The Borki Train Disaster
- Thread starter rick007
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Deleted member 2186
Then a 20 year old Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia, not much would change i guess as he would still marry Alexandra Feodorovna.
I thought not. I just thought he would get better advisors or, if Nicholas died, his brother George would take over.
Deleted member 2186
Sorry did not read the original post correctly, my bad, With Nicholas death, his brother George would become George I, him now Tsar would most likely prevent his death In 1899, but looking at his Wikipedia article, he health was not quit that good.
These better advisors would come from where? Unless accident attracted attention of the ASBs, the environment is the same as in OTL. The same goes for Nicholas’ personality: in OTL and was trying to conduct state business out of sense of duty but really did not like it and it does not look like this attitude changed to the worse since he was 20. The same goes for his brothers: not too much is known about George and there is absolutely no reason to assume that he was a potential genius of a statesman and it is known enough about Michael to say that he was even less interested in the state affairs than Nicholas.
Now, if all of them are on the train and are dead, then the Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich interrupts his vacations in Paris and rushes to Russia to become an emperor. His reign may be more entertaining but hardly more successful.
Russia is still screwed
For the past 130 every Russian ruler has tried to outdo the other ones and to see who can screw over Russia the worst.
For the past 130 every Russian ruler has tried to outdo the other ones and to see who can screw over Russia the worst.
”Need” for what? No realistic figure would be able to solve all existing problems and/or to keep everybody happy so the answer depends upon your priorities.
Potentially Russia is worse off as now Nicholas II (or George) does not yet have Sergei Witte as Finance Minister, who was a pretty important figure for Russia's industrialization. The Borki disaster is the reason Witte got his start in the ministry, allowing him to prove the success of his reformist approach to the economy to Alexander III. Nicholas did not like Witte and I think its unlikely that he would have appointed a reformer like Witte himself, the only reason why Nicholas had Witte was because of the dying advice of Alexander.
“Crush all dissent” is vague. As a minimum, continue the course of AIII as a maximum create Soviet-style security/suppression apparatus. Keep Russia monarchy - continue policy of AIII and don’t get involved in any war.
Russia already was on a right track in its economic policy (thanks to Bunge and Wishnegradski) before Witte became Minister of Finances. Dislike of Witte was “nothing personal”: Nicholas distrusted his ministers as a matter of principle so before starting to dislike him, Nicholas would have to promote him, which is quite possible because the talented and competent people had a good chance to make a career (being the rare birds). Witte belonged to the same school of thought as his two predecessors so his elevation along the OTL lines (first Minuster of Transportation, then Finances) was quite possible. The fact that he was a reformer is not a disqualifier: NII was not an idiot and Witte was proposing economic reforms, not the social ones.
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I mean, is there reason to assume he wasn’t ? His wiki page doesn't imply incompetence.
That page does not imply anything whatsoever because he was not holding any position of a responsibility and his education was exactly the same as of Nicholas. And education of the members of imperial family was very weak on a critical subject: knowledge of the realities of life in the Russian Empire (see memoirs of the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna). George specifically was intended for a naval career (but notice an absense of any references to the technical disciplines needed in the modern navy or even just a special naval education (like Alexander Mikhailovich got). AIII was compensating shortage of initial knowledge by a very hard work but George‘s weak health would not allow anything of the kind. So what exactly may make us to assume that he could become a genius of a statesman?
Of course, you may assume that someone is a genius based upon a fact that he is not an idiot but I’m afraid that the logic of such a conclusion would be not very convincing. 😜
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The nutshell version of Russian history, "And then, it got worse".
Actually, under AIII it was getting better in most areas except liberalization. For a while it kept getting better even under NII.
The problem was that “better” and “worse” usually had been defined by the people ill-suited for making such a judgement.