The Revenge of the Bear
Chapter 18 : The Calm Before the Storm?
An eerie calm befell upon Mother Russia following the June Split as both the Nikolaists and the Alexandrists eyed each other with distrust and gauged each other’s moves. But for now neither side was ready to take on the other and so all was calm throughout the Empire. Of course, all was calm if one did not take into account the now rather routine Tatar riots in Kazan and partisan uprisings stretching from Turkestan and all the way to Korea.
The four years before the turn of the new century held a number of events both interior and exterior important to the Russian Empire.
Administrative Reform of 1896
Russia’s colonial underbelly after the reform of the year 1896
The Administrative Reform of the year 1896 concerned a number of Russian colonial holdings and was aimed at ensuring a more efficient administration of some areas, a more efficient exploitation of others.
First of all, the General-Governorate of Alaska, until then under a mixed military administration of the army and economic administration of the Russian American Company, was officially made into a governorate. The Russian American Company received a charter granting it a monopoly on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources. The move saw the establishment of a governorate Duma for Alaska and the one and a half million Imperial subjects living in the territory got a much greater say in local matters than they had under the previous colonial arrangement.
A similar fate became of the General-Governorate of the Steppes. The military administration was replaced with a more civilian oriented one as the census showed that more than half of the population was Russian (never mind the fact that the census listed Orthodox “Kirgiz” as Russian). The move of establishing a “governorate” right in the middle of the “colonial underbelly” was an important and symbolic achievement, signifying Mother Russia’s firm advance on central Asia and cementing the vast domains as an eternal part of the Russian state.
Mongolia was split into two separate “colonies”: Steppes Mongolia and Mountain Mongolia. Both under strict military administration.
The special status of Kashmir as a “tributary state” was confirmed. And the little mountain country was left alone to rule itself as it wished, for as long as nobody bothered the traffic of goods and soldiers by the local railway.
Turkestan was left organised into its constituent oblasts and left under strict military administration established by General-Fieldmarshal Skobelev.
Finally, the Laodong peninsula was detached from the General-Governorate of Manchuria and made into the Kwantung Governorate. The Russian Navy began building an important naval base and other military installations there, as well as bringing in an important number of soldiers, officers and Russian workers from all over the Empire. However, in this case the territory was more similar to the “governorates” of Tsargrad, Jerusalem and Heraklion, where the local military garrisons played an extremely important part in local administration, even if many typically civilian matters resided in the hands of locally elected officials. In the case of Kwantung, it was quite obviously only the Russian settlers that had any say in the matter.
American-Spanish Crisis
Trouble was brewing in the Carribean basin as Cuban separatists intensified their struggle for a free Cuba in the year 1897. The United States got drawn into the conflict when in 1897 the USS Maine was blown up in the harbour of Havana. The details around the incident remained sketchy at best, but it soon appeared that two of Russia’s friends would be going to war with each other.
And this Russia did not need. The newly appointed Foreign Minister Count Muravyev was sent on a mission first to Washington D.C. and then to Madrid. After months of hectic diplomacy between the two sides, an agreement was achieved between the Spanish and the Americans, which clearly favoured the latter at the expense of the former.
Under the Russian-negotiated solution, Cuba would become independent under American “protection”
Cuba would be given independence under American “protection”. Spain, however, would maintain its hold on Puerto-Rico. Madrid was clearly left dissatisfied with the arrangement, but what could it do in the face of the world’s most powerful nation that was Russia?
Not that the Russian Empire had a choice in favoring one side over the other. The United States were a proved and until now a reliable ally, whilst the Spanish were only “friends” and have so far not had any active role in Russia’s foreign politics. And even if Spain was a fellow monarchy, realpolitik won the day.
Expansionism in Aravia
General Kosych and his 3rd Aravian Corps of native conscripts would conquer Oman in less time than it was required to say the country’s name
The Arabian Peninsula (referred to as Aravia in Russia) became another theatre of Russo-British rivalry for power. The establishment of British colonies and protectorates in southern Yemen made the race even more dangerous. The vast unexplored domains of the peninsula would have to belong to one nation, and that nation would be Russia.
And as explorer expeditions mapped out the peninsula and established firm Russian claims on the areas, the General-Governor of Aravia, Andrei Ivanovich Kosych, telegrammed to Petersburg asking for permission to invade the kingdom of Oman in the south-east of the peninsula. General-lieutenant Kosych was also quite impatient to try out his newly formed 3rd Aravian Corps, made up of six divisions worth of local mahomettan conscripts.
The conquest of Oman was approved for a number of reasons. First of all: why not? Secondly, the British could grab it first. Thirdly, Oman controlled the Soccotra islands east of Africa, a strategic naval point for the control of the Red Sea. The opening of the Suez Canal twenty years earlier by a consortium of French and British interests left Russia slightly in the cold. And now Russia could bounce back by simply blocking the exit of the Red Sea if she so felt.
Russian Aravia after the conquest of Oman. Russia gained the strategically vital Socotra islands, much to the despair of the British
A thorough description of the war would only be a waste of time. Only native and locally enrolled soldiers were used for the offensive against Oman and proved quite efficient and crushing the native kingdom.
Industrial development
With the relentless expansion of its industrial capacity, Russia was soon the most industrailised nation in the world. However, the Empire did lag behind in high technology and rare goods, instead mass producing other, more regular goods. This began to change and Russia could finally take advantage of her impressive machine parts production facilities to produce capital ship hulls, telephones and electric gears. Before the turn of the century, Russia’s entrepreneurs established three factories, one for each good.
Russia began to catch up in terms of technological advance,
having already left her rivals far behind in terms of overall industrial capacities
I do admit to neither having the will nor time to reading that wiki article in full. I did glance at the pretty maps, though.
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