 Flag of the Russian Empire, adopted 1971, with Nikaolai's name in Cyrillic alphabet. | |
| Official language | Russian; many languages also have local co-official status |
| Capital | St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk (de facto) |
| Tsar | Nikolai Vikolash-kayef |
| Currency | Ruble |
| Size | Encompasses the Baltic States, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Afghnistan, Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine, with the exception of Siberia. |
Russia's history is largely the same as *here* up until the Russo-Japanese War. *There*, Japan was more successful, and the war lasted longer. Japan captured the entire island of Sakhalin, as well as parts of the Russian Far East. Upon invading the Far East, they freed political prisoners, who fought alongside Japanese forces as the Free Russian Brigade. A provisional government, the Republic of Siberia, was set up. Rebellions sprung up all over Russia. The Baltic states and Finland seceded, as did Poland, the Ukraine, and Caucasian states. Japanese troops marched almost unopposed into Asian Russia, making the Urals the western border of their puppet Republic of Siberia. In European Russia, chaos ensued. Tsar Nicholas abdicated in favor of his brother, Michael, and fled to Britain. Russia, now consisting of the territory west of the Urals, north of the Caucas mountains, and east of Poland and Ukraine, was in chaos. A few years after taking the throne, Michael and the remaining Imperial Family likewise fled to Britain, ending the Romanov dynasty. Fearing the chaos of Russia would spread beyond her borders, a joint Anglo-French force invaded to restore order.
Russian Recovery[]
King George V's second son, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, was enthroned as King (as opposed to Tsar or Emperor) Albert of Russia, with a joint Anglo-French regency in place. The regency attempted to direct Russia into a modern constitutional monarchy.
The collapse of Russia disrupted the balance of power in Europe. With Russia in shambles, Austria-Hungary began to drive into the Balkans, becoming, in the process, the triple monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Slavonia. The German Empire provoked incidents along the border with the newly-independant Poland, and invaded. Alarmed at these developments, the remaining newly-independant states of the former Russian Empire signed alliances with France and England, who warned Germany away from them.
By 1910, a degree of stability had been restored to Russia and to Europe as a whole, though a series of wars continued in the Balkans.
The European War[]
Tensions remained high in Europe, however. Particularly as Russia began to recover from the collapse following the Russo-Japanese War. Tensions boiled over into war in 1916, when Germany issued an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding that she dismantle bases along the German-Lithuanian border from which Polish rebels were allegedly receiving support. Backed by the Entente, Lithuania refused, and, on March 9, 1916, Germany declared war upon Lithuania. This set off a series of actions leading to the European War. Though expected at its start to be a short war ("Home before the leaves fall"), it lasted for almost 4 years. During the war, King Albert and his government fled to Moscow to escape the exposed position of St. Petersburg. Armistice was signed in 1920, ending the War.
Russia herself lost no territory, though several of her former possessions in Eastern Europe were annexed to the Austro-Hungarian-Slavic Empire or made German puppets.
The Rise of the Pan-Slavic Unity Party[]
The expenses of the war, and with it, such events as hyperinflation of the ruble, however, lead to social unrest, and a socialist rebellion began, along with other revolutionary movements. These rebellions were put down, and the monarchy retained. However, a stronger threat survived and and expanded. An authoritarian party began to gain control in the Duma. This was the Pan-Slavic Unity Party. The Pan-Slavic Unity Party agitated for the liberation of Eastern Europe from Austria-Hungary-Slavonia and Germany, as well as, of course, a more authoritarian stance at home.
The PSUP gained control of the Duma in 1932. They began a process of mass industrialization of Russia, and vast increases in the Russian military. The young King Albert fell under the influence of the warmongers, and approved the expansion of Russian military might. Germany feared the growth of Russia to her east, as well as France and England to her west, but was too busy propping up the failing Empire of the Three Crowns (as the AHS Empire had been renamed), as well as their own Kaiser's ailing health, to protest.
The Global War[]
This lead to a fatal miscalculation on the part of King Albert. In 1940, he invaded Ukraine, at the time, occupied by the Empire of the Three Crowns. Encouraged by the ease with which he occupied the territory, he authorized the warmongers' plan to reunify the Russian Empire. While still fighting on the western front, he also invaded the Japanese puppet Republic of Siberia.
Germany and the Empire of the Three Crowns declared war upon Russia, as did Japan. This lead to declarations of war against Germany and the Empire of the Three Crowns by King Jean III of France and King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. A short time later, King Henry IX of the British Nations Beyond the Seas joined the UK in the declaration of war, leading to the Global War
The Global War was hard on Russia. Russia was cut off from imports of essential war materials, such as oil, and from food. The Russians fought on, even after the French collapse.
The war ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs. The first was on the city of Smolensk, and the second was on Moscow itself. What remained of the Russian military command surrendered to German forces. The Germans placed the entire nation under occupation.
The Post-War Period[]
The German occupiers set up a Russian Republic, with its capital at St. Petersburg, turning it into a part of the newly-formed United Empire of Greater Europe. This lasted only until 1956, when Russia declared her independence of the Empire, sparking the Second European War.
The newly-independent Russian Republic moved its capital to New Moscow, built on the ruins of Old Moscow. Its existence proved precarious, as the long-suppressed Bolshevik movement resurged in the Russian Civil War. By 1968, the Bolsheviks were once more crushed, but the war was not over. Instead, a general named Nikolai Vikolash-kayef proclaimed himself the new Tsar of Russia from his base in Arkhangelsk. By 1970, the Republic was dead, and the new Russian Empire established.
After the Fall of Germany[]
With the death of Kaiser Louis in 1994, there was nothing to stop Russian westward expansion. Ukraine and Belarus were occupied. The Balkans had long been allied with the Scandinavian states, who warned Russia from invading. Russia invaded Poland in 1997, and were beaten back by the Franco-British alliance, who established their hegemony in Eastern Europe, effectively inheriting Germany's eastern territories.
Russia today chafes at both the Japanese and the Americans. With the increasing independence of the Franco-British alliance from America, and the declining involvement of both Japan and America in the region, there are fears of an impending Third European War between the Franco-British hegemony and the Russian Empire, or possibly a Second Russo-Japanese War if Russia attempts to take Siberia back.