Ukrainian News, 1907

[nikitol]

The old admiral of the young Ukrainian navy – admiral Durnovo – arrived at the flagship of the Southern fleet early at the morning. The watchmen sing alarm, and the crew of the ship assumed formation at the quarter-deck quickly. The commander of the EBR "Ridna Ukraina" came to Durnovo and reported to admiral.
Durnovo looked at him seriously:
-   What is your name, Leutenant?
-   Comandor of the UNS "Ridna Ukraina", leutenant Kolchak!, - reported  the officer.
-   Hm... Too young to be a commander... Is there any superior officers?
-   No, there is no anybody superior Leutenant. All officers left the ship and emigrated to Russia.
-   And you? Why you do not emigrate with them?
-   It must be anybody to look for this ships here, I've thought. And stayed here, admiral...
-   Ok.
After it Durnovo visited other ships of the squadron. There were no one officer superior lieutenant here... "The pasterboard fleet! How could these formation defend the country. There are upstarters mob here... no the war organization. Five hours later Durnovo send the telegram to Kiev:

" Have conducted the inspection of the Southern fleet. No good experienced officers, no war-dog sailors there. Should work out on that. Need help from foreign fleets. And especially need new ships". 

[nikitol]

Velikiy Knyaz Kirill Nikolaevitch came to the open window of the Mariinsky Palace in Kiev. There was a shiny day, and birds singing at the garden. The Governor of the Ukraine was sad. He was thinking over the political situstion with Russia: "Since we have declared the independence, no one letter they send to me, no one agreement were concluded. My country, where I am not native, is not in good condition now. Yes, I do have the army, and those 10 corps are ready to defend me any time... But I don't have a fleet at all. Those ships, which Russians left here in ports and shipyards could not fight, they do not have no crew, no capitans. We have no any naval specialists, just facilities."
–   Dear Kirill, why are you so sad?, – he heared behind himself the strong voice of his brother – Prime Minister of the Kniazestvo – Vladimir.
–   So, doesn't we have no one occasion to be sad?, – Kniaz answered turning to his brother. – Do we have a great and prosper country, strong enough to preserve her independence from Austria, Baltic league, Turkey and even Russia? Could we be sure our opinion might be heared by others? No, no, and one more time no.
–   Don't worry. Yes, we are in trouble now. But we have country, and all of those Romanov-Gogentsollern's, which are left in Russia could not chance anything now. As far as I know Ksenia, she would not declare the war on us, and she could not take away this lands by fight...
–   You forget one detail. Ksenia is a woman. And she thinks differently. We could not know what she has in mind.
–   So, Kirill, maybe, to protect ourselves, we will send a diplomat to Peterburg and start negotiations?
–   Negotiations on what?
–   Negotiations on friendship.... I think it is good for Russia, to have some pillow between her territory and Europe. How do you think?
–   Don't know. But we'll try.

[Korpen]

Should Ukraine ask, the Netherlands are willing to offer qualified (Staff and command) training at Den Helder naval school to Ukrainian officers.

[nikitol]

Yes, we are interested in foreign practice at the new foreign ships. Should we start negotiations?

[Korpen]

Yes, we are interested in foreign practice at the new foreign ships. Should we start negotiations?

As the Netherlands cannot offer any ships for sale, and the Ukrainians ships are technically very different from the ships of the Netherlands, we doubt there is much to gain in direct basic practical training. But was the Netherlands offer is training of Officers for staff service (without staffs a navy in not a unit, but a collection of individual ships) and command of formations. So it is more training in doctrine, how to coordinate torpedo attacks with fleet manoeuvres and similar manoeuvres. In short training for officers that will command squadrons and flotillas rather then gunnery officers on a single ship.

[Borys]

OOC
Even if there would be no - or very few - Ukranian officers, there would - or could be - Polish ones. Even of flag rank, i.e. Kapitan Piervovo Ranga. The shares of Poles in the Population was c.10%. Assuming half of that in the officer corps, that still hundreds of officers. No admirals - as far as I know - among them, but I know of Poles commanding battleships (e.g. Imperatrica maria in WWI)

Doing a very, very rough calculation - 3 officers per 1000 tons displacement, the pre-breakup Russian Fleet (800k tons?) would have 24,000 officers. One thousand Polish ones. Let us say that half decided to throw their lot the new country which now includes Poland - at the very least half a thousand officers.
I will try to find the number of Polish officers in the Imperial Fleet.

BTW - in N-verse Bavaria created its fleet with 36 officers ....

Borys

[nikitol]

The problem here at the game is look like the real problem with officers and specialists in Russia after revolution 1917. most officers went out of russia. Those who stayed - retired. Some of them serve to the new gowernment, but were distrusted. The dis?ipline falls and the morale falls. And governers should build up their forces from the zero.

[Borys]

OOC
Don't compare the bloodbath of the Russian Revolution with the breakup of 1906. After 1917 it was join Reds, leave or be murdered. Here you had a Civil war between two dvayurodoneie bratia, with both running around in the Cap of the Monomach.

In 1897 the Russian army had 97 generals of the Catholic faith. Chances that these men were NOT Polish are very slim. However, only one or two would have General Staff training.
Still, that is enough generals (again a very rough count of 10 per army corps) for two armies, each with 4 infantry and one cavalry corps.
To that add Russian officers either personally loyals to Kirilo, or whose units commanding ofier took Kirilo's side and who - for whatever reason - decide to continue their career in the Grand-Ducal army.

I do not think you have a shortage of officers, especially in the army. The navy I still would have to check, but like I said before, you have tens if not hundreds of officers. And the best thing is that these Polish officers will use Russian as language of command, as there was no Polish naval terminology.

After WWI in the Polish fleet the officers talked amongst themselves in Russian, and gave one another commands in Russian, while NCOs talked with one another in German and used German commands - communication between the two groups was difficult for a few years, before a common "Naval Polish" was developed.

Borys

[Korpen]

OOC
Don't compare the bloodbath of the Russian Revolution with the breakup of 1906. After 1917 it was join Reds, leave or be murdered. Here you had a Civil war between two dvayurodoneie bratia, with both running around in the Cap of the Monomach.

In 1897 the Russian army had 97 generals of the Catholic faith. Chances that these men were NOT Polish are very slim. However, only one or two would have General Staff training.
Still, that is enough generals (again a very rough count of 10 per army corps) for two armies, each with 4 infantry and one cavalry corps.
To that add Russian officers either personally loyals to Kirilo, or whose units commanding ofier took Kirilo's side and who - for whatever reason - decide to continue their career in the Grand-Ducal army.

I do not think you have a shortage of officers, especially in the army. The navy I still would have to check, but like I said before, you have tens if not hundreds of officers. And the best thing is that these Polish officers will use Russian as language of command, as there was no Polish naval terminology.

After WWI in the Polish fleet the officers talked amongst themselves in Russian, and gave one another commands in Russian, while NCOs talked with one another in German and used German commands - communication between the two groups was difficult for a few years, before a common "Naval Polish" was developed.

I would guess that quite allot of the polish officers are not really considered trustworthy, as it is perfectly possible that they fought for the other side in the CW.
Also, even if there would be quite allot of polish naval officers, is it unlikely that they would be allowed to dominate any branch on political grounds.
You do not wan a minority with possible divided loyalties to be seen as dominating any branch of the defence forces.

/Just some thoughts.

[Borys]

I would guess that quite allot of the polish officers are not really considered trustworthy, as it is perfectly possible that they fought for the other side in the CW.

Hm, in the "what happened in 1905" I wrote that Kyril made his claim backed by Poles ...

Also, even if there would be quite allot of polish naval officers, is it unlikely that they would be allowed to dominate any branch on political grounds.
You do not wan a minority with possible divided loyalties to be seen as dominating any branch of the defence forces.

If Kyrilo wants to have any sort of power base, he must appease the Poles in some way. That would make the Grand Duchy "their country" as well. They make up over one fourth of his population, and have economic and political weight (Polish landlord, Ukranian/Belarus peasant) beyond that. He can supress or ignore them, of course, but that means that Vladymir will be in Kiev two days later. His Russian supporters  backed Kyril in order for him to get the Russian throne, while the Poles backed him because there was a chance of getting more for Poles out of him. If Kyril pisses off the Poles and there is no diference between him and Vladymir, they won't care who - out of the two - rules them. Kyrilo trying to rule without them would most probably spawn a wave of emissaries to Vienna and Kalmar ...

But enough of my OOC pronouncments on Nverse Ukraina, it is Nikita's problem ...

Borys

[Korpen]

Hm, in the "what happened in 1905" I wrote that Kyril made his claim backed by Poles ...

So? Backing by Poles does not have to mean anything if it is no longer necessary. Especially of favouring poles means risk losing support in more important areas.

If Kyrilo wants to have any sort of power base, he must appease the Poles in some way. That would make the Grand Duchy "their country" as well. They make up over one fourth of his population, and have economic and political weight (Polish landlord, Ukranian/Belarus peasant) beyond them. He can supress them, of course, but that means that Vladymir will be in Kiev two days later. The Russians backed Kyril to get the Russian throne, the Poles backed him because there was a chance of getting more out of him. If Kyril pisses off the Poles and there is no diference between him and Vladymir, they won't care who - out of the two - rules them. Kyrilo trying to rule without them would most probably spawn a wave of emissaries to Vienna and Kalmar ...

The easiest way would be to co-opt parts of the "Polish", put some of the leading figures in figure head positions, but avoid a broad dominance in any one area. It has been done before, and most of the time it works fairly well. But the main point is that it is most likely not a good idea to allow any minority to dominate in an area if that risks leading to loss of support in majority, and that will risk the rule even more then a disaffected minority.

Sure it is Nikita's problem, but this kind of analysis's is what i do for a living (as a student) so i find it fun. :)

[maddox]

Don't forget the options the Treaty of Versailles could give....

http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=246.0

[olekit]

Hm.. Yes, the most of the Black Sea fleet went out of Sebastopol with the russian fleet. Just because most of them has the contracts. But the officer corps of the Russiam BSF is too big, and at the end of the 1906 some officers were retired. It was expected, that they will go to the Ucraine or other russian fleets to continue their service.
So, I think, Nikitol will have a good and professional officers at the end of 1906 - beginning 1907.
Russian official position is not interfere to the choice of the officers. But, if they will go serving to the other fleet of the other sovereign navy, they would not have any opportunity to serve in Russia.