Look to the West Volume VIII: The Bear and the Basilisk

[Beatriz]

Although the current Delhi government would probably have some very rude things to say if you suggested that to them.

Indeed - translatio imperii can go to weird places that the successor empires won't acknowledge.

 

[John_Smith12]

So, Russia, with essentially no allies, is still fighting England, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Persia and the Ottomans to a standstill (North America has problems of its own at this point). Whatever else this crazy, magnificent TL may be, it's definitely a bit of a Czarist Russia wank.

I mean well yeah, this is a pre-WW1 Russia borders with northern China, Japan, pretty much all of central Asia including Afghanistan, until recently Alaska and cascadia. That's tons of natural resources and far greater population. They were one of the wealthiest countries and quite industrialised in this TL

They likely have the greatest population in the world and you've got to remember most of the war is not even on their core territory, unlike OTL they've got a far more competent military and vastly more reserves to call upon.

 

[B_Munro]

They were one of the wealthiest countries and quite industrialised in this TL

Which is where the wanking comes in. Russia was a damn backwards place compared to the rest of Europe at the start of the period this TL runs in, and OTL , while there were some improvements, it remained backwards. In spite of a formidable growth in population it was weaker with respect to the other major European powers at the end of the 19th century than it was at the beginning. Urbanization was low, literacy very low, and most of the population were terribly poor peasants (more than half in medieval bondage until the 1860s) which produced low surpluses and tended to starve in bad harvest years due to the government's desire to raise revenue selling Russian grain abroad regardless of whether it was needed at home. It was misgoverned by the Romanovs, who with a few important exceptions were arrogant fools who couldn't find their asses with both hands, a written guide, and a set of tailor's mirrors. Russia was finally experiencing an industrial boom in the years leading up to WWI, but was still on the average very backwards, and in a one-on-one war vs Germany in 1914 would have been eventually ground into chutney.

(This could certainly have gone differently, but doing much better would require some pretty major changes. Whether they follow logically from the POD, I dunno: I'm not going to reread the whole TL to analyze the issue. )

In our post-USSR world there's a tendency to romanticize the empire of the Czars, but really, it was a badly mismanaged country with huge structural problems to overcome, and in turning it into the greatest military power in the time frame of OTL WWI is, indeed, a wank. (Not as big a wank as the Argentina-wank involved in the development of the UPSA , but a wank nonetheless.)

They likely have the greatest population in the world

Unless there's been a population boom well beyond the already impressive growth of OTL, this Russia, which directly rules less territory than OTL Russia (well, aside from Russian America, and that's hardly Sichuan), has probably less than a third the population of China.

 

[Falecius]

So, Russia, with essentially no allies, is still fighting England, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Persia and the Ottomans to a standstill (North America has problems of its own at this point). Whatever else this crazy, magnificent TL may be, it's definitely a bit of a Czarist Russia wank.

To be fair, Persia left early in the game.

 

[Falecius]

I mean well yeah, this is a pre-WW1 Russia borders with northern China, Japan, pretty much all of central Asia including Afghanistan, until recently Alaska and cascadia. That's tons of natural resources and far greater population. They were one of the wealthiest countries and quite industrialised in this TL

They likely have the greatest population in the world and you've got to remember most of the war is not even on their core territory, unlike OTL they've got a far more competent military and vastly more reserves to call upon.

I think China still surpasses them by far in population.

 

[boredhistorylover1211]

I think China still surpasses them by far in population.

Hard to say, that differential was much, much lower before the demographic impact of WWI, the Russian Civil War, and WWII, and before the demographic transition hit in the USSR 50 years before China.

Russia in 1900 IOTL had nearly 150 million people. China had 450 million. ITTL, Russia’s population growth has probably followed the early 20th century trends thus far entering into the demographic transition associated with the Second Industrial Revolution, while Southern China has started to undergo that same transition a century early.

My guess is that TTL Russia has 250-300 million people or more, and China is still around 400-450 million.

That’s a considerable gap, but nothing like OTL.

 

[Fleetlord]

Others transmute, like the East British Empire (Delhi)

Or the West British Empire (Washington)?

 

[John_Smith12]

Or the West British Empire (Washington)?

I think you mean Fredericksburg, but would be beyond hysterical to see the Britsh Empire have the same kinda nostalgic romanticism that the Roman Empire has.

I'm imaging 3 different claimants in the ENA, the 3 Kingdoms and Bengal; and people getting into arguments about who the real Imperial successor is the same way we get into argument about Rome here.

 

[boredhistorylover1211]

I think you mean Fredericksburg, but would be beyond hysterical to see the Britsh Empire have the same kinda nostalgic romanticism that the Roman Empire has.

I'm imaging 3 different claimants in the ENA, the 3 Kingdoms and Bengal; and people getting into arguments about who the real Imperial successor is the same way we get into argument about Rome here.

I think he means IOTL.

 

[Fleetlord]

I think he means IOTL.

Right, based on the reference to "Delhi", which I'm not even sure still exists in LTTW and definitely isn't the center of any empires.

I'm also being somewhat tongue-in-cheek but it is notable how smoothly "West Britain" slid into Old Britain's role of keeping the oceans safe for global trade and aggressively containing the scary European power before it could dominate the continent completely and neutralize the benefit of the former.

 

[boredhistorylover1211]

Right, based on the reference to "Delhi", which I'm not even sure still exists in LTTW and definitely isn't the center of any empires.

I'm also being somewhat tongue-in-cheek but it is notable how smoothly "West Britain" slid into Old Britain's role of keeping the oceans safe for global trade and aggressively containing the scary European power before it could dominate the continent completely and neutralize the benefit of the former.

Delhi has been huge for a good long while and will still be around, but no reason at all why New Delhi would come into being.

 

[Fleetlord]

Delhi has been huge for a good long while and will still be around, but no reason at all why New Delhi would come into being.

True, I got the impression the "Great Jihad" was pretty damned bad, but not bad enough to depopulate an ancient city completely bad. Hyperbole on my part.

 

[boredhistorylover1211]

True, I got the impression the "Great Jihad" was pretty damned bad, but not bad enough to depopulate an ancient city completely bad. Hyperbole on my part.

Ehh, cities get burnt to the ground and all the bricks ripped apart fairly frequently. People build them again in the same spots for the same reason they were built originally, and because there are lots of building materials sitting around.

The exceptions in the ancient world seem to be due to climatic shifts more than anything.

 

[Umbric Man]

The talk on “West Britain” vis-a-vis America in OTL now makes me wonder if in the faaaaar future people could see it as just part of an singular Anglo Ascendency than its own thing and the center of power just shifted from the original island metropole to the eastern seaboard, in spite of its republicanism - after all, the USA is still quite Anglo in blood and very much so in its root culture for all it has absorbed tons of immigrants with their own cultural contributions. I personally don’t think that way (admittedly somewhat out of patriotic bias in spite of my fondness for Britain OTL/TTL and the ENA), barring if American hegemony very suddenly collapses or is withdrawn sometime this century.

I have seen the occasional 19th century Briton romanticize America as a Britain expanded to a vast and great empire in size and influence beyond a tiny island, in spite of all the familial squabbles I can see that even more so for the ENA.

 

[Snaut]

So, Russia, with essentially no allies, is still fighting England, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Persia and the Ottomans to a standstill (North America has problems of its own at this point). Whatever else this crazy, magnificent TL may be, it's definitely a bit of a Czarist Russia wank.

Yep Russia's performance is really impressive. Come to think of it LTTW Europe now diverges from ours on a very deep level. OTL Europe in the early 20th century had at least 4 independent great powers which were on a roughly comparable level (Britain, France, Germany, Russia). This Europe has just 2 (France and Russia) with a very large gap between them and the medium-to-small powers which are mostly dependent on one of the big 2 to some extent.

 

[John_Smith12]

The talk on “West Britain” vis-a-vis America in OTL now makes me wonder if in the faaaaar future people could see it as just part of an singular Anglo Ascendency than its own thing and the center of power just shifted from the original island metropole to the eastern seaboard, in spite of its republicanism - after all, the USA is still quite Anglo in blood and very much so in its root culture for all it has absorbed tons of immigrants with their own cultural contributions. I personally don’t think that way (admittedly somewhat out of patriotic bias in spite of my fondness for Britain OTL/TTL and the ENA), barring if American hegemony very suddenly collapses or is withdrawn sometime this century.

I have seen the occasional 19th century Briton romanticize America as a Britain expanded to a vast and great empire in size and influence beyond a tiny island, in spite of all the familial squabbles I can see that even more so for the ENA.

It would be quite neat to see some kind of cultural consciousness form between Anglo States. I was actually contemplating asking to write a oneshot SI into one of the previous King-Emperors, maybe Frederick II and see if it's possible to keep the Hannoverian Empire alive before Duke of Marlborough's dictatorship but life got in the way.

Also it depends on what define as the British empire I'd imagine, if you can recognise the Byzantines as the true successors to Rome then it's pretty easy to see the ENA as the successors to the British

 

[B_Munro]

Hard to say, that differential was much, much lower before the demographic impact of WWI, the Russian Civil War, and WWII, and before the demographic transition hit in the USSR 50 years before China.

Russia in 1900 IOTL had nearly 150 million people. China had 450 million. ITTL, Russia’s population growth has probably followed the early 20th century trends thus far entering into the demographic transition associated with the Second Industrial Revolution, while Southern China has started to undergo that same transition a century early.

My guess is that TTL Russia has 250-300 million people or more, and China is still around 400-450 million.

That’s a considerable gap, but nothing like OTL.

I do have to apologize for forgetting the fact that Russia (somehow) rules almost all of Japan directly. Russian empire OTL had 170 million people 1910. Take away 12.5 million for Poland (but add 4 million back for eastern Galicia) and 12 million for Central Asia. Get some 150 million. With 90% of Japan's OTL [1] 1910 population, that's another 45 million, so that does push up the total to 195 million. (How much Japanese millions are a prop rather than a liability for the Empire is left as an exercise for the reader .) How much do they grow from 1910 to 1926? If we follow the OTL Russian trend line from 1900 to 1914 [2] on to 1926 we get some 228 million, so your lower estimate may be fairly close, although how much lower this would be due to wartime privations, military casualties, and plague deaths is unclear. [3] (Where is this Russia on the demographic transition timeline compared to its OTL equivalent? Now that's also tricky to figure.)


[1] Given the level of Russian oppression, would there be more Japanese? Less?
[2] Interestingly, the growth rates of Imperial Germany, which would seem to fit this world's Russia (industrial/military leader) more closely as a model, weren't that far behind Russia's - an increase of 19% or so vs the Russian empire's 20-something % over the same period. One does forget that for all the growth and science, a lot of Germany was still pretty "peasanty" in the early 1900s - distinctly more so than the UK.
[3] If we were given specific plague death numbers in earlier posts, I can't recall.

 

[Beatriz]

By the way, is the Combine's focus on 'Universal Domestic Motherhood' increasing birth rates?

 

[FancyHat]

ITTL, serfdom in Russia ended in 1816 and the conservative nobility were largely discredited after the Russian Civil War, so there's very much a path to Russian industrialization in the 19th century that didn't exist IOTL. Lots of Russia's successes ITTL do come down to it being lucky, but I don't think there's anything totally unbelievable. I guess the problem at the end of the day is there's just so much of LTTW at this point that it's hard to keep track of long-term historical trends.

 

[B_Munro]

ITTL, serfdom in Russia ended in 1816 and the conservative nobility were largely discredited after the Russian Civil War, so there's very much a path to Russian industrialization in the 19th century that didn't exist IOTL. Lots of Russia's successes ITTL do come down to it being lucky, but I don't think there's anything totally unbelievable. I guess the problem at the end of the day is there's just so much of LTTW at this point that it's hard to keep track of long-term historical trends.

Not saying that's it's totally unbelievable, just that it's probably not, IMHO, the most likely outcome. One can do a wank without badly damaging plausibility. It's just that if one is deliberately beefing up a nation compared to OTL, you're putting your thumb on the scales of history, [1] and how hard you are allowed to push is really a matter of personal preference. I don't find Russia implausible enough for it to "spoil" the timeline for me - it makes me raise my eyebrows a little when it thumps its way across the stage, but I'm not calling for it to be retconned or for Thande to admit allohistorical wrongdoing. There's really no reason for people to eat up bandwidth trying to prove me wrong.

[1] And writing a TL without doing so is difficult, since a lot of - probably most - TLs have some sort of preferred outcome.