The First World War Mod: Il Est Fou, Ce Vieillard
Russia enters 1911 as the most autocratic power in Europe.
Slow to industrialise, and under the thumb of a powerful land-owning class, the liberalism that transformed France, Britain, and Germany through the 1900s only lapped at the shore of Russia, always to the desperate encouragement of a growing minority of liberal Russians and the dismay of a stubborn, ideologically absolutist Tsar.
Nicholas II was not the only monarch to abhor democratic institutions in Europe. But unlike his counterparts in Germany, Austria, and even Turkey, he was completely unwilling or unable to accept even the most modest compromise with the mounting demands for a constitutional monarchy from Russia’s middle classes. He was a proud Dictator, loathing the western reforms of Peter the Great a century before him (loathing his newly founded capital, too: Nicholas preferred ‘Holy’ Moscow), eager to bring Russia back to the days of ‘the Tsar and his people’.
Demands for local governance, a constitution, religious and ethnic equality, and an elected cabinet (a Duma) fell on the Tsar’s deaf ears until, in 1905, a peaceful demonstration was fired upon by the Imperial Guard, squandering the substantial goodwill that the peasantry still held towards the Romanov dynasty and igniting the first Russian Revolution.
Though the Revolution was somewhat victorious in establishing a Duma, Nicholas II soon began to subvert the cabinet’s power by reforming franchise laws to favour conservative Russians, or simply by dissolving it willy nilly. In 1915, dissolving the body yet again at a critical inflection point of the desparate Russian political centre, even the until-now conciliatory figure Sergei Sazanov was heard to utter Il est fou, ce vieillard: he is crazy, this old man.
The Tsar’s Obstinance
In the First World War mod, this inertia of government is presented as Russia’s special mechanic:
Changing laws in HoI4 usually just costs political power. With the Autocratic Tsardom spirit, it also costs Imperial Favor. More on how that can be earned later.
Vanilla HoI4 players may be puzzled by ‘Cabinet’ in the screenshot above, which is not a vanilla law set.
The vanilla laws in HoI4 centre on war effort. Conscription, Trade Laws, War Economy, etc. Meanwhile, a country’s politics is modelled by the Ideology Pie chart. A country’s ideology also doubles as its diplomatic leaning: Democratic countries ally with other Democratic ones.
From the start, my vision for this mod has included discarding HoI4’s equivalence of political system and diplomatic leaning. This model may work for WWII, where the broadly fascist Axis fought the broadly democratic western Allies and the communist USSR, but it doesn’t work for WWI, where Europe’s foremost Republic and its most backwards Autocracy, France and Russia, were staunch allies.
A while ago I started prototyping my alternative: Ideology is now Diplomatic Leaning:
They’re comparable to the vanilla ideologies:
Established is like Democratic: slowert to mobilize. France, Russia, and Britain start as Established.
Expansionist is like Fascist: quick to mobilize. Germany and Austria are Expansionist.
Radical can mean communist, but also any sort of Pariah State. If you take over Serbia as the Black Hand, you’ll be Radical rather than Expansionist (Austria is already Expansionist, and the Black Hand were no fan of Austrias, but perhaps would have been willing to cooperate with the Soviets …)
So how do you chance your country’s political system? That’s now done with 2 of the 5 new law categories:
These are designed to better outline the civic struggles of WWI, from the German socialists’ demands for franchise reform in exchange for war credits, to Britain’s people’s budget and war-profiteering acts, to unrestricted submarine warfare.
And indeed to Russia’s draconian worker’s rights, frustration with which eventually pushed the country into yet another revolution.
Saving Russia
As Russia, you have a few ways to steer your country through WWI:
Hold the Empire together as a Tsarist anachronism. This is essentially what Nicholas II tried to do, and what drove the country to crisis, which is why ‘playing Tsarist’ is more of a bandaid solution to Russia’s problems.
Reform the Tsardom. Once the Autocratic Tsardom focus is removed (by a focus), you can change the government to whatever you like, and change laws to support the war effort without needing Imperial Favour.
If you’re quick enough, this can be done peacefully, averting a violent uprising and the crippling of your government.
Or it can be done historically. This will depose the Tsar, but place you on the path to a civil war with the Reds.
Begin an early revolution as the Reds, and bring the USSR into WWI from the very start.
The dreaded Rasputin branch.
Earlier, I mentioned that Imperial Favor must be earned. How?
There are two ways. The first is Russian Land reform.
The roots of Russia’s unrest - an unrest shared by the rural peasantry, and the growing urban working class, was the great famine that swept the country in 1891. This famine, which the Tsar did little to alleviate, was especially concentrated in central Russia - the region stretching from St Petersburg to the Volga.
This region was also the most impoverished. While a middle class had began to penetrate Russia’s western borderlands with Europe, its wealthy agricultural region in Ukraine, and its homesteaders in the east, its centre remained positively feudal. The countryside surrounding Moscow and St. Petersburg was dominated by the ancient village commune, in which land was shared among the peasants who eked out a living with inefficient farming practises (and indeed, many peasants wanted to keep it this way). The awkward strip-farms overseen by an (often abusive) lord had been washed away by industrialisation a century ago in the west: in central Russia the commune was alive and well, to the chagrin of Russian reformers, who understood this environment as an increasingly revolutionary one.
One such reformer was the staunch Monarchist, Pyotr Stolypin.
Stolypin was made Prime Minister by Nicholas II following the first revolution, in 1906. A Russian Bismarck, he had little sympathy for liberals and republicans, but understood, unlike his Tsar, that if the conservative order was going to survive, it needed to change.
To this end he pursued his famour land reforms: by encouraging peasants to set up their own private farms, he aimed to break up the ancient commune and build a rural middle-class with a stake in the regime and an interest in upholding it. This was his ‘wager on the strong’.
It’s Stolypin’s land reforms that you’re performing as Russia.
Historically, despite being the most Tsarist-minded reformer Nicholas II could ever hope for, Stolypin eventually lost favour with the emperor and his ultra-conservative circle of nobles. Even his extroadinarily moderate proposals went too far for the uncompromising Tsar.
So, at the start of the game, you have the option to martyr him for his Polish land reforms, as happened in 1911.
The eagle-eyed may note a familiar shape in the territory in which land reform can be enacted:
It’s no coindicence that the area struck hardest by the famine, and the area in which the commune was most prevalent, was the region where the Bolsheviks could count on the peasant’s support at the Civil War’s outbreak in 1917.
When you reform land in the First World War mod, you also remove a province from Bolshevik control, should the civil war break out.
And Over Russia I See a Quiet Far-Spreading Fire Consume All
Following the Prime Minister’s death, the Tsar did not pursue Stolypin’s reforms. What’s more, he pulled his empire into a disastrous war which, by the spring of 1917, had made his people destitute, his workers hungry, and his soldiers exhausted.
The first revolution of 1917 saw the bumbling Nicholas II deposed (the Tsar was, by now, leading the army directly from Belarus, and barely understood the gravity of the bread-riots-turned-uprising until it was too late), and the installation of a democratic provisional government, coupled with (shackled by, would be more accurate) a powerful Soviet (or ‘council’) of workers and soldiers.
Over the course of 1917, the difficult alliance between these liberal and socialist institutions would fracture, as the provisional government failed to make peace with Germany, and the soldiers refused to advance. At last, in October, Lenin and Trotsky lead the resurgent Bolsheviks in a largely bloodless coup to control Petrograd. Shattered, some elements of the liberal government fled Russia forever, while others trickled south to gather at Novocherkassk in the Don region. There, alongside the monarchists, nationalists, and social democrats who had mobilised against the Bolsheviks, the Whites prepared to wage a civil war against the Reds.
Above you can see the political half of Russia’s focus tree. Its historic route is circled in gold.
As mentioned, a shrewd liberal-Russia player can avoid the civil war entirely, if enough land reform can be enacted.
If the pressures of war prove too much, you can hit the nuclear button and launch the February Revolution. This removes the Tsar, but temporarily paralyses your army until you can form a democratically elected General Assembly (historically, this was supposed to happen in October 1917, but the Bolsheviks got there first).
Civil war begins when Radical popularity reaches 75%. Some focuses, particularly Tsarist ones, reduce Radical popularity and buy you some time.
You can also begin the Civil War on your own terms:
Should you opt to try and avoid the civil war, but fail to prevent the growth of Radical popularity, you;ll get this crisis:
Fail to avert that, and you begin a civil war as the Whites.
You can also play as the Reds, but I’ll cover that in another blog.
Slavic Little Brothers
The other half of Russia’s focus tree is its diplomatic and federalist branches.
Again, the historic route is circled in gold.
Russia had been firmly aligned to France since the 1890s, after it was alienated by the post-Bismarck court of Germany. It’s through this alignment with France that Russia was able to pacify Britain, its bitter rival for much of the 19th century. This culminated in the Anglo-Russian Convention, a keystone of the British-Russian detente that detailed how Persia would be divided by the two powers.
This agreement saw a lot of friction in 1911 and, coupled with Russia’s supposed meddling in Tibet, was at risk of being discarded by Grey’s foreign office. This is one of the most grounded alt-history paths of WWI: Russia and France versus Britain and Germany, a possibility seriously entertained by some historians (but ultimately overcome by London’s desperation to remain on good terms with St. Petersburg, even if that meant bad terms with Berlin).
As Russia, you can go after your old rival, even opening a new front in India (see the pink annotation).
You can also discard France entirely. Though it was mostly superficial chit-chat, Nicholas II and Wilhelm II (cousins, for one thing) often met in person for leisure and outdated dynastic diplomacy. In 1905, the desperate Wilhelm tabled an alliance proposal to Nicholas II during a meeting on Björkö. Though initially interested, Nicholas II was dissuaded by his circle and Wilhelm pushed into unacceptable demand by his cabinet. While the emperors may have been keen allies, their governments were not.
The Holy Peasant
I mentioned earlier that there are two ways to earn Imperial Favour.
The second is less ideal. Russia begins with Grigori Rasputin occupying an advisor slot. He can’t be removed until you either boot out the Tsar, or take a focus to kill him.
Though he provides a small bonus, Rasputin will cause scandals for as long as he’s in power. These are periodic events, mostly based on the (shocking, phenomenal) accounts of what the man actually got up to in the St. Petersburg court.
You can always either propect Rasputin, which gains you Imperial Favour and instills a negative effect, or you can give Rasputin a smack on the nose, costing Imperial Favour.
Naturally, you’ll want to be rid of this meddlesome priest as soon as possible.
Or will you?
Despite the outrage of even the Russian ultra-conservative nobles (Rasputin was, historically, killed by Felix Yusupov), Nicholas II and his wife were extremely protective of Rasputin, largely because he appeared to have the ability to fend off their son’s haemophilia via faith-healing.
Perhaps the only problem with Grigori is that we’re holding him back.
Now that Rasputin answers to nobody, we have a new option on scandal events:
When empowered, you can lean into Rasputin scandals, still yielding a negative effect but also a positive one.
Optimal? Not exactly. But that’s what you get for putting a holy pervert on the throne. Though his focus branch also provides some other fun avenues, Rasputin is very much intended as a silly run. Which is why you can still kill him even if you put him in charge.
So, that’s Russia so far. Now that they’re guaranteeing Serbia before 1914 I’m trying to actually get the runup to the war playing out.
Stay tuned.
