The Russian Empire vs. the Soviet Union - a geographic/territorial comparison

[barneystinson69]

Leadified said:

barneystinson69 said:

The reason Russia collapsed was because of Lenin was smuggled into St. Petersburg by the German's and starting the october revolution (oh the irony in that). Until then, the Ottomans where being pushed back by the Russians. Even after that, the Ottomans where still struggling against the British, and eventually lost arabia and surrendered. If the German offences in 1914 or 1918 where able to achieve a successful capture of Paris, or if the ship that was sunk by the German's (don't know the name) wasn't, its likely the American's wouldn't have an excuse to join the way, and I would guess WW1 ends in stalemate even with a failure of the spring offences in 1918. 

Either way, the Ottoman's really didn't do much to allow for a Russian, that was all on Germany. 

Don't get me wrong, the backbone of the Central Powers was Germany without a doubt, but Russia ended up contributing close to a million men for the Caucasus Campaign that ended up being bogged down in the Armenian Highlands. If all those troops were directed towards Germany then Russian domination of Europe might have started 20 years earlier.

I can see the argument for taking Paris to force France to surrender like in the Franco-Prussian War but I'm not too sure how Germany could achieve this in 1914 since Blitzkrieg was not yet possible and France had political stability along with British and Belgian troops.

They came within 50 km of Paris in 1914, and about 80 km in 1918. I'm not exactly sure into how Germany could've broken the lines faster (I'm not much into details of WW1 battles), but considering how effective the German's had been in the past (Prussia was god throughout the 1800s after Napoleon lost), it was within the relm of possibility.