They both are, Russia has only fought one war that ended relatively quick and have all their trade routes secured as well as keeping trade with all their neighbors, while France didn't waste themselves in the Napoleonic wars and have access to the coal and iron mines in Belgium and the Rhineland, soon they'll start to industrialize heavily and look for markets beyond Europe to sell their wares.
No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
I’m still trying to bring myself up to get into this topic: it inevitably has to deal with metallurgy, steam and other boring stuff.
In OTL the Napoleonic wars cost Russia dearly both in the terms of the human losses and financially. What’s worse, they created an aura of invincibility which was obscuring the economic decline. Russia was missing technological innovations, especially in the iron production and this had very serious consequences in a near future. Russia ceased to be the biggest iron producer and had problems with production of a high quality iron and steel.
Then, almost exclusive reliance upon export of the raw materials proved to be a dangerous thing. Britain introduced the corn laws, cutting consumption of the Russian grain and, anyway, there was a growing competition from the US, Canada and Argentine. The coming age of steam and iron was cutting the Russian monopoly on the ‘strategic materials’ for the navy some of which were not in a high demand anymore and some had been produced elsewhere (AFAIK, hemp from the Philippines became very popular as a cable material), etc.
ITTL Russia is better off financially: much fewer wars in the XVIII and early XIX, no huge black hole of the Caucasus (if there is going to be conquest, it will be limited and more meaningful economically), the territories of the CA (including “extended Dzungaria”) and Far East are obtained much earlier producing the extra internal markets, trade with Japan kicks in, trade with the Ottomans and China is more extensive, and there is at least some trade in the Philippines and Indo-China. Plus, Russia conducts its own naval trade on the Baltic and Med. All of this allows to generate the “source capital” which could be used for the future development and of which OTL Russia was short in the most critical period.
The earlier de facto abolishment of the serfdom (the reforms start in the mid-XVIII leaving by the early XIX just 10-15% of the population as the serfs making the official emancipation easier) provide both cadres for the industry and more entrepreneurs (did happen in OTL but decades later). Ditto for the absence of the reliance exclusively upon the communal landownership: it is still there but there is a growing class of the individual “farmers”.
ITTL Russia started exploitation of the Kursk-Donbass iron and coal well ahead of the schedule which solves the problem faced in OTL by Ural industries: there was only low quality brown coal in the region and the iron industry had been relying on expensive charcoal eventually running out of the forests. As I understand, there were technologies allowing to improve “quality” of the brown coal but the boat was missed and the same goes for the Bessemer technology.
Now, the obvious question ITTL is: will the Russians go inventing bicycles of their own or will they just pay attention, pick up the useful inventions and then proceed with the improvements if and when they are needed. After all, they were not stupid but in OTL technological development was seriously delayed by a number of factors which are more or less non-existent ITTL. So, one way or another, with a wave of a magic wand, Russia is performing on pair with the rest of the best and raises much fewer international hackles by an explicit policy of minding its own business and removing the CA as a potential competition area early enough to prevent the OTL British creative ideas. No Great Game and the related tensions.
France is definitely better off without an extra decade of the ruinous wars and with the borders that include industrially developed Belgium. Not sure when development west of the Rhine started but having this region definitely does not hurt. Colonial adventures start few decades agead of the schedule but I’m not sure if Algeria ended up being a good ROI or if it was realistically possible to stop conquest in the potentially profitable coastal area without spending time and effort on conquering sand: pretty much the same problem as Russia had on the Caucasus. The rest of Africa is more or less open (minus Portuguese and Dutch possessions) - as I understand at that time the British presence was mostly (not exclusively) on the level of private companies and societies bent upon settlement of the emancipated slaves. So France can pick quite a few unoccupied places in the Gulf of Guinea and elsewhere. Ditto for Indo-China with Batavian Republic is a friendly (to put it mildly) state.
The Brits are doing pretty much as in OTL except that their political weight on the European continent is much weaker and their naval supremacy is not as big.
Prussia is a Big but perhaps not Great (after being easily and thoroughly beaten and “betrayed” by an ally) power, Austria is a Great Power but also a laughingstock of Europe and is nurturing ideas of a revenge (to give me something to write about
) but, understandably, lacking the idiots willing to ally with it.The Ottomans are in an earlier military modernization but not doing too well in that area. Muhammed Ali of Egypt is pretty much as in OTL.
Spain is at peace domestically but I have no idea how it would handle the colonies without the OTL disturbances.
The HRE is still around, providing Austria with a claim to “greatness” but it is still a swamp of few hundreds small and tiny entities.
Anybody cares about Italy?
Japan, thanks to more extensive trade, may start considering the moves toward modernization or at least purchase of some modern weaponry (sinking few ships of a certain arrogant commander few decades later is a tempting idea
). But this is a matter of a future.
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It should be noticed that the colonial situation in Spain was... Not good at all, in fact I would argue and have seen argued that by that point, Spain's colonial empire imploding or at least being severely diminished was going to happen sooner or later.I’m still trying to bring myself up to get into this topic: it inevitably has to deal with metallurgy, steam and other boring stuff.
In OTL the Napoleonic wars cost Russia dearly both in the terms of the human losses and financially. What’s worse, they created an aura of invincibility which was obscuring the economic decline. Russia was missing technological innovations, especially in the iron production and this had very serious consequences in a near future. Russia ceased to be the biggest iron producer and had problems with production of a high quality iron and steel.
Then, almost exclusive reliance upon export of the raw materials proved to be a dangerous thing. Britain introduced the corn laws, cutting consumption of the Russian grain and, anyway, there was a growing competition from the US, Canada and Argentine. The coming age of steam and iron was cutting the Russian monopoly on the ‘strategic materials’ for the navy some of which were not in a high demand anymore and some had been produced elsewhere (AFAIK, hemp from the Philippines became very popular as a cable material), etc.
ITTL Russia is better off financially: much fewer wars in the XVIII and early XIX, no huge black hole of the Caucasus (if there is going to be conquest, it will be limited and more meaningful economically), the territories of the CA (including “extended Dzungaria”) and Far East are obtained much earlier producing the extra internal markets, trade with Japan kicks in, trade with the Ottomans and China is more extensive, and there is at least some trade in the Philippines and Indo-China. Plus, Russia conducts its own naval trade on the Baltic and Med. All of this allows to generate the “source capital” which could be used for the future development and of which OTL Russia was short in the most critical period.
The earlier de facto abolishment of the serfdom (the reforms start in the mid-XVIII leaving by the early XIX just 10-15% of the population as the serfs making the official emancipation easier) provide both cadres for the industry and more entrepreneurs (did happen in OTL but decades later). Ditto for the absence of the reliance exclusively upon the communal landownership: it is still there but there is a growing class of the individual “farmers”.
ITTL Russia started exploitation of the Kursk-Donbass iron and coal well ahead of the schedule which solves the problem faced in OTL by Ural industries: there was only low quality brown coal in the region and the iron industry had been relying on expensive charcoal eventually running out of the forests. As I understand, there were technologies allowing to improve “quality” of the brown coal but the boat was missed and the same goes for the Bessemer technology.
Now, the obvious question ITTL is: will the Russians go inventing bicycles of their own or will they just pay attention, pick up the useful inventions and then proceed with the improvements if and when they are needed. After all, they were not stupid but in OTL technological development was seriously delayed by a number of factors which are more or less non-existent ITTL. So, one way or another, with a wave of a magic wand, Russia is performing on pair with the rest of the best and raises much fewer international hackles by an explicit policy of minding its own business and removing the CA as a potential competition area early enough to prevent the OTL British creative ideas. No Great Game and the related tensions.
France is definitely better off without an extra decade of the ruinous wars and with the borders that include industrially developed Belgium. Not sure when development west of the Rhine started but having this region definitely does not hurt. Colonial adventures start few decades agead of the schedule but I’m not sure if Algeria ended up being a good ROI or if it was realistically possible to stop conquest in the potentially profitable coastal area without spending time and effort on conquering sand: pretty much the same problem as Russia had on the Caucasus. The rest of Africa is more or less open (minus Portuguese and Dutch possessions) - as I understand at that time the British presence was mostly (not exclusively) on the level of private companies and societies bent upon settlement of the emancipated slaves. So France can pick quite a few unoccupied places in the Gulf of Guinea and elsewhere. Ditto for Indo-China with Batavian Republic is a friendly (to put it mildly) state.
The Brits are doing pretty much as in OTL except that their political weight on the European continent is much weaker and their naval supremacy is not as big.
Prussia is a Big but perhaps not Great (after being easily and thoroughly beaten and “betrayed” by an ally) power, Austria is a Great Power but also a laughingstock of Europe and is nurturing ideas of a revenge (to give me something to write about
The Ottomans are in an earlier military modernization but not doing too well in that area. Muhammed Ali of Egypt is pretty much as in OTL.
Spain is at peace domestically but I have no idea how it would handle the colonies without the OTL disturbances.
The HRE is still around, providing Austria with a claim to “greatness” but it is still a swamp of few hundreds small and tiny entities.
Anybody cares about Italy?
Japan, thanks to more extensive trade, may start considering the moves toward modernization or at least purchase of some modern weaponry (sinking few ships of a certain arrogant commander few decades later is a tempting idea
Look no further than the likes of the rebellion by Tupac Amaru as a example of how much the situation had deteriorated, high taxes, abusive working system (Econmienda), lack of trade and lack of advancement into high position posts because of the cast system (this last two particularly pissing off the white Criollos who essentially ran the colonies) made the population's resentment come to boil from Argentina to Mexico at the feeling of being abandoned and getting nothing but being plundered by the mother country, so there's definitely a lot of reasons for independence.
Not to mention that the international scene makes it more likely, Ferdinand VII is next in line and won't want any solution to the colonies other than "crush the rebel scum" to deal with the problem while without Napoleon serving as a broken pedestal for having hijacked the revolution and becoming emperor, there will be the example of France and the US (who'll support them with selling arms as well as morally) not only to bring new republics but also to have access to that potential massive market.
So Spain's hold on the American continent is slipping slowly away, something that'll only get faster if someone like Ferdinand or his brother take the throne.
Maybe we will have some peaceful independence and Spain will free Rio de la Plata and Nueva Granada.
Ouch, that's quite a kick to the current ruling class , to see the work and prestige of Frederick the great come undone (great power that once fought back France and Austria is relegated to a big power ).
Personally with current grudge against Austria (plus clear sign that expansion in Poland and towards Sweden is off limits) i can see Prussia playing a role of good Baltic ally while going through extensive reforms and taking an aim at Austria for dominion of HRE (similar to otl really), especially with Austrian ongoing isolation.
But then again Spain was doing a lot to reform it's empire before Napoleon (plus Trafalgar never happened so it's fleet is also in shape) and France is kinda it's ally. If anything i could see Spain holding on on it's territories like Ottomans, or Qing did instead of imploding and USA taking the role of otl Russia, or Japan.
On second hand France will definitely prop up the Empire as it's it's ally and France has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from Spanish empire being dismembered, beside revolutionary fevor that is and current French regime doesn't seem like one to support the revolutions just for revolutionary sake.
If anything the victors of Spanish empire falling would be USA and more importantly the British who still control the wave's despite not having otl lead, on second hand Spanish empire that's intact is one easily influenced (threatened) by the France for concessions in America's and it's not like Spain will have much choice so France might use this to draw Spain even further in it's sphere (plus after victory in current war France will have a lot of muscle to throw around).
Technically we could speak about potentially ditching the Spanish for the more ideologically similar USA but what would such alliance offer? France isn't interested for another war against the British (and potentially rest of Europe) and British also have no reason to dismantle the empire and strengthen the USA (who is at this time period their rival in N. America) especially since they proved that they can cut of Spain from it's empire in last war which means that they also have a ground for concessions.
So basically Spain should be fine as all major naval powers in Europe aren't really interested in their collapse and have more reason to keep them around.
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Makes sense, but someone as absolute as Ferdinand VII or his brother aren't exactly good for a nation trying to reform, and a republican France trying to intervene might create a poisoned chalice situation for whoever they pick to support on the throne.
And while reform is good, the problems with the colonies ran so deep that it would've taken the Habsburg monarchs to change it into something positive, it really says a lot that despite the absolutely necessary and great reforms the Bourbon monarchs did, the wealth gap in the colonies was only increasing as well as the fact revolts were still happening. So while I could see Spain cutting some of less profitable colonies (like La Plata) to try and save the most valuable ones(Peru, Bolivia and Mexico) it's gonna be hard and a absolute drain in resources the Spanish barely have already.
It can also happen that Carlos dies and Fernando is succeeded by Francisco supported by a majority of Liberals / Conservatives.
The new age is coming
194. The new age is coming
Intermission. Back to the OTL (for a while).
In general, in the second half of the XVIII century there was a significant growth of large industrial enterprises. By the end of the century, various industries were formed, so that Russia itself was able to almost fully meet its basic needs.
Technical thought was very well developed in Russia. The Russian inventors created a universal steam engine, lathe machine, rolling mills and shafts. But these inventions have not been widely used in production because so far things were going just fine without big capital investments and the major industrialists (like Demidovs) preferred to spend money on the luxurious life style allowing them to be the accepted members of a high society. The lack of interest of the state in the use of technical innovations and the general routine of the economy led to the fact that by the end of the XVIII century. Russia began to lag behind European countries that have already completed the industrial revolution. For a while this was compensated by the fast growing domestic consumption market both of the agricultural and manufactured products but, with the growing technological gap, this was doomed to become a problem within few decades.
The trade, both domestic and international, kept growing but the exports had been limited to the source materials rather than manufactured products and, as such vulnerable to the changing international markets. In its practices the government was supporting and encouraging the merchants but mostly as an extension of the interests of the landowners. Later, during the reign of NI Kankrin, the Minister of Finances, did a lot trying to balance the Russian budget and stabilize finances but he also, by putting forward the interests of the big capital, was strangling the small-scale traders by eliminating some of the country fairs and creating other obstacles.
Throughout the XVIII century, the state budget experienced a constant deficit caused by endless military campaigns, the growth of the state apparatus, high waste of members of the imperial family. Taxes were collected with large arrears, besides, the nobles practically did not pay taxes. Further strengthening of the tax burden was impossible and the government decided to issue paper money to replenish the budget. Catherine II decided to proceed to the issuance of paper money - appropriations. But their value soon depreciated due to the termination of the free exchange of appropriations for silver money. Almost uncontrolled printing of the paper money (Paul I stopped this practice but AI restored it and kept printing until later in his reign) resulted in their devaluation: by 1805 a paper ruble cost 20 silver kopeks and eventually AI had to take a big part of them out of circulation and destroy converting the rest into the credit papers. Did not help too much because during the reign of NI combination of the wars and sinking economy resulted in a ballooning deficit which at the start of the reign of AII reached 1 billion rubles and by the end of his reign tripled.
Another source of replenishment of the treasury was government loans. By the end of the XVIII century, Russia's external debt amounted to 41.1 million rubles. The total public debt, taking into account ransoms, issuance of paper money, etc., amounted to 216 million rubles. The banks had been created but only the state-owned ones: no private banks were allowed.
Add to this losses during the Napoleonic wars. It seems that only the budget annual expanses in 1812-14 were at least over 200,000,000 rubles and the total human losses over that period were anywhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 and for the whole reign of AI over 800,000 (out of the population of 41-42,000,000). Then go the property losses, which never were fully evaluated but presumably were in the range of one or few billions. All manufacturing in Moscow and surrounding region had been destroyed, the trade slowed down and the rural population was suffering from a combination of the raised taxes, extensive recruitment and a direct destruction (both by the invaders and defenders). What Russia got? As per Alexander, “We saved the Fatherland, liberated Europe, overthrew the monster, destroyed its poison, established peace and quietness on earth, gave the rightful King the throne taken away from him, returned his former bliss and being to the moral and natural Light.” Not too much, taking into an account that a need to “save the Fatherland” was a byproduct of Alexander’s own policies.
In general, the OTL Russia suffered from a number of major problems heavily weighting upon the industrial development:
Most of these factors are removed ITTL.
1807.
Finances. The Anti-Partition War was over and Alexander I, “the Blessed One” [1], could get back to the domestic issues the most pressing of which was dealing with the monetary mess that, to a noticeable degree, was his own creation. Unlike his predecessor, AI started with the massive emission of the paper money, which he used to finance a war. As a result, the paper ruble now fall down to 25 silver kopecks creating two monetary systems. On advice of his new Minister of Finances, Kankrin, considerable part of the paper money (596 millions out of 826) had been taken out of the circulation and destroyed and the rest converted into the credit obligations.
The budgets of the ministries had (once more, this was a disease reappearing periodically) streamlined with the state budget published to assure the public that everything is just fine. The goal was to return to a single currency based upon the gold ruble. In a reality, using the gold was permitted only in the international trade. Formally, the paper ruble was called a credit paper (that is, a banknote exchanged for a coin) and was considered silver, and its rate to gold was fixed, that is, the monetary system was legally bimetallic.
In fact, the full-weight silver coins eventually went out of circulation. The paper ruble was supplemented by an auxiliary non-weight silver coin and a copper coin. Credit papers were theoretically issued in denominations of 1, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 rubles; there was no 50-ruble banknote in real turnover.
The Treasury had an obligation to mint gold and a full-fledged silver coin made of metal brought by individuals (the so-called free minting of the coin). The gold coin was minted at the request of individuals for 0.96 % of the nominal price of gold (136 rubles per pood of pure gold), the silver coin - for 6.59% of the nominal price of silver (60 rubles per pood of pure silver); not including the technical costs of gold cleaning. The ratio of gold to silver at the rate of minting into a coin was 1:16.43.
The exchange coin was made of silver (semi-weight coin) and copper. The exchange silver coin was minted in denominations of 20, 15, 10 and 5 kopecks. The coin consisted of 50% silver and 50% copper by weight. The content of pure silver in the exchange coin was twice as low as in a full-fledged (bank) coin.
The state did not undertake to keep a change metal fund against issued credit cards and did not limit their issuance by any pre-announced rules; each individual issue of credit money was approved by a special legislative act to be published. The issuance of gold money, thanks to the existence of an institution of free coinage at the request of individuals, did not require legislative approval.
Theoretical cost of the gold ruble was:
The first commercial banks had been open in Russia during the reign of Alexey II and kept growing in number and size but still were somewhat behind in the terms of sophistication and capital of the biggest banking institutions of France and Britain. Some useful lessons, however, had been learned both by the baking community and the government.
For example, the history of Caisse d'Escompte demonstrated that to be of real service to commerce if it had not allowed itself to become the State's banker, lending money to the State without sufficient security, and receiving nothing in return but privileges which could not fail to be disastrous to it: commercial banks engaging only in discount operations, collections, and running accounts (comptescourants), had quietly and steadily kept on in spite of the Reign of Terror, the ordeal of the wars, and the dangerous and ruinous flood of assignats. Many of these bankers had learned the art of credit and the handling of capital in Switzerland, chiefly at Geneva, where banks had always been prosperous. As soon as the revolutionary dust settled, they boosted their operations and there were new “banks of the bankers” like Caisse des Comptes Courants handling collections and other operations for a group of the bankers and “banks of the merchants” like Caisse d'Escompte du Commerce (Its board of directors was made up of merchants of all kinds, grocers, haberdashers, cloth merchants, silk merchants, etc.) or the Comptoir Commercial better known as Caisse Jabach, carrying on a discounting business,the only one, of course,which justifies the issue of bank notes redeemable at sight. None of these banks had any connection to the government and the French financial industry had been flourished [2].
With the Russian financial market being far from not saturated but just filled up to a desirable level, it looked prudent to invite the foreign “entrepreneurs” to start the new banks in Russia and to induce the prominent European banks to open their businesses there. The Generalissimo used his connections in France to make the useful connections and the very attractive offers (full rights, freedom of operations throughout the empire and state protection) had been also made to the Jewish bankers in the PLC (who were not doing too well there due to the communal liability system) and those operating in various German states. Of course, there was no immediate miracle but quite a few private bankers, above all from the German-speaking realm, settled in Russia. The brothers Nikolai (d. 1827; converted ca. 1812) and Ludwig Stieglitz (1777–1843), natives of the Duchy of Waldeck and provisioners to the Russian army, were appointed court bankers but most had been busy in a private sector.
There were also unofficial systems of a commercial credit created by the various sects of the Old Believers for the members of their communities. Due to the fact that they were officially non-existing, they were not subject to any regulations but one of the traditional foundations of the Old Believers’ business code was an absolute honesty. Business (at least between the sect members) could be conducted simply by giving a word and a merchant could pass a big sum of cash to another through a third person whom he hardly knew without any paper work because dishonesty meant that nobody would conduct business with such a person.
The Age of Steam coming. Of course by 1807, the Age of Steam was more than a century old, the first practical steam engine being built in 1705 to be used for pumping water out of the mines. In Russia the first steam engine had been built by Polzunov in 1766. Unlike the model of 1705, it had two cylinders, could work in an uninterrupted regime and could be used not only for pumping the water but also for blowing air into a furnace.
In all previously known "fire" machines, balancers were used as a transmission mechanism. In this area, the original decision of I. I. Polzunov was their replacement with pulleys, with the help of which continuous working force was transferred from pistons to the handles of blower bellows. Blower bladed bellows were used as a working tool. Unfortunately, the inventor died before the engine had been installed in the state-owned Barnaul Silver Plant and after it got out of order, nobody bothered to repair it. But the British one-cylinder Newcomen’s steam engine was known and Watt’s as well. To one degree or another they had been used in the Russian mining and metallurgical industries.
The new thing was to use steam engine for transportation. Robert Fulton proposed plans of a steam ship to the British and US governments in 1793 but these plans did not generate any interest. In 1797, Fulton moved to France and, among other things, started experimenting with a steam engine. In 1803 a steam vessel 20 m long and 2.4 m wide was tested on the Seine River, reaching a speed of 3 knots against the current. This experiment was witnessed by the Russian diplomatic agent and duly reported to Moscow. In 1807, Fulton, who by that time moved to NewYork, sailed on his new steam ship from New York to Albany.
Through Russian diplomats in the United States - A. I. Dashkova and P. P. Swinina - Fulton offered to the Russian Empire his projects for the construction of steam ships and the idea of creating torpedoes, which received wide support in the Russian Empire. A contract which would give him an exclusive right to build and operate the steam ships in Russia for 15 years did not work out because he could not move there and the first Russian steam ship had been built by Charles Baird, a Scottish engineer and manufacturer who moved to Russia in 1786.
In 1792 he founded a metallurgical plant near St-Peterburg. Over time, the plant has become one of the best foundry and mechanical enterprises. The nomenclature of the plant included furnaces for sugar factories, crankshafts, blades and steam engines. During the first thirty years of the XIX century, about 200 steam engines were manufactured at the plant, 11 of which were steamships.
The first Russian steam ship, “Elizabeth”, was built in 1809 [3]. There were some quite original details in his construction. A steamer with a wooden hull made of a Tikhvin barque with a length of 18.3 meters, a width of 4.57 meters and a sediment of 0.61 meters. The steamer was equipped with a balanced steam engine with a capacity of 4 nominal horsepower, which allowed the ship to reach speeds of up to 5.8 knots. 2 side propellers with a diameter of 2.4 meters, equipped with 6 blades each, were used as engines on the steamer. An iron pipe installed on the steamer with a height of 7.62 meters and a diameter of about 0.305 meters, which in a fair wind could serve as a mast for sailing on it. The lower part of the pipe was made of brick. A simple steering wheel was installed on the ship, which provided quite easy control. The steam engine and single-burning steam boiler, for which firewood was used as fuel, were located in the hold in the middle part of the ship. A pump was also installed there that supplied outboard water to feed the boiler. At the stern of the steamer there were benches for passengers over which the roof of canvas was stretched.
The ship was initially making the daily trips by the Neva carrying cargo and the passengers and sometimes being used as a tug boat but then was sailing between St-Petersburg and Kronstadt with a speed between 3 and 5 knots.
Value of this development was not lost on a broader public: the rivers had been extremely important transportation arteries of the Russian Empire and soon enough the first steam ships had been built in the Volga-Kama region with the Amur to follow. While the steam traffic on Volga was predominantly commercial, one on the Amur was initially fully state-owned due to the obvious strategic considerations. Only later the public-held “Amur company” was created followed by the privately-owned steamers.
The ships were mostly built locally but sometimes the engines had been ordered abroad. Competition on Volga was quite strong: within a decade there were three major companies and numerous private owners of one - few ships competing for the cargo and passengers. Sometimes this competition was resulting in the ships races, which could (and sometimes did) ended badly with over-stressed engine blowing and killing pretty much everybody abroad.
The seagoing steamships had been lagging behind but the first facilities for making the more powerful steam engines had been already under construction in St-Petersburg and Nikolaev.
________
[1] Surely, more reason to give that nickname ITTL than in OTL after all experienced disasters.
[2] Without Napoleon the Bank of France may not be founded in 1800. As was admitted later by Baron Pelet, “The rate of interest on money was then 3 per cent a month. It was determined to lower this rate, and especially to have an establishment which would take the government's paper and help its operations.” In other words, Napoleon needed a compliant financial institution because the private banks did not trust (with a good reason) the government-issued obligations. As soon as in 1804 Nappy already had a disputation with the Bank of France on that account … and won an argument.
[3] In OTL in 1815.
“Give a person confidence in the future for at least an hour, and he will immediately take something on credit.”
“It's not true that it's hard to part with money. It's much harder to meet them!”
“The bank is a place where you will get a loan if you prove that you do not need these money.”
General thoughts about usefulness of the banking system
“It's not true that it's hard to part with money. It's much harder to meet them!”
“The bank is a place where you will get a loan if you prove that you do not need these money.”
General thoughts about usefulness of the banking system
Intermission. Back to the OTL (for a while).
In general, in the second half of the XVIII century there was a significant growth of large industrial enterprises. By the end of the century, various industries were formed, so that Russia itself was able to almost fully meet its basic needs.
Technical thought was very well developed in Russia. The Russian inventors created a universal steam engine, lathe machine, rolling mills and shafts. But these inventions have not been widely used in production because so far things were going just fine without big capital investments and the major industrialists (like Demidovs) preferred to spend money on the luxurious life style allowing them to be the accepted members of a high society. The lack of interest of the state in the use of technical innovations and the general routine of the economy led to the fact that by the end of the XVIII century. Russia began to lag behind European countries that have already completed the industrial revolution. For a while this was compensated by the fast growing domestic consumption market both of the agricultural and manufactured products but, with the growing technological gap, this was doomed to become a problem within few decades.
The trade, both domestic and international, kept growing but the exports had been limited to the source materials rather than manufactured products and, as such vulnerable to the changing international markets. In its practices the government was supporting and encouraging the merchants but mostly as an extension of the interests of the landowners. Later, during the reign of NI Kankrin, the Minister of Finances, did a lot trying to balance the Russian budget and stabilize finances but he also, by putting forward the interests of the big capital, was strangling the small-scale traders by eliminating some of the country fairs and creating other obstacles.
Throughout the XVIII century, the state budget experienced a constant deficit caused by endless military campaigns, the growth of the state apparatus, high waste of members of the imperial family. Taxes were collected with large arrears, besides, the nobles practically did not pay taxes. Further strengthening of the tax burden was impossible and the government decided to issue paper money to replenish the budget. Catherine II decided to proceed to the issuance of paper money - appropriations. But their value soon depreciated due to the termination of the free exchange of appropriations for silver money. Almost uncontrolled printing of the paper money (Paul I stopped this practice but AI restored it and kept printing until later in his reign) resulted in their devaluation: by 1805 a paper ruble cost 20 silver kopeks and eventually AI had to take a big part of them out of circulation and destroy converting the rest into the credit papers. Did not help too much because during the reign of NI combination of the wars and sinking economy resulted in a ballooning deficit which at the start of the reign of AII reached 1 billion rubles and by the end of his reign tripled.
Another source of replenishment of the treasury was government loans. By the end of the XVIII century, Russia's external debt amounted to 41.1 million rubles. The total public debt, taking into account ransoms, issuance of paper money, etc., amounted to 216 million rubles. The banks had been created but only the state-owned ones: no private banks were allowed.
Add to this losses during the Napoleonic wars. It seems that only the budget annual expanses in 1812-14 were at least over 200,000,000 rubles and the total human losses over that period were anywhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 and for the whole reign of AI over 800,000 (out of the population of 41-42,000,000). Then go the property losses, which never were fully evaluated but presumably were in the range of one or few billions. All manufacturing in Moscow and surrounding region had been destroyed, the trade slowed down and the rural population was suffering from a combination of the raised taxes, extensive recruitment and a direct destruction (both by the invaders and defenders). What Russia got? As per Alexander, “We saved the Fatherland, liberated Europe, overthrew the monster, destroyed its poison, established peace and quietness on earth, gave the rightful King the throne taken away from him, returned his former bliss and being to the moral and natural Light.” Not too much, taking into an account that a need to “save the Fatherland” was a byproduct of Alexander’s own policies.
In general, the OTL Russia suffered from a number of major problems heavily weighting upon the industrial development:
- shortage of a capital available for investment - the private banks started appearing only at the time of AII.
- overly-intrusive government, which was restricting private initiative
- shortage of the educated technical cadres: the Russian universities had been heavily into the humanitarian professions, less into the science (chemistry, medicine, etc.) and even less into the engineering.
- shortage of the labor force cadres - they become available in the big numbers only as a byproduct of a failed Emancipation reform of AII.
Most of these factors are removed ITTL.
1807.
Finances. The Anti-Partition War was over and Alexander I, “the Blessed One” [1], could get back to the domestic issues the most pressing of which was dealing with the monetary mess that, to a noticeable degree, was his own creation. Unlike his predecessor, AI started with the massive emission of the paper money, which he used to finance a war. As a result, the paper ruble now fall down to 25 silver kopecks creating two monetary systems. On advice of his new Minister of Finances, Kankrin, considerable part of the paper money (596 millions out of 826) had been taken out of the circulation and destroyed and the rest converted into the credit obligations.
The budgets of the ministries had (once more, this was a disease reappearing periodically) streamlined with the state budget published to assure the public that everything is just fine. The goal was to return to a single currency based upon the gold ruble. In a reality, using the gold was permitted only in the international trade. Formally, the paper ruble was called a credit paper (that is, a banknote exchanged for a coin) and was considered silver, and its rate to gold was fixed, that is, the monetary system was legally bimetallic.
In fact, the full-weight silver coins eventually went out of circulation. The paper ruble was supplemented by an auxiliary non-weight silver coin and a copper coin. Credit papers were theoretically issued in denominations of 1, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 rubles; there was no 50-ruble banknote in real turnover.
The Treasury had an obligation to mint gold and a full-fledged silver coin made of metal brought by individuals (the so-called free minting of the coin). The gold coin was minted at the request of individuals for 0.96 % of the nominal price of gold (136 rubles per pood of pure gold), the silver coin - for 6.59% of the nominal price of silver (60 rubles per pood of pure silver); not including the technical costs of gold cleaning. The ratio of gold to silver at the rate of minting into a coin was 1:16.43.
The exchange coin was made of silver (semi-weight coin) and copper. The exchange silver coin was minted in denominations of 20, 15, 10 and 5 kopecks. The coin consisted of 50% silver and 50% copper by weight. The content of pure silver in the exchange coin was twice as low as in a full-fledged (bank) coin.
The state did not undertake to keep a change metal fund against issued credit cards and did not limit their issuance by any pre-announced rules; each individual issue of credit money was approved by a special legislative act to be published. The issuance of gold money, thanks to the existence of an institution of free coinage at the request of individuals, did not require legislative approval.
Theoretical cost of the gold ruble was:
- 4 rubles for British pound
- 25 kopecks for franc
- 26 kopecks for Austrian crown
- 25 kopecks for Dutch gulden
The first commercial banks had been open in Russia during the reign of Alexey II and kept growing in number and size but still were somewhat behind in the terms of sophistication and capital of the biggest banking institutions of France and Britain. Some useful lessons, however, had been learned both by the baking community and the government.
For example, the history of Caisse d'Escompte demonstrated that to be of real service to commerce if it had not allowed itself to become the State's banker, lending money to the State without sufficient security, and receiving nothing in return but privileges which could not fail to be disastrous to it: commercial banks engaging only in discount operations, collections, and running accounts (comptescourants), had quietly and steadily kept on in spite of the Reign of Terror, the ordeal of the wars, and the dangerous and ruinous flood of assignats. Many of these bankers had learned the art of credit and the handling of capital in Switzerland, chiefly at Geneva, where banks had always been prosperous. As soon as the revolutionary dust settled, they boosted their operations and there were new “banks of the bankers” like Caisse des Comptes Courants handling collections and other operations for a group of the bankers and “banks of the merchants” like Caisse d'Escompte du Commerce (Its board of directors was made up of merchants of all kinds, grocers, haberdashers, cloth merchants, silk merchants, etc.) or the Comptoir Commercial better known as Caisse Jabach, carrying on a discounting business,the only one, of course,which justifies the issue of bank notes redeemable at sight. None of these banks had any connection to the government and the French financial industry had been flourished [2].
With the Russian financial market being far from not saturated but just filled up to a desirable level, it looked prudent to invite the foreign “entrepreneurs” to start the new banks in Russia and to induce the prominent European banks to open their businesses there. The Generalissimo used his connections in France to make the useful connections and the very attractive offers (full rights, freedom of operations throughout the empire and state protection) had been also made to the Jewish bankers in the PLC (who were not doing too well there due to the communal liability system) and those operating in various German states. Of course, there was no immediate miracle but quite a few private bankers, above all from the German-speaking realm, settled in Russia. The brothers Nikolai (d. 1827; converted ca. 1812) and Ludwig Stieglitz (1777–1843), natives of the Duchy of Waldeck and provisioners to the Russian army, were appointed court bankers but most had been busy in a private sector.
There were also unofficial systems of a commercial credit created by the various sects of the Old Believers for the members of their communities. Due to the fact that they were officially non-existing, they were not subject to any regulations but one of the traditional foundations of the Old Believers’ business code was an absolute honesty. Business (at least between the sect members) could be conducted simply by giving a word and a merchant could pass a big sum of cash to another through a third person whom he hardly knew without any paper work because dishonesty meant that nobody would conduct business with such a person.
The Age of Steam coming. Of course by 1807, the Age of Steam was more than a century old, the first practical steam engine being built in 1705 to be used for pumping water out of the mines. In Russia the first steam engine had been built by Polzunov in 1766. Unlike the model of 1705, it had two cylinders, could work in an uninterrupted regime and could be used not only for pumping the water but also for blowing air into a furnace.
In all previously known "fire" machines, balancers were used as a transmission mechanism. In this area, the original decision of I. I. Polzunov was their replacement with pulleys, with the help of which continuous working force was transferred from pistons to the handles of blower bellows. Blower bladed bellows were used as a working tool. Unfortunately, the inventor died before the engine had been installed in the state-owned Barnaul Silver Plant and after it got out of order, nobody bothered to repair it. But the British one-cylinder Newcomen’s steam engine was known and Watt’s as well. To one degree or another they had been used in the Russian mining and metallurgical industries.
The new thing was to use steam engine for transportation. Robert Fulton proposed plans of a steam ship to the British and US governments in 1793 but these plans did not generate any interest. In 1797, Fulton moved to France and, among other things, started experimenting with a steam engine. In 1803 a steam vessel 20 m long and 2.4 m wide was tested on the Seine River, reaching a speed of 3 knots against the current. This experiment was witnessed by the Russian diplomatic agent and duly reported to Moscow. In 1807, Fulton, who by that time moved to NewYork, sailed on his new steam ship from New York to Albany.
Through Russian diplomats in the United States - A. I. Dashkova and P. P. Swinina - Fulton offered to the Russian Empire his projects for the construction of steam ships and the idea of creating torpedoes, which received wide support in the Russian Empire. A contract which would give him an exclusive right to build and operate the steam ships in Russia for 15 years did not work out because he could not move there and the first Russian steam ship had been built by Charles Baird, a Scottish engineer and manufacturer who moved to Russia in 1786.
In 1792 he founded a metallurgical plant near St-Peterburg. Over time, the plant has become one of the best foundry and mechanical enterprises. The nomenclature of the plant included furnaces for sugar factories, crankshafts, blades and steam engines. During the first thirty years of the XIX century, about 200 steam engines were manufactured at the plant, 11 of which were steamships.
The first Russian steam ship, “Elizabeth”, was built in 1809 [3]. There were some quite original details in his construction. A steamer with a wooden hull made of a Tikhvin barque with a length of 18.3 meters, a width of 4.57 meters and a sediment of 0.61 meters. The steamer was equipped with a balanced steam engine with a capacity of 4 nominal horsepower, which allowed the ship to reach speeds of up to 5.8 knots. 2 side propellers with a diameter of 2.4 meters, equipped with 6 blades each, were used as engines on the steamer. An iron pipe installed on the steamer with a height of 7.62 meters and a diameter of about 0.305 meters, which in a fair wind could serve as a mast for sailing on it. The lower part of the pipe was made of brick. A simple steering wheel was installed on the ship, which provided quite easy control. The steam engine and single-burning steam boiler, for which firewood was used as fuel, were located in the hold in the middle part of the ship. A pump was also installed there that supplied outboard water to feed the boiler. At the stern of the steamer there were benches for passengers over which the roof of canvas was stretched.
The ship was initially making the daily trips by the Neva carrying cargo and the passengers and sometimes being used as a tug boat but then was sailing between St-Petersburg and Kronstadt with a speed between 3 and 5 knots.
Value of this development was not lost on a broader public: the rivers had been extremely important transportation arteries of the Russian Empire and soon enough the first steam ships had been built in the Volga-Kama region with the Amur to follow. While the steam traffic on Volga was predominantly commercial, one on the Amur was initially fully state-owned due to the obvious strategic considerations. Only later the public-held “Amur company” was created followed by the privately-owned steamers.
The ships were mostly built locally but sometimes the engines had been ordered abroad. Competition on Volga was quite strong: within a decade there were three major companies and numerous private owners of one - few ships competing for the cargo and passengers. Sometimes this competition was resulting in the ships races, which could (and sometimes did) ended badly with over-stressed engine blowing and killing pretty much everybody abroad.
The seagoing steamships had been lagging behind but the first facilities for making the more powerful steam engines had been already under construction in St-Petersburg and Nikolaev.
________
[1] Surely, more reason to give that nickname ITTL than in OTL after all experienced disasters.
[2] Without Napoleon the Bank of France may not be founded in 1800. As was admitted later by Baron Pelet, “The rate of interest on money was then 3 per cent a month. It was determined to lower this rate, and especially to have an establishment which would take the government's paper and help its operations.” In other words, Napoleon needed a compliant financial institution because the private banks did not trust (with a good reason) the government-issued obligations. As soon as in 1804 Nappy already had a disputation with the Bank of France on that account … and won an argument.
[3] In OTL in 1815.
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Yes. But then look at the situation from the Austrian perspective. It was beaten and got a bad PR. It is clear that as long as Russia holds a dominating position any “compensation” at the Polish or Ottoman expense is not going to happen and as long as France is in a good shape, the same applies to Italy.
Austria can improve its prestige either by the sweeping reforms within the Hapsburg possessions, which is rather difficult (what can be spectacular enough to achieve this goal?) or by reforming its military to a degree allowing to challenge either Russia or France on its own. Pretty much as it did in 1809. Not sure which of these two “targets” will be more idiotic ITTL.
If you don't mind me asking what would be the new ''centers of power'' in the Russian empire? I mean in the recently expanded regions for Ukraine Kiev works but for Poland and near the Qing any cities benefiting from being the provincial capitals?
From steamships to steam locomotive is but a small step (well in theory at least), especially when someone rediscovers the 2 stroke engine. And a well tracked Russia is poised for even more greatness. But even these steam ships will be great benefits already, especially at some point when copper/steel hulls come into play. You might even get icebreakers
Actually, Kiev was not, officially, a center of anything except for Kiev gubernia. The new areas had been split into the number of new gubernias.
“Poland” is just as Polish as the Right Bank Ukraine: it is Belorussia and it is also divided into a number of gubernias (Minsk, Vitebsk).
The eastern areas are within the Eastern-Siberia General-Governorship with a capital in Irkutsk.
To get there Russia needs to modernize its metallurgy, which in OTL happened too late because the main center, the metalworks of Ural, had a number of objective and subjective problems and the areas of Donbass-Kursk came into the play much later.
The rails for the horse-driven railroads had been produced in Russia since the late XVIII (more in the next chapter) but they were made out of cast iron with the easy to figure out problems. The required technologies started to appear in the XIX so they will be picked up in a timely fashion. Ditto for the rest.
The new age coming (cont. 1)
195. The new age coming (cont. 1)
As far as the metallurgy was involved, Russia was seemingly doing just fine. After all, it was the greatest producer and exporter of the iron in Europe. Unfortunately, most of the iron produced on Ural was a cast iron and the regional owners of the metallurgic plants had been, so far, reluctant to change their ways of operation. To start with, all their iron and copper production had been charcoal-based. Each industrial plant was surrounded by a huge forest massive which was steadily cut down to maintain the operations. If the plant’s owner was running out of wood, he had to close his plant.
The richest iron sources of the Southern Ural, like the Magnet Mountain, remained practically untouched because the area was short on the forests. It was not like the coal was unknown. Peter I issued a special decree ordering to look for the coal deposits and in Donetsk region this produced very impressive results. But even in the mid-XVIII most of the Ural manufacturing was still based upon serf labor and the owners had been reluctant to adopt to the new ways both because the existing system worked fine and because they feared that the state may start confiscating the coal deposits or to get “creative” in some other inconvenient way. The regional bureaucracy was hand in glove with them because why would any reasonable official wish to do extra work for the same salary? As a result, the first people reporting discovery of a big coal deposit in the Kizelovsk region on Ural had been, by request of the local plant owner, accused in a rebellion, their “leader” was put in prison and the rest were sent to serve in the army. Only after the big fire exterminated the plant’s forest, the “rebel” was released and the coal excavation started. Only with the growing shortage of wood and increasing number of the coal discoveries attitudes started changing and even if the charcoal was still predominantly used the coal was getting increasing used for the puddling process (converting pig iron into wrought iron by subjecting it to heat and frequent stirring in a furnace in the presence of oxidizing substances) and as a fuel for the steam engines on the plants. The main problem was a difficulty of transporting coal to the plants. What’s even worse, to get a good quality coke there was a need to mix the local coal (with a high percentage of sulfur) with the high quality coal from Kuznetsk area.
While in the Southern Russia the metallurgy started with being coal-based, transportation between Donetsk coal region and Kursk iron mines also was an issue requiring effective solution.
So, to give Russian metallurgy a boost, transportation issue must be solved. The most obvious solution was a railroad. There was nothing new in the idea, the first iron rails appeared in Britain in the mid-XVIII and in Russia couple decades later (below are the Cast iron rails of the Alexandrovsky plant railway in Russia. 1788).
Of course, these railroads had been using the horse power which was putting certain limitations upon transported cargo. Another problem was a rail material. Cast iron was not a satisfactory material for rails because it was brittle and broke under heavy loads. The wrought iron that could undergo considerable deformation before breaking was a much better material and the commercially viable processes, including rolling, had been available since the 1780s. Of course, the iron rails tended to last for less than 10 years but this was not critical as long as they were cheap to produce.
Which left the issue of replacing the horses with something more powerful and, preferably, faster. The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the United Kingdom in 1804 by Richard Trevithick but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives, not least because his engines were too heavy for the cast-iron plateway track then in use (see monstrosity below).
The first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, for the edge railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds, England.
The new development did not pass unnoticed and in 1813 Efim Cherepanov, the chief mechanic of the Nozhny Tagil plants, was sent to Britain [1].
The authorities of Nizhny Tagil plant, and the owner N. Demidov were skeptical of the construction of the locomotive. They were more worried about why abroad began to fall, the demand for Urals iron. But none of them wanted to admit that all the matter in the technical backwardness of domestic plants that are unable to achieve high quality metal. In order to establish the truth, Demidov sent senior Cherepanov in England, because he believed his knowledgeable and technically competent expert. The British are not very cordially greeted the Russian mechanics, because they were not interested in the transfer of the competitors on their experience and secrets of metal. Moreover, in England the guest recognized the spy and stopped to let to many plants. Judging by the extant letters, Yefim only managed externally to observe the wonders of overseas technology, so as to drawings and documents not admitted. However, its main task he coped. Cherepanov once again proved that to improve quality in the Urals metal it is necessary to mechanize the workers. And most importantly - in England, he first saw in action rail road steam traction.
Upon return Cherepanov started working on the first Russian locomotive finishing it in 1814 and the next, more powerful version, in 1815. He also built a railroad, 854 meters long (iron cast rails) from the mine to plant.
Technical problems faced by the wizard. First, their steam boiler did not give a sufficient amount of steam. To solve this problem, they increased the number of tubes in the boiler up to 80. Another problem was the solution to the rear of the engine. For this Cherepanova employ the mechanism consisting of the eccentric wheel, allows you to apply the steam cylinder so that the wheels of the locomotive started to rotate in the opposite direction. The weight of the locomotive Cherepanovs ' was 2. 4 tons. With load of 3. 5 tons, the locomotive reached a speed of 15 km/H. For transportation of fuel and water, was applied special trolley - tender. The locomotive had two pairs of wheels of the same size. Leading was only one pair. Unlike the first steam locomotive, the second locomotive Cherepanovs ' were large and the number of design changes. The pan grinder wheel pairs, which was driven by a steam engine, reduced in size. To carry the locomotive could have 16 tons, with a speed of 15 km/h.
Unfortunately, these locomotives had been working on wood, due to an absence of the coal mines nearby, and the wood already had been in a short supply in the region.
Here is an eyewitness account of the first flight of the engine Cherepanovs': "In that day upon Vyshe field people went and stood along the lines of iron kolesarova. Heavy factory gates opened and soon there were land steamer machine unseen, like nothing on earth, with high Smoking chimney, shiny polished bronze parts. On the ground at arms stood Cherepanov. Puffing steam, flashing spokes of the wheel, the ship drove past the silent crowd. Then Efim turned some grip, the club, the pair flew out of the pipe, and the car accelerated. The driver brought the locomotive to the impasse and put the car in reverse. Back the car was going very fast. The next flight steamer did with the trailer cart 200 pounds of cargo. And later in the cart climbed a dozen two or three people who wanted to be the first passengers.”
It was taking time to develop a whole infrastructure: coal quarries, railways to them, coal steam engines (steam locomotives) to transport coal to coal steam engines operating plants. In addition, the maintenance of steam locomotives (as in England) was more expensive than keeping horses, and steam locomotives were profitable only when using their full capacity - for large trains.
But the chain of events had been triggered and in few years construction of the Ural Mining Railway began. The road was to pass through the main mountainous districts of the Middle Urals: from Perm through the Perm state-owned plant, Kynovsky Count Stroganov’s plant, Goroblagodatsk state-owned plant, Tagil Demidov’s plant, Alapaev heirs of the Yakovlev plant, the city of Irbit and to Tyumen, while connecting the Ob and Volga water systems.
Its whole length was approximately 500 kilometers and construction took over 30 years. Taking advantage of the available industrial resources, the rails had been made of rolled wrought iron. The first locomotives running on the first completed segments of the RR had been still using the wood but the later models were using coal.
In a meantime the first Russian public passenger railroad had been constructed. It ran for 27 km from Saint Petersburg to Pavlovsk through the nearby Tsarskoye Selo.
The next major project was a railroad between Moscow and St-Petersburg and, in the case of success, a large scale railroad construction program was planned. The issue was anything but simple because besides the purely technical issues of building enough locomotives (and choosing a proper design or a number of designs), producing enough rails and other needed equipment, training enough personnel, etc. there was a strategic issue: what must be a priority? From a purely commercial perspective, the railroads should more or less follow the existing routes connecting the main trading centers including the ports. However, there was also a military aspect. There would be a need in a railroad connection to Sevastopol even if its commercial value is going to be low. Taking into an account the somewhat ambivalent relations with Prussia the railroads leading to Belorussia and then to Poland will be needed and in a view of even colder relations with Austria, the railroads leading to the Volinya as well even if their commercial value was going to be low. Taking into an account that at least for a while the production capacities had been limited, the priorities had to be chosen carefully and the resources (money including) not to be wasted. There still were few years for planning and building up the resources.
The simpler thing was the city rail public transportation. The first horse-driven rail system was constructed in Moscow and soon enough it was available in all major cities of European Russia.
_________
[1] In OTL in 1833 and it was his son, Miron. By the reasons unclear the father and son Cherepanovs are routinely referenced as “Cherepanov brothers”.
“To make a rabbit stew you need to get at least a cat.”
A popular culinary recipe
“The initiative is punishable”
Rule of a thumb
“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”
Another rule of a thumb
“If you suddenly feeling an urge to work, lay down and relax. Hopefully, it will go away.”
Placard in a scientific laboratory
[This chapter stretches ahead of the time table just to provide a general perspective. I’ll get back to the continued time flow. ]A popular culinary recipe
“The initiative is punishable”
Rule of a thumb
“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”
Another rule of a thumb
“If you suddenly feeling an urge to work, lay down and relax. Hopefully, it will go away.”
Placard in a scientific laboratory
As far as the metallurgy was involved, Russia was seemingly doing just fine. After all, it was the greatest producer and exporter of the iron in Europe. Unfortunately, most of the iron produced on Ural was a cast iron and the regional owners of the metallurgic plants had been, so far, reluctant to change their ways of operation. To start with, all their iron and copper production had been charcoal-based. Each industrial plant was surrounded by a huge forest massive which was steadily cut down to maintain the operations. If the plant’s owner was running out of wood, he had to close his plant.
The richest iron sources of the Southern Ural, like the Magnet Mountain, remained practically untouched because the area was short on the forests. It was not like the coal was unknown. Peter I issued a special decree ordering to look for the coal deposits and in Donetsk region this produced very impressive results. But even in the mid-XVIII most of the Ural manufacturing was still based upon serf labor and the owners had been reluctant to adopt to the new ways both because the existing system worked fine and because they feared that the state may start confiscating the coal deposits or to get “creative” in some other inconvenient way. The regional bureaucracy was hand in glove with them because why would any reasonable official wish to do extra work for the same salary? As a result, the first people reporting discovery of a big coal deposit in the Kizelovsk region on Ural had been, by request of the local plant owner, accused in a rebellion, their “leader” was put in prison and the rest were sent to serve in the army. Only after the big fire exterminated the plant’s forest, the “rebel” was released and the coal excavation started. Only with the growing shortage of wood and increasing number of the coal discoveries attitudes started changing and even if the charcoal was still predominantly used the coal was getting increasing used for the puddling process (converting pig iron into wrought iron by subjecting it to heat and frequent stirring in a furnace in the presence of oxidizing substances) and as a fuel for the steam engines on the plants. The main problem was a difficulty of transporting coal to the plants. What’s even worse, to get a good quality coke there was a need to mix the local coal (with a high percentage of sulfur) with the high quality coal from Kuznetsk area.
While in the Southern Russia the metallurgy started with being coal-based, transportation between Donetsk coal region and Kursk iron mines also was an issue requiring effective solution.
So, to give Russian metallurgy a boost, transportation issue must be solved. The most obvious solution was a railroad. There was nothing new in the idea, the first iron rails appeared in Britain in the mid-XVIII and in Russia couple decades later (below are the Cast iron rails of the Alexandrovsky plant railway in Russia. 1788).
Of course, these railroads had been using the horse power which was putting certain limitations upon transported cargo. Another problem was a rail material. Cast iron was not a satisfactory material for rails because it was brittle and broke under heavy loads. The wrought iron that could undergo considerable deformation before breaking was a much better material and the commercially viable processes, including rolling, had been available since the 1780s. Of course, the iron rails tended to last for less than 10 years but this was not critical as long as they were cheap to produce.
Which left the issue of replacing the horses with something more powerful and, preferably, faster. The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the United Kingdom in 1804 by Richard Trevithick but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives, not least because his engines were too heavy for the cast-iron plateway track then in use (see monstrosity below).
The first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, for the edge railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds, England.
The new development did not pass unnoticed and in 1813 Efim Cherepanov, the chief mechanic of the Nozhny Tagil plants, was sent to Britain [1].
The authorities of Nizhny Tagil plant, and the owner N. Demidov were skeptical of the construction of the locomotive. They were more worried about why abroad began to fall, the demand for Urals iron. But none of them wanted to admit that all the matter in the technical backwardness of domestic plants that are unable to achieve high quality metal. In order to establish the truth, Demidov sent senior Cherepanov in England, because he believed his knowledgeable and technically competent expert. The British are not very cordially greeted the Russian mechanics, because they were not interested in the transfer of the competitors on their experience and secrets of metal. Moreover, in England the guest recognized the spy and stopped to let to many plants. Judging by the extant letters, Yefim only managed externally to observe the wonders of overseas technology, so as to drawings and documents not admitted. However, its main task he coped. Cherepanov once again proved that to improve quality in the Urals metal it is necessary to mechanize the workers. And most importantly - in England, he first saw in action rail road steam traction.
Upon return Cherepanov started working on the first Russian locomotive finishing it in 1814 and the next, more powerful version, in 1815. He also built a railroad, 854 meters long (iron cast rails) from the mine to plant.
Technical problems faced by the wizard. First, their steam boiler did not give a sufficient amount of steam. To solve this problem, they increased the number of tubes in the boiler up to 80. Another problem was the solution to the rear of the engine. For this Cherepanova employ the mechanism consisting of the eccentric wheel, allows you to apply the steam cylinder so that the wheels of the locomotive started to rotate in the opposite direction. The weight of the locomotive Cherepanovs ' was 2. 4 tons. With load of 3. 5 tons, the locomotive reached a speed of 15 km/H. For transportation of fuel and water, was applied special trolley - tender. The locomotive had two pairs of wheels of the same size. Leading was only one pair. Unlike the first steam locomotive, the second locomotive Cherepanovs ' were large and the number of design changes. The pan grinder wheel pairs, which was driven by a steam engine, reduced in size. To carry the locomotive could have 16 tons, with a speed of 15 km/h.
Unfortunately, these locomotives had been working on wood, due to an absence of the coal mines nearby, and the wood already had been in a short supply in the region.
Here is an eyewitness account of the first flight of the engine Cherepanovs': "In that day upon Vyshe field people went and stood along the lines of iron kolesarova. Heavy factory gates opened and soon there were land steamer machine unseen, like nothing on earth, with high Smoking chimney, shiny polished bronze parts. On the ground at arms stood Cherepanov. Puffing steam, flashing spokes of the wheel, the ship drove past the silent crowd. Then Efim turned some grip, the club, the pair flew out of the pipe, and the car accelerated. The driver brought the locomotive to the impasse and put the car in reverse. Back the car was going very fast. The next flight steamer did with the trailer cart 200 pounds of cargo. And later in the cart climbed a dozen two or three people who wanted to be the first passengers.”
It was taking time to develop a whole infrastructure: coal quarries, railways to them, coal steam engines (steam locomotives) to transport coal to coal steam engines operating plants. In addition, the maintenance of steam locomotives (as in England) was more expensive than keeping horses, and steam locomotives were profitable only when using their full capacity - for large trains.
But the chain of events had been triggered and in few years construction of the Ural Mining Railway began. The road was to pass through the main mountainous districts of the Middle Urals: from Perm through the Perm state-owned plant, Kynovsky Count Stroganov’s plant, Goroblagodatsk state-owned plant, Tagil Demidov’s plant, Alapaev heirs of the Yakovlev plant, the city of Irbit and to Tyumen, while connecting the Ob and Volga water systems.
Its whole length was approximately 500 kilometers and construction took over 30 years. Taking advantage of the available industrial resources, the rails had been made of rolled wrought iron. The first locomotives running on the first completed segments of the RR had been still using the wood but the later models were using coal.
In a meantime the first Russian public passenger railroad had been constructed. It ran for 27 km from Saint Petersburg to Pavlovsk through the nearby Tsarskoye Selo.
The next major project was a railroad between Moscow and St-Petersburg and, in the case of success, a large scale railroad construction program was planned. The issue was anything but simple because besides the purely technical issues of building enough locomotives (and choosing a proper design or a number of designs), producing enough rails and other needed equipment, training enough personnel, etc. there was a strategic issue: what must be a priority? From a purely commercial perspective, the railroads should more or less follow the existing routes connecting the main trading centers including the ports. However, there was also a military aspect. There would be a need in a railroad connection to Sevastopol even if its commercial value is going to be low. Taking into an account the somewhat ambivalent relations with Prussia the railroads leading to Belorussia and then to Poland will be needed and in a view of even colder relations with Austria, the railroads leading to the Volinya as well even if their commercial value was going to be low. Taking into an account that at least for a while the production capacities had been limited, the priorities had to be chosen carefully and the resources (money including) not to be wasted. There still were few years for planning and building up the resources.
The simpler thing was the city rail public transportation. The first horse-driven rail system was constructed in Moscow and soon enough it was available in all major cities of European Russia.
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[1] In OTL in 1833 and it was his son, Miron. By the reasons unclear the father and son Cherepanovs are routinely referenced as “Cherepanov brothers”.
Well, if construction on this is accelerated, the British and French will find it a freezing hell of attempting a Crimean war.
The key thing is, all those things force them to upgrade to steel production way ahead of schedule. With that modernization you also need to add higher qualified workers, needing more schools etc etc. So basically you're kickstarting the industrial revolution in Russia about 50-100 years earlier. That means we need the government to move faster rapidly on adequate representation. All those enlightened people think they know better. Though to be fair, if I recall correctly that is, is that even up to the revolution the Tzar wasn't seen that much of a boogeyman right?
Contrary to the Soviet history, the universal education program was started and had been quite efficient in its purpose to achieve a complete literacy. Definitely, it could start few decades earlier. Ditto for the technical education. In OTL these things started happening very fast. ITTL it would be even easier because the slower rate of development will still be OK. Anyway, AFAIK, in the rest of the developed world the skilled workers did not grow on the trees either.
Yes. With the main OTL obstacles removed, it definitely could happen earlier.
AFAIK, in OTL most of the technologically (and medically) competent people in the Russian Empire tended to be too busy working to het into politics. This area was over-represented by the lawyers, philosophers (seems to be an officially recognized profession), students-“humanitarians”and other “enlightened” people with plenty of a free time who “considered themselves free thinkers just because the thoughts had been freely flying in their [empty] heads”. Ditto for the skilled industrial workers. Contrary to the official legend, they tended to be not supportive of the Bolsheviks because they had a lot to loose. The urban support base were “lumpen proletariat”. And, of course, “intelligencia” who, indeed, “knew better”. Why a professor of jurisprudence should make decision regarding construction of a railroad line (which as a result had to be hastily completed during wwi) or why a popular lawyer is qualified to be a Minister of Finances (overflowing country with valueless paper money causing terrible inflation) or War (completely destroying whatever was left of the army) is anybody’s guess. OTOH, Witte did have a technical education and Stolypin studied agriculture in the university.
Which does not mean that the industrial workers would not try to improve their economic situation by the strikes and creating trade unions. The paradoxical thing is that in this area they were much more successful in Tsarist Russia (the labor laws had been quite comprehensive and in some aspects ahead of the “western” schedule) than later in the workers’ paradise.
OTOH, how many industrial workers or even engineers made it to the top of a political ladder in the “democratic world”?
The CW was a byproduct of a rather idiotic foreign and domestic policies of NI. Well, of course Palmerston was a classic case of the British imperial paranoia but NIII could easily be moved out of the equation thus eliminating the whole thing.
Busy times
196. Busy times
The “world” being peaceful, for a change, but this does not mean that it was quiet and relaxed. On a contrary, everybody who could had been busy trying to expand its colonial possessions. For the Brits, for a while, the main effort had been directed toward India and they even returned the occupied Batavian possessions in Indonesia.
The Dutch cut their looses elsewhere and concentrated on strengthening their presence on Java and Sumatra.
The French, after conquering the economically attractive coastal area of Algeria, had been trying to establish a reliable “defensive perimeter” on the Southern border to prevent the raiding by the southern tribes. So far, each success had been moving them further south to meet another tribe needed to be “pacified”.
Davout, who, besides being a very good general, proved to be a surprisingly good administrator, was trying to keep things under control and even created a new light infantry force, the Zouaves, recruited among the local “Zwawa” group of the Berber tribes who formerly served to the Dey of Algeria. They knew area well, had been quite proficient in the skirmishing tactics and did not have any problems with fighting against other local tribes. Later their numbers grew both due to the local recruitment and by adding the French volunteers (exotic uniforms, high reputation of the units, some “allowances” in the area of a discipline, what else one needs?).
These infantry units were augmented by the detachments of locally recruited irregular horsemen designated as chasseurs spahis. Between 1807 and 1812 they were organised into four squadrons of regular Spahis. Initially Spahis comprised for the most part Arab and Berber troopers commanded by French officers but with a passage of time the French volunteers appeared in the ranks and some of the locals made it into the officers.
These innovations somewhat simplified the military aspect of the situation but still the Southern border was not quiet.
The next …er… area of a general interest was the Gulf of Guinea. The Consulate considered it a promising colonization area but had to maneuver between the pieces of a territory already operated by the various British-sponsored (the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor supported by the government) settlements of the liberated slaves and British trade companies. Squeeing them out by force could create unnecessary tensions so the French squeezed in between somewhat benefitting from the annoyance the self-righteous British missionaries already managed to cause in the region. Of course, the French Republic abolished slavery well ahead of Britain but, taking into an account that slave trade was one of the main regional businesses, the arriving French officials had been willing not to notice certain specifics of the local economy thus making themselves an attractive alternative to the Brits and gradually establishing protectorat over the regional kingdoms and getting control of the palm oil trade (palm oil and palm kernels, which were used in Europe to make soap and as lubricants for machinery) [2]. To the British chagrin, the Consulate, as a matter of principle, refused to to give the Royal Navy the right to intercept and search the French ships for slaves and by the time the British government decided to enforce “anti-slavery” treaties [3] upon the regional powers they were already under the French umbrella and Britain was not ready to go to a major war over the issue.
Russian Empire was not planning to expand to Africa or Indo-China but this does not mean that its government and the merchants were not looking for expanding the markets and there was one right across the border, the Ottoman Empire. In the 1700s, France dominated Western European trade with the Eastern Mediterranean. The Austrians had the second greatest volume of trade, thanks to the long border they shared with the Turks. The Revolutionary Wars and especially Egyptian Expedition of a certain overly enthusiastic French general destroyed the trade pattern creating a considerable niche.
The Ottoman Empire. In the 1700s, foreign trade was a minor part of the Ottoman economy. Muslims were discouraged from trading with the Christian states of Western Europe, and prior to the industrial revolution there were limited markets for exports anywhere. The Ottomans exported luxury goods like silk, furs, tobacco and spices, and had a growing trade in cotton. From Europe, the Ottomans imported goods that they did not make for themselves: woolen cloth, glassware and some special manufactured goods like medicine, gunpowder and clocks. Economic development of the Southern Russia added grain and some other products to the list. Now, the ambitious idea was to replace France (and to limit the British “penetration”) and to squeeze Austria out as much as possible.
Starting from the early 1800s the Ottomans began to import more than they exported and the gap was slowly but steadily growing. Bulk goods and manufactures replaced luxuries in the import trade. The greatest demand was for the cotton yarn and cloth and the Russian manufacturers already had been actively using resources of the Central Asia. The main competitor, under the normal circumstances, would be Britain but the Russian route was shorter (making supplies cheaper) and the British attempt to attack Istanbul followed by the Alexandria Expedition did not contribute to the good relations. Of course, Russia could not supply sugar, coffee and rice but it was a big supplier of grain and various food items from the Crimea and it was an importer of the Mediterranean crops like grapes, figs and olive oil.
The next “item” was Austria. The non-competitive item was Bohemian glassware (but this applied to the whole Europe) but the rest was much less so (copper, woolens, iron products) and most of these items could be supplied by Russia cheaper. And then there was a big political issue. With the Austtrian-held Triest and Rijeka failing to become the major ports, the main trade route in the eastern direction was the Danube. By the XVIII treaties the Austrian goods shipped down the Danube would have to be reloaded to the Ottoman ships at Viddin, an arrangement which the Austrians did not like. So they were the big advocates of the free trade by the Danube. The Ottomans, quite naturally, did not like the idea and it did not took a great effort to point to them that if the free trade is allowed, the next step will be the Austrian attempt to establish control over the Danube Principalities to guarantee a freedom of navigation and perhaps to establish control over the Wallachian grain production and use it as a tool for pressing the Porte into further concessions. In this endeavor Austria will be supported by the third parties, especially one which warships already tried to force their way through the straits.
And, finally, a brand new set of the import items was coming. After the Auspicious Incident the Ottoman Empire was busily building a reformed new army and the army needed weapons, uniforms and a lot of other types of supplies associated with “being western”. Taking into an account that the Northern Neighbor (and a proven friend who saved the Sultan’s life and helped to deal with the Janissary) was involved in the process from the very beginning and that the Russian officers had been training the new Ottoman army and navy, who else could be trusted with supplying these necessities and training the troops?
So, at least for now, Russia got a very big piece of the Ottoman pie …oops… foreign trade including some profitable arrangements with Egypt.
With the coming age of the steamships there is going to be a new round of activities related to the trade by the Danube. Of course, the Perfidious Albion will try (as in OTL) to muscle its way into the schema based upon the excessively enthusiastic assessments of some of its politicians but this will be later.
The things were not as easy with Persia because Shah-in-Shah had somewhat confused ideas regarding his military power and so far refused to grant to all Russian merchants (aka, regardless their religion) a right of free trade throughout Persia and even demonstrated some arrogance toward the Russian diplomatic representative. Some educational exercise was definitely needed and fast because there were rumors about the Brits planning to send their embassy to Persia.
_________
[1] “Let’s make an economics-based agreement: I’ll not eat your grass and for this you’ll voluntarily supply me with your meat” Karel Čapek, Wolf and a goat.
[2] In OTL by 1840 palm oil exports alone were worth £1 billion a year.
[3] “Some of the treaties contained prohibitions on diplomacy conducted without British permission, or other promises to abide by British rule.” What exactly this had to do with “anti-slavery” I have no idea.
“There has been free trade in Turkey, and what has it produced? It has destroyed some of the finest manufacturers in the world. As late as 1812 these manufactures existed, but they have been destroyed. That was the consequences of competition in Turkey, and its effects have been as pernicious as the effects of the contrary principle in Spain.”
“Free trade is not a principle, but a means to achieve the goal.”
Disraeli
“Trade is a school of deception."
Luc de Clapier Vovenargue
“Conscience is a product that, the less you have, the greater the turnover of trade."
Stas Yankovsky
“In any business, both in craft and in trade, you can get rich pretending to be an honest person."
Jean de Labruyere
“Dohodneme se na hospodářské základně: já nebudu žrát tvou trávu, a ty mně za to budeš dodávat po dobrém své vlastní maso.”
Karel Čapek, ‘Vlk a koza’ [1]
Back to 1807. “Free trade is not a principle, but a means to achieve the goal.”
Disraeli
“Trade is a school of deception."
Luc de Clapier Vovenargue
“Conscience is a product that, the less you have, the greater the turnover of trade."
Stas Yankovsky
“In any business, both in craft and in trade, you can get rich pretending to be an honest person."
Jean de Labruyere
“Dohodneme se na hospodářské základně: já nebudu žrát tvou trávu, a ty mně za to budeš dodávat po dobrém své vlastní maso.”
Karel Čapek, ‘Vlk a koza’ [1]
The “world” being peaceful, for a change, but this does not mean that it was quiet and relaxed. On a contrary, everybody who could had been busy trying to expand its colonial possessions. For the Brits, for a while, the main effort had been directed toward India and they even returned the occupied Batavian possessions in Indonesia.
The Dutch cut their looses elsewhere and concentrated on strengthening their presence on Java and Sumatra.
The French, after conquering the economically attractive coastal area of Algeria, had been trying to establish a reliable “defensive perimeter” on the Southern border to prevent the raiding by the southern tribes. So far, each success had been moving them further south to meet another tribe needed to be “pacified”.
Davout, who, besides being a very good general, proved to be a surprisingly good administrator, was trying to keep things under control and even created a new light infantry force, the Zouaves, recruited among the local “Zwawa” group of the Berber tribes who formerly served to the Dey of Algeria. They knew area well, had been quite proficient in the skirmishing tactics and did not have any problems with fighting against other local tribes. Later their numbers grew both due to the local recruitment and by adding the French volunteers (exotic uniforms, high reputation of the units, some “allowances” in the area of a discipline, what else one needs?).
These infantry units were augmented by the detachments of locally recruited irregular horsemen designated as chasseurs spahis. Between 1807 and 1812 they were organised into four squadrons of regular Spahis. Initially Spahis comprised for the most part Arab and Berber troopers commanded by French officers but with a passage of time the French volunteers appeared in the ranks and some of the locals made it into the officers.
These innovations somewhat simplified the military aspect of the situation but still the Southern border was not quiet.
The next …er… area of a general interest was the Gulf of Guinea. The Consulate considered it a promising colonization area but had to maneuver between the pieces of a territory already operated by the various British-sponsored (the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor supported by the government) settlements of the liberated slaves and British trade companies. Squeeing them out by force could create unnecessary tensions so the French squeezed in between somewhat benefitting from the annoyance the self-righteous British missionaries already managed to cause in the region. Of course, the French Republic abolished slavery well ahead of Britain but, taking into an account that slave trade was one of the main regional businesses, the arriving French officials had been willing not to notice certain specifics of the local economy thus making themselves an attractive alternative to the Brits and gradually establishing protectorat over the regional kingdoms and getting control of the palm oil trade (palm oil and palm kernels, which were used in Europe to make soap and as lubricants for machinery) [2]. To the British chagrin, the Consulate, as a matter of principle, refused to to give the Royal Navy the right to intercept and search the French ships for slaves and by the time the British government decided to enforce “anti-slavery” treaties [3] upon the regional powers they were already under the French umbrella and Britain was not ready to go to a major war over the issue.
Russian Empire was not planning to expand to Africa or Indo-China but this does not mean that its government and the merchants were not looking for expanding the markets and there was one right across the border, the Ottoman Empire. In the 1700s, France dominated Western European trade with the Eastern Mediterranean. The Austrians had the second greatest volume of trade, thanks to the long border they shared with the Turks. The Revolutionary Wars and especially Egyptian Expedition of a certain overly enthusiastic French general destroyed the trade pattern creating a considerable niche.
The Ottoman Empire. In the 1700s, foreign trade was a minor part of the Ottoman economy. Muslims were discouraged from trading with the Christian states of Western Europe, and prior to the industrial revolution there were limited markets for exports anywhere. The Ottomans exported luxury goods like silk, furs, tobacco and spices, and had a growing trade in cotton. From Europe, the Ottomans imported goods that they did not make for themselves: woolen cloth, glassware and some special manufactured goods like medicine, gunpowder and clocks. Economic development of the Southern Russia added grain and some other products to the list. Now, the ambitious idea was to replace France (and to limit the British “penetration”) and to squeeze Austria out as much as possible.
Starting from the early 1800s the Ottomans began to import more than they exported and the gap was slowly but steadily growing. Bulk goods and manufactures replaced luxuries in the import trade. The greatest demand was for the cotton yarn and cloth and the Russian manufacturers already had been actively using resources of the Central Asia. The main competitor, under the normal circumstances, would be Britain but the Russian route was shorter (making supplies cheaper) and the British attempt to attack Istanbul followed by the Alexandria Expedition did not contribute to the good relations. Of course, Russia could not supply sugar, coffee and rice but it was a big supplier of grain and various food items from the Crimea and it was an importer of the Mediterranean crops like grapes, figs and olive oil.
The next “item” was Austria. The non-competitive item was Bohemian glassware (but this applied to the whole Europe
) but the rest was much less so (copper, woolens, iron products) and most of these items could be supplied by Russia cheaper. And then there was a big political issue. With the Austtrian-held Triest and Rijeka failing to become the major ports, the main trade route in the eastern direction was the Danube. By the XVIII treaties the Austrian goods shipped down the Danube would have to be reloaded to the Ottoman ships at Viddin, an arrangement which the Austrians did not like. So they were the big advocates of the free trade by the Danube. The Ottomans, quite naturally, did not like the idea and it did not took a great effort to point to them that if the free trade is allowed, the next step will be the Austrian attempt to establish control over the Danube Principalities to guarantee a freedom of navigation and perhaps to establish control over the Wallachian grain production and use it as a tool for pressing the Porte into further concessions. In this endeavor Austria will be supported by the third parties, especially one which warships already tried to force their way through the straits. And, finally, a brand new set of the import items was coming. After the Auspicious Incident the Ottoman Empire was busily building a reformed new army and the army needed weapons, uniforms and a lot of other types of supplies associated with “being western”. Taking into an account that the Northern Neighbor (and a proven friend who saved the Sultan’s life and helped to deal with the Janissary) was involved in the process from the very beginning and that the Russian officers had been training the new Ottoman army and navy, who else could be trusted with supplying these necessities and training the troops?
So, at least for now, Russia got a very big piece of the Ottoman pie …oops… foreign trade including some profitable arrangements with Egypt.
With the coming age of the steamships there is going to be a new round of activities related to the trade by the Danube. Of course, the Perfidious Albion will try (as in OTL) to muscle its way into the schema based upon the excessively enthusiastic assessments of some of its politicians but this will be later.
The things were not as easy with Persia because Shah-in-Shah had somewhat confused ideas regarding his military power and so far refused to grant to all Russian merchants (aka, regardless their religion) a right of free trade throughout Persia and even demonstrated some arrogance toward the Russian diplomatic representative. Some educational exercise was definitely needed and fast because there were rumors about the Brits planning to send their embassy to Persia.
_________
[1] “Let’s make an economics-based agreement: I’ll not eat your grass and for this you’ll voluntarily supply me with your meat” Karel Čapek, Wolf and a goat.
[2] In OTL by 1840 palm oil exports alone were worth £1 billion a year.
[3] “Some of the treaties contained prohibitions on diplomacy conducted without British permission, or other promises to abide by British rule.” What exactly this had to do with “anti-slavery” I have no idea.
For one if things go more or less otl with Egypt and the Ottoman's i wonder what will Russian seek? Maybe something similar to the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi? Though they already have that more, or less informally, but having formal document wouldn't hurt .
On second hand there's a little chance for the British to arrange Treaty of Balta Liman which effectively killed off Ottoman industry in it's infancy while arranging for unrestricted access to the Ottoman market.
But who knows maybe Russia could take British place and arrange similar treaty, it would be a nice reward for helping Ottomans in potential Greek rebellion (softly) and Egyptian problem (similar to otl), along with some version of treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi.
Though Russia will have to be careful in navigating the politics of the near east because if things go otl French will support Egypt and British if they feel that they can't get piece of the pie will do so to, then there will always be Austria waiting in the wings (in this update Russians already started pushing them out and taking their slice of the pie).
Basically even without tensions in CA Russia really needs to play these relations smart otherwise it could find itself forced in similar position it was at the partition of PLC. Personally i believe that Russia will have to appease either France, or the British and from these France has an army that can threaten Russia on land and formidable navy . So a firm concession to the Egypt similar to Otl under French patronage backed by Sweden and Prussia (to threaten any Austrian ambition and to keep them isolated on the continent) should do while Russia gets favorable piece of Ottoman pie and keeps the British out letting them scream about France controlling Egypt (there is a need to spice things up between the two or else their rivalry might turn cold).
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