The railroads are to be the blade of tsarist autocracy pointed eastwards, carrying soldiers and bureaucrats and nobility eastwards to govern, to colonize and to conquer. The double eagle aims to rise in the east. And the iron horse will carry it there. You are to build the great railway through Siberia to the Pacific, and do it fast.
Or, of course, you can risk the displeasure of the autocracy. It is not advised.
In keeping with the desire to run a short mechanics tester, this is a considerably simplified image through the eyes of a member of the nobility, as the thread has chosen. All information has its biases. Be warned.
As a member of the nobility, you have an excellent grasp of factions in court and factions among the nobility. While you're well able to grasp their motivations and the like in broad strokes, one might call your categorization of them somewhat flawed – well outside your earshot, mind you. Court is home to the aristocracy of the Russian Empire, and they are remarkably good at presenting a pleasant front in person while preparing a knife for one's back – be wary and be on guard here. Especially with regards to your immediate superior.
Sergei Witte and the Council for Siberian Development: Your immediate superiors, and thus deserving of consideration separately from the rest of the court in St. Petersburg. Sergei Witte is the Minister of Finance and heads the Council of Siberian Development primarily as a means of increasing the size and scope of his bureaucratic fiefdom and pursuing the one great thing which promises to make his mark on history – the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Minister has a personal stake in the project and can be relied on, in your eyes, to act to protect the project in a manner well beyond what most bureaucrats would consider necessary. However, should you fall short or be perceived as a threat to the project, be wary of replacement or forced retirement. Minister Witte is already resentful of your status as a member of the high nobility working for him, whose blood is far less rarefied than yours. The Council are his lackeys or otherwise can be relied on to work with him rather than with you, and are also acutely conscious of the gap in aristocratic rank that is present between you and them – expect resentment and demands for 'developmental action' that can conflict with the tactical goals of the Railway.
The Eastern Expansionists: A substantial chunk of the Imperial Court is in the same mold as the great general Mikhail Skobelev, in claiming that the East is the Russian frontier rather than the West. What use has Russia for more Poles or more Finns or Swedes when the vast frontiers of Siberia and Manchuria await colonization once the iron horse is ready to ride? The expansionists are the most significant backers of the Railway and the Tsar is at present among their number, but the Tsar's attentions are fickle and expansion is expensive – this faction needs a victory to keep going, and that victory relies on the railway making fast progress and enabling more settlement of the Siberian interior. Expect them to protest against a fast route to Vladivostok, instead demanding a more winding line that takes the Railway through major cities such as Tomsk, Irkutsk and Chita.
The Panslavists: Shorthand for the group who believe that the greatest threats to Russia lie in the West and that the sacred duty of the Imperial throne is in the aid and succor of its Slavic and Orthodox brethren in Europe, this is a faction you have little truck with and have little knowledge of beyond the usual. The Panslavists oppose the sums allocated to the Railway and are fine with the project in principle, and want the completion date pushed back to allow for more money allocated to European projects. Rail links in Ukraine, Congress Poland and Ruthenia as well as more money into the military to allow a rapid mobilization in the Eastern theater. These are members of the great nobility, many among the Grand Dukes and the Procurator Pobedonostsev, backed by French gold. Expect a difficult time.
The Rural Nobility: These are people you've never met, don't want to meet due to stench and lack of culture, and are generally not that cognizant of beyond the summaries that you glean from court or from the bureaucracy. The rural nobility are split by the railway cutting through their land – some of them view it as a good thing, cash from the throne for land used by the Transsib and cash later from development along the rail lines. Others view it as an eyesore, a means for peasants to flee the land and a noisome irritation. Frankly, you're not sure how to placate them and don't really want to.
Radicals: There are so many radicals in Russia that you don't know where to start. And none of them have any sane ideas at all. Socialists, anarchists, threats to the stability of the throne and the stability of the state, and utterly insane. As a member of the nobility, though, you know that there are those among your ranks who sympathize with them and you know how dangerous the radicals can be – strikes, for instance, can be devastating in Siberia if timed right.
Factions In The Imperial Bureaucracy
The Imperial Russian bureaucracy is a place of warring fiefdoms, and you're far below the level where you have to concern yourself with the great ministries. No, your concern is with the ministries that handle your imports, the ministries that are your superiors (see above, Sergei Witte), and the offices that handle your surveying and auxiliary work. They had best like you, and you had best be able to know their biases well.
Imperial Russian Army: The army is probably the most powerful ministry but also a divided one. A vast bureaucratic empire that manages everything from ammunition factories and arsenals to the troops on the German border, the army is sclerotic and slow to act. It is also the place you'll have to turn to for armed support in Siberia against strikers, for logistical support and explosives requisition, and for a suitably large bureaucratic stick to beat rural nobles with – even they understand the primacy of 'national defense'. The army is, however, resentful of your budget and resentful of your intrusion onto its perquisites – it would dearly like to manage the railway project and its general staff would dearly love to embezzle their share. You've resolved to handle them carefully, and a combination of looking good in front of the tsar, faster troop travel to Manchuria and bribes ought to keep them sweet.
The Council for Siberian Development: See Above.
The Foreign Ministry: The place where your experts are vetted and your imported goods are examined, since as a government department your project has to go through them for importing anything. The Foreign Ministry is at present looking East and to the Great Game with the British, and importing British or seeming to offer an olive branch when it is not wanted is something to offend. Since you don't know when to do that without schmoozing with the diplomats, best not to use British goods without cause. The railway is something that the diplomats in the East have used as a stick before, and the occasional offer from the Foreign Ministry might well be worth listening to. At present, you think they tentatively back the railway.
The Throne: The Tsar and his closest ministerial allies are at present backing the Railway, or so you have heard. His Majesty is a fickle man and it is best not to rely on Imperial favor for something as large as this.
The Okhrana: Shorthand for the vast internal security apparatus set up in the past century, all of whom are concerned that Siberian exile may not be what it was. With the Railway headed east and colonization being mooted for Siberia, the gentlemen of the secret police are deeply concerned about evasion of exile and the potential for sabotage or subversion via the Trans-Siberian. You're not sure what to do about that and you're damn well not bowing to some twerp from the Okhrana, not when you're a descendant of the great nobility of the empire, but at the same time they can be useful. The labor camps, for instance, are an excellent labor source. A sentence-reduction scheme has already been proposed, to shave a additional year off one's sentence for every year worked.
The Imperial Geographical Society: A collection of nobles and a collection of scientists, it's the former you're more concerned about. They're very happy with the project and its direction, and they want you to know you have their backing – scientific and political. The problem is that their backing puts you in conflict, in places, with the Orthodox Church, who are very against a great deal of what the IGS has already published. The Procurator doesn't like them, but there's not much he can do. Not as if he's in the university leadership, right?
The Orthodox Church: Vast, sclerotic and a faction unto itself in court and in the ministries. The church is often the only real social service in many parts of Russia and thus has influence well out of proportion to the status that many of the high nobility accord it. They are staunchly conservative, staunchly pro-Imperial and extremely reactionary at present. Even you think they're a bit excessive on the radical question.
AN: Remember, as before: Everything is shaded by character bias. You are a member of the high nobility and that comes with its biases and blind spots.
The Railway Project has begun construction in the Year of the Lord 1895, and aims to reach the Pacific Coast by 1905 – aiming to cover the vast expanse of Russia with a single-track heavy-rail line in ten years. With little to no expertise on construction of rail at such a scale, no real pool of expertise for design of specialized hardware and the need to import bridge designs from abroad – preferably America – this will not be an easy task.
And that doesn't even get into the issues of politics. It's a good thing you know the political side well, and an even better thing that you don't have to build this under threat of war. Right?
There are three major lines in the Transsib, all constructed simultaneously:
1) The Far Eastern Zone of Construction: Inaugurated by the Tsar four years ago and barely moving as of today, this is one of the hardest projects. The Circum-Baikal Railway around Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, the spur line to Chita and along the Amur, and a mooted alternative route through Manchuria via the treaty concessions of the China Eastern Railway. Labor is short, skilled labor as precious as gold dust, and materials are expensive in the extreme. The only things in ample supply are fur and wood as of now. As far as you're concerned, this is a slog and a slow project that you can only really speed up once the main line from Moscow hits Baikal or at least Western Siberia – the rest of the shipping from then on can be done by river.
2) The Mid-Siberian Zone of Construction: The Mid-Siberian Zone is the keystone of the project, running along the route from Omsk through Barnaul near Kazakhstan to the Tayshet, the southern route through the steppe so recently taken from its heathen khans. This is the place which may be one of the easier sections terrain wise – after all, it's relatively flat, it's already home to a decent sized population and it doesn't have the snow and marshes of northern Siberia. The alternative would have been laying track through Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk – you've never been to either and don't want to. At present, there's material stockpiled at Omsk and river barges to take more there, and tracklaying goes on slowly - a shortage of labor and good steel is one issue, and apparently the bridge construction is another.
3) The Western Railway: The Western Railway runs from the end of the Nikolayev Line at Moscow to the start of the Mid-Siberian Line at Omsk, passing through such great cities as Chelyabinsk, Ufa and Samara. Great cities, best left over there and unseen as far as you're concerned. This is difficult terrain thanks to forests, noble estates and land tenure, a great deal of legal wrangling and bureaucratic opposition, planning permissions in the cities and from what you're told, a shortage of skilled labor. Again. Everywhere. Honestly, it's enough to make one want to yell at the Foreign Ministry and import a few British, they can't all be terrible. Anyways, it's still in better shape than the other lines even if its completion date is somewhere around twenty or twenty-five years off – it needs acceleration. Skilled labor, bridges, machinery and tooling, and a lot of bureaucratic firepower.
You have ten more years. Each turn is one year. Project Lead: Alexander Louis Fürst Barclay de Tolly-Weymarn: You were a noble and a noble's son, grandson of a duke and a count, reared on tales of martial glory amid the grim palaces of the Baltic nobility that line the coast of Courland. Your grandfather was General Alexander Barclay de Tolly-Weymarn, leader of soldiers and yet not a soldier himself, for with the title of Prince Barclay de Tolly came rank and position that he, in your mind, was perhaps not fit for. Your father was his son and putative heir, Michael Andreas, all too painfully conscious of the whispers in court and the knife-fighting of politics so near to the terrible, absolute power of the Romanov throne. You...you sought something else. Your ancestors were soldiers, field marshals and leaders on the battlefield. You have seen what war does to men. You do not wish it, for all that you will take up the uniform of a reservist if called. What caught your eye were the great iron rails that spanned Western Europe, the modernity they symbolized, the vast spaces of the New World made small by human genius and gold. That, you decided as you entered the Imperial Technical School in Moscow, would be your mark on history. Now you have your chance. Will you seize it, or will your ambition outfly your reach the same way your grandfather's did?
Regional Coordinators
Western Railway Zone:Nicholas Mezheninov:Scion of an old noble family in the Ryazan governorate, Mezheninov is not the accomplished engineer that Count Mikhailovsky is, merely having a degree from the Imperial Institute of Transportation Engineers and the rank of lieutenant-engineer. However, he has other things that weigh in his favor to counterbalance the greater experience of the Count. For one, he is politically savvy enough to play the game and to leave the major decisions to you – that automatically makes him good for Western Russia. Second, he has a talent, or so you have been vouchsafed by the best of people, for organization and persuasion. If one is working with katorga labor and what few free laborers are there for hire on the railroad line in East Siberia, such talents are very much needed.
Eastern Railway Zone: Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov: The old Count is in search of an Eastern sinecure to keep him in claret and Georgian champagne while he schemes and plots to lop most of Manchuria off from China. One of the grand old men of the eastern imperialist side of court, Muravyov is a staunch backer of the Trans-Siberian, but at the same time one who views it as the Tsar's eastern blade rather than a means of opening up Siberia. He wants the route to go through the concessions granted for the China Eastern Railway and is willing to head the project in the East to ensure that – while acting as a special envoy to Korea and China in the bargain. The Count is no engineer, but he knows a good many and is willing to lobby for us in St. Petersburg – would a diplomat and administrator be better than an engineer for this? And would one of the great ministerial nobility take up the task? You're quite sure the Count would do very well, but some of the staff are less sanguine. There's really only one way to find out, and it would solve the political support problem for a few years at the least.
Mid-Siberian Zone: Konstantin Yakovlevich Mikhailovsky: A decorated veteran of the Crimean War and a noble – albeit of Ukrainian extraction – Count Mikhailovsky comes highly recommended from the Imperial Technical Society and few other places. The one great thing in his favor as far as his dossier is concerned is his experience – the man is an accomplished, experienced civil engineer and the designer of the famous Alexander Bridge on the Volga, as well as having some experience of mass logistics thanks to the war. The issue? He hasn't worked in the Far East before, although his experience in the steppe areas near the Volga and the Crimea may stand him in good stead for the Mid-Siberian Zone. The second issue that you as a consummate politician can see is his tendency to 'tell it like it is' and leak to the wrong parties – the man can be a liability in that respect. It may be best to keep him far from Moscow.
Progress Tracker
Note that this is progress as tracked by reports that come to the offices of the Council for Siberian Development and the Trans-Siberian Railway Board in St. Petersburg. Note that reports are often outdated and incomplete, for all that there is a telegraph in places.
Western Railway Zone: Track to be laid from Moscow to Chelyabinsk, this is a stretch that already has disjointed railway lines and requires merging, rationalization and construction of modern support infrastructure for the rail lines. The reports are adamant that the rail links to Tyumen and from Samara to its immediate surroundings are good, and also state that much of the intensively farmed, noble-owned farmland near Moscow is highly unsuitable for track. Several more proposals from the Orthodox Church include surveys that claim to have an easier path that curves south into the Tatar steppe and towards the Volga, and a side benefit for the throne is this route permitting settlement of said steppe and its Russification. The Imperial Technical Society has disputed these surveys, but they acknowledge that swinging south would allow us to develop the iron, coal and pitch of the Volga River basin, aiding the railroads of the Empire in the long term.
Mid-Siberian Zone: Track laying has begun from Chelyabinsk and is planned to continue through Omsk to the River Ob. Track laying progress is slow and it would be at a minimum another twenty years by official estimates to finish the line, not counting bridging time, but now that more resources are available and the leadership has been reshuffled perhaps things may change. Funding is scarce for this section, and there are numerous issues. At the moment the most pressing is that of labor – there are serious plans to use penal labor in the absence of a proper corvee or paid workers.
Eastern Zone: Progress in the Far East has been limited to setting up base camps and material stockpiles for laying track around Vladivostok and along the Amur River, as the imperial throne planned a decade ago. The situation, however, has changed. The negotiation of the China Eastern Railway concession – extraterritoriality for a strip of rail line and its facilities through Manchuria to Vladivostok – has forced the state's hand. The appointment of Prince Muravyov to the command of the Eastern Division has made the China Eastern Railway yet more likely to be chosen over the Amur Railway – why bother going along the Amur past Khabarovsk when one can take a straight path through Harbin and Mukden on the way to the Pacific? And after that…Manchuria awaits the double eagle. A choice has to be made now, before more track is laid and while preliminary construction goes on near the Pacific Coast.
A Rough Map Please note that this is not a complete route map, and your surveys are not as accurate as this map.
AN: The last bit of thread infrastructure. is now done
