What if Russia won and proceeded to annex the Ottoman empire.
First of all: The Russian army of the crimean war was so ridiculously bad it's borderline impossible for them to win the war.
Second: Something as ridiculous as attempting to annex the entire Ottoman Empire would immideatly have lead to a war with Austria, which would also bring at least Prussia and Sweden in the war too.
Last of all: Trying to annex such an enormous amount of territory riddled with a hostile population would be simply insane. Even when the Russians still thought that they could win the war their maximal war aim was a slavic and orthodox satellite on the balkans with control over constantinople. No one ever wanted to annex pieces of anatolia.
What if Russia won and proceeded to annex the Ottoman empire.
I've done a lot of research into the russian army in the crimean war and what you're saying is inded true. But one has to remember that while the Russian's couldn't produce enough ammunition, had corrupt officers who stole supplies etc, the British army was also not without fault ie the charge of the light brigade.
Why sweden though?
I think this needs either a POD significantly back in time or a visit from an Alien Space Bat.
The chance to get Finland back.
The Finns were quite inflamed because of the Anglo-French policy of destroying a great number of Finnish ships and warehoused trade goods like lumber or tar (often actually enroute to Britain) in the Finnish port towns - these actions caused major economic losses to the Finns rather than to the Russians. So there was a real feeling in Finland of being on the same side with the Russians, seeing the attackers as the enemy. Under those conditions, I would deem it unlikely for the Finns to rise against the Russians in great numbers during the war - and this would be the necessary condition for any successful Swedish campaign in Finland.
Wasn't that the actions of one total moron, though? I seem to recall that he was sent out with a brief to raid Russian towns, and torched huge amounts of British property...
It did have a great impact on the local economy nonetheless, as well as the Finnish morale during the war. Given how much Finnish capital was tied up in shipbuilding, shipping and the export of lumber and tar at the time, it is quite understandable the Finns didn't much like it. Being part of the Russian Empire was, tradewise, pretty OK anyway, even in comparison to the last parts of the Swedish rule - or especially in comparison with those times.
Oh, I don't doubt it. I just wasn't sure it was actual British *policy* - he got a lambasting for it.
It did look like that to the Finns, which is relevant to the local perception of the war - most of them didn't have access to Parliament records or the British newspapers at the time.
Right. So it would take some kind of change in *his* actions to alter the course of events up there - but it wouldn't particularly take a change in the government's actions.
(I was mainly correcting your description of it as Anglo-French policy - it may have looked like that, but it wasn't entirely...)
Russia win the Crimean War? Practically impossible. They were lucky to finish in the top two.