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SeanB

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Hello folks. I've recently been playing a very enjoying game of Mod33 as Russia. So entertaining was it, that it has inspired me to make this AAR. Though it is based roughly on said game, this AAR will be heavily driven by historical narrative as well as fictional narrative when it is appropriate. The things that happen in the story will not always be the exact same things that happen in the game. This has always been my style, for those who have kept up with my other AARs. :)

I hope this proves to be an enjoyment for all who choose to follow it!

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Rise of the Eurasian Alliance: Operation White October

The Russian winter of 1932…one of the harshest winters to hit Russia in recent times. The Ukraine had been by far the hardest hit by the bitter chill, suffering widespread famine and the death of millions. The Soviet government had proven incapable of, or perhaps unwilling to providing for the people trapped in the bitter embrace of General Winter, and many food riots had broken out. These riots were brutally suppressed by the NKVD, but the winter’s chill that year would have long lasting effects on the future of Russia.

Russia at the start of 1933 was an impoverished state. Its people lived in abysmal conditions that would be considered absolutely intolerable by the west. They worked restlessly for very little pay, and could barely afford enough food to last their families through the winter, if even that. Russia in 1933 was a country ripe for change. With the horrible famines of 1932 leaving several million dead, only the sheer force of personality of Joseph Stalin, the brutal dictator of the USSR was holding the country together. That would soon change however…

On January 6th 1933, Joseph Stalin was in transit to the Kremlin, heavily guarded by his NKVD escorts as he rode in the luxurious car of the Communist Party. As they neared the Tver to Moscow train station however, they were incensed to learn that there was a small delay at the Moscow station and the train had fallen behind schedule. With their vehicles grounded in the snow, they awaited the train’s arrival impatiently. A short distance away however, camouflaged in the snow was Lieutenant Vassili Marchaiev, the son of a ‘white’ soldier who fought with General Anton Denikin in Crimea during the Russian civil war. After being captured in 1921, his father had been swiftly and mercilessly executed.

As the train finally arrived and Stalin exited his car to board it, the man took aim, and fired the shot that rang throughout all of Russia. The bullet hit Stalin in the right eye, killing him instantly, and sending the NKVD into a frantic search for the man responsible for the assassination. Grigory Zinoviev immediately replaced Stalin as General Secretary, but was unable to fill the power vacuum left by Stalin’s death. Word of Stalin’s death spread quickly throughout, and an enamored Leon Trotsky hurried back to Russia from France in order to stake his claim in the post-Stalin USSR.

Acting on orders from the Communist Party, Zinoviev had actually called Leon Trotsky out of exile in France. This alienated Stalin’s supporters within the party and the NKVD, who soon organized uprisings throughout Russia, basing their ‘headquarters’ in the appropriately named city of Stalingrad. Though not enjoying wide support from the population, the ‘Stalinists’ were nevertheless able to raise a fairly significant force in opposition to the Trotsky-Zinoviev alliance. Trotsky became the new Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, replacing Mikhail Kalinin, who fled to join the Stalinists.

Seeking to consolidate their position in the USSR, the Trotsky-Zinoviev alliance declared the Stalinists to be outlaws and enemies of the workers. The Red Army was sent in to try and quell the Stalinist uprising, and bitter fighting throughout the country ensued between the supporters of Boukarin who now lead the Stalinist faction and the Trotskiests. Fighting between the two sides continued throughout 1933, as Boukarin sought to depose Trotsky and reinstate the Stalinist system of Communism, albeit with a slightly more even hand.

Despite the remaining trouble with the Stalinist insurrection, Trotsky gave an inflammatory speech on April 7th of 1933, proclaiming a great Crusade against Capitalism. This terrified the western powers, and greatly aided the newly elected Adolf Hitler in consolidating his position in Germany. This would have disastrous affects for Communism in Russia however. Gravely concerned with the extremely belligerent words of Trotsky, Britain and France began a joint operation to sponsor insurrection within the Soviet Union, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Communist regime.

With the help of Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich, considered the strongest claimant to the Russian throne, the Entente powers launched ‘Operation White October’. The allies were able to successfully gain the support of Finland for their operation, which would be primarily responsible for the transmission of supplies and aid to the White Revolutionary forces. They were also able to enlist the aid of the Danish government, thus allowing the easy transmission of supplies through the Baltic. Terrified by Trotsky’s speech, Poland eagerly agreed to help with the operation as well, providing a second avenue of supply shipments.

With the NKVD being greatly weakened by the party split, Trotsky’s attempts to reform the Soviet system and with state’s efforts focused against suppressing the Stalinist faction based around Stalingrad and the Low Countries, the Soviet government took little notice of the growing white movement in the first few months of the operation. On September 3rd, Britain officially declared its support for the return of the Tsar as a Constitutional Monarch at the head of a democratic Russia. It was only then that Trotsky’s government realized the extent of the growing problem.

Formerly suppressed by the relentless NKVD secret police, many people with tsarist and democratic sympathies began to openly voice their opposition to the Communist regime. Emboldened by Britain’s declaration of support, they began holding speeches and rallies in many Russian towns and villages. Though the greatly weakened NKVD tried to suppress this activity, their words touched the hearts of many, particularly the kulaks, who had suffered greatly under Communist rule. They also gained support amongst much of the population with their promise of liberty, better wages and democratic elections.

The Ukraine in particular, having suffered so greatly in the previous winters due to seemingly intentional Soviet neglect, flocked to the white cause in increasing numbers. In 1933, Russian Communism was teetering on the brink, as their greatest supporters, the lower class population, trickled away. Having seen their wages reduced to 1/10th of what they were under Lenin, they were ready for change, and the promise of better wages and living conditions in combination with liberty and democracy held great appeal for many.

The truth was they were now little better off than they had been under the old Tsarist regime. Famines had been widespread and food riots had broken out on several occasions, only to be severely repressed by the NKVD. The White agitators portrayed the Communist regime as hypocritical, as it preached support for the workers yet refused to properly provide or care for them. By late September the Russian Orthodox Church in exile had loudly trumpeted its support for the restoration of the Tsar. They were followed by what remained of the Church in Russia, further incensing the still devoutly Christian peasants against the Communists.

By October the country was in flames, with the NKVD struggling to suppress pro-white gatherings and rallies. Many massacres were carried out in an attempt to suppress the growing insurrection, and thousands of people were killed as a result. This only helped to fuel the flames of the anti-Communist revolution however. With the Stalinists refusing to surrender to Trotsky’s government, the Communist Party found itself divided at a crucial moment. Trotsky refused to negotiate with the supporters of his bitter enemy, and had since his rise to power in February carried out many executions of former Stalinist regime members.

As the White Revolution erupted throughout Russia, Admiral Vladimir M. Orlov made a fateful decision. A well-known supporter of Stalin, he believed that sooner or later Trotsky would come for his head, as he was in too powerful of a position to be ignored, being the head of the Russian Navy. After making a secret agreement to join with the White Revolutionaries in exchange for amnesty, Orlov quickly went about securing the consent of his most loyal officers and a battalion of marines. At 5 AM on November 1st the Baltic fleet opened fire on the naval base of Leningrad, while a team of commandos managed to secure it with minimal resistance.

Orlov handed the port, and in turn the city over to the White Revolutionaries as per their agreement, and was granted amnesty and protection from the Soviet government. Orlov and his forces agreed to fight for the Monarchists in exchange for their lives. With the fall of Leningrad to the White Revolutionaries, the first stage of Operation White October was a success. Supplies from Britain, France and Finland now flooded into city, as foreign volunteers and former white Russians in exile from the first civil war flocked to the banner of democracy and the Tsar.

The countryside surrounding Leningrad erupted in a wave of pro-white sentiment, as Soviet flags were burnt and the people loudly proclaimed their support for the White Revolution. Enamored by the promise of better wages, living standards and liberty, peasants flocked to join the ranks of the rapidly growing White Army. Soon, four British expeditionary corps had landed in St. Petersburg to support the Tsarists. Several days later Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich, now using the last name of Romanov, landed in the city and settled into the Winter Palace.

The Grand Duke soon read a proclamation over the radio denouncing the Soviet regime and it’s inhumanities. He strongly condemned them for “devastating and lowering Mother Russia” to the unstable and impoverished condition it was now in, and calls for all Russians who have been wronged by the Reds and the reign of terror they unleashed to unite behind the White cause, and to end the Bolshevik’s brutal “rape of the motherland”. The broadcast met with wide support from the population, who were incensed against the Soviets by the patriotic and nationalistic rhetoric.

By mid November of 1933, the Second Russian Civil War was in full swing. It was a three-way struggle between the main Soviet government under Trotsky, the weakened but still fighting remnants of the old Stalinist regime, and the White Revolutionaries based in St. Petersburg, as it had been renamed in the Grand Duke’s proclamation. Russia now teetered on the brink of disintegration as the three political movements vied for control of the motherland.

RCWnovember-1.png

State of the Soviet Union shortly after Grand Duke Kyrill's proclamation in November (still October by the Julian Calender). Green is the White Revolution, Dark Red is the Soviet government under Trotsky. Light Red are the Stalinist controlled lands, while pink are Russian satellite states. The shapeless green blobs scattered throughout the USSR represent significant pro-white guerrilla movements.

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There you go! There will be more updates very soon - I've already written them after all. ;) So keep your eyes peeled. :D
 
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Hey I saw this on www.alternatehistory.com! Cool.

I'll be following this.
 
FallenMorgan said:
Hey I saw this on www.alternatehistory.com! Cool.

I'll be following this.

Yeah, the version there completely omits the game however, and has more edits for historical plausibility. Definitely less wank than it will be here... :p
 
Rise of the Eurasian Alliance: Foreigners and War Communism

Following the British landing in St. Petersburg, the French initiated their part of Operation White October. Landing four ‘volunteer’ divisions in Sevastopol, with General Anton Denikin at their head. They quickly moved throughout the Crimean peninsula, securing it from the beleaguered Soviet forces there. Though they attempted to fight against Denikin, they were outnumbered and their morale was low, given the current state of their country. As the Red army melted away into the eastern Ukraine, Anton Denikin rallied the Ukrainians and Tatars in the Crimea to his flag with promises of greater autonomy within the new Russian Empire, despite him not even consulting with the ‘government’ in St. Petersburg first.

Even the Germans leant their support to the white government, Hitler having no desire to see Trotsky embarked on his anti-capitalist crusade, which no doubt would not look too kindly upon fascist regimes either. Germany would prove to be a great provider of weaponry for the White Revolutionaries. Using his aide to the White cause as a guise for rearmament, Hitler was able to revitalize the German economy with the increased production whilst at the same time weakening global Communism.

In the Far East, Japan, desiring to exploit the chaos in Russia plotted to seize Vladivostok as well as the northern half of Sakhalin. Remembering the opposition of the allies in their previous attempt to do so during the first civil war however, lead to slightly cooler heads prevailing. Assuming that the democratic tsarist regime, should it be victorious, would be far easier pickings than the Soviets, the Japanese decided to lend their support to the white cause, both to hopefully create an overall weaker Russian state, and to deal a crippling blow to Communism, which the military regime of the rapidly industrializing Japan was in constant fear of, though with little good reason.

With the support of the IJN, General Grigory Semyonov landed in Vladivostok with an army of 40,000 men, equipped and supported by the Japanese. They were mostly made up of exiled kulaks and civil war veterans, as were most of the initial divisions of the White Army. After securing the valuable port city, they called for the population of the transamur region to rise up and overthrow Soviet authority in their local villages and towns. With only a small number of divisions initially deployed in the region, the Red Army could do little to stop the basin from falling into White hands. Within little over a week they had spread the White Revolution all the way to the Amur River.

Despite it’s isolationist policy, the United States could not pass up the opportunity to weaken the threat of global communism. Though it did not officially proclaim it’s support for the White faction, it permitted American ‘volunteers’ to join with returning civil war veterans in the far east to form a combined army of roughly 35,000 men. Landing in Okhotsk, they cooperated with General Semyonov in his effort to secure the Far East from the Bolsheviks.

‘General’ Bronislav Kaminski, a former prisoner of the Gulags, soon began agitating the population in Minsk to rise up against the Soviet authorities under the banner of the white army. He was heavily supported with Polish arms and supplies, and proved to be a master recruiter, raising an army of over 10,000 volunteers in short order. He would prove to be very effective at combating pro-Trotskyite militia in Byelorussia, and would go on to win many significant victories for the White Army there.

Much like Admiral Vladimir Orlov, certain commanders such as Andrey Vlasov joined the White Army on the promise of amnesty after the war. Originally a Stalinist supporter, Vlasov feared that if Trotsky won the civil war, he would be executed as a political enemy. In order to preserve his life and the lives of his men, he pledged allegiance to the White Army and fought under their flag in the Ural Mountains for the duration of the civil war. For his allegiance, he received the rank of Major General.

One of the largest tsarist armies in the war was lead by former white commander Pyotr Krasnov who fought in the original Russian civil war. Returning to Russia through Sevastopol with French support, he brought with him thousands of exiled kulaks and former white army officers from the civil war. With the support of the Ukrainian and Crimean population, he would assemble an army of over 200,000 men, the largest single white army in the entire war, though still smaller overall to the ‘main’ White forces gathered in the region surrounding St. Petersburg.

Finally, with the aid of the British, General Evgenii Miller landed Archangelsk with roughly 50,000 men. Another civil war veteran, he was met with much jubilance from the city’s population. He would eventually help to form a united front line against the Communists by linking up with the main army under General Voronov. Using their experience from the previous civil war that had ended but a decade prior, the old White military leaders proved to be competent commanders in the field, now having a clear objective and goal, and a more or less united front.

Though the white army received significant amounts of foreign volunteers, it was still primarily made up of Russians and Ukrainians. The Ukrainian Nationalists provided some of the white revolution’s toughest soldiers. Having been promised wide autonomy by Denikin and later on by Grand Duke Kyrill himself, they fought against the Bolsheviks with great fervor. Over 150,000 Ukrainians would serve in the White Army during the civil war.

Part of the reason for the widespread support for the white revolution in Russia was due to the effects of the civil war between the Trotskyites and the Stalinists. In order to restore order to Russia and put down his rivals forces as well as to prepare for his crusade, Trotsky had reinstituted ‘war communism’. For a population already on the brink of starvation after the past year’s winter, the costs of Trotsky’s war communism was simply too much for many to bear. Thousands of people fled in droves from Communist controlled lands in hopes of finding food and nourishment with the Whites. This was often the case indeed, as food was available to spare thanks to the immense support the white revolution was receiving from the foreign powers, and the smaller size of their army.

Though Trotsky attempted to portray the whites as being pawns of the foreign powers as the Bolsheviks did in the previous civil war, food tended to speak louder than mere propaganda. The Grand Duke Kyrill even used some of his own personal wealth to purchase extra bread shipments from Britain and France, in order to keep up their successful propaganda war against the Bolsheviks. For all their rhetoric about fighting for the workers and for the Russian people, they proved unable to live up to their preaching. Widespread famines broke out throughout both Trotskyite and Stalinist territories, while 65% of the Whites foreign aid consisted of foodstuffs by February of 1934.

There were few options available for the Bolsheviks in truth. The world was against them, and completely refused to engage in even the most basic of trade with them, especially with the civil war in full swing. With much of the Ukrainian farmlands falling under White control by the start of 1934, Trotsky was forced to resort to ever more desperate tactics to hold his faction together. The collectivization of farming was taken to the extreme, with thousands of people being worked to death in an attempt to feed the starving and weary Red Army.

Things were not perfect within the White government however. Their existed a degree of mistrust between the older generation of white civil war veterans and the newer, more inexperienced white revolutionaries, not to mention the great contempt that men like Denikin and Krasnov held for Stalinist defectors, considering them chiefly responsible for the communist victory in the first civil war. The tactic of providing cheap foodstuffs to the people was also becoming increasingly costly for them. The leaders of the White Revolution in St. Petersburg knew the exorbant costs of shipping so much food to Russia could not be maintained forever, and their foreign allies would eventually grow tired of paying for their war.

Despite all of their problems, the Bolsheviks had proven to be a tough and resilient enemy, and still maintained their numerical advantage over the White Army. Grand Duke Kyrill and the commanders of the White Revolution knew they could not afford another five-year long civil war, and neither could Russia. If victory were to be achieved, it would need to be swift and decisive…

RCWJanuary.png

The Russian Civil War on January 1st, 1934.
 
This made me reinstall Mod33.


Say, what eventchain did you use to get this situation?
 
Probably Stalin's assassination attempt near the beginning of the scenario.
 
All very interesting.
 
I do hope the Whites win, and keep their promises to the population.

An absolute monarchy with a Tsar would be nice too, but he would have to be fair and considerate of the population, something that is in short order for absolute monarchs.
 
This makes me wish I could actually get Mod33 to work, I have yet to succeed.

Long live the counterrevolution! Restore the whites! :D
 
Rise of the Eurasian Alliance: The Caucasian Campaign

The winter of 1933/34 dealt a crippling blow to the already struggling Soviet army under Trotsky. With the majority of the vital Ukrainian farmland falling to the White Forces in December/January, and with foreign relations essentially having broken down in face of his declaration of a crusade against capitalism, the Trotskyite army was forced to resort to foraging for food in the bitter cold. Even with war communism in full swing, the Bolsheviks under Trotsky found themselves increasingly hard pressed to feed their troops.

In truth, Trotsky’s war communism had only served to alienate the vast majority of the farmers living within his territory, and to make the working conditions of the proletariat even harsher than they had previously been. Already on the verge of starvation by the start of 1933 due to the previous winter, by January of 1934 the famine had reached catastrophic proportions. The hastily executed and harsh collectivization of the farmlands in the Soviet Union had only offered a temporary means of sustaining his army, and in turn had brought the economy of the USSR to brink of collapse.

Worse yet, defections had begun occurring in the army. Many soldiers willingly surrendered themselves to the Whites, the promise of food and amnesty being too much to resist for many, even those who would have, under better circumstances, been supportive of Trotsky and Bolshevism in general. The NKVD brutally swept the ranks for potential deserters, but they could not stop all such attempts, and their often-harsh methods served to further weaken the already withering morale of the Red Army.

Wanting to take advantage of the weakened Trotskyite position, the Stalinist forces initiated a campaign to seize all of the Caucasus from the Trotskyites, to strengthen their own position for their inevitable clash with the White Army. Though also greatly hurt by the winter and a lack of supplies, the far smaller Stalinist army was more professional than their Trotskyite counterparts, being composed primarily of anti-Trotskyite elements of the Soviet army, and even possessing several (under strength) tank divisions. Their smaller size also meant they were better able to ration their food, and maintain a relatively high morale in comparison to Trotsky’s forces.

The seizure of the Caucasus was seen as essential for an eventual Stalinist victory, as they were running critically short on oil, and would soon be unable to operate their greatest military asset: their armor. This would in turn also deny it to the Trotskyites and the White Army, and give them a substantial recruiting base to conscript new soldiers from.
The first stages of their attempted conquest of the Caucasus began in early January, and met with some notable early successes. The 2nd Leninsk corps (Stalinist) successfully drove the Trotskyite army from the important town of Grozny on January 11th, pursuing the retreating Trotskyites into eastern Azerbaijan.

When they attempted to assault the city of Baku, however, they found that the defenders of the capital of the Azerbaijani SSR were well entrenched and determined. Having nevertheless partially accomplished their goal of seizing the vital oil fields surrounding Baku, the 2nd corps initiated a siege of the city to attempt to starve the Trotskyite forces out. A large portion of the Trotskyite army had retreated into the Caucasian mountains however, and began hit and run attacks upon the Stalinists besieging Baku. Their frequent attacks served to disrupt the supplies lines of the 2nd corps, and greatly hindered Stalingrad’s attempts to exploit their newly captured oil fields.

Their attempts to pursue the raiders into the mountains met with failure, as their tanks became nothing but a liability in the difficult terrain. The Stalinists were also unable to penetrate the natural defenses of the mountains and seize Georgia, which they believed would be supportive of their cause and provide a strong base for recruitment. In the end, despite Bukharin declaring the operation a military success, all the Caucasus campaign served to do was weaken both Communist factions. For the Stalinists, it removed a substantial number of troops that could have been used to reinforce their position around Stalingrad, while gaining them a source of oil that was unreliable at best thanks to the constant attacks of the mountain raiders.

For the Trotskyites, it deprived them of a very important source of oil, and rendered their tanks, one of their greatest advantages over the White Army, practically worthless. It also made their position in the Caucasus highly unstable. Hemmed in behind the Caucasus Mountains, they were cut off from supplies and aid from the rest of Russia. The entire population of Georgia soon faced the threat of starvation as they struggled to support both their population and the remnants of Trotsky’s red army there.

In the White camp a dispute between Generals Anton Denikin and Pyotr Krasnov had broken out over their next course of action. Krasnov favored a direct assault on Moscow, capital of the Soviet Union under Trotsky. The loss of the capital, Krasnov felt, would put the final nail in Trotsky’s coffin. Denikin on the other hand felt it would be more strategically sound to go for the Caucasus first. Realizing the weakened state of the Trotskyite forces there, Denikin believed they would be far easier to defeat, and would open the way for the seizure of the Baku oil fields from the Stalinists.

After much dispute between the two men, Grand Duke Kyrill decided to go with Denikin’s proposal and attack the Caucasus. It was felt that Moscow was still too heavily defended to be taken by the still numerically inferior White Army, and that depriving them of the Caucasus and it’s oil production would serve to further demoralize the Reds, both Stalinist and Trotskyite. They also wished to deprive the Bolsheviks of the Georgian coast, and to fully liberate the lands of the Cossacks to the north of Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Whites expected heavy support from the Cossack population, and desired to once again employ the skilled horsemen against the Bolsheviks.

While the Cossack horsemen were of little use against tanks, both the Stalinists and Trotskyites did not possess enough of them to completely dominate the battlefield. Tanks were still fairly slow and difficult to maneuver, and had a tendency to break down. The White generals didn’t trust them in any case, and much preferred to have reliable Cossack cavalrymen at their sides. There were already a fair number of Cossack émigrés within the White Army, and these had served them with distinction. The ability to recruit more of these dedicated and pro-tsarist horsemen would be a worthwhile advantage.

One of the main reasons Kyrill favored the invasion of the Caucasus over Moscow was because it would require the support of Britain. With the Great Depression still lingering over Europe, the support of the western powers could not be counted on forever. Indeed, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had faced considerable opposition when he proposed Operation White October to parliament in a special closed session. He had barely obtained authorization from his government to initiate the plan, and now that Britain was spending billions of pounds on another country’s civil war, and even sending their young men to fight and die in it, his public support began to rapidly plummet.

Indeed, some had began to doubt if it was truly in Britain’s interests to continue to invest so heavily in the Second Russian Civil War. Though eliminating the threat of a strong communist Russia was always an appealing thought, many British people began to wonder if the costs of doing such were worth the rewards. Hundreds had already died fighting with the Whites in the Civil War, and with the memory of the Great War still fresh in many people’s minds, the public had a very low tolerance for casualties. When the White government in St. Petersburg requested British naval assistance for their Caucasian campaign, Britain accepted with great reluctance.

MacDonald knew that his political future was at stake, and would hinge on a White victory in the civil war. Despite Britain’s resources being strained between supplying the White Revolution and combating the effects of the Depression, he knew that if Britain was to withdraw it’s support now, there was a very real chance that the Whites might lose the war. If that were to happen then all of the resources that Britain had thus far poured into the revolution would have been completely wasted, and his government would surely fall against the public’s backlash.

France would follow Britain’s lead. So long as the British continued to support the Whites, so would France. Both had proven to be a great boon to the White cause, not only providing the weapons and materials necessary to fight the war, but also providing essential foodstuffs needed to support their armies in the field as well as the Russian people. With the Ukrainian farmlands adding to this, the Whites held a crucial advantage over the Soviets. While their individual soldiers were not particularly well trained, most being hastily raised conscripts, they were generally well fed. This alone helped their morale immensely in comparison to their red counterparts, who were constantly on the brink of starvation.

On February 24th, with the support of the Royal Navy, a White army of 15,000 men and 5,000 Royal Marines landed in the Georgian province of Guria, quickly seizing the town of Ozurgeti and establishing their headquarters there. After they secured their immediate area, additional troops were landed. The population of the province greeted the White Army with jubilation, as they brought with them food and medicine which the starving populous desperately needed, though it had to be rationed carefully, so as not to deprive the soldiers of their essential supplies.

When news of the fall of Guria reached the Trotskyite regional headquarters in Tbilisi, the Trotskyite army panicked. Knowing they could not hope to defeat the Whites in a pitched battle, having been isolated from reinforcements by the Stalinist attack and being critically short of essential supplies, the majority of the army threw off their uniforms and melted into the local population. Some would surrender themselves to the White Army, while others would wage guerrilla warfare against them. Those that retained some measure of organization and discipline chose to retreat into the mountains and join the raiders there in their attacks against the Stalinists. Attacks against the White Forces in Georgia now also became common.

After several pitched battles with the last remaining organized resistance outside the mountains, the majority of Georgia’s interior had fallen to the White Army. The Trotskyites were simply unable to maintain their position, starving and cut off from all aid, with an increasingly hostile population who wished to see the White Army march through their towns, believing that they would bring bread and water with them. With all of Georgia on the brink of famine, any and all foodstuffs that they brought with them would be greatly welcomed by the populace. The soldiers of the White army were always strongly encouraged to share anything they could spare with the locals. This was their greatest propaganda tool.

While the weapons and logistical support they received from the allies was of immense aid to them and the war effort, the greatest boon was by far the vast shipments of foodstuffs that came from Britain and it’s colonies. They had requested that this make up the majority of their aid packages, for while small arms were always needed, having well fed soldiers and a supportive populace was seen as far more important by the leadership of the White Revolution. This was a central part of their grand strategy to win over the population and turn them against the Bolsheviks.

By March 11th, the majority of Georgia had fallen under White control. Better equipped for the task than the Stalinists, the White Army had been able to pursue the raiders into the mountains when they attacked. The 3rd Mountain Division was specifically brought for this task. Made up of veterans who fought with the deceased Peter Wrangel in the Caucasus during the first civil war, they were experienced and knew the local terrain. They were essential in seizing the capital of the Georgian SSR, Tbilisi, and opening the path for reinforcements to safely enter into the country from the north.

They would kill over 500 Trotskyite guerrillas in the mountains by the end of the civil war, and would allow the White army to exert nominal control over the entire region, which would have been impossible with the raiders still active. By March 21st, White soldiers had occupied the capital of the Armenian SSR, Yerevan.
In the northern Caucasus, General Anton Denikin led his forces against the Stalinist 2nd Leninsk corps. In the first weeks of the campaign, Denikin made excellent progress, capturing the city of Krasnador on March 3rd. The Stalinists had been forced to ration their oil due to the Trotskyite raiders, greatly reducing the efficiency of their tanks.

As the 3rd Mountain division weakened the raiders however, this had the unintended side effect of allowing the oil from Baku to be shipped to the tanks of the Stalinist camp with greater ease. Stalinist resistance became much stiffer, and Denikin’s progress in the Kuban slowed. Nevertheless, the numerically superior and better-supplied White army was gradually able to overtake the Stalinist forces in the northern Caucasus.
While the tanks the Stalinists possessed did give them a significant advantage, it was not decisive enough to gain them victory. The tanks they possessed in 1934 were still relatively slow and unreliable, and their numbers were relatively few. The large cavalry forces of Denikin’s army proved to be fast enough to successfully flank Tukhachevsky’s vastly outnumbered T-26s, which were mainly designed to support infantry in breeching static enemy defenses.

Tukhachevsky had originally intended them to work in unison with the other models of Soviet tanks that were in production at the outbreak of the civil war. But with many falling into the hands of the Trotskyites, who could themselves scarcely use them due to oil shortages, they were left with somewhat overly specialized equipment. While the T-26 certainly could be used to defeat conventional horse cavalry quite easily, there were often but a few hundred tanks available at a single time during the Caucasus campaign. The tank divisions of the Soviet Union had become split essentially between the Trotskyite, Stalinist and White armies. The Trotskyites didn’t have the oil, the Stalinists didn’t have the numbers and the Whites didn’t have the desire to use them.

As stated previously, the White Generals mistrusted the efficiency of the tank, and the divisions that defected to their side were mostly placed in reserve and rarely saw action. The Old Guard still favored the use of cavalry, though they had attempted to modernize the way in which they were used against the enemy, with mixed success. Cavalry proved to still be effective as mounted infantry, who could outmaneuver and flank the slower tanks before dismounting and attacking, while carbine armed cavalry who attempted to continue horse mounted warfare could truly only be useful when they held a large numerical advantage.

By March 26th, the Caucasus campaign was nearing its end, with the White Army having captured Georgia, Armenia and parts of western Azerbaijan. On April 2nd, the Battle of Grozny, fought between Denikin’s 4th Sevastopol Corps and the Stalinist’s 2nd Leninsk Corps resulted in high casualties being inflicted on the White army by the entrenched Stalinist forces in the town. Having been cut off from supplies to the north however, they were finally forced to retreat on April 5th. Denikin pursued them into eastern Azerbaijan through the some route they used in their attack against the Trotskyites in January.

The difference here however was that the White army was able to now attack from two sides, from the north and the south through southwestern Azerbaijan. Caught between the two attacking armies, the Stalinists in the Caucasus finally surrendered their arms to the Whites on April 19th after much hard fighting. The city of Baku, which was by then on the very brink of starvation, was placed under siege by the White army, essentially taking up the Stalinist’s old position. Having been under siege by Stalinist forces since late January, the population was already at its limit. On April 26th, the city finally surrendered to the White army, placing virtually all of the Caucasus under their control, though resistance would continue in the mountains for several months afterwards.

The surrender of the Leninsk Corps in the Caucasus was disastrous for the Stalinist faction, destroying any chance for victory that they might have once had. Over 80,000 men were killed, wounded or captured in the Caucasus campaign, and these losses left Stalingrad and it’s immediate surroundings critically short on defenders. The Trotskyites, despite their own abysmal condition, used their numerically superior forces to launch an attack on Stalingrad, in hopes of dealing the Stalinists a crushing defeat that would unite the Communist party once more.

Despite their vast numerical advantage however, the horrendous morale of Trotsky’s starving soldiers greatly hindered their progress against the Stalinists. Though demoralized by their defeat in the Caucasus, the Stalinist forces had little choice but to fight. They knew that to be captured was to be executed as traitors by the Trotskyites, or so their officers convinced them. The Battle of Stalingrad quickly became a long and grueling struggle that claimed the lives of many thousands of men and left both the Stalinists and Trotskyite armies utterly exhausted. Trotsky had hoped for a quick and decisive victory following the Stalinist’s loss in the Caucasus, but what he received was a brutal and restless defense of Stalin’s city.

The decisive victory in the Caucasus was a clear sign to the White leadership that the moment of decision had come. For Grand Duke Kyrill and the General Staff, the next course of action was clear: Moscow, capital of the Soviet Union and Trotskyite faction. With it’s fall, the last threads of morale in the Communist army would be broken, and the Civil War would end. But despite widespread starvation and low morale, the Trotskyites still held the numerical advantage, and a rash or poorly planned attack could prove disastrous…

RCWfullmap2.png

The Russian Civil War on May 1st, 1934. The Communists still own Moscow, but the front lines are very close.

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There you go. :)
 
trekaddict: To get the Russian Civil War chain, you must have Stalin be killed in the assassination attempt that fires at the start of January. Then when Trotsky takes over, have him proclaim a global crusade against capitalism and in October it'll start.

Crush3r: Yup, I actually mention that event in the first post. ;)

stnylan: The Russian Empire is one of my favorite historical nations.

Maj. von Mauser: A lot in the military probably would like an absolute Monarchy, but the population would likely throw a fit. In the end it really depends on Kyrill and his son. Vladimir clearly expresses liberal (though religiously conservative) views, while his father, the current Grand Duke, is somewhat vague in his political leanings.

soonerborn0524: Yeah, I always liked this scenario, as it was more plausible than the typical, random "Oh the people decide Communism is no good and put the Tsar back on the throne" scenario people sometimes do.

rcduggan: Hehe, the white leadership presents itself to the people as a democratic revolution, rather than a counterrevolution. While there certainly are a lot of the latter in it, it is composed of far more than old pro-Tsarist absolutists. There are liberals, non-Bolshevik republicans(who are nonetheless willing to accept a Const. Monarchy if it gets rid of the Commies), socialists and even a good number of Mensheviks.

diziziz: Real Communism eh? I always thought of the Mensheviks as being closer to what karl Marx had in mind, but whatever. :)

twcAxeman: Glad to have you on board. ;)
 
Promise me one thing, don't have the White's lose...

Also, I see the Soviet puppets are no longer pink. Do their government's still support communism, or are the Trotskyites purging them for food and supplies. It'd be cool to see some White action against Monglian cavalry and Tuvinian.....rocks?

Anyway, good update, I love the maps at the end.
 
The writing looks to be on the wall - but I am not counting the Soviets out of the fight yet.
 
Not yet caught up, SeanB, but I'm working on it. Fascinating premise. You're playing as the Whites?

Vann
 
Rise of the Eurasian Alliance: Broken Hammer

Throughout the later part of April and the early part of May, the Trotskyite government fought a bloody and grueling battle against the Stalinists in their capital of Stalingrad. Despite having lost so many men following the failure of the Caucasus campaign, the heavily entrenched Stalinist forces battled their rivals with relentless zeal to protect their center of power. They knew that if Stalingrad fell, then that would spell the end of their resistance, and they would likely be captured and executed by Trotsky and his cohorts.

The fact that a large number of the USSRs best officers had sided with the Stalinists did not help matters for the government, who were left with inexperienced commanders for the most part. Leon Trotsky had personally taken command of the army following his rise to power, and had tried to stop desertions in the same way he did in the first civil war: by threatening deserters with death and even at times taking their families hostage. This proved ineffective against large-scale defections, which had become increasingly common. Entire divisions would surrender or join the whites, seeking food and amnesty. Trotsky in turn simply lacked the brutality of Stalin, and generally did not make good on his threats to murder defectors families.

So desperate and bloody had the battle for Stalingrad become, that entire divisions had to be brought in from other fronts to prevent the total collapse of the deeply engaged forces there. Any attempt to retreat would have likely ended in mass desertions and a total collapse of the Trotskyite line at Stalingrad. This meant that victory was imperative, as the only other alternative was a catastrophic defeat, one that the Soviet government could no longer afford. However, despite the horrible casualties that they were suffering, the Stalinists were indeed beginning to lose ground against the relentless assault of the government.

By May 14, roughly 70% of the city had fallen into the hands of the government, with the Stalinists desperately fighting to hold together what was left of their dream of deposing Trotsky and restoring proper authority and order to the workers. During this time however, the leaders of the White Revolution had not sat idle. Watching the progress of the battle closely, their forces had laid in wait further north. As the government continued to draw more and more divisions away from their border with the Whites, they finally saw their opportunity to strike.

While surely Trotsky and his government must have realized the grave risk they were taking in weakening their other fronts for the sake of Stalingrad, as previously stated they had no other option. Only by reinforcing the attack on Stalingrad could they hope to win there, and only by winning could they hope to avoid a total military collapse. In truth, the government sealed its fate when it chose to attack Stalingrad. Had it exercised more caution, it might have prolonged the war for several months still, enough time for public unrest in Britain and France to put an end to their intervention in the civil war.

Despite St. Petersburg’s recent victories, Trotsky underestimated their position. He felt that they were still totally dependent on the support of the allied governments, and that once this ended, the people and workers would see the error of their ways and once again embrace the protectors of the proletariat. While it was true that the White Revolution was heavily dependent on allied support, this had gradually lessoned with its victories in the Ukraine and in the Caucasus. Though an end to the allies’ shipments of vital foodstuffs could have indeed caused them to lose the people’s support, and perhaps even lose the war, it is doubtful that by mid-May of 1934 they would have collapsed.

An end to allied support also seemed unlikely by that point, after the capture of the Caucasus. With the capture of the Baku oil fields, the Russian transitional government finally gained a lucrative method of repaying its rapidly accumulating debt to the allies. Following the seizure of the Caucasian oil, St. Petersburg began to directly trade the valuable substance for the incoming weapons and foodstuffs it received, thus making the allies more receptive to continuing their support of the revolution, as it was now a mutually beneficial arrangement.

This was not how Grand Duke Kyrill saw the situation however. His fear of an allied withdrawal only grew with each passing day. He became almost paranoid at the thought. He feared that if the civil war dragged on for too long, his support within the White coalition would falter, and his throne denied to him. His fears were not entirely unfounded. There were many within the White transitional government who would have greatly preferred a democratic republic to a restoration of the monarchy. Most prominent and outspoken among these were the Mensheviks, parts of the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) and the ‘right’ Socialist-Revolutionaries (SR).

Contrary to the view commonly held in the west, the White Transitional Government was not a den of Tsarist reactionaries. The aforementioned groups held significant influence, and though they were willing to accept a Constitutional Monarchy if there was no other option, many did so with great reluctance. Nevertheless, those in support of a Constitutional Monarchy were the majority, made up of nationalists, octobrists, reactionaries, centrists and the majority of the Constitutional Democrats. The majority, though not all, of the high-ranking officers in the White army also supported a restoration, though there were notable Republicans such as General Anton Denikin amongst them. It is also worth noting that while the Bolsheviks attempted to label them as such, the Whites in the Second Civil War never referred to themselves as a counterrevolutionary movement, but rather as a Democratic Revolution against the tyranny of Bolshevism.

It was really a miracle that they were all able to put their differences aside long enough to fight against the Soviet Union. It was only their mutual hatred of Bolshevism that managed to draw them together in a coalition against them. Many in the Transitional Government had begun to see victory as being inevitable, and political maneuvering had already began amongst the various politicians eagerly awaiting a chance to further their careers and political ideals in the post-war government.

On May 19 the White Army’s 4th Sevastopol Corps, 7th Kieven Corps, and the newly raised 11th Rostov Corps under the command of General Pyotr Krasnov initiated Operation Barclay, named after Michael Andreas Barclay, a prominent General during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. It was the largest campaign of the war, with the Transitional Government fielding over 500,000 men, and with some 545,000 Soviet troops defending Moscow and the surrounding territory. Though outnumbered, the soldiers of the White Army were far better equipped than their Soviet counterparts, who were running critically short of both rifles and ammunition by this point.

By mid-May, the Soviet economy had imploded, and production had practically ground to a halt. With essential resources denied to them and with millions on the verge of starvation, Trotsky was holding the Soviet Union together with his fists. The NKVD struggled to suppress dissent as best it could, once again resorting to the very methods that Trotsky himself once condemned just to keep Communism from disintegrating. People were forced to work even though they produced very little, and the army was on the verge of collapse.

When the offensive began, the Soviets were completely unprepared to hold back the White army. Though they had been told to be on alert for any incursions by the enemy, when the time came to actually fight, most of the soldiers no longer had the will nor the desire to resist. With the majority of Trotsky’s forces tied down in Stalingrad, he had little to spare to reinforce the Soviet position around Moscow. Those that did fight had to do so with limited ammunition and artillery shells. The tanks that Trotsky possessed were completely useless, with no oil to power their engines.

Trotsky had been forced to bring all of his best-equipped divisions to bear against the defenders at Stalingrad, resulting in his forces to the north being wholly unready to repel a determined assault on the capital. Trotsky himself had traveled to Stalingrad to take personal command of the attack to guarantee it’s success, and when news of the attack upon Moscow reached him, it is said that he stood silent for over an hour. In his memoirs, he notes that his attack on Stalingrad was the worst decision he made during the war.

Trotsky had not intended to become so bogged down in the city that bore his late rival’s name. It was supposed to deal a swift deathblow to the Stalinists and reunite the communist party and the USSR against its true enemy. For various reasons this situation failed to materialize, and though the Trotskyite forces did finally take Stalingrad on May 25, they paid for that ‘victory’ with their own capital, Moscow. Using an encircling maneuver from Yaroslavl in the north and Smolensk in the south, Krasnov had surrounded Moscow by May 27, cutting it completely off from any aid from the outside world.

Having had enough of being worked to death and watching their friends and loved ones die of hunger, the population of Moscow rose up against the local Soviet there and demanded that the White army be allowed to enter and distribute food and medicine to those who needed it. In an ironic parallel with the February revolution, when the local government tried to order the revolts put down, the exhausted, starving, and hopelessly outmatched soldiers refused. Many threw off their uniforms and melted into the city, while others openly joined and supported the uprising.

On May 31, the Moscow Soviet voted to surrender the city to the White forces and spare the people starvation and a bloody urban battle that would devastate the ancient historical capital of Russia. The decision was made rather hastily, as several of Krasnov’s divisions had already positioned themselves for an attack, and the people of Moscow were on the verge of a mass riot. Despite the vehement opposition of the staunchest Bolsheviks, the surrender proposal passed with an absolute majority.

On June 1, the encircled Soviet divisions in Moscow laid down their arms and surrendered to Krasnov. Before the war weary crowds, Krasnov and his army triumphantly marched across the Red Square. There was only minor resistance within the city from the diehard Bolshevik soldiers who refused to accept the surrender, the population in general being receptive to Krasnov and the promise of bread and medical aid. Turning the Kremlin into his temporary headquarters, General Krasnov would direct the remainder of the Barclay Offensive from there.

With the fall of Stalingrad, the Stalinist faction was for the most part broken. Retreating before the overwhelming numbers of the Trotskyites, the remnants of the Stalinist army retreated into central Asia. Much of the leadership of the Stalinist faction was killed in the fighting, including Nikolai Bukharin. This essentially decapitated the Stalinists, and resulted in what was left of their army scattering into the vast expanses of the central Asian SSRs and Siberia.

Trotsky attempted to rally his forces around Stalingrad and launch a counteroffensive against Krasnov, with the intention of liberating Moscow. It was simply too late however. By June 10th, the remnants of Trotsky’s forces were essentially an army without a nation. Soviet authority had all but collapsed in Europe, and widespread pro-white revolts were taking place throughout the country, even in central Asia, which had remained fairly secure up until that point. Finally realizing that victory was unachievable, Trotsky, with a “solemn and heavy heart”, fled along with much of his senior staff and loyalist supporters into Siberia, where they crossed the Mongolian border on June 29th, seeking amnesty there until they could escape to Europe.

After the fall of Moscow, Communist authority essentially disintegrated throughout Russia. Up to the Urals and even in the shelled and blasted city of Stalingrad flew the double eagle, raised high not by soldiers but by common people, wishing to proclaim their support for the new government and to be saved from the horrendous famine that had gripped their lands. Central Asia and parts of Siberia still remained outside of the Transitional Government’s influence, with the local governments there awaiting integration while struggling to maintain order.

On July 11, Grand Duke Kyrill Romanov gave a nationwide radio broadcast declaring victory for the White Revolution and the Transitional Government. He loudly proclaimed the end of Communism, and asked for all Russian citizens to unite behind the St. Petersburg government to help heal their wounded Motherland. He strongly condemned the Mongolian Communist regime for granting asylum to Trotsky and his supporters, and proclaimed that Russia would not ‘tolerate’ any Communist dictatorship on its border.

Khorloogiin Choibalsan, leader of Mongolia had, in the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet authority in Russia, taken it upon himself to annex the small state of Tannu Tuva directly into his nation, partially in an attempt to solidify his grip on power within Mongolia, which he feared would turn against him without his Soviet protector. For the time being this action went unanswered by Russia, who, despite the Grand Duke’s strong words, had more important things to do than depose a Communist regime in a backwards country that didn’t even have a proletariat.

The Civil War had finally ended, but there was still much work to be done on the part of the Transitional Government. With the local economy of much of their country in tatters, it would take a truly efficient and skilled administration to bring Russia through this difficult time. The Whites may have won the war, but now, they would be forced to strive and avoid losing the peace…

RCWfullmap3.png

The Blue represents the local governments of central Asia and Siberia. These have yet to be integrated into the Transitional Government and will take a few months to reorganize them. Red is of course Communist Mongolia.

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There you go! Enjoy. :)
 
So the Whites are in! Time for some fiendish politicking I think :)
 
Those dumb Mongolians, why would they want little old Tannu Tuva...

As for the Whites, I am glad to see they have won the war, hopefully they can unite the rest of the country, depose the last Communist regimes, and overcome their internal political tensions soon enough to face the real trouble....

The man in Berlin.

I also belive that if and when Mongolia's communists are defeated that the province be united with Russia.
 
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