World War I (Early World War I)

The start of the war In 1905 there was the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese had just taken Port Arthur and the Baltic Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy was sailing around the world to strengthen the Far East fleet, however while the Baltic Fleet were mistook some British trawlers at Dogger Bank for an Imperial Japanese Navy force. The Russians attacked on the night of 21st October 1904. Three British sailors died and a number were wounded. One sailor and a priest aboard a Russian cruiser caught in the crossfire were also killed. The British government wondered why the Russians would ever think the Japanese Navy had sailed to the North Sea and demanded the fleet stop to aid in the investigation into the incident. However the Tsar Nicholas II wanted the fleet in the east quick as possible and demanded the British postpone the investigation, but the British weren't having any of this and forced the Baltic Fleet to stop in the Bay of Biscay and placed troops on the Russian ships to make sure they followed the British fleet returning to Portsmouth. Then when in the English Channel, approaching the Isle of Wight, the Baltic Fleet commander Zinovy Rozhestvensky received a message from the Tsar demanding to make haste to Japan regardless of the current situation or face a court marshal, the new only recently appointed Head of Naval Staff wanted to keep his reputation and decided to throw the British troops on board his ships over board and they messaged the British Home fleet escort commander to tell him that they were leaving to Japan and they wouldn't be sidetracked. The British demanded that they stop and as they left the escort they continued, they British continued to demand the Russians stop, then as the Russian fleet was passing Alderneythe a small merchant British ship traveled in front of the Russian Fleet, the Russians believing this was another British cruiser fired at it and sunk the ship in a small barrage (the Russians didn't mean to hit the ship as it was warning shots but due to miscommunication the gunners thought they where to destroy the ship), the British seeing another British merchant ship being shot at, where furious and fired hitting and destroying a Russian destroyer; the Russian fleet then turned around to fight the British, thus the Battle of Alderneythe began and a quick British victory followed with the majority of the Russian ships destroyed as they turned to meet the British, but poor Russian naval artillery fire meant only 2 British ships were hit, and once each at that. This battle then caused the British to declare war on Russia in order to avenge the civilian ships, respond to social outcry over the Dogger Bank incident and the political reasoning behind the declaration, to honor the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 since Montenegro also declared war, which set off Article 2 of the alliance and Britain declared War on Russia and Montenegro. After this declaration the German Kaiser Wilhelm II saw interest in the war and decided to wait to see how serious the British would be in the war, and if he deemed them serious enough, he would have Germany enter the war against Russia. The Japanese were pleased about the British actions and they began to plan an invasion of Eatern Russia, most namely Vladivostok and Sakhalin.

British strategy
The British knew they wouldn't be able to match Russian military strength on land so they devised a plan to make use of growing governmental discontent within Russia by sending in spies and agents via Norway to meet with the various leaders of independence movements and revolutionists in Kem the port on the White sea. The British would give arms, some military assistance and political recognition to the future states, in return for military aid and an alliance against the Tsar's forces. The British and German intelligence agencies also met to discuss helping each other against Russia, the two forces came to an agreement, and the Germans began to aid the Polish independence movement secretly and the British moved into the Baltic sea based around Gothland and blockaded Russian trade ships, naval ships, and inspected everything else. In return for using Gothland as a naval base, the Sweedish were promised land gains in Lapland. Meanwhile the British and Germans were planing a guerrilla war, the Japanese were planning a full scale invasion of Sakhalin and the blockade of Vladivostok, and the strengthening of Japanese positions within Manchuria. Then coupled with various riots across Russia, the Tsar's government began to mobilize the army to protect St. Petersburg and Western Russia in general, as well as starting a counter attack against the Japanese in Manchuria.

1906, the war really begins
After the slow build up of forces and the increased frequency of riots across Russia, the British blockade was strengthened with the addition of extra ships to the blockade in order to free ships to aid the planed takeover of Riga and Helsinki. Armed riots and coups in Riga and Helsinki began on January 2nd 1906, a section of the British fleet then entered the bay of Riga and fired on Riga on the 3rd, as well as another detachment of the British blockade attacking Helsinki and another detachment sailing to St. Petersburg and a naval bombing commenced, which was to last until March. The coups in Lativa and Finland then started to get into full swing as the British made troop landings in Riga, Helsinki, Aland islands and Osd island. Then on the 5th the Polish coup began, however this was much more successful as the Poles where armed much better, then on the 9th the Germans declared war on Russia and invaded Polish Russia and Lithuania. Then on the 12th the Swedish declared war on Russia and attacked Lapland. Then on the 13th Norway declared war,and the crack Swedish and Norwegian snow troops managed to start a successful hit and run invasion of Lapland. After 2 more weeks of these landings and advancements by the Germans, Swedish and British, the western front looked a little like this on the green line and then after another 3 months, the front reached the green line on the map below. As you can see the first red line was after the initial landings, but after a month or two (the red line) the Russians were trying to pin the advances back, while trying to come to a diplomatic agreement with the allied powers. Elsewhere in the far east the Japanese fleet had began a bombard 6f Vladivostok and an invasion fleet and army was amassing around Soya and the La Perouse strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin.