What if....Russia never sold Alaska?

[redtom]

This is a what if I can never talk much of but here's the basic facts of the sale:

By the early nineteenth century, America was becoming a commercial force in the Pacific. Merchant ships sailed the northwest coast of the continent in search of furs and the North Pacific became a region of interest to businessmen, explorers, and statesmen alike.

At the same time, Russian power in the region contracted and became more focused and consolidated. Inefficient, distant, poorly defended and provided for, Russian Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million. Although some Russian statesmen opposed the sale, others realized that Russia was overextended in Alaska and that despite Alaska's potential, the future of Russia on the Pacific lay through the fertile Amur valley and not Alaska.

In America, the purchase of Alaska elicited a range of reactions from praise to ridicule. The New York Tribune coined the term "Walrussia" for what was presented as a worthless, frozen territory. But other newspapers, east and west, praised the acquisition for the commercial and strategic benefits it would bring.

What would have happened to Alaska without the sale, would it be an unexploited empty wasteland? Would the British bought it instead?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

If America never bought it but the Russians were still keen on selling, yes, very probably Alaska would be Canadian today - meaning being sold to the British. The late 19th century was the highpoint of European imperialism.

Other potential buyers would be the other Western powers or Japan.

If the Russians kept Alaska, then it's hard to say. Possibly with the Red Revolution, Alaska might be detached fr the Motherland, since it's simply too far away fr the clutches of the Red Army. Maybe it'd fall to Japan, being pretty aggresive in expanding and acquiring territories, fr whichever sources (since it's a late participate in the colonial game).

 

[SanPellegrino]

I always wondered what the russians thought of it later, after oil was found there and of course it would have been a great base for them in cold war.

 

[philippe]

It would be canadian territory

 

[GenMarshall]

It would might be a Russian Nuclear Missle Base

 

[Toasty]

I think Knight-Dragon gives us the most probable outcome--a U.S.- and British-backed sanctuary for the Romanovs, much similar to what Taiwan is today, or "Lesser Canada" .

 

[Phantom Lord]

We wouldn't know, it would be what Kamchatka is today - access denied.

The Alaska deal was a strange thing, I wrote an essay about it during my business english studies at university. It literally happened overnight. I personally think it's good for the polar bear population that the US have acquired it.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by Toasty
I think Knight-Dragon gives us the most probable outcome--a U.S.- and British-backed sanctuary for the Romanovs, much similar to what Taiwan is today, or "Lesser Canada" .

What I mean is Alaska would probably be detached fr the Russian empire during the Red Revolution, and administered by another nation - most possibly the US, Britain-Canada or Japan. Not of it becoming a refuge for the Romanovs; Alaska is simply too bare to form a viable country of its own.

I'd say that after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, it'd go to Japan as part of the war reparations (like the northern half of Sakhalin, Russian interests in Manchuria etc). Then during WW2, occupied by the Allies (like Okinawa) and returned awhile later. The US would continue to have bases in the territory.

 

[Richard III]

Then the Yukon and British Columbia would have been the front line against communism, and a fortune would have been spent on bushplane, central heating and dogsledding technologies to monitor the border and counter The Soviet Threat.

Whitehorse and Dawson's Creek would be bigger.

And British Columbia would have been attacked and occupied by a large force of US mountain infantry after the province elected Dave Barrett, a socialist, as its premier in 1972, since the domino theory then prevailing would prophecy that Washington State would be the next Red victim.

R.III

 

[napoleon526]

If the Russians had known about Alaska's oil and gold deposits, they never would have sold it. At the time though, the decision to buy Alaska was unpopular in the US and deemed "Seward's Folly" (Seward being the US secretary of state).

 

[Zcylen]

I think it was a big mistacke of the russians, selling terrotories isnt a very good strategy to aquire money.
extra land is always good.

 

[onejayhawk]

I'm with RIII. The dynamic of the World Wars would change. Canada would have a long closed border in some inospitable terrain. The Cold War would have been VERY different. This is not a small change.

J

 

[West German]

It would probably become the kingdom of Alaska with a Romanov on the throne, but the Red Army will invade in 1950's to gain a nucleur base against the US.

 

[Vrylakas]

I wonder if there would ever have been a United States or a Canada if Alaska had not been sold. A critical aspect of American prosperity is the "Manifest Destiny" unification of the two coasts. If the Russians were still interested in Alaska, might they not be interested in recovering Fort Wrangel (modern San Francisco) and the Pacific Northwest coastline? Would Califoria become the front line between the Russian, British and Spanish empires? Prior to the railroad connecting the American East and West, would Washington have had the resources to successfully impose its will as far west as California? Similarly, Canada was created when the British summarily dumped their remaining North American territories in 1867 after the Fenian invasion from the U.S.; what if a stumped and muted U.S. posed no threat to those British territories? Would London have still dumped them?

 

[Siegmund]

Sold in 1867 or not, I don't think Russia had much realistic chance of hanging on to Alaska very much longer than it did. They didn't have any particular reason to. By the 1880s both the US and Canada had transcontinental transportation and were taking a real interest in developing west coast trade... while even in 1904 Russia learned some hard lessons about how far away their own eastern frontier was from Moscow.

The first big gold discovery was in 1880. I seriously doubt it was big enough to have gotten Russia's attention even if Russia still owned Alaska then.

*If* Alaska wasn't sold before the late 1890s and the other gold strikes, I don't think it would have been given up in 1905 to Japan. (Japan didn't get any significant part of continental Russia... and Alaska is a long swim from Japan compared to the various west Pacific colonies they snapped up from Germany in 1914 and from everyone else in the 30s.)

As much as I love the Romanov-in-exile theory, it strikes me as most implausible. I think that if Alaska isn't sold before 1898, it gets abandoned in 1917. Close call whether it winds up a territory of Canada or the US, I think. Pehaps occupied by Canada in 1917, then given to the US at the end of WWI in exchange for forgiving the post-1915 loans that the British empire owed the US?

As for what the Russians though of it later ... Vladimir Zhirinovsky is intent on taking it back even now, and while he didn't stand much chance of either being elected or of succeeding in reclaiming Alaska if he tried, we in Alaska did follow the news of the Russian elections a few years ago with some apprehension!

 

[Bifrost]

If Russians didn't sell Alaska, that would mean that they had some political interests in America. Then they wouldn't have dissolved their colonies in California and Western coast of North America. They would have continued the policy of 'land gathering' and, since the only ones who could resist Russian expansion, would have been indians, that policy would have led to a very rapid expansion of Western America.
So, If Russians didn't sell Alaska, they (but not Americans) would be the ones to blame in destroying indian population

 

[Shady]

I think that the Russians did what was best to do at the time. Alaska, its main resource being fur, was virtually outfurred by that time. More importantly, the Russians remembered the Crimean War well and in the then likely event of another war with the British, they would probably lose Alaska due to their sea dominance. The Russians, with one of their primary enemies being britain, preferred to sell it to the U.S. as a buffer to strengthen the U.S. against the British lion.

The motivation for the U.S. to buy it was as to not offend their great russian friend, the tzar, who had been very friendly to the north during the civil war. Another motivation was the hope that such a vast territory would eventually yield profitable resources such as more furs. It did yield such resources with the Alaska gold rush and later on the oil discovered in Alaska.

I think it's highly unlikely that Britain would have -bought- alaska in this what if scenario. It seems highly likely that British imperialism would eventually see the huge badly defended land as an easy grab and another motivation to reassert themself more over the russian titan.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Vrylakas
Similarly, Canada was created when the British summarily dumped their remaining North American territories in 1867 after the Fenian invasion from the U.S.; what if a stumped and muted U.S. posed no threat to those British territories? Would London have still dumped them?

Small flaw in your theory: Canada was not dumped.

Confederation happened for two complimentary reasons:

1. The Brits wanted to keep the territories, but hated paying for them and knew it would get worse once the civil war was over (all those forts to maintain, all those troops in blue looking for somewhere to invade...). So they supported a policy that gave Canada just enough autonomy in exchange for the idea that they could tax themselves to pay for everything (a lesson they'd learned from this little thing called the Stamp Tax in the Eighteenth Century).

2 - and probably more important - a bunch of rather sad, drunken hacks and local ward-heelers participated in what was for the most part a scheme to designed to unify the colonies under one administration on the grounds that it would be far easier to scam railway subsidies with such an infrastructure.

he he.

The Fenian thing was a bit of an issue, but mostly in terms of inspiring the construction of lots of forts - at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, a fact that reveals more about confederation than many nationalists would care to admit. The push for confederation had, in fact, started before the worst of the raids.

To answer your question, I think Sir John A. would have wanted Alaska if he could have had it, and that's the scenario we're discussing. If it was known to be on the market in, say, 1870, you can be sure that he would have found a way to bid for it. And it's not like the Empire - of which Canada was considered a loyal and complete part until at least WWII - wasn't in an expansionist mood in those days.

R.III

 

[TNG]

If Russia hadn't had sold Alaska, don't you think that the Japanese would occupy and annex it during the Russo-Japanese war?

 

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by TNG
If Russia hadn't had sold Alaska, don't you think that the Japanese would occupy and annex it during the Russo-Japanese war?

I think the Japanese would have over-extended themselves. After all, they did suffer atrocious casualties in the land fighting during that war.