The fall of Constantinople was not a battle; it was a surgical strike. In a perfectly coordinated assault, General Denisov's land forces, supported by overwhelming artillery, crushed the city's western defenses while the modernized Black Sea Fleet, steaming with impunity into the Bosphorus, landed elite troops directly behind the Ottoman lines. The city, the ancient Tsargrad of Russian dreams, fell in less than seventy-two hours. The double-headed eagle of the Russian Empire flew over the Hagia Sophia for the first time in history.
When the news reached Russia, the nation erupted. Centuries of deeply held religious and nationalistic ambition had been fulfilled overnight. In St. Petersburg, vast, jubilant crowds gathered before the Winter Palace, not to protest, but to celebrate, chanting Mikhail's name alongside those of the great Tsars of the past. He had delivered a victory more profound and symbolic than any victory against Japan could ever have been, and he had done it with minimal cost while the rest of Europe was mired in slaughter. His popularity soared to near-mythic levels. He was no longer just a respected regent; he was the fulfiller of destiny.
The reaction from the other world capitals was, however, far less jubilant. The capture of the Turkish Straits sent a tremor of shock and fury through the halls of Whitehall in London. For over a century, British foreign policy had been dedicated to one unwavering principle: keeping the Russian navy bottled up in the Black Sea. Now, that policy was a smoldering ruin.
The British ambassador, a man accustomed to issuing veiled threats to weaker nations, requested an emergency audience. He found Mikhail in the map room of the palace, calm and unassailable.
"Your Highness," the ambassador began, his voice tight with suppressed rage. "His Majesty's Government considers your... occupation of Constantinople to be a grave threat to the stability of the Eastern Mediterranean and the security of our routes to India. We must insist on an immediate withdrawal."
Mikhail listened patiently until the man had finished. "Insist, Mr. Ambassador?" he replied, his voice soft but with an edge of steel. "Your nation is currently engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the German Empire. You are borrowing colossal sums of money from my banks and your army is firing shells forged in my factories. You are in no position to insist on anything."
He walked to the map. "Let me propose an alternative to this... misunderstanding. A new reality. Russia will declare the Straits an international waterway, open to the commercial shipping of all nations, guaranteed by the strength of the Russian fleet. Furthermore, we will offer His Majesty's Government a new strategic trade agreement. We can supply your empire with a limitless quantity of oil from Baku and grain from Ukraine, shipped directly through the Mediterranean, at prices your German rivals cannot hope to match. It seems to me, sir, that you have not gained a threat, but a vital new economic partner."
The ambassador was speechless. It was a threat wrapped in a business proposal. Mikhail was offering Britain a choice: engage in a costly and likely impossible conflict with a newly powerful Russia while already fighting for their lives against Germany, or accept the new reality and become economically dependent on the very power they feared. It was a checkmate.
London, faced with the cold, brutal logic of the situation, reluctantly acquiesced. They had no other choice.
In a celebratory dinner with Witte and Sofia, the mood was triumphant. Witte, looking at the influx of British gold and French francs, was ecstatic. "You have redrawn the map of the world in a single season, Mikhail! We are the lynchpin of the global economy now."
Sofia, however, was more cautious. "You have humbled the British," she said. "They will never forgive you for it. When this Great War is over, they will see us as their primary rival."
"Good," Mikhail replied, a cold fire in his eyes. "It is time they learned to respect a new global power. Let them see us as a rival. By the time the war is over, we will be their superior."
The chapter concluded late that night. Mikhail stood alone in the War Room, which was now more of a global economic command center. A report from Alexei lay on his desk, detailing how the factories of the Northern Industrial Syndicate were now producing more steel than Britain and Germany combined.
He had achieved the dream of Peter the Great. He had secured his warm-water port and opened the gates of the world for Russia. The war in Europe raged on, consuming the strength of the old empires. He knew from Alistair's memory that it would likely last another two to three years. That was more than enough time.
His gaze fell upon the map, no longer just on Europe, but on the entire globe. On the resource-rich lands of Persia, on the crumbling Manchu dynasty in China, on the trade routes of the Pacific.
The Great War had given him the perfect cover to secure Russia's position in Europe and the Middle East. Now, he began to plan for the peace that would follow, a peace that he, and he alone, would dictate. The era of European colonial dominance was ending in the mud of the trenches. The era of the Russian Empire was just beginning.