The author warns right away: the article offered to the reader's attention is not historical. It is more of a geopolitical nature and is designed to answer a seemingly simple question: why did the Russian Empire get involved in the First World War?
And really: why?
Someone sees in this an unwise desire of Nicholas II to protect the interests of the "Slavic brothers", trampled upon by Austria-Hungary. It is unwise, because even the brothers remember us only in the hour of dire need, moreover exclusively for their own and never for ours. And because they could not protect, but lost their own empire, plunging the Russian people into the chaos of revolution and civil war. Someone is looking for a commercial motive: they say, the Russian tsars really wanted the Straits, control over which was ensured by unhindered transport communications with Europe. Someone is considering financial issues, emphasizing that Mother Russia owed heavily to French bankers, so the promissory notes had to be paid in blood. Others talk about the lack of independence of the foreign policy of the Russian state: they say, the British used us in defense of their interests not for a penny. And they add at the same time that if Russia should have taken part in the First World War, then on the other side, in alliance with the Kaiser against their eternal enemies, the British, who, as you know, have always plotted against Russia. "An Englishwoman always shits" - well, you know …
Let's start with England
What was this state like? The first and most important difference from the rest of Europe is geographical: England, as you know, is an island state. And as such, it did not have land borders with other European states. Accordingly, when the states of England and Scotland united under the leadership of one king, and this happened in 1603 through personal union, when James VI of Scotland also became King James I of England, there was no longer any need to fear any land invasion. From now on, troops hostile to England could enter its territory only by sea.
In other words, where Germany, France, Russia and other powers needed an army, England needed a navy. The stars, one might say, converged: on the one hand, the British fleet was vital for the defense of their own country, and on the other, the absence of the need to maintain a powerful army made it possible to find funds for its construction. I must say that before 1603 the British walked a lot by sea, and had already created their own colonial empire. However, at that time they did not yet have priority at sea, and were one of many other colonial empires - no less, but no more. So, for example, England was able to defend its interests, defeating in 1588 the "Invincible Armada" of Spain.
But, strictly speaking, the naval power of the Spanish state was still not crushed by this, and the Anglo-Spanish war of 1585-1604. ended with the London Treaty, which approved the status quo, that is, returned the belligerent powers to their pre-war positions. And as a result of this war, England also faced an economic crisis.
The British did not immediately realize the exceptional role that the navy could play for them: but gradually, of course, they realized its importance. The profits of the colonies clearly testified in favor of their expansion and the desirability of concentrating control over the sea trade in one (British) hands.
The Anglo-Dutch Wars that followed were intended to challenge the Dutch naval power in favor of Great Britain, but did not lead to military success. In fact, three wars, which went on with short interruptions from 1652 to 1674, did not lead to the victory of the British, although they won the first of them. Nevertheless, in the course of hostilities with the Dutch, England significantly improved the tactics of its fleet and gained excellent experience in fighting an experienced and stubborn enemy. And besides, the British were convinced from their own experience how important the presence of a continental ally can be: participation in the third Anglo-Dutch war of France forced Holland to fight on 2 fronts - sea and land, which turned out to be too difficult for her. And although in this war, British weapons did not win laurels, and in general the British believed that the French were using them, saving their ships so that when England and Holland depleted each other, to seize supremacy at sea, the matter ended in victory for France. Despite the fact that she was forced to "finish the war" alone, because the British withdrew from the war before it was over.
All of the above, earlier experience and common sense led the British to a key feature of their foreign policy, which remained unchanged until World War II. Its meaning was that, having the most powerful navy in the world, control the world sea trade and, of course, get rich on it, receiving super profits inaccessible to other powers. Over time, Holland and Spain ceased to be first-class maritime powers, only France remained, but its naval power was also crushed by British sailors during the era of the Napoleonic wars.
The British, of course, understood that the role of "Foggy Albion", which they had invented for themselves, would not suit everyone in Europe, and they would try to take away the super profits from colonial trade. Therefore, on the one hand, they did not spare money for the fleet, and on the other hand, they vigilantly watched so that no European power would build a fleet equal to the English one. And it was here that the famous British maxim was born: “England has no permanent allies and permanent enemies. England has only permanent interests. " It was formulated so succinctly and accurately by Henry John Temple Palmerston in 1848, but, of course, the realization of this simple truth came to the British much earlier.
In other words, France, Germany or Russia were never personally enemies for the British. For them, the state was always an enemy, which wanted, or at least theoretically could want to challenge the primacy of the Royal Navy at sea. And which, of course, had the resources to back up its desire with real action. And therefore England preferred to "nip" in the bud the very possibility of such a desire arising, and this was expressed in the fact that the purpose and essence of British diplomacy was to manage the confrontation between the peoples of Europe. The British singled out the most powerful and developed European power, which could subjugate the rest, or even simply, without fear of a land war, begin to build a powerful navy, and organized a coalition of weaker powers against it, leveling the chances of financing this coalition as much as possible - good, the British had money.
There is no need to go far for examples - so, the most consistent and constant enemy of Napoleon was precisely England, which constantly created and financed coalitions of powers ready to fight Napoleonic France, and at that time Russia was “a loyal friend and ally” for England. But as soon as the British decided that the Russian Empire had become too strong - and now the British and French troops were landing in the Crimea …
Of course, when the Germans finally united, forming the German Empire, and during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. force of arms "pushed" France from the position of the European hegemon, the British could not help but draw their "benevolent attention" to them. And when Germany achieved tremendous progress in industry and began building the strongest navy, then her military confrontation with England, obviously, became only a matter of time.
Of course, everything was not at all so simple and linear. Despite the growth of its influence, industrial and military power, Germany, of course, needed allies, and quickly found those. As a result, in 1879-1882. the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy was formed. It was secret, but after a while, its direction became quite obvious. The triple alliance gradually became a power that no country could withstand alone, and in 1891-94. the Franco-Russian alliance was formed.
England by that time was in the so-called brilliant isolation: the British were a little arrogant and felt that, having at their disposal the economic power of the "Empire in which the sun never sets" and the world's strongest navy, they did not have to bind themselves with what there are still unions. However, Germany's support for the Boers in the famous Boer conflict (during which British General Kitchener gave the world an innovation called the "concentration camp") showed the British that isolation is not always good and without allies it can sometimes be bad. Therefore, Great Britain broke off its isolation and joined the coalition of the weakest against the strongest: that is, it completed the formation of the Entente against the Triple Alliance.
And from the point of view of geopolitics
However, even ignoring the emerging alliances, the following situation developed at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the face of the German Empire, the Second Reich, Europe received a young and strong predator who was completely dissatisfied with his position in the world. Germany considered it necessary to expand its borders in Europe (the term "lebensraum", that is, living space, in fact, was not invented by Hitler in politics) and sought to redistribute overseas colonies - of course, in their favor. The Germans believed they had every right to hegemony in Europe. But, most importantly, Germany's ambitions were fully supported by its industrial and military potential - according to these parameters, the German Empire at the beginning of the century unequivocally dominated Europe. The second-strongest Western European power, France, could not have stopped the German invasion alone.
So, a dominant force has emerged in Europe, striving to seriously change the existing world order. England's reaction to this is quite expected, predictable, and fully consistent with her political views. Let's think about how the Russian Empire should have acted in such a situation.
Russia and united Europe
Usually the author, reflecting on certain historical probabilities, seeks to put himself in the place of the historical decision-maker, and to limit himself to the information that he had. But in this case, let's not hesitate to use the afterthought.
Since the 19th century, Europe has consolidated three times, and all three times this did not bode well for Russia. For the first time, the European nations were gathered under his iron hand by Napoleon, and as a result, a monstrous invasion fell upon Russia, led by perhaps the greatest military leader in the entire history of the Earth. Our ancestors held out, but the price was high: even the capital of our Motherland had to be surrendered to the enemy for some time. The second time Europe was "united" by Adolf Hitler, and the USSR suffered heavy losses in the terrible, lasting 4 years of the Great Patriotic War. Then the European countries consolidated into NATO, and again this led to a confrontation, which, fortunately, did not become the prologue of a full-scale armed conflict.
Why did this happen? What prevented, for example, Alexander I from uniting with Napoleon, and opposing England, destroying her, and dividing her colonies, to live "in love and harmony"? The answer is very simple: Napoleon did not at all see in Russia an equal ally, a business partner, and tried to settle the affairs of France at the expense of Russia. After all, how were things actually?
After the death of the French fleet, Napoleon could not invade the British Isles. Then he decided to undermine the economic power of the "Empire in which the sun never sets" by a continental blockade - that is, to put it simply, to force Europe to completely abandon British industrial and colonial goods. Nobody wanted to do this voluntarily, since such a trade brought a huge profit, and not only to the British. But Bonaparte thought simply: if in order to fulfill his will it was necessary to conquer this very Europe - well, so be it. After all, the continental blockade could work only when all countries would fulfill it not out of fear, but out of conscience, because if at least it does not join the blockade, then British goods (already under the brands of this country) will rush into Europe, and the blockade will be nullified.
So, the fundamental requirement of Napoleon was precisely the accession of Russia to the continental blockade, but this for our country was completely ruinous and impossible. Russia at that time was an agrarian power, accustomed to selling expensive grain to England, etc., and buying cheap first-class British manufactured goods - refusal from this inevitably led to a terrible economic crisis.
And again, the situation could to some extent correct the expansion of trade with France, but for this it was necessary to provide Russia with certain privileges, because Napoleon built his foreign trade very simply - all the countries conquered, or simply entered the orbit of Napoleonic policy, were considered only as sales markets for French goods, and nothing more, while the interests of French industry were strictly observed. Thus, for example, France set any customs duties on imported goods that it wanted, but other countries were strictly forbidden to restrict French goods in this way. In essence, this form of international trade was a form of robbery, and although Napoleon was ready to make small concessions to Russia on this issue, they did not at all compensate for the losses from the termination of trade with England.
In other words, Napoleon was ready to be friends with the Russian Empire exclusively on his own terms and purely to achieve his own goals, and if at the same time Russia "stretches out its legs" - well, maybe it would be for the better. That is, the Russian Empire, in theory, could probably find its place in the world of "victorious Bonapartism", but this was the sad role of a voiceless and impoverished vassal who sometimes gets some scraps from the master's table.
And the same thing happened during the Second World War. For a long time the USSR tried to build a European security system like the Entente, but was not heard by Western democracies. As a result, a non-aggression pact was concluded with Nazi Germany, accompanied by an attempt to divide the spheres of influence and establish unfavorable trade for both sides. But a somewhat long-term alliance with Hitler was completely impossible, and for the same reason as with Napoleon: the "infallible Fuhrer" did not tolerate any contradiction of his own will. In other words, the political maximum that could at least theoretically be achieved by making any and all concessions to Hitlerite Germany boiled down to the fact that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics might have been allowed to exist for some time. Of course, on condition of absolute obedience to any whim of the German master.
As for NATO, everything is even simpler here. Of course, someone will say that NATO is nothing more than a defensive reaction of European countries to the “savage communist grin” - the threat of an invasion by the Soviet Union. However, this thesis did not stand the test of time at all: when the USSR collapsed, and the newly formed powers desperately stretched the hands of friendship to the Western democracies, posing no threat to them, what did the Russian Federation receive in response? The creeping expansion of NATO to the east, the destruction of Yugoslavia, support for separatists on Russian territory, and, as an apotheosis, a military coup in Ukraine. In other words, despite our sincere desire to live in peace and harmony, and despite the fact that militarily in the 90s and early 2000s the Russian Federation was only a pale shadow of the power of the USSR, barely able to deal with the bandit formations in Chechnya, We never became friends with NATO. And soon (by historical standards) everything returned to normal - the Russian Federation nevertheless remembered the need for state security, and began, as far as possible, to restore the completely neglected armed forces.
True, in the history of NATO at least we managed to avoid a full-scale conflict, and even for some time we lived more or less peacefully, but why? Exclusively because the military potential of the post-war USSR in conventional weapons and the level of combat training ruled out hope for the success of a forceful solution to the problems, and then the country's armed forces began to massively receive nuclear weapons, which made any aggression completely meaningless.
The conclusion from the above is extremely simple. Both now and earlier, Russia can exist as a sovereign and independent power in the face of a united Europe. But only if we have a comparable combat potential with the armed forces of the coalition of European powers. Most likely, we will never be "friends with families", but relatively peaceful coexistence is quite possible.
Alas, we were able to achieve military parity only during the Soviet era: the capabilities of the Russian Empire were much more modest. Yes, Russia managed to destroy the Great Army of Napoleon, but the state of the Russian army, when the French left our borders, did not allow pursuing the enemy: in other words, we were able to defend our country, but there was absolutely no talk of victory over the coalition of European powers. This required the combined efforts of many countries, including the former allies of Napoleon, crowned with the "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig.
And it turned out that in the event of the consolidation of Europe under the banners of any hegemonic country, France there, Germany, or anyone else, Russia would find itself in the face of superior military power, which was never friendly to our country - sooner or later, the view of all dictators turned to the East. We never managed to come to an agreement either with Hitler or with Napoleon on at least minimally acceptable living conditions for ourselves, and this, in fact, was not possible. Both the one and the other were sincerely convinced that any concessions to Russia were not needed, since they could easily take their own by force.
Kaiser's Germany?
But why should we think that the situation with William II had to be any different? We must not forget that this statesman was distinguished by a fair amount of eccentricity and faith in his divine destiny, although he was at the same time a very strong-willed person. He did not share the confidence of the "iron chancellor" Bismarck that a war against Russia would be disastrous for Germany. Of course, Wilhelm II did not have such a pathological hatred for the Slavic peoples, which distinguished Adolf Hitler, and it cannot be said that Germany had any significant territorial claims against Russia. But what would happen if the First World War began without the participation of the Russian Empire in it? There is no doubt that it would have started anyway - Germany was not at all going to give up its aspirations, and they could not be satisfied without a war.
With the highest degree of probability, Germany's military plans would have been carried out with purely Prussian punctuality, and France suffered a quick defeat. After that, Europe, in fact, fell under the control of the countries of the Triple Alliance. But getting to England even after that would not be so easy - after all, the Hochseeflotte was inferior to the Grand Fleet, and further competition in the speed of building new dreadnoughts and battle cruisers would drag out the confrontation for many years, while the army of the German Empire would not have remained in business. And how long would it have taken William II to figure out how politically useful it would be for him to defeat the last strong continental power capable of becoming an ally of England, that is, the Russian Empire? And Russia could not repel the blow of the combined forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Union with Germany? This, perhaps, would be possible, but only on one condition - Russia completely abandons an independent foreign policy in Europe and satisfies all the whims of both the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians. And you need to understand that after the successful end of the war for Germany, their wishes would continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Without a doubt, in this case, Russia would have to either accept the position of a silent and patient vassal, or fight for its own interests - alas, now alone.
Conclusions from all of the above are extremely simple. The First World War did not begin because of the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo, and the subsequent Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia. It was predetermined by Germany's striving for world reconstruction, and if Gavrilo had not achieved the principle of success, it would have started anyway - perhaps a year or two later, but it started anyway. Russia should have determined the position it would take in the coming global cataclysm.
At the same time, the hegemony of Germany was completely unprofitable for the Russian Empire, which would lead either to a non-military vassalization of the country, or to a direct military invasion of forces that Russia could not cope with on its own. Strange as it may sound to some, but the consolidation of Europe under the rule of any power was as disadvantageous to Russia as it was to England, and therefore, when this happened, England became our natural ally. Not because of some kind of brotherhood of peoples, and not because of the fact that Russia was used by some sinister "over-the-world backstage", but because of the banal coincidence of interests in this historical period.
Thus, the participation of the Russian Empire in the Entente was predetermined by its interests: there is no doubt that Nicholas II chose correctly in this case. And the reason for the "decisive disengagement" from the countries of the Triple Alliance could have been any: the Serbian crisis, the Turkish straits, or the fact that the German Emperor Wilhelm II breaks an egg from a blunt end at breakfast …
