WI no February Revolution in Russia - impact on WWI campaigns of 1917

[Rob]

What if there is no February Revolution in Russia. The grand circumstances are roughly the same as OTL but the presence of loyal troops in the right place, or some better crowd control or food distribution plan in Petrograd heads off the uprising for the moment, and the regime remains in charge at least through the spring and the summer.

What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?

The Russians, while exhausted, seem to have more options by maintaining officer control and not having Soldiers' Soviets forming.

I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?

Would the principal effort of 1917 be an attempt to replay Brusilov's successes against the Austrians? (that's what OTL's Kerensky Offensive seemed to be)

With an army that can still shoot its own deserters, what efforts can the Russians make and what military impact will it have on the opposing coalition?

[SolomonW]

Post by Rob
The Russians, while exhausted, seem to have more options by maintaining officer control and not having Soldiers' Soviets forming.

Brusilov and most of the Russian army thought the Russian army was in a
fine state. They thought they were going to do very well in 1917.

[Alex Milman]

Post by Rob
What if there is no February Revolution in Russia. The grand circumstances are roughly the same as OTL but the presence of loyal troops in the right place, or some better crowd control or food distribution plan in Petrograd heads off the uprising for the moment, and the regime remains in charge at least through the spring and the summer.

It is hard to tell: most of what I read was based on a premise that the things had been so bad that revolution of one type or another had been inevitable. Of course, most of the 1st hand testimonies had been coming from the people who had reasons NOT to like NII personally like Grand Duchess Maria Pavolvna or general Brusilov (both were writing about a true constitutional monarchy as a solution) or Grand Duke (forgot which one) who thought that Nicholas was not "monarchistic" enough. And I'm not even talking about progressives and revolutionaries of all persuasions who had clear vested interest in painting things in the various shades of black. :-)

But the following events demonstrated that there were HUGE opportunities for the things getting much worse so let's assume that NII is more capable of handling the critical situation than he was in OTL (where he pretty much withdrew himself from making these decisions sitting in the middle of nowhere and playing supreme commander).

Keeping a decent number of the loyal troops in Petrograd and Moscow (well fed, well equipped, far away from the front line and having popular and resolute commanders), massive arrests of the suspected German spies (all noisy opposition), using military to deal with the strikes and military tribunals for dealing with their leaders, especially as far as Union of the Railroad Workers was involved, few show trials of the "grain speculators", etc. All these thing had been done couple years later and not only by the Bolsheviks.

Post by Rob
What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?

I'm not sure that "Entente" had a clear idea about what is going on or had been interested in Russian affairs outside of a purely military aspect. What alt-NII (as a part of the Entente) would have to do is to stop paying attention to pretty much everything the French military ask or advise him to do because so far it was leading to the disasters. Russia was not in a good position for any serious offensive action on a German front but "active defense" could keep a big number of Germans off the Western Front.

Post by Rob
The Russians, while exhausted, seem to have more options by maintaining officer control and not having Soldiers' Soviets forming.

Yes. Especially if the harsh methods I mentioned above improved food and ammunition supply of the fighting troops. In OTL, according to Brusilov, command was forced to introduce the increasing number of the "meatless days", which in pre-war Russian army was a taboo.

Post by Rob
I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?

IIRC, they were quite successful in a previous year and they had couple functional dreadnoughts ("Cathrine the Great" and "Nicholas I") and few pre-dreadnoughts on the Black Sea.

If properly coordinated with the Brits, a combined offensive could (IMO) knock Ottoman Empire out of war. Of course, it could be a mammoth task to convince the Brits to launch a massive offense in direction of Anatolia as opposite to their attempts to get into the oil-rich areas. :-)

Post by Rob
Would the principal effort of 1917 be an attempt to replay Brusilov's successes against the Austrians? (that's what OTL's Kerensky Offensive seemed to be)

Brusilov's offensive resulted in (a) transfer of the German troops in the endangered area (which meant that similar success would not be possible in the future even if Brusilov was reluctant to recognize this fact) and (b) huge Russian losses, which required mobilization of the additional troops with the negative impact on Russian agriculture (and you can figure out the rest of the "chain"). Not to mention that while Brusilov's offensive was a complete surprise in the tactical terms, application of the similar methods in 1917 would hardly surprise the enemy.

Post by Rob
With an army that can still shoot its own deserters, what efforts can the Russians make and what military impact will it have on the opposing coalition?

They could just keep fighting "active defense" (defense with the small-scale offensive actions to keep enemy off balance, perhaps with a need to keep shifting the German troops on the Austrian front) against the Germans and Austrians while trying to kick Ottomans out of war.

Keeping big numbers of the German troops off the Western Front should be enough of a help to the allies (who, anyway, had been thinking mostly about their own interests).

[Rob]

On Saturday, April 14, 2018 at 12:56:14 PM UTC-4, Alex Milman wrote:
, few show trials of the "grain speculators", etc. All these thing had been done couple years later and not only by the Bolsheviks.


---I think that could be a politically profitable tactic, making urban workers feel like they are not the only ones being policed.

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob
What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?

I'm not sure that "Entente" had a clear idea about what is going on or had been interested in Russian affairs outside of a purely military aspect.

Never said they were very interested in the internal affairs.

What alt-NII (as a part of the Entente) would have to do is to stop paying attention to pretty much everything the French military ask or advise him to do because so far it was leading to the disasters. Russia was not in a good position for any serious offensive action on a German front but "active defense" could keep a big number of Germans off the Western Front.

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob
I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?

IIRC, they were quite successful in a previous year and they had couple functional dreadnoughts ("Cathrine the Great" and "Nicholas I") and few pre-dreadnoughts on the Black Sea.
If properly coordinated with the Brits, a combined offensive could (IMO) knock Ottoman Empire out of war. Of course, it could be a mammoth task to convince the Brits to launch a massive offense in direction of Anatolia as opposite to their attempts to get into the oil-rich areas. :-)

Might not be as difficult as you suggest. The British would have to go right through the oil rich area of Mosul to make a junction with Russian forces in Armenia and Kurdistan.

In March 1917 the British did make it to Baghdad. They went to Mosul before the end of the war, and a "race" with the Russians in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire could motivate the British and Russians each to move faster.

Now to continue to threaten the Turks and finish them off, both armies would have to turn their axis of advance mainly to the west. And that could be less of a priority for Britain once they have have pocketed Mosul (or once the Russians have beaten them to there or the northernmost parts of Iraq).

However, the destruction of Ottoman forces even in coming to a complete junction east around Kurdistan by midsummer 1917 would have to be substantial. When it is done, the Ottomans appear weakened, and the even the British need to figure out what to do with their forces in the area, making it potentially tempting for both to continue offensives to move in for the kill.

Of course France could complain because this starts to horn in to areas assigned to them under Sykes-Picot-Sazanov. But if they are going to moan about it the Brits and Russians could just say "well Pierre, why don't you just send some of your colonial or Salonika troops to the coast of Syria to crush the Turks and claim your share?"

Post by Alex Milman
They could just keep fighting "active defense" (defense with the small-scale offensive actions to keep enemy off balance, perhaps with a need to keep shifting the German troops on the Austrian front) against the Germans and Austrians while trying to kick Ottomans out of war.
Keeping big numbers of the German troops off the Western Front should be enough of a help to the allies (who, anyway, had been thinking mostly about their own interests).

Sounds like a decent plan for the Russians in Europe.

Granted, the "benefits" for the Entente of greater efforts against the Ottomans are not huge, but it is hard to see the Entente being harmed by such a dispute.

At a minimum, Russian active defense in Europe and offensive in Asia Minor gives the Russians a better chance to keep up a front for the whole war.

It also compels the Germans to aid the Turks more to keep them in the fight. And the Germans and Austrians and Bulgarians had very little slack for conducting major offensives in 1917.

If the Entente powers can limit their territorial appetites and/or the Germans do not do enough to support the Turks under pressure, the Ottomans could be persuaded to peace out and grant the Allies access to the straits and Thrace during 1917.

Possibly the pressures of a continued Anatolian campaign in 1917 would be enough by themselves to make the Ottomans feel they have no choice but to make all the concessions of OTL's Treaty of Sevres that year.


That would allow the Entente to start working over Bulgaria by the beginning of 1918 to unravel the CP.

[Alex Milman]

Post by Alex Milman
, few show trials of the "grain speculators", etc. All these thing had been done couple years later and not only by the Bolsheviks.
---I think that could be a politically profitable tactic, making urban workers feel like they are not the only ones being policed.

Much more important would be to keep them reasonably well supplied. :-)

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob
What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?

I'm not sure that "Entente" had a clear idea about what is going on or had been interested in Russian affairs outside of a purely military aspect.

Never said they were very interested in the internal affairs.

So, would THEY try to do things differently? It would be NII's task if he wants to survive.

Post by Alex Milman
What alt-NII (as a part of the Entente) would have to do is to stop paying attention to pretty much everything the French military ask or advise him to do because so far it was leading to the disasters. Russia was not in a good position for any serious offensive action on a German front but "active defense" could keep a big number of Germans off the Western Front.

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob
I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?

IIRC, they were quite successful in a previous year and they had couple functional dreadnoughts ("Cathrine the Great" and "Nicholas I") and few pre-dreadnoughts on the Black Sea.
If properly coordinated with the Brits, a combined offensive could (IMO) knock Ottoman Empire out of war. Of course, it could be a mammoth task to convince the Brits to launch a massive offense in direction of Anatolia as opposite to their attempts to get into the oil-rich areas. :-)

Might not be as difficult as you suggest. The British would have to go right through the oil rich area of Mosul to make a junction with Russian forces in Armenia and Kurdistan.

They "would have" but WOULD they? :-)

Post by Alex Milman
In March 1917 the British did make it to Baghdad. They went to Mosul before the end of the war, and a "race" with the Russians in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire could motivate the British and Russians each to move faster.

Well, if both sides are making a coordinated effort (and don't forget contingents in Iran), then they can achieve the goal. Not sure why would it have to be a "race".

Post by Alex Milman
Now to continue to threaten the Turks and finish them off, both armies would have to turn their axis of advance mainly to the west. And that could be less of a priority for Britain once they have have pocketed Mosul (or once the Russians have beaten them to there or the northernmost parts of Iraq).

As I said, the Brits tended to have interests not directly related with the fast end of the war.



[]

Post by Alex Milman
Of course France could complain because this starts to horn in to areas assigned to them under Sykes-Picot-Sazanov. But if they are going to moan about it the Brits and Russians could just say "well Pierre, why don't you just send some of your colonial or Salonika troops to the coast of Syria to crush the Turks and claim your share?"

Why don't you hit harder against the Germans and we'll stick to the agreements after the war?

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Alex Milman
They could just keep fighting "active defense" (defense with the small-scale offensive actions to keep enemy off balance, perhaps with a need to keep shifting the German troops on the Austrian front) against the Germans and Austrians while trying to kick Ottomans out of war.
Keeping big numbers of the German troops off the Western Front should be enough of a help to the allies (who, anyway, had been thinking mostly about their own interests).

Sounds like a decent plan for the Russians in Europe.
Granted, the "benefits" for the Entente of greater efforts against the Ottomans are not huge, but it is hard to see the Entente being harmed by such a dispute.
At a minimum, Russian active defense in Europe and offensive in Asia Minor gives the Russians a better chance to keep up a front for the whole war.

Yes.

Post by Alex Milman
It also compels the Germans to aid the Turks more to keep them in the fight. And the Germans and Austrians and Bulgarians had very little slack for conducting major offensives in 1917.

It's called "indirect actions" :-)

Post by Alex Milman
If the Entente powers can limit their territorial appetites and/or the Germans do not do enough to support the Turks under pressure, the Ottomans could be persuaded to peace out and grant the Allies access to the straits and Thrace during 1917.
Possibly the pressures of a continued Anatolian campaign in 1917 would be enough by themselves to make the Ottomans feel they have no choice but to make all the concessions of OTL's Treaty of Sevres that year.
That would allow the Entente to start working over Bulgaria by the beginning of 1918 to unravel the CP.

[Rob]

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob
Of course France could complain because this starts to horn in to areas assigned to them under Sykes-Picot-Sazanov. But if they are going to moan about it the Brits and Russians could just say "well Pierre, why don't you just send some of your colonial or Salonika troops to the coast of Syria to crush the Turks and claim your share?"

Why don't you hit harder against the Germans and we'll stick to the agreements after the war?

Why would France want to focus on hitting the Germans when its troops are mutinying after the Nivelle offensive, the Russians won't move against the Germans, the partition of the Ottoman Empire is being put into practice and the Americans will be "over here" next year to do more of the bleeding. Probably more British Empire troops in France too in 1918, with the Ottomans getting knocked out of the war in 1917.

Post by Alex Milman

Post by Rob

Post by Alex Milman
Keeping big numbers of the German troops off the Western Front should be enough of a help to the allies (who, anyway, had been thinking mostly about their own interests).

Sounds like a decent plan for the Russians in Europe.
Granted, the "benefits" for the Entente of greater efforts against the Ottomans are not huge, but it is hard to see the Entente being harmed by such a dispute.
At a minimum, Russian active defense in Europe and offensive in Asia Minor gives the Russians a better chance to keep up a front for the whole war.

Yes.

Post by Rob
It also compels the Germans to aid the Turks more to keep them in the fight. And the Germans and Austrians and Bulgarians had very little slack for conducting major offensives in 1917.

It's called "indirect actions" :-)

On whose part? I guess everybody's.

[jerry kraus]

Post by Rob
What if there is no February Revolution in Russia. The grand circumstances are roughly the same as OTL but the presence of loyal troops in the right place, or some better crowd control or food distribution plan in Petrograd heads off the uprising for the moment, and the regime remains in charge at least through the spring and the summer.
What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?
The Russians, while exhausted, seem to have more options by maintaining officer control and not having Soldiers' Soviets forming.
I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?
Would the principal effort of 1917 be an attempt to replay Brusilov's successes against the Austrians? (that's what OTL's Kerensky Offensive seemed to be)
With an army that can still shoot its own deserters, what efforts can the Russians make and what military impact will it have on the opposing coalition?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the light of the limitations of Soviet Communism, there has been a tendency to romanticize the Czarist regime a bit. A simple fact -- life expectancy in Russia in 1913 was 32 years, roughly the same as in Western Europe in the late middle ages. In the United States it was about 50 years of age. By 1958, life expectancy in both Russia and the U.S. had risen to about 66 years of age.

In other words, the Czarist regime was a total disaster for the vast majority of the Russian people, and, for all its flaws, Soviet Communism was a major improvement over the Czarist regime.

Hence, the Czarist regime was bound to collapse, sooner, rather than later.

That said, the western allies of Russia had a big problem with the very possibility of the Czar attending a victory conference at the end of WWI. What could they possibly offer him, in compensation for the massive losses his troops had suffered? He wanted the Dardanelles and Constantinople, at the very least. He would have preferred all of the Turkish Empire. In order to avoid an IMMEDIATE alliance between a frustrated Russia, and a desperate, prostrate Germany, it was quite essential for the Czarist regime to collapse.

And, remember, Willy and Nicky were cousins, after all.

[Eric Van De Hey]

Post by Rob
What if there is no February Revolution in Russia. The grand circumstances are roughly the same as OTL but the presence of loyal troops in the right place, or some better crowd control or food distribution plan in Petrograd heads off the uprising for the moment, and the regime remains in charge at least through the spring and the summer.
What will the Entente be doing differently militarily under these circumstances?
The Russians, while exhausted, seem to have more options by maintaining officer control and not having Soldiers' Soviets forming.
I had heard that the Black Sea Fleet and Caucasus Army were keen to go onto the offensive to build on their successes of 1916. Could the Russians have launched a spring offensive in Anatolia knocking the Ottomans out of the war by the end of the year?
Would the principal effort of 1917 be an attempt to replay Brusilov's successes against the Austrians? (that's what OTL's Kerensky Offensive seemed to be)
With an army that can still shoot its own deserters, what efforts can the Russians make and what military impact will it have on the opposing coalition?

Probably not much. Though they may be able to count more on the Russian military since you don't have the demoralizing effects of political fragmentation as a result of the revolution, Soldiers' Councils, or the like. That alone is pretty good, so you have a Russian army that can continue- at least to some degree- in major operations. And by extension might have a better chance of staying in the war, at least militarily, at the cost of a less flexible political situation.

The problem is that this doesn't really change the overall balance of power. The Russian militarily is STILL badly bloodied and out preformed by its enemies. The Central Powers are still headed up by smart and ruthless people both overall (especially with the Hindenburg-Ludendorff-Hoffman troika now on the national stage) and in theatre. You still have a manifest inability to replace all your gear, especially in terms of heavy weapons. And you still have a deeply divided population, ESPECIALLY in the cities.

And you still have a military that is suffering from poor spirits and is largely NOT taking oppertunities and is increasingly not following orders. It's easy to blame the Revolutions for it but this was a problem- even if a less one-. In particular te Latvian Rifles that went on the offensive in the winter of 1916-1917 were angry because they got *So Little* support from the non-Lettish troops in the Russian Army.

Yeah, Russia has Brusilov. Russia also had Brusilov IOTL and we know what happened. What most people forget is threefold

A: Brusilov also headed up the Kerensky Offensive later in 1917 and we know how poorly THAT went, albeit largely not due to him.

B: The Brusilov offensive made a lot of headway and cut deep, but it was ultimately REPULSED at Kowel.

C: While the leadership and some of the troops at Kowel were Reichswehr, the main bulk of the TROOPS were KuK. Austro-Hungarian. The corpse the German Empire was shackled to. The punching bag of the Eastern Front. etc.

This points to a crisis because it indicates that the KuK is being better integrated into the German military and in turn is preforming more according to German standards.

Politically i imagine Petrograd and a bunch of others are still going to be dealing with massive tinderblocks that can be ignited at a glance.You are still going to be dealing with an enemy you can't REAALLLLY block if they push hard enough. And which is supporting defeatist or worse sentiment. That said I do ponder there is a CHANCE that the OHL doesn't send Lenin to Petrograd in order to stage a coup. Nikolai was stil a fellow autocrat and in Wilhelm's case they were once quite close, so the German government seemed to step off from taking that last step while he was still in power, only going on after he was replaced by a fragile republic the Reich had nothing but hatred for.

But even that isn't a sure thing, especially with US entry over the horizon.

Anyway, most likely case?

The Russian military doesn't do much, but is able to force the Central Powers to keep dividing its attention between both sides- and is by extension going to help keep the Romanians in. Transfers of units like the Czechoslovak Legion may go easier. But overall the situation is still Quite troubled.