Last of May (1866

Great Gatchina Palace, St.Petersburg]

In the heart of Russia, Tsar Alexander III was meditating.

"Lately I wonder if I could have done something to try to stop Nicholas from dying, he died under slightly different circumstances, but at the end of the day he always had a weaker constitution than Mom and Dad thought.

Then there is the assassination of Alexander II, it is curious that here he too would have died assassinated, but in a different time, place and assassin.

Is there really a will or am I trapped in some kind of ghoulish plan?

History has been repeated, only with different details.

Knowing that Nicholas and the Tsar were going to die didn't make it any less difficult to absorb.

....

Now there is the weight of more than 100 million souls on my shoulders, although in private I can think freely, in public and in government I have to fulfill certain duties.

There is a lot of work to do.

We must restore order and peace first of all, get rid of the main terrorist threats of the moment.

As it happens, Russia already has a political police force that should help take care of that, I just have to push them in the right direction.

Russia is not ready for democratic reforms, doing them would end up causing greater lack of control than now.

For the moment the autocracy will remain intact, it may not change during my reign, but there are probably grounds for it to change in the future thanks to me.

What I have to do are economic and administrative reforms, help modernize the country, improve industrialization, eliminate corruption, etc.

There are some liberals and reactionaries alike who are going to be upset, but I can't please everyone. Some will have to go ... "

-Pages written by Alexander III around the first moments of his reign.

The first act of Emperor Alexander III was then to activate the political police, Okhrana, led by loyalists to the emperor (founding members who served alongside him in the investigations of Poland) throughout the Russian Empire.

He accepted himself out of alleged fear of further attacks on the monarchy.

The Okhrana effectively gained power to bypass most laws and trials, if any member of an association was found against the government, they would be hanged or expelled from the Russian Empire.

Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov was executed, an investigation was started on his family, the direct family was so ashamed that they changed his surname. However, Karakozov's cousin, Nikolai Andreyevich Ishutin, was found as a conspirator of a secret organization.

Ishutin and his circle were treated like criminals.

In the first place came a quick counter-reform about the legal measures of Alexander II, the possibility that a culprit is not punished for his crimes was revoked.

Many liberal judges or those sympathetic to revolutionary causes were further investigated, at best they were allowed to leave their offices with honors, at worst charges were brought against them. On the part of the Okhrana.

Some liberals in the government had to leave, which pleased the converting mass, but there are still former members of the liberal government of Alexander II: Dmitry Alekseyevich Milyutin (minister of war) and Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (minister of foreign affairs).

Michael von Reutern was replaced by one of the teachers of Tsar Alexander III's brother (the late Nicholas Alexandrovich), Nikolai Khristianovich Bunge, an economics professor who falls into a moderate profile (recently he has been more and more critical of free trade, but still not a conservative).

Tsar Alexander III's own uncle, Grand Duke Konstantin Nicolayevich, would be relieved of his post as Admiral General.

********

On a political level it was clear that Tsar Alexander III would be different from his father, the Conservatives were the main group supporting Alexander III at the time. Although it was clear that the Tsar was not too reactionary to the right.

Other groups such as the Slavophiles (mens like Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov) and Pan-Slavs were not yet for or against the Tsar.

At first it was clear that the greatest opposition to Tsar Alexander III would come from the liberals, harmed and falling into Russian political influence due to Okhrana investigations and the Tsar's administration.

Some Russian intellectuals called them apadnichestvo (Westernizer), believers that Russia could only be saved by adopting technology and liberalism from the rest of Europe and the United States.

Tsar Alexander III on his part believed in adopting foreign technology, but not in certain liberal measures.

The moderates, the aforementioned Michael von Reutern, still had opportunities to rise to government posts.

Basically the tsar used them to replace the most troublesome liberals.

At the national level, although the Polish question was not yet resolved, it is obvious that Tsar Alexander III had the support of the Finnemans in Finland, after years of business and the fact that the Finnemans were still politically useful.

There are still more than 99 other minorities in the Russian Empire, some with their elites more assimilated than others in the Russian administration, but there were no new uprisings. For the moment.

Overseas, the new stability brought by Alexander III in establishing Okhrana rule in the Russian Empire brought a small wave of first-timers to Russian investment.

There is a very simple secret, in reality the capitalists do not care if the government is liberal or autocratic, they care that their interests are relatively safe.

Alexander III could guarantee that with the first steps of the terror used against terrorists, that meant more investments, which would help modernize Russia.

[Russian Central Asia]

Over the years, the Russian Empire has been expanding, at first it was an eastern expansion that took them from eastern Europe to Siberia and Alaska.

Now, for years, they are expanding to the south, towards Central Asia (where present-day Kazakhstan and parts of Kyrgyzstan already dominate, while to the south are the Khanates of Kokand and Khiva, and the Emirate of Bukhara). Mikhail Grigorievich Chernyayev conquered in 1865 parts that would be vital for the formation of Russian Turkestan.

He leading the capture of Tashkent amid rumors of the interest of the Emir of Bukhara.

Ruling surprisingly accepted by the natives, thanks to Chernyaev's understanding of the customs and way of thinking of the natives.

Continuing with the clashes against Bukhara, the military leader Dmitri Ilyich Romanovsky confronts the Bukharians on the Irjar plain, on May 8 (20 NS).

As a consequence, opening the way of the Russians for Khujand and Jizzakh, the Fergana valley, and some other territories.

Khujand was captured in May of this year.

[International]

Internationally, on May 7, the student Ferdinand Cohen-Blind tries to assassinate the Minister President of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck in the city of Berlin.

The assassination attempt fails.

The Emperor Napoleon III of France announces that France will abandon its intervention in Mexico (a strategy to save Franco-American relations, invest more resources in Europe, etc). As of May 31.

The Austro-Belgian volunteer legions, made up of more than 4000 men, have chosen to formally join the Mexican imperial army. Maximiliano, when his French advisers have STILL not resigned, has succeeded in replacing the occupation in Sonora and Baja California with imperial soldiers.

The Belgian Legion returns home, the Egypt-Ottoman volunteers remain in Mexico, the Polish volunteers remain in Mexico, and the Romanians also remain in Mexico.

Things will be decided in July onwards.

Some problems begun in the Austro-Prussian administration of the old Danish duchies.