What would the world be like if Tsarist Russia won WW1?

[Rome's rightful successor]

What would happen if The Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas II won World War I? This There were two times where the Russian Empire came close to achieving victory in the first world war.
The First was when the Russians were entering on the German home turf in The battle of Tannenberg in 1914 and the second was the Brusilov offensive in 1916 where the Russians nearly destroyed the Austro-Hungarian eastern flank only for it's allies to come to the rescue.
But what if they couldn't? What if instead The Russian Empire achieve victory early in the war? This would be a world with no February Revolution with Alexander Kerensky, no October Revolution with Vladimir Lenin, and no United States entering the war in 1917 with Woodrow Wilson help deciding peace with the 14 points.
In this Tsarist victory post war world, Russia would have for sure annexed Galicia, Pontus, Western Armenia and Assyrian lowlands. What the Russians wanted out of Germany is unknown.
But for sure the biggest prize would have been the return of Constantinople to Christian Orthodox hands. Constantinople's international name would probably be changed to it's Russian name of Tsargrad
Another major change is is that without Woodrow Wilson the fate of post defeat Germany hangs in the hands of the French and Russians who want to rip it apart in multiple pieces.
This popular image that has been circulating online shows a glimpse of what this post war world might have look like.

But the real question is how long cold the Romanov's hold power?
The longer Tsar Nicholas II and family are in power the more drastic the changes to our world become.
And how long would this post war east and west friendship last? The alliance between the Russians and French was more about countering Germany not to bring an everlasting alliance in Europe.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I'm just posting to say that the Romanovs have been unfairly romanticized by Westerners just for being not-Communists. Their system was horrible, Russia was a basketcase, and the good guys of the story are the Russian republicans (or if we go back further in time, Cossacks), not the autocratic state out of Moscow.

 

[Throng of Titans]

They were basically fucked no matter how it went.

The Brusilov Offensive was a success but also killed a metric fuckton of soldiers, Tsarist Russia was a collapsing mess and would likely have fallen to the Russian republicans no matter what. Any hope of Tsarist Russia pulling through is copium, the real divergence point is whether the Bolsheviks took off or got roflstomped.

 

[Breadbassket]

They were basically fucked no matter how it went.

The Brusilov Offensive was a success but also killed a metric fuckton of soldiers, Tsarist Russia was a collapsing mess and would likely have fallen to the Russian republicans no matter what. Any hope of Tsarist Russia pulling through is copium, the real divergence point is whether the Bolsheviks took off or got roflstomped.

Guess if you want a point of divergence there, just say the Germans never had a chance to ship Lenin back to Russia?

 

[millais]

Internal collapse would not be far behind, and the Russian occupation troops would have to be pulled back to suppress domestic uprisings.

Just like how the overextended Freikorps and Imperial German army units had to withdraw from all the Baltic and Ukrainian territories ceded by Brest-Litovsk due to the collapse of the German homeland into Spartakist insurrection, red mutiny, and revolutionary councils.

 

[Strix454]

It isn't unknown what the Russians intended as far as Germany and Austria-Hungary.

- They intended to remove Bohemia from Austria-Hungary and establish it as an independent Kingdom under a Russian Prince.
- Parts of Hungary would be given to Rumania.
- Serbia would be given Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and depending on when Russia won, parts of Bulgaria as well.
- The 1871 unification of Germany would be partially undone. Some combination of German Kingdoms would be made again independent states. Probably the south german states.
- Russia would grab a belt of territory around Poland. They would take Poznan and the economically valuable parts of Silesia from Germany. They would take Galicia from Austria-Hungary.
- Russia would create an autonomous "Kingdom of Poland" which would have a degree of self-rule but be under the overall rule of the Tsar as King.
- Austria and Hungary would be separated as Kingdoms.
- Russia would have reorganized the Northern half of Persia into something other than Persia and under Russian rule.

In general, much of what happened at the end of the war in central europe and the Balkans would have also happened if Russia had won a victory. The main difference being that if Russia had won the war, the new states in Eastern and Central Europe would have all been monarchys with Russian Kings. If Russia was in a strong position at the end of the war, the other difference would have been that the French proposals for dividing Germany into independent Kingdoms would have had more support.

The Ottoman Empire was going to be dismembered and substantial pieces of it given over to Russia including the straits.

And what would have happened in the long run?

- Poland would have continued to be a endless nightmare for Russia. It would have been their ireland and creating an autonomous poland would have simply started the political cycle over. Eventually there would be an uprising and Polish autonomy would (again) have been done away with.
- Greater Serbia - Effectively Yugoslavia would have been an unstable state that would have required constant Russian intervention to keep together.
- The dismemberment of Austria-Hungary would strengthen the Prussian position in Central Europe. Sooner or later, in a moment where the other states were weak, the German Empire would re-unite. A Russian King in Prague would find it impossible to execute a pro-Russian foreign policy because it would be against the interests of Bohemia.
- If the German Empire was dismembered, the British would return to their traditional policy of alliance with the North German states against Russia and France.
- Russia would have faced a few decades of expensive wars to really establish its rule in Anatolia. Constantinople would have been a constant problem and there would have been endless violence between the Muslim and Christian communities in the city.

In the long run, there would have been religious and national tensions across Russia that would have stressed the structure of Tsarist rule. Especially after winning all those things in World War One, Russia would be too big and made up of too many different Ethnic groups to stay together as one country. One way or another, the Russian Empire would have eventually broken up along much the same lines as the USSR did at the end of the cold war.

 

[♦️ King of Diamonds ♦️]

The only way Tsarist Russia wins WW1 is by either playing a nice game of Switzerland and sitting it out entirely as a neutral party entirely while watching Britain and Germany come to the inevitable end of their 19th century arms race, or having a different Tsarist Russia entirely by the time Franz gets capped (as in- a Tsarist Russia that somehow doesn't have a sub-20% literacy rate and a decent industrial base, which would probably mean the point of departure for this scenario would have to be winning the Crimean War and ending serfdom much earlier)

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Not going to theorise but depending on each event some how miraculously sees Russia win things could change dramatically, a 1914 victory would be a very bloody war but not the end of empires.

They were basically fucked no matter how it went.

The Brusilov Offensive was a success but also killed a metric fuckton of soldiers, Tsarist Russia was a collapsing mess and would likely have fallen to the Russian republicans no matter what. Any hope of Tsarist Russia pulling through is copium, the real divergence point is whether the Bolsheviks took off or got roflstomped.

If there was to be any divergence point it'd be the Kornilov Affair.

 

[Smug]

All theoretical WW1/WW2 scenarios are thrown into extreme disarray from the simple fact of us not knowing who would first practically develop and deploy nuclear bombs. Anything post-1940ish is almost certainly decided by that factor. In theory it would be the U.S. anyway, but it's hard to say what would have happened if WW2 didn't specifically end from the U.S. dropping nukes on Japan as a war-ender.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

It would've still collapsed after the war. The socio-economic foundation of the Empire was frankly just unsustainable.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

It isn't unknown what the Russians intended as far as Germany and Austria-Hungary.

- They intended to remove Bohemia from Austria-Hungary and establish it as an independent Kingdom under a Russian Prince.
- Parts of Hungary would be given to Rumania.
- Serbia would be given Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and depending on when Russia won, parts of Bulgaria as well.
- The 1871 unification of Germany would be partially undone. Some combination of German Kingdoms would be made again independent states. Probably the south german states.
- Russia would grab a belt of territory around Poland. They would take Poznan and the economically valuable parts of Silesia from Germany. They would take Galicia from Austria-Hungary.
- Russia would create an autonomous "Kingdom of Poland" which would have a degree of self-rule but be under the overall rule of the Tsar as King.
- Austria and Hungary would be separated as Kingdoms.
- Russia would have reorganized the Northern half of Persia into something other than Persia and under Russian rule.

In general, much of what happened at the end of the war in central europe and the Balkans would have also happened if Russia had won a victory. The main difference being that if Russia had won the war, the new states in Eastern and Central Europe would have all been monarchys with Russian Kings. If Russia was in a strong position at the end of the war, the other difference would have been that the French proposals for dividing Germany into independent Kingdoms would have had more support.

The Ottoman Empire was going to be dismembered and substantial pieces of it given over to Russia including the straits.

And what would have happened in the long run?

- Poland would have continued to be a endless nightmare for Russia. It would have been their ireland and creating an autonomous poland would have simply started the political cycle over. Eventually there would be an uprising and Polish autonomy would (again) have been done away with.
- Greater Serbia - Effectively Yugoslavia would have been an unstable state that would have required constant Russian intervention to keep together.
- The dismemberment of Austria-Hungary would strengthen the Prussian position in Central Europe. Sooner or later, in a moment where the other states were weak, the German Empire would re-unite. A Russian King in Prague would find it impossible to execute a pro-Russian foreign policy because it would be against the interests of Bohemia.
- If the German Empire was dismembered, the British would return to their traditional policy of alliance with the North German states against Russia and France.
- Russia would have faced a few decades of expensive wars to really establish its rule in Anatolia. Constantinople would have been a constant problem and there would have been endless violence between the Muslim and Christian communities in the city.

In the long run, there would have been religious and national tensions across Russia that would have stressed the structure of Tsarist rule. Especially after winning all those things in World War One, Russia would be too big and made up of too many different Ethnic groups to stay together as one country. One way or another, the Russian Empire would have eventually broken up along much the same lines as the USSR did at the end of the cold war.

-To add to that I think in that scenario I don't think Communism and Fascism would have arised at all.
The left was already in disarray by the midpoint of the war with the fall of the second international with Vladimir Lenin taking the podium in Petrograd being what put the left back together in our world. In a world without Lenin taking center stage what would the left do?
-On the other side of the spectrum, in Italy, Fascism probably wont take power. If west/east relations were to break down quickly after the war, the treaty of Versailles would probably hand the Italians all of Dalmatia against a Russian back Yugoslavia. An easy handed proposal.
Without the Italian government fucking up and stubbornly accidently self sabotaging their own peace treaty and later giving in on international pressure on Fiume, Mussolini's Blackshirts looses one of their biggest arguments for the March on Rome preventing Italian Fascism from happening.
But even with all of that I'm sure the Italian government will find a way to fuck everything up because they always seem to do.
-Could Hitler and the NSDAP arise In a dismembered Germany? I'm sure their will be German Nationalists that want to put Germany back together again but Germany here is now put into a very different and difficult scenario even compare to the one from our world.
-Romania is also unlikely to dabble into fascism as Romania will not westernize nor liberalize post war while being on the side of a friendly still standing Russian Empire. Eliminating any possible source for a global fascist movement to come to fruition. The only group I could
see still existing is maybe the Spanish Falange in some form.
-Without America's direct involvement in WWI, America business interest would take a lesser role in Europe.
-If the Turkish independence were to happen, Ataturk would have to face against the Russian Army in Anatolia. A much more formidable and reinforceable threat compare to the French, Italians, and Greeks in the Area in our timeline.
This might also put a kibosh to the secular movement in the middle east at the time.
-Regardless even if The Russian Empire doesn't last, if it just last 10-20 years it radically alters the course of human history to an unrecognizable degree.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

In order, left to right.
Smash, Smash, pass, Smash, pass, pass, smash.

 

[DumbDude43]

-Could Hitler and the NSDAP arise In a dismembered Germany? I'm sure their will be German Nationalists that want to put Germany back together again but Germany here is now put into a very different and difficult scenario even compare to the one from our world.

no.
the early national socialists were first and foremost a reactionary movement against marxism. having witnessed the attempted and partially successful marxist uprisings in germany during the 1918-1920 period, they considered this the biggest threat to the nation by far. and because marxism is jewish, this is also what put their jew hate into ultra overdrive mode.
basically, for centuries, common attitudes towards jews were simply something like "i don't like them yids with their funny hats and the high interest rates on their loans"
but after witnessing jewish leftists attempt to overthrow the country and implement bolshevism, those attitudes changed drastically, towards ideas like "these treasonous subhuman parasites are a vile disease that must be purged from the continent!" thinking.

 

[Strix454]

- Fascism in Italy
I'm not so sure that it could have been avoided by a different outcome in the war. Anger over the outcome of the war and Italy's gains during the war was one part of their rise to power. But there was a large amount of social and economic grievances in play as well. The basic argument that liberalism and socialism had both failed & that something else was needed would not have gone away.

- Communism
Minus the Russian Revolution, the politics of the far left and of Marxism in general in the world might have evolved in a very different way. The international communist movement with the ideas of Russians like Lenin and Trotsky raised to be equal to those of Marx would never have happened. The more varied socialist ideas and experimentation of the pre-1914 era would have continued. There would have been more political socialism, less revolutionary communism and less Russian influence on the whole of socialist thought.

- Hitler and the NDSAP
Hard to say. If peace is implemented by cooperating revolutionary governments in Germany (as in history), there is some room for them to rise to power. If peace is implemented by France/Russia through force inside Germany, it seems less likely. It also depends on how Germany loses the war. If loss of the war is accompanied by a revolutionary republic being established, the NDSAP has more room to operate. If its a reformed version of the Reich with "a" Kaiser, its perhaps more difficult for something like the NDSAP to happen. It also depends on what the communists do in Germany.

- America's role in Europe
America's role economically in Europe depends on when the war ends and the size of the war loans of the European countries at the time of victory. There is also in the event of a defeat of Germany always going to be a global economic problem in that it will be difficult for Europe to economically recover if Germany does not economically recover. America would be drawn into those negotiations the same way it was drawn into them reluctantly in the 1920s.

- Turkey
Ataturk's rebellion was only possible because Russia didn't occupy eastern Turkey and the US refused to occupy Eastern Turkey. That gave him a large safe base to operate from. And because of the assistance in various forms provided by the Russian communist regime. There would be years of low-level warfare in the former Ottoman Empire, but no chance of an Ataturk-like victory.

 

[Mrs Paul]

Well, one major problem would be managing to keep Alexei alive long enough to take over when Nicky kicked the bucket. If he could've at least fathered an heir, or if they changed the system so one of his sisters could succede, perhaps, but I think they were doomed no matter what.

Originally, they wanted Nicholas to abdicate in favor of his son, but because of his illness, he did left the throne to his brother, Michael instead. There was a thought that a young child might have been more popular with the people.

 

[Romeo]

Hmmm... I've been fantasizing about this for some time and I'll put a twist to the scenario.

Let's start with the basics. It's correct the Russian system is pretty screwed, since peaceful protestors aka asshole nihilist anarchist terrorists killed the Tsar, Alexander II, even though he emanicipated the serfs and was turning Russia into a constitutional monarchy, making his son Alexander III a reactionary absolutist, and did not prepare his son Nicholas II to become an efficient monarch in which everything is screwed. The flaws of the Empire started to show when Russia was crushed by the Japanese in 1905 over territorial possessions in China.

For the Russian imperial state and the Romanovs were to survive, it is most likely best for Russia to be in side of the Central Powers rather than the Allies, and it mainly sticks with Russia's relationship with Germany. Here's a chronological what if,

The Build-up

• Otto von Bismarck of Imperial Germany decides to pursue a policy where Germany prioritizes an alliance with Russia over Austria-Hungary even with the treaties between Germany and AH and Germany and Russia. He believes that Austria-Hungary will eventually break up into multi-ethnic states and that Germany can annex Austria to fulfill Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany based on land lived by ethnic Germans, which the Austrians are).
• Bismarck's successors and the Kaiser, as usual, wanted to spread Germany's glory around the world instead of preserving the peace, so they do not renew the alliance with Austria-Hungary and instead strengthen their alliance with Russia (which is in the opposite in our timeline).
• Austria-Hungary, now desperate for an alliance due to enemies surrounding them, allies with France and the United Kingdom, with them backing the state to help its economy and to defend against an invasion.
• We then follow the buildup of WWI as in our timeline

World War I

• Austria-Hungary will be cautious in declaring war on a Balkan state like Serbia due to be surrounded by enemies, but would eventually be forced to (Germany can initiate a false-flag attack)
• Austria-Hungary gets obliterated in an all-front war and is partitioned between Germany, Russia, Italy, and Serbia.
  • Germany annexes Austria and German parts of Czechia
  • Italy annexes Dalmatia, Littoral, and parts of Croatia-Slovania
  • Serbia annexes Herzegovina
  • Czechia, Hungary-Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bosnia become independent states, probably as monarchies from German families
  • If Yugoslavia was to form, it will be a federation of monarchies
  • Russia has full influence over the Balkan States
• If France decides to declare war on Germany, let's say the usual happens and Germany goes through Belgium and the United Kingdom declares war on Germany (hence WWI)
• Russia supplies to Germany (and Italy) food, oil, manpower, etc. Germany assists in building infrastructure and factories in Russia, and also convinces Nicholas II to install Bismarckian State Socialism within Russia to prevent workers from becoming socialists.
• France finds itself defending from Italy, Germany, and Russia, and ultimately falls.
  • Germany annexes Mulhouse, Metz, and Nancy to become German territories
  • Italy annexes Nice
  • France faces another revolution, becoming socialist
  • Germany and Italy, fearing socialism intruding into their states, suppress the French socialists and re-install the French monarchy
• United Kingdom begs for the United States to join the war on the Allied side
• The United States, wanting to create its hegemony over Europe, joins the war due to the Zimmermann telegram, sinking of the Lusitania, and the German unrestricted submarine warfare.
• Public approval of the war in the United States and the United Kingdom diminish completely due to heavy losses in sea and land
  • British and American troops are unable to land in the mainland.
  • US and Royal Navy ships are harassed constantly by the German, Italian, and Russian Navy.
  • David Lloyd George and the Liberals are voted out and Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats are voted out, ensuring a pro-Central Powers Conservatives and Republicans
  • The United Kingdom and the United States sign peace treaties with the Central Powers, with territorial losses
• Let's focus on more on Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire
  • The Central Powers are more cautious in its relations with Bulgaria due to the Second Balkan War
  • As Russia is in control of the Balkans and is free of Western European influence, wanting Constantinople to under its sphere of influence, and invades the Ottoman Empire (with Romania and Greece) and sidelines Bulgaria.
  • The Ottoman Empire collapses due to internal corruption and mismanagement
    • Turks out of desperate committed genocide on pro-Russian Armenians, Kurds, and Assyrians
    • Russia realizes this, and commits genocide on the Turks along with angry Armenians, Kurds, and Assyrians
    • Russia creates states for Armenians, Kurds, and Assyrians, while giving most of Anatolia to Greece or making Anatolia an independent state.
    • Russian bases are established in the Balkans and Anatolia to ensure Russian hegemony as the protector of Orthodox Europe, while administration is handled by Greece or an independent Anatolia, possibly a monarchy under a Romanov or a German
    • Russian attempts to Christianize Anatolia and is probably attempting to expel Muslims
  • Bulgaria gets pissed but is unable to do anything

Post World War I

• Russia avoids a Bolshevik uprising due to prosperous relations with Germany
• Poland is under check by both Russia and Germany (and the Poles are eventually forced to leave their homeland or Germanify)
  • If we're being optimistic, Germany and Russia want a buffer state between them so a puppet Kingdom of Poland is created.
• Everything is going chill and fine for most of Europe, as they have not gone through the destruction to the scale in our timeline, with most countries quickly building up and prospering without European aid, under the economic prowess of Germany and Russia
• Russia launches an offensive into the Middle East, trying to insert a hegemony, and therefore was able to overpower Persia
• Germany and Russia continually manages affairs in China
• Anti-Semitism grows in Europe, and it is decided for all Jews in Europe to be deported to Israel/Palestine
• However, due to multiple ethnicities in Russia, rebellions pop up with socialist references
• The Tsar can do two things
  • Russia gives independence to its governorates in its borders
    • Finland becomes independent and is a monarchy with a member from House Romanov
    • Georgia becomes independent and is either a monarchy (under Romanov or Bagrationi) or republic
    • Armenia becomes independent and is a monarchy under a Romanov or republic
    • The Turkic states become independent and become either monarchies or republics
  • Become more absolute
    • Risks Russia into collapsing and becoming a socialist state
    • Germany takes advantage of the situation and either attempts to create more buffer states from Russia so puppet states are carved from Russia's western border
    • Rebelling provinces in Russia become independent states
    • Russia becomes a constitutional monarchy or a republic over the failure of socialism

Sorry for the autism, but this is my account if Tsarist Russia won WWI, if they were on the Central Powers, and not the Allies.

 

[Techpriest Mk II]

Tsarist Russia was a dead state walking. Revolution of some sort was inevitable, and famine likely would have been the cause due to horrible policy by the Tsarist government regarding farming and wheat export. The Soviets had similar issues but the origin of these problems can be traced well back into tsarist policies and issues that regime change didn't do anything about.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

Romanov Russia was well on its way out by the time WW1 popped off, they would have collapsed soon enough. People will simp for Nicholas II in the name of hating Communism without realizing how horrendous he was as a ruler. Using my own family as a personal example, my great grandfather was the only remaining member of his family left by 1917. His own father went back to Russia for the rest of the family to bring them to North America, wound up getting conscripted and killed in the Russian Army during the war, and the rest of the family starved to death because of Nicholas II's policies towards peasants.

By the time WW1 began, Romanov Russia's time in the sun was done and over with as a world superpower. Nicholas II himself admitted that he was unprepared to lead, but did it anyway. He was not some super politician and military tactician who would have stamped out the Bolsheviks and turned the country around. He was a fool, and look what happened. And I'm not trying to defend Communism - the "cure" in this case was FAR worse than the disease.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Not going to theorise but depending on each event some how miraculously sees Russia win things could change dramatically, a 1914 victory would be a very bloody war but not the end of empires.


If there was to be any divergence point it'd be the Kornilov Affair.

Another point of divergence would be further back in time when Alexander II was assassinated. What if they caught the culprits before he was killed?