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Minodrin

Jäg. Holmberg
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Jul 26, 2001
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The victories and defeats of the Russian Empire in the 19th century.

1836-1846 Russia in 1836 was already a huge nation, but was largely agrarian, with its industrial capacity only the 7th largest of the world powers. Tsar Nikolai I had been convinced after his trip to Western Europe that Russia needed to industrialize and build railways, so a major 10-year plan was started. Indeed he often referred to the modernization of Tsar Peter the Great. In those ten years the number of factories would be increased from 13 to 41, and a railroad was built from Turku to Rostov (by St. Petersburg and Moscow).

Also a large amount of the population moved away from the traditional work of farming into work on the factory floor. The rest of the advances of that 10-year period can be seen as less than successful. The army funding was cut into a minimum, crippling the officer-corps and army capability. Crime was rampant, and literacy was still horribly low compared to the rest of Europe, although the education budget was acceptable in size. Little technological advance was done. Also in a move mostly ignored by the world-community, Georgia was invaded and annexed. Nikolai did however manage to create good relations with Sweden.

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1846-1849 Proud by his achievements in the past 10 years, Nikolai wanted to expand Russia more, and gobble up parts of the (in his opinion), dying Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately the full scale of devastation the 10 years of cut army funding had caused was hidden from the Tsar. Even though preparations for the war began 2,5 years before the actual war, more than half of the Russian divisions were at minimal strength, and only a handful were at full strength. Although the Tsar had also called for 10 reserve divisions to be created (which would arrive full strength and surely defeat anything the Ottomans could muster he claimed at one meeting), the creation and arming of these had stopped the once lucrative exportation of canned-food and small arms. The opening stages of the war went adequately, with victories in the southwest-Caucasus and the black-sea coast. But before the reserve could be deployed into action, the Ottomans were already ready. The Russian army had enough strength in the west to hold its own, but in the east it became a war of large-scale manoeuvre, with the Russians marching left and right to defend against the Ottoman offensives. Only the cautiousness of the Ottoman army saved the eastern front from being a complete failure for the Russian army, and in the west the Russianswas hard pressed too but managed to take the undefended Ottoman capital of Istanbul, although advancement away from the black-sea coast proved itself to be almost impossible.

Then the last chock came. The English Royal Navy was sailing into the Black Sea, and there was little the Russian Fleet could do, as it was outnumbered more than 2-1 in the end. The English landed at the undefended Crimean peninsula, and the Tsar found himself wanting to make a quick peace before he might have to give up land for peace. First he demanded almost all of the land the Russian army currently occupied, and was flatly refused (It is rumoured that the Russian ambassador in London was laughed out as he presented a status-quo peace suggestion to the English). After much talk the Tsar was happy to recieve at least one province, Constanta. However the nation was now almost 20000 £ in debt, and for almost 4 years no new industries or railroads had been built, and it seemed uncertain that Russia would manage to keep pace with the rest of Europe in industrializing (she still had the 7th largest industrial capacity though).
 
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1849-1855 Nikolai I would be mostly bitter these last years of his life. Although heavy taxation allowed the economy to get out of debt quickly and the number of factories would increase by 20%, no real attempt at rebuilding the army to a greater scale was undertaken. The officer-corps received valuable lessons from the Ottoman War however, and became somewhat capable again. Nikolai I died in a cold February morning as he was heading to inspect the new railroad constructions in Poland. Alexander II was crowned as the new Tsar of the Russian Empire, and he immideatly started massive reforms of the criminal and education system, making it virtually free for the state to fight criminality.

1855-1860 The first of the rule of Alexander II was an expansive one, as three minor nations in central Asia were invaded and annexed. As those 3 were seen as uncivilized by the European nations, this action provoked no-one in the west. Alaska was also fully claimed, to the minor annoyance of the USA (Who had extensive colonial possessions in the Pacific and central Africa anyway) who had some minor establishments there too. Turkmenistan was also integrated fully into the Empire. In October 1856 the total population of Russia exceeded 100.000.000 people.

The following 4 years would see a buildup of the Russian standing army and the reserves, in addition to the continuing extension of the rail-network and industrial capacity (Of which a notable buildup was the construction of the 2nd Russian naval-yard to build steamers based in St. Petersburg, in addition to the first one in Turku).

In the diplomatic front Tsar Alexander also scored major victories, signing military alliances with Sweden and Prussia, and slighly improving the tarnished relations with the other great powers in the world.
 
nice AAR, brief but informative and gets us all the info we need without bogging us down.
 
Good deal.

First of all, US in Central Africa and Pacific before going to the West makes baby Jesus cry...

Second, is Britain hard coded to land in Crimea? Or is it just coincidence that they have in a couple of the AARs? Hard coded AI moves also make baby jesus cry.
 
1860-1863 On July 5th, 1860, the 2nd Ottoman War started, but by this time Russia had 51 divisions ready, meaning almost 400.000 men (many of the regular divisions were unfortunately at peacetime strength) were ready to fight compared to the 150.000 men of the previous war. Also, the Tsar hoped, the Prussian army would draw away the attention of the English away from Turkey and the Balkans. Unfortunately for him the plans got a setback as France declared war on Russia (and her allies) on July 28th. Now half of Europe was at war, with the Western side (UK, France and the Ottomans) fielding 215 divisions and 223 ships versus the Eastern side (Russia, Prussia and Sweden) fielding 74 divisions and 81 ships.

2ndOttowarstart.jpg

The 2nd Ottoman War alliances.

The early war was quite successful for the Eastern Alliance, with the Russians with the Ottoman eastern front under heavy pressure and the western front in a state of collapse. The French also found it impossible to launch an attack into the Rhineland trough the tiny Saarbrücken bottleneck. Some Russian aristocrats were rather upset at losing parts of their undefended Alaskan holdings however, but that was mostly seen as trivial compared to the real war which was in Europe. Also around new year (1860-1861) the USA broke up into a civil war, with the southern states secceding from the USA and declaring themselves to be the Confederate States of America.

This war seemed to start well for the Confederacy, with US lands goingunder occupation and Texas joining the confederacy about half a year into the conflict. At about the same time that the French signed a separate status-quo peace with the Prussians and at the same time that the Russian army was starting to get bogged down in Turkey, fighting the frequently popping up enemy militia. France signed soon a status-quo peace-treaty with the Russians too, a move which had no impact on the actual war in Turkey however. The second half-year period of 1961 saw allot of running around in the Balkan front and waiting for reinforcements in the Caucasus front. The British also did some landings in the Crimean peninsula and to the south of St. Petersburg (Both the capital and the Crimean peninsula had 3 divisions defending them though, contesting the British landings)

The next year saw great defeats for the Russian army in the Balkans, forcing the commander there to try and achieve one last victory, where he grouped together all of his divisions and marched for the capital (which was taken late in the year but allowing free entrance into the Ukraine). Meanwhile the Russian army was advancing (albeit slowly) in the east, grouping together for major battles, then waiting months for reinforcements. In the Americas the tide appeared to be turning for the Confederacy, with much of Virginia and parts of the southwest under Union control.

2ndOttoWarend.jpg

The situation at the end of the 2nd Ottoman war.

Finally on the 5th of February 1863 the Ottoman Empire offered peace, giving Russia the provinces of Van, Varna and Silistra. Not quite the peace that was expected at the start of the war, but the bad results had at times brought up talk of a status-quo peace in St. Petersburg.

War was not over for Russia yet however, as her allies had gone to war with Denmark, although no one in Russia expected any active participation there.
 
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Ugh, anyone else who cannot see the pics? I need to get another host for them (tomorrow)

Anyway, be ready for continuous updates as I have already written until 1874.
 
nice aar =) i havent tried russia yet seems like quite a challenge with less than 7%(? or less?) literacy =)
 
Nice war, though you gotta wonder about why the AI didn't exploit your massive undefended territories..
 
Bandwidth overload is fun. I recall some other people posting this free server before...
http://upl.mine.nu/

EDIT: Oh, in the few moments it took to write and post this, the picture links started working for me, at least...
 
A really good AAR. I like AARs that don't focus on the none-game elements. For example, I pretty much despise Ebbesen's Japanese AAR. Hes an EXCELLENT player, but I really have to force myself to read through all that extra stuff that isn't important. He writes well, but I'm not looking for a story about a dictator.

Ahem
Back to topic
Keep up the AAR and try to get these derned pictures up :p:p.
PS. Where is the Sardinia AAR :p
 
1863-1872 During the war little-attention had been paid to the home-front, where the very newly educated common people had started being very suspicious of the legitimacy of the monarchy and nobility, demanding instead that those with merits be in charge. Indeed the demands were so many that, instead of seeing the nation torn apart by revolts in a few years, the Tsar begun massive changes in the constitution, granting the vote suddenly to every citizen in the empire, as well as freeing the press from all censorship and making the workday at maximum 14 hours long. Many European nations were surprised at how suddenly the Russian absolute-monarchy transformed into a full-fledged democracy (Albeit Alexander II was still formally head of state).

In other happenings the Germans and Swedes took a surprisingly small part of Denmark (after occupying all of the Danish homelands), and by 1865 the CSA was at it’s death-bed, having lost Richmond along with most of Virginia, Texas, the Indian nations and Kentucky.

In 1866 the great German war started, as Prussia started a fight against Austria-Hungary to decide who would dominate Germany. Many of the minor German states joined the war too, although only Hannover joined the Prussians. Denmark was also greedy for revenge, and declared war on Prussia later in the year, which in hindsight can be said not to have been one of her smart moves. The CSA had by this time lost almost all of her provinces, and the remaining major city, Atlanta, was burned in the summer of 66. Texas had also seceded from the CSA in February (declaring itself independent), which surely surprised the US troops currently occupying it. Equally surprising was the peace-offer put forward by the Union in August, granting the CSA independence, although several provinces were to remain in Union hands.

America1.jpg

America after the end of the US civil war

In Germany the Prussian Army defeated several of the minor German states, but seemed unable to defeat the Austrian force. The war would drag on for 2 years, until in 1868 Prussia surrendered and gave the provinces of Torgau and Görliz to Saxony. Prussia did however gain some provinces elsewhere in Germany and more parts of Denmark. Russia was content on creating very expensive labour laws for the rest of the decade, in order to counter affect the results of the countless demands for a more merit-based government, something that made labourers very revolt-prone

In 1870 another major war started in Europe, as France (and the USA) declared war on Prussia (who got help from several German states, including, surprisingly, Austria-Hungary). The Prussian army was weak compared to the French army however, and after two years of war the French army had advanced to the gates of Berlin, and Austria had only managed a miniscule advance in French held north-Switzerland. Sardinia-Piedmont had also joined the war in late 1870, but that front was mostly static. While this was going on Russia had heavily built up her army, finishing her improvements in labour laws, and by June 1872 (the same time that the Netherlands joined Prussia and Austria in their war against France), she had 87 divisions facing the 30 Ottoman ones (Certain politicians were a bit worried about the 372 British divisions though, as the UK had guaranteed the independence of the Ottoman Empire).

[B]1872-1874[/B] First the Russian parliament decided to test the Ottoman strength be invading Moldavia, an Ottoman satellite state. This provoked no response, and a full-scale invasion of the Ottoman Empire was ordered to start on Dec 1st, 1872. During the Russian invasion of Moldavia a status-quo peace was signed between Prussia and France, largely thanks to the work of the Austrian invasion of northeastern France and the work of the Netherlands in freeing the occupied Rhineland.

The invasion started out very successfully, with Russian troops halfway to Istanbul from the east and in control of half the Balkans before the Ottomans could organize any resistance. But after that the resistance continued to grow and grow, with hundreds of thousands of rebels popping up in occupied territories. Still, the Ottomans could do little against the Russians, and in the summer of 1874 a peace was signed, giving Russia Bulgaria and Serbia.

There was also a massive battle in the Crimean peninsula against the British, lasting over a year in total, with the organized Russian beach-resistance causing the death of countless British soldiers, although the Russian army estimated at the time anything between 200.000 and 300.000 (in total about 70.000 Russians were sent there, as the divisions currently fighting could not be reinforced). Many Russian generals were astounded by the stoutness of the British, who kept sending thousands of soldiers on the only defended beach in the entire sea. Still, it had been a magnificent victory for the Russians, and the army was demobilized. For a few brief moments the future seemed great for the Russian Empire, with rich new lands, a great cash reserve (as social spending had been cut during the war), and quickly advancing technology.

[IMG]http://upl.mine.nu/uplfolders/upload2/3rdOttoWarend.jpg
The Balkans after the end of the 3rd Ottoman War
 
Great AAR...!

/DK_FROGGY
 
The confederates won the war, becuase the Union failed to achieve its objective of re-uniting the states. Giving up a few provinces is piddly-crap next to the real aim of restoring the Union.

I hope that's not indicative of the Union AI. I'd hate to see them settling for 'white peace' or cash indemnities when they're winning the war.