WI: Catherine the Great was never born?

[alexmilman]

if you want, you can argue it went back to Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov, but we must draw the line "somewhere"

Of course. The “classic” starting point is Peter I prior to whom “as everybody knows” Tsardom lived in the early stone age and the only shiny beacon of the civilization was German Settlement in the drinking establishments of which young Peter got himself familiar with all advantages of the western civilization then acquiring additional knowledge from Anne Mons. I’m fully on board with this because the alternatives are soooo boring. 😜

how about we examine the facts at the time. Catherine's biography wasn't published until the 1840s, IIRC

Don’t let the facts to interfere with “everybody knows” history. 😂

But, just for the fun of it and us being in ATL, let’s assume that Peter I died before Sophia was overthrown. What the history would tell us? A rather dumb boy who could not even learn to write properly, started excessive drinking in the early age, adored “playing soldiers” ignoring the existing modern (and already victorious) army, prone to the rude physical “jokes”, absolutely indifferent to his position of a Tsar, etc. What’s worse, under the influence of his greedy and quite unattractive mother and uncle, conservative Patriarch and other reactionaries, was plotting against a progressive regime of the regent and then glorious Empress Sophia and her great progressive minister Vasily Golitsin. Drowned in one of the Izmailovo ponds sailing a boat while being dead drunk [1]. Something along these lines and factually it will be more than 90% correct. 😂

I wonder, among other things, how much advertised absence of education and culture in Peter III was going hand to hand with him establishing a high quality opera theater in Oranienbaum and him personally playing fiddle? Or why the stories about his drinking had been spread by his wife who slept with one of the top three drinkers in St.Petersburg? 😜

[1] Technical plausibility of this was discussed in details while ago with @Valena and the conclusion was that it is possible: an average depth of “Серебряно-Виноградный” pond is 2-3 meters so it would do just fine.

 

[Jürgen]

Before we lionize Peter III let’s remember that the idiot was starting a war with Denmark, a war Russia was in a terrible position to wage and against a country which would have been willing to establish friendly relationship with him.

 

[Valena]

[1] Technical plausibility of this was discussed in details while ago with @Valena and the conclusion was that it is possible: an average depth of “Серебряно-Виноградный” pond is 2-3 meters so it would do just fine.

It was in a TL when he died in 1697

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Before we lionize Peter III let’s remember that the idiot was starting a war with Denmark, a war Russia was in a terrible position to wage and against a country which would have been willing to establish friendly relationship with him.

Tho Peter would probably easily crush Denmark, it's like putting an ant against the giant.

 

[Hearkener]

As for Pyotr's phimosis, it is never mentioned or attested by anyone who'd be in a position to know - Catherine and Dr. Lestocq make no mention of it beyond the latter recommending to Elizabeth Petrovna the marriage be delayed for unspecified reasons. And the phimosis is first mentioned by a Frenchman, Jean Henri de Castéra, in a historiography of Catherine published after her death.

Hardly the only criticism Sophie had of her late husband though. Or would you dispute that he pulled Russia out of the war with Prussia as well, at a time when Fritz really didn't have much of an army left and thereby sabotaged the entire anti-Prussian coalition?

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Hardly the only criticism Sophie had of her late husband though. Or would you dispute that he pulled Russia out of the war with Prussia as well, at a time when Fritz really didn't have much of an army left and thereby sabotaged the entire anti-Prussian coalition?

@alexmilman would and he'd probably explain it better than I'll be able to do.

 

[Jürgen]

Tho Peter would probably easily crush Denmark, it's like putting an ant against the giant.

No, he wouldn’t which is one of the major reason why it was stupid war. Russia had to wage a war across the border of several states, against a medium power with a strong navy, control over the access to the major Russian ports, with a mid-sized army and with it capital lying on a island. The fact is that even if Russia had a good cause for starting a war with Denmark, it would still have been a clusterfuck. What made the conflict worse is that there was no reason at all for the conflict, beside Peter III really hating his cousins in Copenhagen.

 

[alexmilman]

@alexmilman would and he'd probably explain it better than I'll be able to do.

Thanks. This, actually, was explained multiple times in various TLs so I’ll be repeating the things which are already generally known.

1. As far as the Russian interests were involved, there were none except for a rather vague idea expressed in a memo of Elizabeth’s conference. This specific issue had been discussed to death on this forum and the relevant parts of the original document quoted and discussed pretty much sentence by sentence so I’m not going to quote them in the (n + 1)s time. Enough to say that the idea boiled down to two main items: conquer East Prussia and exchange it with the PLC for Courland and hopefully also get from the PLC some unidentified territory on the South that would open access to the Black Sea (to which the PLC did not have an access). Neither idea was discussed with the PLC and none was realistic in political terms. Which left the only item: weaken Prussia to prevent its influence in the PLC. None of these goals was of a slightest interest to the Russian nobility so the war was not popular to the get go. The war was strictly a cabinet war with no national interests driven exclusively by Elizabeth’s feelings and Bestuzev’s adherence to the “Austrian alliance no matter what”. That system already demonstrated its “worthiness” when Russia was forced to give back pretty much all its gains in the Ottoman war of 1735-39 but the Chancellor stuck to it (and to Austrian bribes).

2. It proved to be very costly and the Austrian subsidies were not covering the expenses (not sure if Elizabeth was spending all received money on war but this is irrelevant) and by the end of her reign the troops were not paid for more than a year.

3. The losses were huge both from the fighting and from starvation and diseases. To compensate, the new recruits were needed and they were coming from the nobility’s estates.

4. In theory, when the Russian troops reached Prussia, the supplies were expected to come from the Austrians but they could not/would not provide enough from already exhausted Bohemia so the Russian army had to organize its own supply system which started working marginally satisfactory only after more than a year being based upon appropriating food from Poland and East Prussia. Both were exhausted more than a year prior to Elizabeth’s death. As a result, there was a need to launch a special rather complex operation for taking Kolberg to allow bringing supplies from the RE by the sea.

5. After Kunersdorf general position of the Russian command was that the Russian army accomplished enough and now it is the Austrian turn to act aggressively, which was (among other factors) not Daun’s style of a warfare. Difference of the opinions resulted in alienation that culminated with Buturlin’s appointment: he simply held his troops in PLC guarding the supply warehouses and preserving soldiers’ lives while ignoring Elizabeth’s orders. The token events like raid on Berlin were changing nothing strategically.

6. From the Russian perspective the war did not have too much sense at the start and after Elizabeth’s death it lost whatever was there: why should Russia keep fighting for the Austrian interests? Even more so, why to fight for the French interests if Louis XV was quite open in his policy to keep Russia weak and to minimize its influence in the PLC? Majority of the nobility was seemingly happy with peace and after Peter’s Manifest of the Nobility’s Liberty got plain excited.

7. Who were most vocally upset with the peace making noises about the lost glory? The Guards who did not participate in the war and remained at St.Petersburg. Who, among the participants, was making the loudest noises? Bolotov, who spent most of it in East Prussia and in his memoirs collected all nasty rumors about its conduct and behavior of its participants. A classic “eyewitness who was not there”. Who was the most enthusiastic supporter of PIII in the army? Its best general Rumyantsev who, probably due to an absence of Bolotov’s patriotism and strategic genius of Grigory Orlov, was quite happy when it ended. Chernishov, presumably general #2, was gladly commanding Russian corps sent to help Frederick, received Order of the Black Eagle and agreed to Frederick’s request to delay, after the coup, departure of his troops allowing Frederick to win an important victory by their presence. Interestingly enough, out of all leading generals Rumyantsev did not get any award from Catherine for his performance in the 7YW.

8. Catherine. As a Grand Duchess was pro-Prussian, which made Elizabeth extremely angry. During the reign of PIII became a member of the “patriotic” party of the Guards (see above about their contribution) and a part of the court clique which by various personal reasons did not like Peter. After the coup not just left peace agreement in force but accelerated removal of the Russian troops from Prussia.

9. Now, as far as the initially expected award, Courland, was involved, Russia was controlling situation there and a duke was sitting on a throne only as long as he was permitted. Elizabeth kept the legitimate duke exiled in Yaroslavl allowing King August III to appoint his son as a duke bypassing the PLC law and wishes of the local nobility. When Catherine “forgave” the old duke the appointed one was kicked out without much ado: it took a single battalion of the Russian troops to be present and the Saxon duke, after being advised to vacate residence voluntarily, promptly left and the old duke returned. All protests from Warsaw were ignored. So did it worth to get into a major war for that?

 

[alexmilman]

No, he wouldn’t which is one of the major reason why it was stupid war. Russia had to wage a war across the border of several states, against a medium power with a strong navy, control over the access to the major Russian ports, with a mid-sized army and with it capital lying on a island. The fact is that even if Russia had a good cause for starting a war with Denmark, it would still have been a clusterfuck. What made the conflict worse is that there was no reason at all for the conflict, beside Peter III really hating his cousins in Copenhagen.

Peter was not planning conquest of Denmark, just return of his territories in Holstein. Russian army was staying in Pomerania and Prussia was to provide the additional 20,000 (IIRC) troops. Operation did not require any naval operations so the Danish fleet was marginally relevant while the Danish army in the peninsula hardly could stand up to the 50,000 veteran troops, not counting Prussians. Actually, the whole thing could easily end without a fight because both sides agreed to have a peace conference and you yourself conceded while ago that a meaningful settlement was possible and even courteously supplied a beautiful map. 😉

 

[Flavius Iulius Maiorianus]

@alexmilman This might be a little off topic, but what did Peter the Great do that was detrimental to Russia? And would Russia have been better off had he, say, died sometime during the Great Northern War or fighting the Ottomans during the Great Turkish War?

 

[alexmilman]

@alexmilman This might be a little off topic, but what did Peter the Great do that was detrimental to Russia? And would Russia have been better off had he, say, died sometime during the Great Northern War or fighting the Ottomans during the Great Turkish War?

Its a million $$$ question answer to which depends upon the definitions of “good vs. bad” and they are not something as objective as, say a law of gravity. 😉 The same things that the “statehood/Great Man” historians (including the greatest one, Solovyev) consider good their opponents consider bad. Not always “bad” in the absolute meaning but in the terms of badly done.

To start with, a loss of 20-25% of the (male or all?) population is probably detrimental. An argument to the opposite is that “Russia was modernized” (with the same argument being repeated for CII; if it was already modernized once, shouldn’t it be able to keep up without the orders from the ruler?). This somewhat assumes that prior to Peter there were the Middle Ages with the caricature long-bearded boyars and by Peter’s order it all suddenly changed to the Western Europe of the XVIII century. Strange enough, most of the prominent figures were either the same allegedly long-bearded boyars benefitting from shaving or the people who already had been on prominent positions during the previous regimes.

Then, there is an issue of him triggering up manufacturing, especially ironworks. Well, the metallurgic plants with the water-driven bellows were established in Tula and Serpukhov in 1640s and plant in Nerchinsk already was operational before his reign. True, he promoted creation of Demodov’s metallurgic “empire” on the Ural but it is not like he started from the scratch. The same applies to the textile production. Anyway, under him the manufacturing grew in volume but the “negativists” like Pokrovsky argued, with the numbers to support, that most of his manufactures were ill-conceived and failed either soon after or during his reign because the enforced system of their creation was faulty: groups of “connected” people were creating a company, getting highly favorable conditions (subsidies, tax free period, guaranteed purchase by thecstate, etc. or even a monopoly) but, because most often than not the founders had no clue about the business and had been busy on the state service, they were routinely failing. A “long-term” argument that state’s promotion of the serf-based manufacture model eventually delayed technological modernization of the mid-XIX because the steam engines were expensive and the serfs were there, cheap and “mandatory”: you could not fire them, they are yours and you have to provide them with the means of living.

Then, of course, his endless wars with the huge not battle related losses: inadequate food, completely alien clothing ill suited to the climate, etc. An argument “pro” is that he got an access to the Baltic Sea but the trade was already going through the Swedish held ports for many decades and, even with an arguable allowance for the claim that it was cheaper to trade via your own ports (which he closed for years to promote St.Peteersburg; and how much construction of that city cost?), the idea of turning Russia into an equivalent of England and Holland failed due to a luck of interest in the Russian merchant class: Russia did not have a noticeable merchant fleet even century later.

Stricty detrimental, at the time of his death population was overtaxed, treasury was empty, the country was ruled by a bunch of self-confessed crooks, an attempt to turn the Baltics into Russian lake failed and Russia was isolated politically. Army troops were billeted in the civilians houses looting and oppressing the homeowners and, while the top brass was doing fine the soldiers were not paid.

Mandatory service for life was destroying nobility because its members could not manage their estates but, as a “compensation” the serfdom was tightened making peasants situation even worse. “Westernization” of a noble class remained superficial because there were no functioning educational institutions.

Various scenarios of Peter’s early demise already had been beaten to death on this forum.

 

[TrickyApe]

Peter was not planning conquest of Denmark, just return of his territories in Holstein. Russian army was staying in Pomerania and Prussia was to provide the additional 20,000 (IIRC) troops. Operation did not require any naval operations so the Danish fleet was marginally relevant while the Danish army in the peninsula hardly could stand up to the 50,000 veteran troops, not counting Prussians. Actually, the whole thing could easily end without a fight because both sides agreed to have a peace conference and you yourself conceded while ago that a meaningful settlement was possible and even courteously supplied a beautiful map. 😉

The Prussian support was the key to overcoming the geographic factor but it was still probably a pretty dumb idea for a war. Catherine's ultimate solution of trading away the Holstein inheritance in return for a gift to the collateral Oldenburgs doesn't seem very good either though.

 

[alexmilman]

The Prussian support was the key to overcoming the geographic factor but it was still probably a pretty dumb idea for a war.

Peter was ready to give away something which was not his and would not be under any circumstances for the help in getting something that was rightfully his and could not be beneficial for the RE. The war was an ultima ratio with 50,000 troops in Pomerania as a pressure factor: there was going to be a conference with Fritz, AFAIK, as a mediator so some arrangement could be reached.

As for the dumb ideas, how about Elizabeth getting into the 7YW without any coherent goal or CII attacking the PLC just because she did not like its constitution? Or AI getting into the 3rd and 4th coalitions with Napoleon not threatening Russian interests in any way (actually, being an ally). As far as the dumbness goes PIII was a wizard comparing to these rulers. 😂

Catherine's ultimate solution of trading away the Holstein inheritance in return for a gift to the collateral Oldenburgs doesn't seem very good either though.

She exchanged something that belonged to her son and could be useful to the empire to something benefitting her obscure German relatives so RE got nothing.

 

[Flavius Iulius Maiorianus]

Its a million $$$ question answer to which depends upon the definitions of “good vs. bad” and they are not something as objective as, say a law of gravity. 😉 The same things that the “statehood/Great Man” historians (including the greatest one, Solovyev) consider good their opponents consider bad. Not always “bad” in the absolute meaning but in the terms of badly done.

To start with, a loss of 20-25% of the (male or all?) population is probably detrimental. An argument to the opposite is that “Russia was modernized” (with the same argument being repeated for CII; if it was already modernized once, shouldn’t it be able to keep up without the orders from the ruler?). This somewhat assumes that prior to Peter there were the Middle Ages with the caricature long-bearded boyars and by Peter’s order it all suddenly changed to the Western Europe of the XVIII century. Strange enough, most of the prominent figures were either the same allegedly long-bearded boyars benefitting from shaving or the people who already had been on prominent positions during the previous regimes.

Then, there is an issue of him triggering up manufacturing, especially ironworks. Well, the metallurgic plants with the water-driven bellows were established in Tula and Serpukhov in 1640s and plant in Nerchinsk already was operational before his reign. True, he promoted creation of Demodov’s metallurgic “empire” on the Ural but it is not like he started from the scratch. The same applies to the textile production. Anyway, under him the manufacturing grew in volume but the “negativists” like Pokrovsky argued, with the numbers to support, that most of his manufactures were ill-conceived and failed either soon after or during his reign because the enforced system of their creation was faulty: groups of “connected” people were creating a company, getting highly favorable conditions (subsidies, tax free period, guaranteed purchase by thecstate, etc. or even a monopoly) but, because most often than not the founders had no clue about the business and had been busy on the state service, they were routinely failing. A “long-term” argument that state’s promotion of the serf-based manufacture model eventually delayed technological modernization of the mid-XIX because the steam engines were expensive and the serfs were there, cheap and “mandatory”: you could not fire them, they are yours and you have to provide them with the means of living.

Then, of course, his endless wars with the huge not battle related losses: inadequate food, completely alien clothing ill suited to the climate, etc. An argument “pro” is that he got an access to the Baltic Sea but the trade was already going through the Swedish held ports for many decades and, even with an arguable allowance for the claim that it was cheaper to trade via your own ports (which he closed for years to promote St.Peteersburg; and how much construction of that city cost?), the idea of turning Russia into an equivalent of England and Holland failed due to a luck of interest in the Russian merchant class: Russia did not have a noticeable merchant fleet even century later.

Stricty detrimental, at the time of his death population was overtaxed, treasury was empty, the country was ruled by a bunch of self-confessed crooks, an attempt to turn the Baltics into Russian lake failed and Russia was isolated politically. Army troops were billeted in the civilians houses looting and oppressing the homeowners and, while the top brass was doing fine the soldiers were not paid.

Mandatory service for life was destroying nobility because its members could not manage their estates but, as a “compensation” the serfdom was tightened making peasants situation even worse. “Westernization” of a noble class remained superficial because there were no functioning educational institutions.

Various scenarios of Peter’s early demise already had been beaten to death on this forum.

So basically, all the stuff he's credited for was already happening and would have happened without him, and all he really did was get Russia into senseless wars that killed tons of people for relatively little gain?

 

[alexmilman]

So basically, all the stuff he's credited for was already happening and would have happened without him, and all he really did was get Russia into senseless wars that killed tons of people for relatively little gain?

Not that simple. To start with, there is no 100% guarantee that everything, including the useful things like Ladoga canal, would happen. We can talk just about the general trend, which was, indeed, going toward “modernization” but in a somewhat different form. Basically, it was evolution vs. revolution approach and in something could be said in favor of each. The evolutionary approach may (or may not) produce less wasteful and more sustainable results but if it takes too long, then the gap may widen to a degree requiring “revolution”.

The analogy will be imprecise but compare evolutionary approach of Qing dynasty with the much more revolutionary Japanese approach. We know results.

So, IMO, it is wrong to say that Peter did nothing useful and everything would happen without him but just better: we don’t know. But his methods definitely had been wasteful and many important decisions had been taken without a proper consideration like was, by his own admission, entry into the GNW. Surely, he could wait for few years, start producing weapons in the needed volumes (in meantime got more artillery from Sweden), training troops along the Swedish model and, just a trifle, to start using socket vs. plug bayonets.

Now, as far as the wars were involved, wars of his predecessors and successors quite often had been senseless with the huge losses. However, the attempts to get to the Baltic coast can be traced back to Ivan III who built Ivangorod opposite to Narva. Why the later monarchs repeatedly tried to get this place is enigma to me: Narva is located upriver and there is no good protected harbor. Probably something better could be chosen with a lesser trouble.