Anglo-American War in 1895

IOTL there was a dispute between the United Kingdom and Venezuela wherein President Grover Cleveland made some threats to the British but later came to an understanding and helped them negotiate a deal between the two countries.

What if it had come to war? Instead of fighting Spain in 1898 the United States would pit itself directly against the United Kingdom over Venezuela in what would be the third such conflict between the two since the United States founding. The United Kingdom is much bigger in terms of military strength than the United States - who would be victorious? Would anyone else get involved?

Additionally, how would this effect Anglo-American relations as a World War looms over Europe less than a generation later?

Anglo-American conflict and the great War...

loneranger said:

IOTL there was a dispute between the United Kingdom and Venezuela wherein President Grover Cleveland made some threats to the British but later came to an understanding and helped them negotiate a deal between the two countries.

What if it had come to war? Instead of fighting Spain in 1898 the United States would pit itself directly against the United Kingdom over Venezuela in what would be the third such conflict between the two since the United States founding. The United Kingdom is much bigger in terms of military strength than the United States - who would be victorious? Would anyone else get involved?
Additionally, how would this effect Anglo-American relations as a World War looms over Europe less than a generation later?

Click to expand...

It's a good question ... but unless you can give more details on how it could escalate the conflict into a war. I consider it an very implausible development.

Because after all,you would need some very serious incident for something that was basically a diplomatic dispute and which was also seen as an opportunity
by the US government to force Britain to recognize they could not act with impunity and / or without consultation in a region that the US. regarded as belonging to its own sphere of influence.

A conflict in which neither side had considered vital interests at stake, that being affected lead to an inflexible stance or could even cause a war.

Regarding might have happened, if they had clashed in a war...

It's hard to say, but probably could be a short naval war at least initially, basically developed in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

The result and development depend war plans preplanned by the respective staffs for an eventuality like the one here is under discussion as well as the quantity and quality of the ships that each of the sides will be able to deploy and where and as both nations decide that those ships should be deployed ...

The Spanish-American war would be the first major event from OTL being affected by the butterflies with an Anglo-American conflict in 1895...

There is no basis from which to argue about the possibility of the World War from OTL; because it's doubtful that will not be affected by butterflies and if a European war will happen; this perhaps can explode before and / or with different sides or might not happen; in this hypothetical TL.

There I no real way, or need, for The Empire to conquer the US. Blockade and bombard the main ports and the US can't do anything about it. If you haven't read my TL (and if not why not!) The Suns Never Set, on the ASB part of the board, you may want to have a look at that (start oh page 16 for the first few years). It starts of in 1886 and, so far is now up to mid 1889. War is raging between Britain, with France, and the US. It's only 6 years before. Plus in 1895 the Endicott reforms have not been put in to motion.

As for it being ASB? The only difference is Britain has flying machines, but not as weapons of war. Apart from that 99% of daily life is the same.
Also I did ask this question, well almost the same, and it turned into a slanging match. Nearly all sayng that the US can't win while a very few others were all USA USA USA types. I'm not sure how to make a link to those threads so check my stats for them, any more questions you have you can PM, I've done a hell of a lot of research for my TL.

It wouldn't... the British had better things to do with

loneranger said:

IOTL there was a dispute between the United Kingdom and Venezuela wherein President Grover Cleveland made some threats to the British but later came to an understanding and helped them negotiate a deal between the two countries. What if it had come to war? Instead of fighting Spain in 1898 the United States would pit itself directly against the United Kingdom over Venezuela in what would be the third such conflict between the two since the United States founding. The United Kingdom is much bigger in terms of military strength than the United States - who would be victorious? Would anyone else get involved? Additionally, how would this effect Anglo-American relations as a World War looms over Europe less than a generation later?

Click to expand...

It wouldn't come to war ... the British had better things to do with their armed forces and treasury in the 1890s than spill any blood or cash over British Guiana, especially with one of their largest trading partners. Same for the US as well, which is why the British gave in to the US demand for international arbitration, which (surprise!) found in favor of the British. Win-win for the British and Americans; too bad for the Venezuelans.

Amazing how things worked out, isn't it?

Good summary on the State Department website:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/venezuela

Of course, it is worth noting the relative economic strength of the powers; the relative shares of world manufacturing output in 1900 were (Bairoch via Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers):

US - 23.6
UK - 18.5
GE - 13.2
RU - 8.8
FR - 6.1
AH - 4.7
IT - 2.5

Total Industrial Potential (UK in 1900 = 100):
US - 127.8
UK - 100
GE - 71.2
RU - 47.5
FR - 36.8
AH - 25.6
IT - 13.6
JA - 13

Population (1900)
RE - 135.6 million people
US - 75.9 million
GE - 56 million
AH - 46.7 million
JA - 43.8 million
UK - 41.1 million
FR - 38.9 million
IT - 32.2 million

Steel Production (1900)
US - 10.3 million tons
GE - 6.3 million
UK - 5 million
RU - 2.2 million
FR - 1.5 million
AH - 1.1 million
IT - 0.11

Include the realities of the distances between the Americas and Europe, and it makes the likely course of events pretty clear - not something that will end in a "European" victory in the Americas.

Best,

Of course TF bamboozles with numbers drawn from a different year to the year in question and of course he misses the point that the British values are for a smaller population base meaning even in 1900 there was a still a bigger surplus for war because less of the economy was tied up providing necessities for its people.

Of course America in OTL agreed to give the British what they actually wanted and of course extra extravagant claims were made by the British so that the capitulation would not be too obvious. The American public was reassured Monroe was in operation and the US Government avoided actually breaking it by having to force the issue or admit it could not. It is a canny example of brinkmanship but not quite in the manner portrayed by some.

In 1895 war would have been a disaster for America. The Royal Navy was massively ahead not merely in hulls but technology at the time. Not only that but none of its other competitors were even close and most of them did not much like the American Monroe Doctrine anyway.

Thus Venezuela would have been forced to capitulate very shortly after any war started. The blockade that the Royal Navy imposed would have been highly problematic to the US economy but the loss of the use of British hulls for shipping even more so. Events in Hawaii that was being worked into the US sphere of control would have been rendered null as the British imposed their influence there. Finally the one land frontier with the British Empire was Canada. The US could invade it is a big country but the odds were against their taking the critical points and even more against their holding them.

In the 1898 War the US did not manage to bring its army up to the full authorised strength which was half the number of troops one US Admiral reckoned they would need for a campaign against Canada.

Of course it would not have been plain sailing for the British had the Americans really pushed the matter. Grain prices would have risen just on the off chance that American imports might be embargoed. Numerous products from America were much cheaper than alternatives from elsewhere and substantial British capital was invested in the United States. Deploying forces sufficient to keep the US out of Canada would not have been cheap, possible certainly but not cheap plus there was always the small chance that America might get lucky on land which would have made things awkward.

Even without more than customary luck the damage to Canadian property not to mention lives lost would far have exceeded the value of the gains in Venezuela. Costs for America would have been higher but HMG were always going to be inclined to find a diplomatic resolution to matters.

However had a war taken place then Garfield's name would be as mud in the US history books. The Spanish American war would not have happened...likely due to the British having already sunk the USS Maine but mostly due to the growth of an anti-war movement in America.

As to a great war in Europe scenario though there are a couple of possibilities. The Germans would likely have supported the British purely because they did not like the Monroe Doctrine either. This may have shifted tensions between Britain and Germany meaning that any war between Germany and France would more likely have been the short war people expected with Britain sitting on the sidelines.

However if Britain does get involved in such a war then American interests were largely tied up with those of the British and so the odds are sooner or later the Americans come in on the British side to protect their own interests. While not impossible the odds of America taking an anti-British stance are low as America had everything to gain by quietly inheriting the British mantle and every to lose by collapsing the system.

However as the Revolutionary War and 1812-15 both demonstrated even after a war the British and the US tended to actually work quite well together and normally settled disputes diplomatically while focusing on the important business of making money.

add me to the side that says war isn't going to happen.

but if it does, Britain was in the middle of a naval arms race and embraced the concept of having a navy better than the next two navies combined (which, at time of implementation in 1889 was France and Russia). Both sides had virtually no land power whatsoever.

It's going to be a naval war, and the US is badly outclassed. IF the US can hold on long enough to engage their manufacturing base and raise an army, they can probably fight to a draw, ala 1812. At the start of the war, though, there's no doubt who has the most available power.

It's going to affect the Boer Wars. Britain will likely be too war weary to be so aggressive in opposing the Boers.

awfully lot at stake for the British if a war occurs, better to push for diplomacy. Which of course the British recognized.

Sure, the Royal Navy would have quickly driven the few modern warships the US Navy had into port. Some would have been lost (although some British ships would have been lost too). But really what does that do for the British? Protects their trade, sure, but as the US at this point really doesn't need anything outside of the CONUS, it has little effect on the US.

Attack American coastal cities? That is a huge broadening of the war and for what purpose? To try to push the Americans into surrender? Why would the Americans do that? As the 20th Century shows, blowing up cities just angers people, it doesn't force anyone to quit. Besides, other than New York and Boston, the principal industrial cities are inland in the Midwest or far enough inland in the Northeast as to be safe.

Invade the US? Worked out badly the last two attempts (1812, 1776-77), so why would this turn out any better. By the time the British assemble a significant sized army the Americans have sufficient militia and regulars available to slow them down, and we have already entered the era where defensive firepower (the Americans have machine guns too) has outstripped offensive firepower and doctrine, so it will be very costly.

So nothing really decisive happens for a year or two, by which point the Americans have built a huge army, the British have built an army not as large and Canada gets invaded.

The British recognized all these things. So did the Americans. Thus no war.

It would have been bad for business... and this was an era when that mattered a lot.

You don't have to be an "USA USA" type to recognize reality now do you? Per capita wealth matters, but so does geography, population, transportation infrastructure, and a whole host of other things. The British didn't have a hope of forcing the Americans to surrender, and short of a collapse of American will (which in all our wars never happened until Vietnam), the Americans have no particular incentive to stop once war begins.

US has big problems at sea but is very hard to invade (or raid) since their buildup is quite a lot advanced. They have some remaining issues, like their standing army being 25,000 strong, but they're at least theoretically self sufficient in all weapons.

Well, I guess that's settled then. Let me direct you fine fellows to the sister thread: European-American Conflict in 1903.

loneranger said:

Bumping this as my other thread about a conflict in 1895 between just UK and US (once again over Venezuela) has seen most people saying that a war between the two countries is unlikely as the British cannot penetrate the CONUS. Would a more international coalition (Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Netherlands) be more formidable foe for the United States?

Especially when we remember that the focus is on Venezuela, not the United States so fighting would mostly be restricted to Venezuelan waters (where presumably the US Navy would lose). Perhaps as a bunch of sore losers the USA could invade Canada as a response? Or would we just see a very protracted Atlantic Naval War?

Click to expand...

Bamboozled? Trifle harsh, especially because the 1900

RodentRevolution said:

Of course TF bamboozles with numbers drawn from a different year to the year in question ... - snip.

Click to expand...

Bamboozled? Trifle harsh, especially because the 1900 numbers are those closest to 1895 that are actually listed in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

Here are the 1880 ones; the trend is obvious, and not hugely different:

The relative shares of world manufacturing output in 1880 were (Bairoch via Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers):

UK - 22.9
US - 14.7
GE - 8.5
FE - 7.8
RE - 7.6
AHE - 4.4
IT - 2.5

Total Industrial Potential (UK in 1900 = 100):
UK - 73.3
US - 46.9
GE - 27.4
FE - 25.1
RE - 24.5
AHE - 14
IT - 8.1
JA - 7.6

Population (1890, but the relative rankings are presumably pretty much the same; the US census in 1880 found 50 million people)
RE - 117 million people
US - 63 million
GE - 49 million
AH - 43 million
JA - 40 million
FE - 38 million
UK - 37 million
IT - 30 million

Iron/Steel Production (1890)
US - 9.3 million tons
UK - 8 million
GE - 4.1 million
RU - 1 million
FR - 1.9 million
AH - 1 million
IT - 0.01

The point being, of course, that there's nothing like the imbalance of power between the US and UK in this period that there was between the British and the South Africans, and it still took nine times as many British troops as South African and three years of bloody conflict before the British could force the South Africans to the table.

There's not going to be war over British Guiana in 1895, 1903, or any other time - certainly not between the US and the UK.

Best,

The British have naval superiority and can bombard the east coast mercilessly. The US can occupy large areas of Canada. But the British are not interested in bombarding the US for the sake of bombarding it, and the US by this time has no desire to incorporate unwilling Canadians into the Union. The result is a face-saving compromise peace. Of course both sides realize this will be the likely outcome, which is why such a war is unlikely in the first place--it makes more sense to find some face-saving formula *before* such a pointless war starts.

Why does the UK have to be the invaders? they can simply throw their naval superiority around at will, bolster Canada so that an American invasion is costly for them, and simply wait for the americans to get tired of having their economy hurt or cities shelled, and their cargo ships impeded.

The americans, on the other hand, have only one hand to play: invading Canada, and that's going to be costly. Otherwise, they have no means of enforcing their will on the UK. They can't force Britain to negotiate over Venezuela/Guyana.

I forget the state of Mexico at the time (it's usually not good), but if they're in one of the not as bad as usual periods, they might decide partnering up with Britain to pressure the southwest. They're not retaking any real territory, but at the very least, Britain could supply them with guns and use them as canon fodder just to annoy the US.

But, there won't be a war in the first place.

David T said:

The British have naval superiority and can bombard the east coast mercilessly. The US can occupy large areas of Canada. But the British are not interested in bombarding the US for the sake of bombarding it, and the US by this time has no desire to incorporate unwilling Canadians into the Union. The result is a face-saving compromise peace. Of course both sides realize this will be the likely outcome, which is why such a war is unlikely in the first place--it makes more sense to find some face-saving formula *before* such a pointless war starts.

Click to expand...

Not so sure about the "Mercilessly" - if the Endicott Programme has actually been fulfilled then it's going to take a lot of work to slowly work through the defences of a harbour, and frankly only a couple (like NY) are worth it.

Because of the parity between the British and American economies, the question boils down to who they'd have as allies. Would Germany ally with the US to balance against Britain? Would France then ally with Britain to try to get Alsace-Lorraine back?

USA had a policy of isolationism. So did Britain at the time. But, just as there's no reason to have the war in the first place, there's no reason for it to expand to a system of alliances. No one else has a stake in the game. France and Germany had plenty of animosity, but it Europe wasn't the powder keg it would become a decade or two later.

It's 1895

Alon said:

Because of the parity between the British and American economies, the question boils down to who they'd have as allies. Would Germany ally with the US to balance against Britain? Would France then ally with Britain to try to get Alsace-Lorraine back?

Click to expand...

It's 1895 ... The French are as likely to be in conflict with the British over conflicting ambitions in Africa as they are with the Germans over vengeance over the results of 1870-71.

If the British are truly stupid enough to become embroiled in a conflict with the US in the Western Hemisphere at this point, there are innumerable European powers who will see that as an opportunity to settle some old scores, and given the reality that they'd be able to dedicate significant forces to doing just that, the situation could get very dangerous very quickly for the British, particularly in the Mediterranean littoral.

Best,

America is too big and massive for the british to blockade and a lot of our factories are safely inland. The brits start off with the edge but then american manufactering kicks in.

The british lose canada america probally loses its pacific holdings.

Didn't really have any in 1895 absent Samoa

West said:

America is too big and massive for the british to blockade and a lot of our factories are safely inland. The brits start off with the edge but then american manufactering kicks in.

The british lose canada america probally loses its pacific holdings.

Click to expand...

Didn't really have any in 1895 absent Samoa

Best,

TFSmith121 said:

It's 1895 ... The French are as likely to be in conflict with the British over conflicting ambitions in Africa as they are with the Germans over vengeance over the results of 1870-71.

Click to expand...

Could go either way, but US+FR+DE vs. UK is lolzy. Even FR+DE vs. UK is too unstable.

So what is the War all about then?

Okay the basic reason for an Anglo-US war in 1895 is that the British are being mean to Venezuela and the Americans are pissed they are not involved. The French are not stupid they can work this out.

The reason for being pissed off is that is an election coming up and Grover Cleveland's party needs something to prove how patriotic it is.

The OTL result is that the British agree to let the Americans help them screw Venezuela.

Assuming war who else cares?

Full list:

/list

Yes no one. Say France got involved the BE and the USA cut a deal to carve off a chunk of Venezuela and make peace Germany allied with BE and France gets screwed over... America happy, Germany happier, Britain cross, Venzuela sore, France completely screwed.

If war does break out who gets attacked? Venezuela then the British make defensive preparations and wait and see what if anything America does. Remember the war aim is that Britain is allowed to be nasty to South American countries without asking US permission. If America wants to do anything then America has to spend the rest of the Cleveland Presidency expensively building up an army fit to take Canada. Odds of "Don't send our boys to die for Venezuela" ticket winning the next election? Rather high.