For the Nation, For the People: 1848 and Beyond
- Thread starter knin
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At this point, alliances have shifted and become unsteady enough that the Eastern War will not exactly resemble the OTL Crimean War.
Also, shoutout to your location - I was born in Germantown
At this point I think the most logical course of action for Austria is to support Russia and come to an agreement on how to divide the Balkans between the two.
This helps repair relations with Russia and turns a possible hotspot of disputes into a more gentlemanly agreement. Plus as The Ottomans have refused, it is not Maximilian bowing to Russian Pressure. It could also firmly secure the Austrian Southern Border, although personally I've always preferred to see an Austria that controls the entire length of The Danube, that is unlikely as Russia will probably be taking control of the Danubian Principalities.
If Austria and Russia are both going after the Ottomans with only France as their opposition I expect Prussia will just sit this out. They would have little to gain and much to lose by going up against both Austria and Russia at the same time, and while I'm all for seeing Prussia dismembered and destroyed as they deserve, I don't think it will happen.
Britain is a wild card as always, but I think if they could secure influence in an enlarged Greece and former Ottoman Egypt/Syria and get at least de-jure neutrality for whatever state ends up controlling Anatolia I think they could be brought over, not necessarily to outright military support, but to at least diplomatic apathy.
We could see the Death of the Ottoman Empire a half a century early.
This helps repair relations with Russia and turns a possible hotspot of disputes into a more gentlemanly agreement. Plus as The Ottomans have refused, it is not Maximilian bowing to Russian Pressure. It could also firmly secure the Austrian Southern Border, although personally I've always preferred to see an Austria that controls the entire length of The Danube, that is unlikely as Russia will probably be taking control of the Danubian Principalities.
If Austria and Russia are both going after the Ottomans with only France as their opposition I expect Prussia will just sit this out. They would have little to gain and much to lose by going up against both Austria and Russia at the same time, and while I'm all for seeing Prussia dismembered and destroyed as they deserve, I don't think it will happen.
Britain is a wild card as always, but I think if they could secure influence in an enlarged Greece and former Ottoman Egypt/Syria and get at least de-jure neutrality for whatever state ends up controlling Anatolia I think they could be brought over, not necessarily to outright military support, but to at least diplomatic apathy.
We could see the Death of the Ottoman Empire a half a century early.
Gian
Banned
Also, shoutout to your location - I was born in Germantown
Sweet. I currently live here.
August-October, 1853
With mobilizations underway in both Russia and the Ottoman Empire, both sides begin to think of strategy and where to strike first. Clearly, the Ottoman territories in the Balkans are under direct threat from the encroaching Russian forces north of the Danube, as well as the internal unrest among the Serbs and other Slavs. With exhaustion and frustration there running high, Serbia had largely been forced to disengage from the Bosnian revolt, which had contributed significantly to its collapse and dissipation. Though the rebellion in Bosnia had slowly wound down after grinding on for almost four years, an expanded conflict might boil tensions over again, especially if Russia lends support.
In Serbia, Garašanin's carefully-hatched plans for Serbian self-determination are threatened by the diplomatic trajectory towards inevitable conflict. Potentially joining with Russia in the fight would once again signal that Serbia is not ready to stand on her own, and would at the same time destroy the progress he has made towards building a more permanent relationship between Serbia and France. At the same time, even if France's presumed pact with the Porte is merely a union of convenience, a conflict with those two nations on the same side would likely not benefit Serbia in any way. Thus it would appear there is little reason to Serbia to get involved, and dangerous neutrality is almost as fruitless as impetuously picking the wrong side. Frustrated, Garašanin realizes the window for a settlement in Bosnia is now well and truly closed, and will have to be re-evaluated after the conflict runs its course and is resolved, barring some monumental collapse by Ottoman forces.
As frustrated as the Porte has been with Serbian meddling, the sultan's ministers equally seem to recognize that Serbia is likely to avoid getting involved in the conflict as it currently stands, and thus are counting on Serbian neutrality. Therefore, much of the military resources already in the area can be used to open a front in Wallachia to dislodge the Russian occupation. Omar Pasha, whose forces had fought in Bosnia and Montenegro and hardened themselves against the stalemate of guerrilla war, even now mobilizes his men to move against the enemy now stationed just across the Danube.
The other major Russian-Ottoman frontier, the Caucasus, has been the subject of much more Russian than Ottoman attention in recent decades, as the fiercely independent people of the mountains had proven quite resistant to attempted conquest and occupation. Though war has yet to be officially declared, as early as August skirmishes along this vast and undefined frontier are already underway, and localized attempts to persuade individual peoples or leaders to disrupt the other side's infrastructure or troop movements away from the border indicate a fight that will be filled with disingenuous maneuvering on both sides. In particular, the Ottomans are able to stir up the rebels of Dagestan and Circassia under Imam Shamil, whose Caucausian Imamate has frustrated Russian forces for years. They begin to campaign anew with restored vigor and Ottoman prompting, descending from the mountains and advancing well into Russian Georgia.
The other frontier that the upcoming war will create is the Black Sea, already a flashpoint between the two powers for decades. One unchanging metric in this fight is the numerical superiority of the Russian fleet over its Ottoman counterpart. Since the occupation of the Principalities, Russian ships grow ever bolder in their encroachment upon trade between Istanbul and ports further to the east, despite the presence of French ships in the area intended to act as a deterrent. To avoid complete disaster, the sultan even briefly considers pulling his military vessels back to the Bosporus to avoid a pitched confrontation or an ambush at Russian hands, but it is decided that ceding the entirety of the sea outright would be disastrous for Black Sea ports like Sinop and Trabzon.
With provocations throughout the summer sailing back and forth between the Porte and the tsar like salvoes of a gun, finally one side must bite the bullet and fire off the final word. On October 5, 1853, it is Sultan Abdülmecid who declares war on the Russian Empire, assured that France will soon follow his lead. The Eastern War had begun.
With mobilizations underway in both Russia and the Ottoman Empire, both sides begin to think of strategy and where to strike first. Clearly, the Ottoman territories in the Balkans are under direct threat from the encroaching Russian forces north of the Danube, as well as the internal unrest among the Serbs and other Slavs. With exhaustion and frustration there running high, Serbia had largely been forced to disengage from the Bosnian revolt, which had contributed significantly to its collapse and dissipation. Though the rebellion in Bosnia had slowly wound down after grinding on for almost four years, an expanded conflict might boil tensions over again, especially if Russia lends support.
In Serbia, Garašanin's carefully-hatched plans for Serbian self-determination are threatened by the diplomatic trajectory towards inevitable conflict. Potentially joining with Russia in the fight would once again signal that Serbia is not ready to stand on her own, and would at the same time destroy the progress he has made towards building a more permanent relationship between Serbia and France. At the same time, even if France's presumed pact with the Porte is merely a union of convenience, a conflict with those two nations on the same side would likely not benefit Serbia in any way. Thus it would appear there is little reason to Serbia to get involved, and dangerous neutrality is almost as fruitless as impetuously picking the wrong side. Frustrated, Garašanin realizes the window for a settlement in Bosnia is now well and truly closed, and will have to be re-evaluated after the conflict runs its course and is resolved, barring some monumental collapse by Ottoman forces.
As frustrated as the Porte has been with Serbian meddling, the sultan's ministers equally seem to recognize that Serbia is likely to avoid getting involved in the conflict as it currently stands, and thus are counting on Serbian neutrality. Therefore, much of the military resources already in the area can be used to open a front in Wallachia to dislodge the Russian occupation. Omar Pasha, whose forces had fought in Bosnia and Montenegro and hardened themselves against the stalemate of guerrilla war, even now mobilizes his men to move against the enemy now stationed just across the Danube.
The other major Russian-Ottoman frontier, the Caucasus, has been the subject of much more Russian than Ottoman attention in recent decades, as the fiercely independent people of the mountains had proven quite resistant to attempted conquest and occupation. Though war has yet to be officially declared, as early as August skirmishes along this vast and undefined frontier are already underway, and localized attempts to persuade individual peoples or leaders to disrupt the other side's infrastructure or troop movements away from the border indicate a fight that will be filled with disingenuous maneuvering on both sides. In particular, the Ottomans are able to stir up the rebels of Dagestan and Circassia under Imam Shamil, whose Caucausian Imamate has frustrated Russian forces for years. They begin to campaign anew with restored vigor and Ottoman prompting, descending from the mountains and advancing well into Russian Georgia.
The other frontier that the upcoming war will create is the Black Sea, already a flashpoint between the two powers for decades. One unchanging metric in this fight is the numerical superiority of the Russian fleet over its Ottoman counterpart. Since the occupation of the Principalities, Russian ships grow ever bolder in their encroachment upon trade between Istanbul and ports further to the east, despite the presence of French ships in the area intended to act as a deterrent. To avoid complete disaster, the sultan even briefly considers pulling his military vessels back to the Bosporus to avoid a pitched confrontation or an ambush at Russian hands, but it is decided that ceding the entirety of the sea outright would be disastrous for Black Sea ports like Sinop and Trabzon.
With provocations throughout the summer sailing back and forth between the Porte and the tsar like salvoes of a gun, finally one side must bite the bullet and fire off the final word. On October 5, 1853, it is Sultan Abdülmecid who declares war on the Russian Empire, assured that France will soon follow his lead. The Eastern War had begun.
As Italian, I am interested over the Sardinian-Piedmontan situation at the time. Cavour is in power as OTL or with a more firm grip of Vittorio Emanuele II TTL, he failed to be appointed as first minister? As OTL the Crimean war was incisive for the development of the French-SP alliance, however with an Austria more willing to intervene things seemed to be more complicated...
Indeed, the dynamics of Victor Emmanuel's government are slightly different iTTL. I don't remember if I ended up putting this in an earlier update or not, perhaps not because I didn't have much else to say, but I have in my personal notes that Pier Dionigi Pinelli was appointed Prime Minister immediately following the end of the war with Austria instead of Massimo d'Azeglio as iOTL; basically their positions are reversed, as Pinelli became PM and d'Azeglio became Minister of Justice. I'll keep in mind that I need to revisit Piedmont-Sardinia for my next update.
Been a bit busy the past few days but also a bit writer's-blocked. I think I just have too many ideas and don't know where to begin, but this upcoming holiday weekend should afford me plenty of time to plan (and write) freely. In the meantime, if you've got thoughts on the build-up posts or areas/people/battles I should focus on in the next sequence of updates covering the war, comment below!
You could have Tegetthoff make an appearance. IOTL he just got his first command at this time.
Especially since Maximilian and Teggethoff would become personal friends IOTL.
He would be exactly the person to benefit from the heightened interest in the Austrian navy.
I'm probably biased in this case, but I just want him to ram something to the ground
You could have Tegetthoff make an appearance. IOTL he just got his first command at this time.
Especially since Maximilian and Teggethoff would become personal friends IOTL.
He would be exactly the person to benefit from the heightened interest in the Austrian navy.
I'm probably biased in this case, but I just want him to ram something to the ground
It was Maximilian who pulled strings in the court to give the navy funding. He was also very close to Tegethoff. The navy lost a lot of funding after his Mexican departure and death, which lead to Austria-Hungary getting into the Dreadnought race rather late. With Max on the throne, we could probably see a lot stronger Austrian navy which can throw its weight around in the Mediterranean, and is most a lot stronger than the Italian navy. The Austrian naval doctrine during Tegethoff was that the KuK navy should always be stronger than the combined navies of the Italian states. Eventually they fell behind, but with Max giving it funding, we could very well see them even looking at challenging the French navy. It may be a bit of a stretch but who knows. It depends on how Max handles the domestic issues at hand.
Of course, but IOTL the Austrian navy only got some decent attention during Maximilian. After his death, this basically disappeared, which lead to the KuK navy being outclassed by the Italians even before the dreadnought era. By the time they laid down their first one, they were severely behind, and this can be attributed to the lack of funding for decades before. No trained officer class, not enough trained seamen, not enough drydocks. They were just catching up when WW1 hit, and it didn't go too well. If the navy gets continuous funding for shipbuilding, training and research, they might have a capable and large navy by 1910. Not to mention that they might even put more effort in building decent U-boats.
Well, I'm not saying it's the best idea, but considering Maximilian's romantic ideas about the navy, it's not a stretch. The army also depends a lot on how he handles the Hungarians. If there is a better compromise and he can get the Hungarian nobles in line, they might not sabotage every attempt at modernizing the army
Author's Note: Whew! One minute its March and then you blink and its nearly the end of April; such is the way things go in the final month of school. Thankfully things should be winding down very soon and I can get back to writing with regularity, so I'm happy to say this is off hiatus. And so, let's get back to the Balkans, where the Eastern War has just begun...
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November-December 1853
Though Omar Pasha is an able commander and desires to strike quickly now that war has officially broken out, Ottoman forces are hampered by geography almost as severely as their Russian foes. The Danubian frontier is well over 300 miles long and it will take something of a logistical miracle to organize a force significant enough to cross the river and seriously threaten the Russian forces stationed there.
The Ottoman offensive begins with a crossing from the fortress of Vidin into the far western corner of Wallachia at the village of Calafat across the Danube. Successfully drawing the attention of the enemy, the encroaching force digs in and prepares to a face a Russian detachment drawn from the main force at Bucharest.
Within a week of the initial crossing in late October, Omar Pasha has organized his own offensive force in the far east of Wallachia at Oltenița, with the intention of marching on Bucharest and cutting off the Russian forces attacking Calafat from other forces in Moldavia and beyond. The Russian commander is understandably concerned by this development and leads more men to oppose this new Ottoman crossing, resulting in the first major battle of the war.
How the battle at Oltenița plays out demonstrates the Russian army's lack of respect for Ottoman strategy and strength of arms, as the occupiers are content to opt for a direct frontal assault on the Ottoman-held fortress and its 10 heavy guns, which unsurprisingly cuts the Russian advance to pieces. Half-hearted further attempts to assault the Ottoman position are equally unsuccessful, and the Russian retreat in due course, leaving Pasha's troops free to cross the river unmolested.
The Ottoman commander is concerned about the possibility of reinforcements coming from the north, and also harbors doubts that his 12,000-strong force is enough men to either successfully push the Russians out of the principality or to hold any territory he would gain between Bucharest and the other forces fighting further west. It is already late in the year and he does not wish to commit what troops he has to a long winter campaign so early in the conflict, with no guarantee that fresh Russian reinforcements won't knock them back to the Danube with impunity in the coming months.
In reality, Pasha almost certainly holds the strategic advantage even if he doesn't realize it himself, having proven to the enemy that he can fight with vigor and defend a fortified position. Though perhaps slightly outnumbered on paper, the Ottomans can easily commit more than the 50,000 Russian troops present with significantly less additional effort and cost, and can almost certainly field more men in a single place even with the slight overall disadvantage.
With the factors arranged before him, Pasha decides that pursuing the Russian army to Bucharest is strategically too risky to justify. He claims validation of his decision when a rainy November turns the whole area into a veritable swamp that would be severely challenging to a marching army. Meanwhile the commander at Calafat, having beaten back a Russian attack of his own, similarly opts not to advance further and instead bides time while more troops can be gathered to Vidin and transferred across the river. In any case, his army provides a firm wall between the Russians and their unlikely but nevertheless potential allies in Serbia, which is sufficient enough of a development for the sultan's overcautious strategists.
The few engagements in the waning weeks of 1853 for the most part accomplish very little, except to demonstrate the lack of strategic direction on both sides. The land war seems to be going nowhere, while the war at sea takes a surprising turn when the port of Sinope, to where they had chased an Ottoman convoy. With several ships missing from his fleet after damaging storms, the Russian admiral Nakhimov cannot attack the port directly, instead content to ensure the ships there remain trapped until he can get more reinforcements. The Porte views these developments with great concern.
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November-December 1853
Though Omar Pasha is an able commander and desires to strike quickly now that war has officially broken out, Ottoman forces are hampered by geography almost as severely as their Russian foes. The Danubian frontier is well over 300 miles long and it will take something of a logistical miracle to organize a force significant enough to cross the river and seriously threaten the Russian forces stationed there.
The Ottoman offensive begins with a crossing from the fortress of Vidin into the far western corner of Wallachia at the village of Calafat across the Danube. Successfully drawing the attention of the enemy, the encroaching force digs in and prepares to a face a Russian detachment drawn from the main force at Bucharest.
Within a week of the initial crossing in late October, Omar Pasha has organized his own offensive force in the far east of Wallachia at Oltenița, with the intention of marching on Bucharest and cutting off the Russian forces attacking Calafat from other forces in Moldavia and beyond. The Russian commander is understandably concerned by this development and leads more men to oppose this new Ottoman crossing, resulting in the first major battle of the war.
How the battle at Oltenița plays out demonstrates the Russian army's lack of respect for Ottoman strategy and strength of arms, as the occupiers are content to opt for a direct frontal assault on the Ottoman-held fortress and its 10 heavy guns, which unsurprisingly cuts the Russian advance to pieces. Half-hearted further attempts to assault the Ottoman position are equally unsuccessful, and the Russian retreat in due course, leaving Pasha's troops free to cross the river unmolested.
The Ottoman commander is concerned about the possibility of reinforcements coming from the north, and also harbors doubts that his 12,000-strong force is enough men to either successfully push the Russians out of the principality or to hold any territory he would gain between Bucharest and the other forces fighting further west. It is already late in the year and he does not wish to commit what troops he has to a long winter campaign so early in the conflict, with no guarantee that fresh Russian reinforcements won't knock them back to the Danube with impunity in the coming months.
In reality, Pasha almost certainly holds the strategic advantage even if he doesn't realize it himself, having proven to the enemy that he can fight with vigor and defend a fortified position. Though perhaps slightly outnumbered on paper, the Ottomans can easily commit more than the 50,000 Russian troops present with significantly less additional effort and cost, and can almost certainly field more men in a single place even with the slight overall disadvantage.
With the factors arranged before him, Pasha decides that pursuing the Russian army to Bucharest is strategically too risky to justify. He claims validation of his decision when a rainy November turns the whole area into a veritable swamp that would be severely challenging to a marching army. Meanwhile the commander at Calafat, having beaten back a Russian attack of his own, similarly opts not to advance further and instead bides time while more troops can be gathered to Vidin and transferred across the river. In any case, his army provides a firm wall between the Russians and their unlikely but nevertheless potential allies in Serbia, which is sufficient enough of a development for the sultan's overcautious strategists.
The few engagements in the waning weeks of 1853 for the most part accomplish very little, except to demonstrate the lack of strategic direction on both sides. The land war seems to be going nowhere, while the war at sea takes a surprising turn when the port of Sinope, to where they had chased an Ottoman convoy. With several ships missing from his fleet after damaging storms, the Russian admiral Nakhimov cannot attack the port directly, instead content to ensure the ships there remain trapped until he can get more reinforcements. The Porte views these developments with great concern.