the CPs are a bit less desperate for food (the effects of Entente blockade were cumulative). So it may easily be able to manage Ukraine better.

True, although alot depends on who is in Moscow. The Hetmanate's supporters (such as there were) were Denikinites rolling with the blow fo German occupation mixed with a few actual right-nationalists (nationalists were largely lefty, because if you were "rightist" and "a nationalist" you were presumably a Russian nationalist: the Black Hundred men, despite their virulent hatred of all Ukrainian language and culture, were to be found in Kiev), as they showed by actually joining Denikin once their regime came unstuck. And teh Directorate were moderate lefty types, SRs and Mensheviks, who also happened to be militant about a language question.

Depending on who is in Moscow, Germany will have to look for differant bases of support, and to be honest with you I can't imagine the Directorate and the Germans getting on for long anyway. In the worst case, Ukraine may end up being ruled semi-colonially by Galicians determined to educate their ignorant western brethren and the ignorant western brethren wanting none of it. Forgetting for a moment about the mass food confiscations, partisans, Schuma, retaliatory village destruction, military regime, etcetera etcetera, this was basically what OUN was doing in 1941-43.

True as well. I gladly concede that the possibility of large-scale CP involvement being widely subject to political and strategic butterflies. However, it remains a definite possibility, if the CPs won within 1917 and therefore are nowhere so exhausted as OTL Entente.

Certainly.

True. OTOH, I perceive no obvious reason why he would have to be more successful ITTL (the Tsar and generals essentially remained that way practically all the way to February 1917), and Germany is not really going to be more accommodating on Poland ITTL.

But if Russia's allies are failing, it's much more evident that Russia will have to stomach some concessions in order to make an urgently-needed peace.

Conceded. So it seems that in order to make the scenario most plausible, we ought to limit German demands to the first B-L offer, and hence basically the 1922 borders, more or less.

Indeed.
 
I'd see the more likely WW2 being in a big eastern European rebellion to throw the Germans out.
France could indeed go a bit 'fascist' but I'd see this as more Italian style than Nazism. Don't forget the big factor in Hitler's rise was fear of communism. And a lot of luck.
France was hit hard in WW1, it was total war. Not a quick humiliating victory like the F-P war but a horrible big steady wearing down. Though there would be those wanting revenge and so supportive of fascism there'd also be those totally opposed to another war.
 

Eurofed

Banned
But once Russia has no hope of military victory, it will immediately try to make peace. An early breakdown is possible, but it's liable to be less severe (sheer exhaustion, for one thing), and in OTL the Russians, though it failed were still able to launch the Kerenskiy offensive months after the fall of the Tsar. The breakdown was a gradual process.

True.

But again, would the idea ever occur to them, if Russia offers an otherwise satisfactory peace deal? The Germans were hardly convinced ideological believers in Ukraine.

True as well. OTOH, after the experience of the Entente blockade, the CPs would be most eagerly interested into securing unrestricted access to Ukrainian grain for all time, out of sheer pragmatism. Of course, this also depends on what kind of regime takes over in Russia, and whether the CPs are more interested in securing a friendly regime in Russia-cum-Ukraine (at least in the medium term, say a decade, although in the long term, Russia is bound to escape control: I am applying a loose analogy between Yeltsin and Putin here) or in independent Ukraine, letting core Russia drift where the devil may take it. In other words, whether they use their power to secure clients in Moscow or in Kiev. If they intervene in the RCW and get a relatively friendly White or Green Russia (at least in the first few years; our scenario assumes that political butterflies eventually swing Russia back towards hardcore revanchism), they would not mind letting it keep Ukraine. If they don't bother intervening in the larger RCW, they would intervene to set up independent Ukraine as a vassal, either before or after the *Brest-Litovsk peace treaty.

That sounds pretty plausible. Besserabia is a strategic area with a ready-made justification for being detached from Russia, and Congress Poland was an aspiration of some in the CP (the Austro-Pole leadership, for instance) from day one. Lithuania and Courland would certainly come with it, and probably some of the core governorates following the Gorilice-Tarnow sort of line.

The Russians would do a lot to keep Estonia. They may not succeed, but did have their troops along the Dvina at Riga and Daugavpils until very near the end.

Well, I seem to remember that the Unified Baltic Duchy project had some serious supporters among reactionary fringes of the German elites. But I dunno how much stubborn and influential such lobbies would be if Russia's insistence to keep Estonia becomes the main stumbling block to peace. Would they be able and willing to set up Lithuania-Latvia instead as their neo-Teutonic aristocratic playground ? I dunno. Anyway, if Germany does accept to give up claims on Estonia, it is necessary that Russia gives territorial compensations elsewhere, such as additional slices of western Belarus/Ukraine instead. As I said, pre-Napoleonic borders plus the Baltic is IMO pretty much the extent of leniency that the CPs would be willing to offer Russia.

The borders in Lorraine and the colonies were, in the September Programme, basically left to the generals, who were of course harsher than the civilian leadership. I should imagine them being very vulnerable to the hows and whys.

Well, I absolutely expect that in the end Germany would claim all of Lorraine to the Maas, for various reasons, economic (the place has quite valuable resources and industries) and strategic (WWI has shown how much precious owning the area would be against France, e.g. Verdun in German hands from the start). Ditto for Luxemburg. Colonies are less immediately valuable to Germany, but I expect that at least some colonial gains for be seen as necessary to signify a "real" victory. This would most likely start with the stuff that France beat Germany to the gun before the war, in other words Morocco and Equatorial Africa. Depending on political and diplomatic butterflies, the list can be expanded to other territories or not, but I think the above is the absolute minimum list. If it does get expanded, I think the next most natural claims are Belgian Congo, eastern Walloonia, and Indochina, and this rough order, but Germany may decide to let mainland Belgium alone (but not Congo) in order to further appease Britain.

As it concerns Italy, they have their own un-negotiable pre-belligerance shopping list (Nice, Savoy, Corsica, Tunisia, Djibouti) which Germany would have had to guarantee in order to bring Italy onboard. On top of this, I totally expect that after the war the Italian shopping list would be expanded to include the Riviera, for economic and strategic reasons, reasons, and eastern Dauphiné, to control the strategic Alps watershed. This, I think, would be the absolute minimum list. Depending on political and diplomatic butterflies, this list, too, can be expanded to other territories or not, if it does I would expect it would be extra colonies, IMO eastern Algeria or Ivory Coast or part of Indochina (e.g. Vietnam and Laos to Germany, Cambodia to Italy).

Austria-Hungary, of course, would not have any significant claim on French stuff.

But if Russia's allies are failing, it's much more evident that Russia will have to stomach some concessions in order to make an urgently-needed peace.

Quite true. OTOH, since this scenario is supposed to be about a definite CP victory, not a peace of exhaustion, I'm assuming that the CP are reasonably smart and switch to a Russia First strategy relatively quick (say after Plan Schliffen and at the most a couple of Italo-German offensives on the Western front fail), since the much wider Eastern front doesn't really allow the trench stalemate to unfold and the CP can exploit their advantages to the fullest. As such, Russia would most likely be the first Entente power to feel the vice of military (and social failure) tightening. France, for all its terrible latent manpower deficit from the overextended front, may remain a giant with clay feet for some time, the defensive Italo-German stance masking its real weakness. Although if gung-ho idiots like Nivelle still get free hand with "elan" offensives (perhaps to relive Russia), the blood bill and manpower deficit would grow that much quicker, and we might expect even worse French mutinies in 1916.

For these reasons, I expect Russia to be the first to collapse and bail out a beggar's peace, even for the reason we have discussed, it may easily be the "lite" Brest-Litovsk peace. Which, by the way, IMO would be absolutely too late to save the Tsarist regime, although it may spin the course of the Revolution in a somewhat different direction.

As soon as France is thrown the bulk of the Austro-German-Italian hordes, its latent but worsening manpower deficit would be quickly revealed in all its huge severity, and the collapse of the Western front would be relatively quick. For various reasons, however, I expect France to rather more stubborn than Russia about conceding defeat to the hated Huns and the despised Wops, at the least waiting until Paris and Marseilles are overrun.
 
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