What If Everything Went PERFECT For Russia?

the Russian Empire was one of the largest nations in history but in this video I want to explore how we can alter Russian history between 1815 and 1914 seeing how we can build an even larger Russia from this time period as always in this series I will be focusing this video on the geopolitical Ambitions of Russia and not worry too much about the internal development or politics of the nation with that said let's dive in in the early decades following the Congress of Vienna there isn't too much to change Europe is recovering from the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars and while Russia is dealing with some minor conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia there's really not too much we can alter the first major change we can make though is during the Egyptian ottoman Wars Egypt was led by Muhammad Ali who managed to trounce the elements in a war gaining control over the Levant the second war however would see the Ottomans gain support from most of the European great Powers forcing the Egyptians to return everything east of the Sinai to the Ottomans but before we dive into some alternate conflicts why not explore some for yourselves in the excellent Game World of Warships as a completely free to play game that's available on PC is the perfect game for any history fan every single month more content is being added with new ships Nations looks the game will constantly feel fresh during amazing 12 feet 12 battles World of Warship has over 40 maps with Dynamic weather and beautiful water effects and textures almost making it feel like you're really there you can play the game any way you want experience the powerful battleships agile destroyers the stelzy submarines or even an aircraft carrier if the air is more of your Speed the game is not just available on PC either as it's available on most major consoles so be sure to go down to the link in the description to download the game entering the code warships to receive exclusive in-game rewards like a bunch of the balloons and credits a free ship and premium downtime so what are you waiting for go to the link in description and start playing now here I want to propose a change in our timeline France and Spain supported Egypt While most of the other powers supported the elements allowing the great powers to overwhelm and strong-arm Egypt if even just Russia supported Egypt instead the threat of a war could likely result in a more compromised deal perhaps one where Egypt only loses Syria to reduce the threat of the Egyptians marching through Anatolia to Constantinople ensuring a weaker Ottomans into the future with this we can jump to another alternate conflict an alternate Crimean War we now have a weaker Ottoman Empire but that's not enough if the West does decide to stand up to the Russians what we need for Russia to win this conflict is for the austrians to support them this is a little bit of a tall order as the austrians like any other European power feared the expansion of Russia into the balcony but the austrians did owe the Russians since it had been Russian forces which broke the Hungarian Rebellion a couple years ago if Russia had been very open in discussing their plans with the austrians beforehand promising Austria Bosnia the neutrality of the Romanian principalities while only aiming for minor expansion themselves the austrians may just be convinced to support the Russians this would lead to a radically different Crimean War as if France and Britain do decide to militarily back the Ottomans everyone could well see that the resulting War could be long and devastating under these conditions a compromise ending could be very well possible where Russia Romania and Austria all gained some territory and the Romanians are officially liberated from ottoman rule which leads us to the matter of Alaska by all accounts Russia holding on to Alaska would not be worth it despite a significant gold and oil reserves of the region still holding on to the territory does give Russia a unique position to have a presence in North America something only the U.S and Britain can replicate perhaps in this alternate timeline instead of selling the territory to the U.S out of fear and economic motives Russia could keep a hold of it while teaming up with the US to allow American civilians and companies to operate in the territory tying the U.S and Russia closer together while making the U.S invested in keeping the British away from Alaska back to Europe the German Wars of unification are next where Russia could have if they had so chosen then a major influence by backing the austrians but this is also where Russia needs to ask itself an important question supporting the austrians nearly guarantees that the prussians will lose if Russians even dare to start such a conflict but while supporting Austria and preventing or slowing the rise of Prussia something that Russia even wanted to do in terms of gold harsh geopolitics the austrians too wanted to dominate the Balkans and allowing the prussians to do their thing may be very beneficial to Russia if the Russians had played their cards right in negotiations with Bismarck by merely threatening to intervene on the Austin side Russia could extract some concessions from oppressions when the time comes for the austro-prussian war the Russians managed to extract some economic concessions and perhaps the secession of some minor territories like memo or land in Poland a small price to pay for the unification of the German Empire with this the Russians grow slightly larger while the austrians are crippled much like in our timeline but Tick Tock it's beating up on the elemental clock with the steady decline at the Ottomans holding on to the Balkans has become impossible as revolves became become a more common occurrence the Ottomans were brutal in keeping these revolts down and even France and Britain were realizing that keeping the Ottomans as an artificial balancing force in Eastern Europe was an increasingly unrealistic task the severe and cruel reaction to the revolts did little to endure the Ottomans to the rest of the great powers and the time was ready to change the borders to balcon a bit in another russo-turkic War the Russians were going in to liberate the Balkan militarily speaking they would have been able to capture most of the balcon including Constantinople but this would have sparked war with the other great Powers much like in our timeline Russian gains would be relatively minor but the real prize is the full Independence of the Belgian States most notably Bulgarian And in regards to Bulgaria I want to make a couple of major changes in our timeline Russian Bulgarian relations declined post Bulgarian Independence as Russia focused on Serbia as their so for pan South Slavic Ambitions while the Russians and bulgarians both have Ambitions on the Bosphorus relations further strained when Bulgaria sought unification with the autonomous region of Eastern romelia which was still under element control Russia not willing to upset the other great Powers didn't support his unification even retreating Russian military officers from Bulgaria something which became very painful when Serbia invaded Bulgaria a war in which again the Russians did nothing to even diplomatically support bulgarians in this alternate timeline I want the Russians to at least somewhat support bulgarians in their unification with calls for support becoming louder when it became clear that the other great Powers weren't going to stop it from here Russia would need to take on the admittedly difficult role of overseeing the relations between Bulgaria and Serbia ensuring that the two south-slavic states become allies rather than rivals in the Balkan but we have been focused on Europe what's happening elsewhere the Scramble for Africa could have seen some Russian colonies if we really wanted to but there's really no point for Russia to get involved let's say Russia does secure some colonies they simply don't have any good Naval routes to these colonies and they simply would not have been worth the effort over in Central Asia Russia has managed to conquer pretty much everything they could only stopping at Iran and Afghanistan with the Russo British rivalry as well as other great power fears towards the Russians something like this was pretty much the best that Russia could hope for we could adjust the borders slightly but the conquest of Afghanistan or Iran would be extremely difficult by itself even if Britain wasn't watching carefully to ensure the safety of British India meanwhile the decline of China has seen Russia Force concessions in Manchuria annexing the outer regions while gaining a sphere over the inner regions as well as a leads over Port Arthur in Korea area then Russia hadn't necessarily created a puppet regime but Korea was clearly in the Russian sphere of influence but everything changed when Japan attacked an invasion of Korea put a peninsula under Japanese control as the Japanese continued on into Manchuria as a result of this russo-japanese war Russia would lose Southern segalin Port Arthur their influence over Korea and even their influence over inner Manchuria while the defeat rocked the Russian political stability to its core but it didn't have to be this way this was an All or Nothing gamble by Japan and by the end of the war it was a matter of who would blink first the Russians were rushing reinforcements East but thanks to an untimely Revolution these reinforcements would never arrive Russia has blinked first but Japan wasn't in a perfect situation either the Japanese had racked up immense amounts of debt to pay for this conflict Russia wasn't doing perfectly economically either but the Japanese were simply running out of cash shooter Russians have performed better at the start of the war while Nicholas II responds better to the revolutionaries perhaps with concessions to them I don't consider it an impossibility that the Russians could have won this war with better preparation allowing Russia to keep their position in East Asia intact back to Europe there is a final war regarding the elements Russia wouldn't get involved but they'd still be very interested in the outcome as the Balkan States work together to tear down the Ottoman Empire in our timeline the Balkan Powers won a quick Victory but they soon got the fighting over who got to keep one of the spoils with Russia arbitrating Serbian Bulgarian relations we could have peace win out resulting in a more powerful Bulgaria while Serbia gets vague Promises of future support from Bulgaria and Russia against the austrians creating a powerful russian-aligned Block in the Balkan now you may be wondering we've covered A Century Of History and Russia isn't really that much larger than in our timeline this is by Design some of you may have asked why doesn't Russia just Annex Constantinople or why doesn't Russia manage to conquer Iran to get warm water Indian Ocean ports well it's simple we need this alternate Russia to be less of a threat to Europe than German it is or Russia may very well find themselves at the losing end of a British German Alliance if not a even larger anti-russian coalition fact is for the entire time duration of this video Russia is perceived as a terrifying Force for the rest of Europe by 1914 Russia had more people than the European parts of the German French and British Empires combined the changes that we have made in this alternate 19th century have made Russia slightly larger but not some insane threat that the other European powers had to combine to stop this means that when the German Austrian and franco-russian Partnerships develop Britain can still be more concerned about Germany to such an extent that they join up with the franco-russians with this the rest of the video was simply a build up to this Final Phase an alternate Great War by no means does it have to start with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand but somewhere somehow the Great War still erupts initially Just Between the great Powers but soon joined by minor Nations across Europe here a major change we have created is isn't allowing the bulgarians to remain in League with the Russians ensuring that they joined the Anton this allows Bulgaria Russia and Britain to put major pressure on the elements I have little hope that the Ottomans can stand up to this barrage long term as they become the first Central Power member to collapse meanwhile the Serbian front is also changed as with Bulgaria now on the other side the Germans and austrians would have a much harder time pushing through and even if they do the mountains of Macedonia might prevent a full Central Powers occupation of the Belgian all of this especially the collapse of the Ottomans and the capture of Constantinople leads to a much more enthusiastic and taunt population which is very important for the Russians who were facing defeats on their home front still with the fall of the Ottomans this war would essentially just be the two Germanic brother nations against most of the world if Nicholas II is more competent and the Western Powers use the opening of the Bosphorus to assist the Russian militarily but especially their population I don't consider it an impossibility that Russia manages to hold out since it's clear to everyone that the Germans will lose this conflict eventually especially if the desperate Germans do something stupid to get the Americans involved which would really put a nil in any hope for victory the Germans sooner or later would see themselves and their Alliance collapse with this The Spoils of War need to be divided let's start with the Austrian Empire which gets divided in a roughly similar way to our timeline with one crucial difference Galicia Galicia consists of two regions Western Galicia primarily inhabited by poles and Eastern Galicia primarily inhabited by ukrainians now the big issue is neither of these nationalities have a nation to join so I propose that we revived the idea of Polish autonomy within the Russian Empire Poland's remains part of Russia in Military and Foreign Affairs but they regain many rights of self-governance this allows Russia to expand farther without upsetting the other great Powers too much besides with Russia's proven importance and resilience in the war the Allies couldn't refuse their expansion another potential region that Russia may claim is Carpathia ruthenia a region primarily populated with ukrainians too moving on to the elements Russia wanted and was promised control over Constantinople but in reality this was not really something the West was very enthusiastic about perhaps a compromise could see the region fall under Bulgarian control instead still giving Russia more influence but not full control in the East Russia seizes areas of Romania too and with Russia involved I have no hope for turkey to win their War of Independence is they get carved up by their opponents finally we take a look at Germany which loses much lands to the Russians and poles though with Poland part of Russia's Empire it is less important for Danzig to be seated to Poland resulting in a still unified European German territory though it now looks terrible finishing with the Western change of territory I will conclude the scenario here Russia is the Great Eastern European Behemoth the champion of pan slavism still not all as well Russia is still underdeveloped compared to Western Europe and the future of this world is now uncertain as the Russian Empire with their ever-growing population has to come to terms with a changing world order but that's where all in this video thank you all for watching consider leaving a like and a comment to support the content subscribe for two more videos every single week to continue watching click on one of the two videos on screen now again thank you all for watching and goodbye

Channel: Possible History

Views: 38,195

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Id: GrRTpsiV8dE

Length: 16min 12sec (972 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023