WI: no Russo-Japanese war

Maybe this has been discussed before but the search engine didn't work so I post it here.

What if the R-J war would have been avoided, the Russians coming to an agreement with Japan dividing spheres of influence in the East: Manchuria for Russia and Korea for the Japanese. I can see a role for Sergei Witte here.

So tensions may be still there but having found a solution with the Japanese a war would have been prevented.

What would this mean?
There would be significant butterflies:
1) on the Russian Revolution of 1905
2) on the development of pan-slavism and Russian policies on the Balkan
3) on the Russian army and navy
4) Russian prestige as a strong power

SO, any ideas on this, what would be the maior butterflies??
 
Maybe this has been discussed before but the search engine didn't work so I post it here.

What if the R-J war would have been avoided, the Russians coming to an agreement with Japan dividing spheres of influence in the East: Manchuria for Russia and Korea for the Japanese. I can see a role for Sergei Witte here.

So tensions may be still there but having found a solution with the Japanese a war would have been prevented.

What would this mean?
There would be significant butterflies:
1) on the Russian Revolution of 1905
2) on the development of pan-slavism and Russian policies on the Balkan
3) on the Russian army and navy
4) Russian prestige as a strong power

SO, any ideas on this, what would be the maior butterflies??

No 1905 revolution, but discontent about poverty, backwardness and the Tsar's autocratic style of rule will simmer and will eventually explode some time in the future though not necessarily with a violent overthrow of the regime as in 1917. Pan-Slavic ideas will remain strong as Russia's status and prestige of great power remain unaffected because there is no RJW. Russia might be more confident in its support of Balkan nationalisms, perhaps leading to war sooner.

An unfortunate side effect will be that the inefficiencies of the Russian army remain hidden and there will be no efforts to amend them. The result will be that if WW I still erupts in 1914 the Russian army will perform even worse than it did IOTL and something like OTL's collapse will happen sooner.
 
You mean that WW1 erupts when Russia join the Balkan League in their war against the Ottoman Empire 1912 (or even earlier if the league could be concluded faster whit Russian prestige and help)? That if the pan Slavism and their cocky attitude prevails whiteout them finding out about their flaws in the army so they think they could take the Ottoman Empire on.

That if the alliance net is still in place, and everybody starts declaring war on one and each other, and not butterflyed away .
 
What if the R-J war would have been avoided, the Russians coming to an agreement with Japan dividing spheres of influence in the East: Manchuria for Russia and Korea for the Japanese.


Rather then looking at the results of there being no war, I think the first thing you need to examine is why Russia would consider negotiating in such a manner with Japan instead of going to war.

Remember, less than a decade earlier Russia had led the European intervention against the initial treaty ending the First Sino-Japanese War. Russia and the other powers had set that treaty aside and dictated a replacement more to their liking to both China and Japan.

A Russia which negotiates with Japan in 1904 is a very different Russia than the OTL's 1904 Russia. You need to examine why that Russia exists and how it came to be because those events will have far greater impact than the war which doesn't happen.
 
For Russia to negotiate with Japan, you would need:

a) Major Russian investigation into Japan, and making the Tzar and the nobility understand that Japan IS capable of fighting a modern war. Maybe Japan does well against another Great Power? Perhaps small skirmish battles lost lead the Russians to reconsider their options? Anyway, this would require a massive change of the quality of Imperial Russia's strategic leadership.

b) MAJOR internal difficulties, making moving troops to the east, let alone waging war there, impossible. Perhaps Russian far east commanders simply stop listening to the Tzar's orders and negotiate on their own initiative?
 
For Russia to negotiate with Japan, you would need...

Both rather huge and wrenching changes, don't you think? They'd have far more reaching effects than the "lack" of a R-J War, right?

I also think there's a failure by some to appreciate just how much of a near run thing the war actually was.

None of Japan's actions truly won the war for that nation, it was domestic unrest in Russia which that decided the issue instead. Tsushima was a smashing victory, but Togo's battleline couldn't steam across Manchuria. On land, Japan's victories had been increasingly pyrrhic. Nogi had come scarily close to gutting the Third Army against Port Arthur only succeeded there because the Russian commanders were more incompetent than he was. The final large battle, Mukden, cost Japan more casualties than it did Russia and Oyama only "won" because Kuropatkin decided to withdraw.

Towards wars end, Japan was running out of money and troops while Russia was still sending out major reinforcements along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. If domestic problems hadn't brought Russia to the negotiating table, the next campaigning season would have seen an increasingly outnumbered Japanese army repeatedly hammered by a larger Russian force until Japan risked being thrown off the Asian mainland altogether.

I also think it's important to remember that Japan offered Russia pretty much the same deal the OP suggested and Russia flatly turned Japan down.

We need a radically different Russia and that leads to many more things in many more places than just a "missing" R-J war.
 
We need a radically different Russia and that leads to many more things in many more places than just a "missing" R-J war.

Thanks for broadening up my thread.

Of course it was plain imperialism that lead Russia directly into the war. So a non-imperialistic Russia would have been a radically different Russia. But all great powers were very imperialistic then, so this is not realistic.

But I don't think that the R-J was was unavoidable. There is evidence that there was a split in opinion between several ministers and the Tsar. Had Nicholas listened to the "wise guys", he could have avoided the war.

Maybe a different, wiser Tsar would have done the trick.

So lets imagine there is a wiser Tsar who would support his ministers and thereby avoid th R-J war. What would be the butterflies??
 
Maybe the Japanese take Philippines in about 1900 instead of the US ( maybe Cuba is sold, or with autonomy enough to butterfly the US-Spanish war ), and do a good work enough to impress the Russians.

PD: Sorry all of you Teddy lovers: No Teddy president :p
 
Both rather huge and wrenching changes, don't you think? They'd have far more reaching effects than the "lack" of a R-J War, right?

I also think there's a failure by some to appreciate just how much of a near run thing the war actually was.

None of Japan's actions truly won the war for that nation, it was domestic unrest in Russia which that decided the issue instead. Tsushima was a smashing victory, but Togo's battleline couldn't steam across Manchuria. On land, Japan's victories had been increasingly pyrrhic. Nogi had come scarily close to gutting the Third Army against Port Arthur only succeeded there because the Russian commanders were more incompetent than he was. The final large battle, Mukden, cost Japan more casualties than it did Russia and Oyama only "won" because Kuropatkin decided to withdraw..

I wrote: For Russia to negotiate with Japan [with Japan getting Korea], not how to prevent the war. That is easy enough, the Japanese simply cave in to Russian demands and bide their time.

I am also aware of how poorly the IJA performed on land, and I haven't heard much nice said about Nogi.
 
Maybe the Japanese take Philippines in about 1900 instead of the US ( maybe Cuba is sold, or with autonomy enough to butterfly the US-Spanish war ), and do a good work enough to impress the Russians.

PD: Sorry all of you Teddy lovers: No Teddy president :p

If Asian-on-Asian warfare would have been convincing to the Rusians, why wasn't the First Sino-Japanese War?
 
That is easy enough, the Japanese simply cave in to Russian demands and bide their time.


You don't understand. There were no Russian demands.

Japan spent years making diplomatic overture after diplomatic overture, presenting note after note, making proposal after proposal, and Russia said nothing. Not "yes", not "no", not "maybe", not "we demand this", nothing. Russia didn't even bother to note her rejections. Russia simply ignored all Japanese attempts to discuss northeast Asia.

A POD in this situation not only must have Japan cave into Russian demands, it must also have Russia come up with demands and then talk to Japan if only to make those demands.
 
Maybe the Japanese take Philippines in about 1900 instead of the US...


Sorry, no. There are a couple of problems with that.

First, Japan must settle her security issues in northeast Asia. Putzing around in the Philippines doesn't do a thing about the Russian threat to Korea.

Second, Japan in 1898/1900 doesn't have the naval muscle to tackle Spain yet. Especially a Spain which won't be fighting in Caribbean at the same time and a Spain will receive plenty of European support.

You also need to remember that Japan only took on Russia after the 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance gave her the political cover she needed. 1904, no one in Europe was going to help Russia too much thanks to Britain having Japan's back. That won't be the case in 1898/1900.

Third, although you were suggesting Japan take the islands from Spain, someone will bring up the idea of Japan subjugating an independent Philippines. An independent Philippines isn't going to happen either.

There have been a few Philippines threads of late you might want to track down. Without a war, Spain isn't going to give up the islands as the homegrown rebels are no real threat. If Spain does cede the islands to her vanquisher, that power is going to hold onto the islands as a colony just as the US did. If, against all precedent, that power grants some form independence immediately, it will only be through a protectorate arrangement. The Philippines still wouldn't truly be independent and, when/if Japan comes sniffing around, she'll run into the protecting power.

The most plausible, and it's still stretching things, way I can see Japan getting a piece of the Philippines involves Japan being assigned Germany's territories there after a WW1 and that would still require Spain to lose a war, the victorious power only setting up a protectorate over those parts of the islands it wants, and a small "scramble" occurring among the European powers for the rest. Japan would not be invited to that scramble.
 
They defeat the Spanish, not the Philippines ... its a second rate power, thats for sure, but AFAIK not Asian.

They were not Spanish in 1900. I was left with the assumption that the Americans did not get the islands in the peace terms, but that the locals gained control of the territory, meaning Spain loses the islands anyway.
 
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