I'm not assuming everything is the same, with a 1900 POD alot of things could positively change to better prepare Russia to at least be SOMEWHAT competent for WW1, but how that would happen isn't the point of the thread. This thread already assumes that it did happen and the questions are how that would affect the world going forward.
If you think any of that is ASB then that is fine and totally fair, but it's also not really contributing anything of value to the spirit of this thread or an Alternate History forum.
Well, if we ignore “how” then:
(a) Depending on how fast the alt-WWI is over, there may or may not be a boost of prestige for the regime. Look at the victorious OttomannWar of 1877-78: the victory was there but the massive screwups (Plevna, level of corruption, clear incompetence of the commander-in-chief and some top generals, etc.) resulted in government
losing popularity rather than gaining it. OTOH, if the government/military leadership demonstrated a reasonably high level of a competence avoiding major setbacks, unnecessary losses, supply shortages etc. then Nicholas has his position strengthened.
(b) By 1914 Russia is already a constitutional monarchy so after the war is over a lot depends upon the role which Duma played during the war time. If it managed to be clearly useful in a war effort then it also is getting a boost and a chance to increase its power. Of course, this, just as (a), assumes a more intelligent and competent Nicholas (or at least Nicholas listening to the competent people) capable of learning the lessons. So, in the best case scenario, by the end of WWI Russia has a responsible government formed by the Duma. Taking into an account that in OTL IV Duma majority had been held by the representatives of the nationalist and right wing parties, I’d assume that a meaningful cooperation was possible assuming a realistic amount of a brain power
on both sides.
(c) Realistic acquisitions: Galicia and perhaps the Turkish Armenia. Straits issue is tricky because, as soon as the war is over the Brits would try to backpedal on any promises made during the war. With a reasonably competent government Russia may use this as a bargain chip because what it actually needed was a guarantee that the 3rd party warships would not pass through the Straits during the war: even with a completed program of building up the Black Sea Navy Russia did not have any clear
strategic goals on the Med (there was a prewar plan of having a base on the French North Africa but it ended up with nothing) and hardly can be British competitor. So perhaps writing off of some of the war debt could be negotiated as a compensation for giving up the claim and agreeing on some kind of a demilitarized zone controlled by the victors.
(c) Problems:
(c1) A comprehensive land reform would be almost inevitable (actually, the process was going on since the reign of AII even if slowly) and the most impacted entity would be imperial family as the biggest landowner. So some kind of a compensation would have to be figured out. Actually, strange as it may sound, the imperial family was not doing too well financially in OTL. Income from its lands was not adequate to support obligations to the Grand Dukes (AIII had to change the rules for eligibility to the title cutting their number) and these lands had been managed rather conservatively to avoid accusation in using position for speculations.
(c2) As a result, in OTL the members of the imperial family had been given the well-paid positions in the military (some of these positions allowing to take considerable bribes) and sometimes had been involved in the speculative adventures like Bezobrazov Affair, which led to the RJW. So something would have to be done to put the whole situation on a solid financial basis while removing on of the main sources of the existing income. Simple confiscation does not look logical: quite a few Grand Dukes served with the distinction during the WWI and at least some of the Grand Duchesses (at least Maria Pavlovna who became a registered nurse) served as the nurses in military hospitals. More or less the same applies to the remained landed nobility.
(c3) Power of the unions had been growing and the new labor laws would be unavoidable.
All this being said, there was an opposite scenario advocated, for example, by the Grand Duke Alexander Michailovich who argued that the Russian monarchy must be
absolute to survive. Strange as it may sound, he was not a backward retrograde but probably the most advanced “technological” thinker in the whole imperial family. He authored a number of the projects of a coastal defense battleship, armored cruiser, and battleship (proposing in 1899 a battleship with uniform armament of 16 203mm guns in 8 turrets), was a head of the department of the merchant navy, organized school of aviation and from 1910 was a head of the Russian military aviation. Still, while at the beginning of 1917 (before February Revolution) he was advocation inclusion of the “public figures” into the government, he was against a “responsible government” (aka, one formed by the Duma).
In other words, in the case of success there could be at least two main scenarios to follow.
Now, as far as “how” is involved, some of the problems listed in the earlier posts were not as serious as it seems:
While Russian army was short on the big caliber artillery (which could be relatively easily remedied by switching a portion of the over-blown naval budgets to army), the munition issue (very serious in 1915 but it seems that Russia was not unique) was relatively easily resolved later in the war when the small tool shops became involved on a major scale.
The same goes for a possibility to increase production of the rifles, helmets, barbed wire, etc.
Development of the aviation started well before the WWI but government was rather reluctant in allowing the private aviation schools and did not pay enough attention to the domestic development of the motors and grasping importance of the aviation in general. Not that there was a shortage of the brain power and expertise: Sikorsky was working in Russia and during WWI the first truly heavy bomber, Ilya Muromets, was developed and produced (not in the numbers big enough to make a difference). Surely, the military planes could be armed with the machine guns from the very beginning (at the start of the war the only weapon was pilot’s revolver).
Russia definitely could and should to move most of its gold deposits abroad from France to the US: the first thing the French did was to freeze these accounts to preserve interests of the French investors and then allowed some loans (with the gold used as a security) with an obligation to buy the military equipment in France. The problem was that France did not have any noticeable surplus to spare. The Brits were doing practically the same. Having available funds for the massive purchases in the US on the early stage of the war could make a serious difference.
The Russian high command was excessively sympathetic to the requests for help coming from the allies with the resulting disasters at Tannenberg, Baranovichi, etc. and not too much of a reciprocity from the allies. Surely, this could be changed to provide a better balanced scenario allowing Russia to concentrate on AH and the Ottomans (forcing the Germans to move their troops to the AH to save situation thus lessening pressure upon the French and Brits) while being more defensive against the Germans. Of course, the OTL leadership from the c-in-c and to the front level was mostly inadequate for the task and this is a real problem: where would you get the adequate alternatives before the war? Cleansing after the RJW obviously was not eno
Domestic supplies could be better organized by the early introduction of “prodrazverstka”. This would work both for the army and for the cities.
Propaganda among the civilians (and the troops) was definitely inadequate: image of “the enemy” (which was created in Germany, France and Britain) was close to non-existant.
