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Originally Posted by oldgringo2001
Rasputin may have been a con man, but he did give the Romanovs exactly the right advice on the biggest issue of their lives: Don't go to war with Germany. What if they'd taken his advice?
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After carefully re-reading that quote: absolutely nothing happens any differently. Now if Rasputin had advised them to never go to war with Austria-Hungary...
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Originally Posted by ssc
I think a big effect of this would be that as Russia never enters WWI and the Germans make more inroads into France because they have the forces free, this also means that the Germans don't need to release Lenin (I think) to stir up trouble in Russia to get those forces free.
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The really big effect, if Russia doesn't enter WWI, is that there is no WWI. The war essentially started as a squabble between Russia and Austria-Hungary over Serbia's fate after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. If Russia doesn't push hard enough to turn the squabble into war, Germany doesn't declare war on Russia in accordance with its alliance with Austria-Hungary; France doesn't declare war on Austria-Hungary and Germany in accordance with its entente with Russia; and the UK and Italy don't enter, reluctantly, as the final members on their side. WWI just goes away.
Or not. The general consensus among historians is that something would have kicked off a general conflict in Europe sometime in this broad time period. But a WWI with a different cause might have run very differently depending on where the flashpoint is and who the two initial opponents are.