WI: The US and Britain Clashed Over Venezuela in the 1890s?

[RodentRevolution]

Don't patronize me.

US did have 17:1 population advantage over Canadain 1900. Also, I can't see how you can say that Canada won't be isolated from the 'mother country' as it is, after all, across an ocean.

As for troop strength, let's not forget what actually happened in the Spanish American War - the US was able to muster 300,000 troops. I cannot find mobilization times, but the war as a whole lasted less than four months so it must have been considerably less time than that.

According to this article, with modern steamships it would take two months to get a steamship from India to Britain, and that's not counting time taken to assemble the forces, gather supplies for the journey, or get a sufficient amount of transport ships there. Not to mention the other side (from UK to Canada), which takes another round of resupply and reorganization. Plus the British have to keep at least a minimum of troops in India considering they're fighting guerrilla wars with the Lushei and the Munda ( and Singh too, depending on your timeframe).

As for reinforcement of Canada, with time taken to mobilize, supply, and prepare transport ships, it is possible that the British could put some forces in Eastern Canada, but not in Western Canada. This is because Canada's first transcontinental railroad was finished only in 1885, and there was still only a single line in our timeframe. This means a very limited amount of troops, if any, plus logistics are going to be a nightmare. Not to mention it's within 50 miles of the US border at times - meaning it can be cut before British ships can make it across the Atlantic. As for naval supply, this would require the seizure of American fueling stations in the North Pacific to work - but the Brits won't try it, because their closest major base to Vancouver is 6000 miles away.

Finally, you say 'ports' but I believe that the only port capable of importing large amounts of troops and supplies at the time was Halifax, which I support by citing War Plan Red, which made that assumption and was drawn up 30 years later.

I won't try to argue that it would be an easy war for the United States - the power of the Royal Navy is going to be a deciding factor, and the sea war is probably going to decide the war as a whole. The land war in Canada, however, is almost guaranteed to be an American victory.

As a side note, do you know of a place where one can find statistics for navy strengths from the time period? All my Google results have been dominated by the dreadnought race.



It's a WI, not an AHC.

Actually I am not trying to patronise you. I think the problem is that you are drawing your statistics from a different place than me and possibly ignoring factors that are very apparent to me from experience.

US Pop 1890 63,000,000 (source US Census) Canada 4.770,000(Census) UK 33,000,000 without Ireland which adds 3.47 million at this time.

US Pop 1900 76,200,000 (US Census) Canada 5.3 million

The pop ratio rises from 13- to 14-1

However the problem is not simply population difference. The issue is roads. Now you rightly pointed out that in supplying and assembling an attack on Canada the US has an exemplary railroad system at the time. The trouble is that like the combatants of the Balkan Wars and World War 1 etc once you reach the frontiers those troops have to march on foot and hoof...especially hoof.

I am not sure how many horses the US could assemble quickly, not that they are short of horses but all those animals are in private hands.

Anyway assuming they can assemble the required horse power those troops are going to need to march to Toronto and Montreal and Halifax. The maximum distance a soldier can be expected to march is 25 miles per day however in practice he does not travel nearly that distance as a marching column extends across a considerable length of road, if say your US Army Corps stretches for 9 miles the maximum amount of ground it can cover per day is 16 miles, this assumes of course marches are uninterrupted by any fighting. If you want to send another corps and down the same road their rate of advance drops to 7 miles per day.

The British on the other hand simply need to sail (steam) their troops to port, they are already trained so can be assembled within days and can be sent across the ocean arriving within not more than a couple of weeks of the decision to send them.

I say simply but actually it is a complex operation, however it is a complex operation the British have regular experience of in the course of routine Imperial deployments.

The big problem for the US attacking Canada as opposed to Cuba is that they have to go by land rather than sea. This makes a huge difference to their operational mobility. The other thing the US Army is short of is artillery which it is going to need to take its objectives, this was not so important in the Spanish-American war as it could concentrate all the artillery it had on the spots it needed to fight because of sea transport and also had the support of the USN.

So instead the US Army has to march men, feed men, and supply men with ammunition entirely by road. The British Empire can send its troops to theatre of operations by sea, it can deploy heavy naval artillery by water...this aids greatly in the defence and further exacerbates the problems of attack.

For example in supplying the defence of Western Canada British troops will stage through RN Station Esquimalt. Britain does not need to borrow US naval facilities Dewey borrowed British Hong Kong facilities for his Asia Squadron. So Ian Mcdiarmid gets to say "Now witness the power of this fully operational Naval Station"

Essentially rather than an impediment the Atlantic Ocean and to lesser extent the Pacific Oceans are broad highways for the British in much the same way as they were for the US in the Spanish-American War.

Now according to Andrew Roberts the British Royal Navy at the time deployed 29 first class battleships, 24 second class battleship, 16 armoured cruisers, 126 unarmoured cruisers, 62 gunboats and around three hundred other armed vessels, I do not entirely trust his figures mind.

It is also worth remembering that the RN vessels ranged from the latest and arguably most modern in the world to stuff built not long after the ACW.

Of course the USN had the same issue. It had USS Indiana USS Texas, USS Maine all working up and the armoured cruiser New York in commission with the newly built Brooklyn still fitting out, there are also thirteen (13) protected cruisers in commission plus Atlanta, Boston and Chicago and the experimental cruiser Vesuvius all which were out of commission but could be reactivated.

There was also a collection of monitors some dating from the Civil War others ostensibly rebuilds of older vessels but in fact new ships. However even some of these rebuilds were still under construction at the start of the crisis.

Now I really am not trying to patronise but deliver the answer to the question

Would the United States be able to successfully wrestle the British Empire and perhaps its allies in the 1890s?

In reasonably digestible chunks.

The answer as far as I can see is a no based on even the simplest scenario of just US v British Empire. However I hope you begin to see I am basing my assertion on available data and history rather than simple belief.

Therefore I can see the US grappling with the Empire in Canada but I find it doubtful that the kind of speedy resolution it would require to be politically palatable would be achievable.

 

[deathscompanion1]

Armies were not good at rapid deployment at this point particularly across oceans. By the time a large force can be sent to the America's Canada would be embattled.

Given that at some point in the nineties the British themselves wrote off Canada as lost in any war and seeing on paper hundreds of thousands of American soldiers (of unknown quality true but still a significant force) and severe economic distruption from losing a major trade partner and the high likelihood that British possessions elsewhere could be attacked by other powers (and the impossibility seen as a certainty of a Russian invasion of India) its far from inconceivable that the British send a token force to Canada and seize American overseas territory and settle back to negotiate a white peace.

 

[Hotpoint]

Armies were not good at rapid deployment at this point particularly across oceans. By the time a large force can be sent to the America's Canada would be embattled.

You'd be surprised.

The Boer Republics declared war on Britain on October 11th 1899 and by early December an entire British Army Corps (three divisions, with 50,000 men) had arrived in South Africa and some units were already in action.

Cape Town is twice as far from London as Halifax incidentally.

 

[ljofa]

Wasn't this the scenario in "The Whale and the Wolf" essay in the book "What If America?

UK/US bustup over Venezuela, US invade Canada and ultimately capture Toronto but war drags on a bit too long. Ultimately UK cedes Quebec to USA (making the rest of Canada more Brit-homogenous (not counting the Inuit of course) but sows the seeds of a permant Anglo-American alliance which butterflies away WW1.

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

Don't patronize me.

SNIP
According to this article, with modern steamships it would take two months to get a steamship from India to Britain, and that's not counting time taken to assemble the forces, gather supplies for the journey, or get a sufficient amount of transport ships there. Not to mention the other side (from UK to Canada), which takes another round of resupply and reorganization. Plus the British have to keep at least a minimum of troops in India considering they're fighting guerrilla wars with the Lushei and the Munda ( and Singh too, depending on your timeframe).
SNAP

This article gives a 2 month journey for 1840. In 1840 you get paddlewheelers - for example SS Great Wester had a speed around 8-9 kts.

In 1870 RMS Oceanic had a speed of 14,5 kts and the "last" paddlewheeler SS Mona (1889) reached 18 kts. For comparison the 1887 Prince of Wales - a screw driven steamer reached a speed of 24 kts. so you can estimate that speed was tripled. In addition in 1840 (2 months) the Suez was not open, so speed of transition is not a factor. You probably are faster shipping an existing regiment around the globe than raising and basic training a fresh one.

 

[RodentRevolution]

This article gives a 2 month journey for 1840. In 1840 you get paddlewheelers - for example SS Great Wester had a speed around 8-9 kts.

In 1870 RMS Oceanic had a speed of 14,5 kts and the "last" paddlewheeler SS Mona (1889) reached 18 kts. For comparison the 1887 Prince of Wales - a screw driven steamer reached a speed of 24 kts. so you can estimate that speed was tripled. In addition in 1840 (2 months) the Suez was not open, so speed of transition is not a factor. You probably are faster shipping an existing regiment around the globe than raising and basic training a fresh one.

Fair point but I don't think JoeyB was asserting that time scale as definitive.

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/world/world.html

In 1889 Nellie Bly set off to attempt a Jules Verne style around the world trip. Starting from New York 14th November she arrived in Colombo, Ceylon by 10th December indeed she was back in New York just seventy five days after setting out.

 

[Corder]

I love the shooting war that develops every time one of these US v UK questions gets posted between the "America F@ck Yeah!" and the 'Empire Strikes Back" posters.

First sensible point: does the war just blow up or do hostilities build over time. This is critical to the UK's ability to build up resources in Canada (if it chooses to - the attitude for a long time in the UK was that they would loose Canada but win the war at sea).

Second sensible point: the economic consequences are potentially catasprophic for both sides.

Final point: during the Boer War everyone (with the minor exception of Austria Hungary) was shitty to the UK (often with good reason). Who has the sympathy in this war? Also does the Anglo-Japanese treaties mean Japan in definitely in this fight (I can remember the timing or the terms).

 

[TFSmith121]

Well said .... One may also wish to consider the realities

I love the shooting war that develops every time one of these US v UK questions gets posted between the "America F@ck Yeah!" and the 'Empire Strikes Back" posters.

First sensible point: does the war just blow up or do hostilities build over time. This is critical to the UK's ability to build up resources in Canada (if it chooses to - the attitude for a long time in the UK was that they would loose Canada but win the war at sea).

Second sensible point: the economic consequences are potentially catastrophic for both sides.

Final point: during the Boer War everyone (with the minor exception of Austria Hungary) was shitty to the UK (often with good reason). Who has the sympathy in this war? Also does the Anglo-Japanese treaties mean Japan in definitely in this fight (I can remember the timing or the terms).

Well said; one may also wish to consider the realities of the British Army's record in South Africa in 1898-1900 against a Western but non-industrial enemy...and one reliant entirely on a volunteer army without any significant professional officer corps, or any experience mobilizing and sustaining large (500,000+) forces in the field for years at a time.

But other than that, yeah, it will be turtles all the way down...and over Venezuela's border with British Guiana?

Yeah, it's the guns of August two decades early...

Best,

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

The alliance was effective from 1902, but it developed since 1895.

The original terms were that if one partner was at war with" more than one enemy" the other would support him. It was also regulating only conflicts China (JP+UK) and Korea (Japan only).

in 1905 the treaty was expanded to South Asia (British India) and the support would now be in case of war with one enemy (in the territory mentioned).

A war between the US and UK would NOT be covered by the alliance.

I think Japan would act to its own benefit and maybe "invoke" the treaty to act agaisnt US interests in China...

 

[Corder]

Well said; one may also wish to consider the realities of the British Army's record in South Africa in 1898-1900 against a Western but non-industrial enemy...and one reliant entirely on a volunteer army without any significant professional officer corps, or any experience mobilizing and sustaining large (500,000+) forces in the field for years at a time.

But other than that, yeah, it will be turtles all the way down...and over Venezuela's border with British Guiana?

Yeah, it's the guns of August two decades early...

Best,

Actually I think that was a very specific clash of British Western tactics with a well armed, highly skilled guerilla force. I suspect the US will generously meet any British armies 'like proper Christians' in the open field.

Actually the Boer model is really the one any Canadian militia should adopt against the US. They will still loose but I'd like to see (in a manner of speaking) the American appetite for a Vietnam 70s early. No pitched battles to win or loose just casualties and the agonies of a prolonged blockade.

 

[LordKalvert]

The Regular US Army was less than thirty thousand strong which is far too small to form the effective core of a "huge army". Even raising a force of two hundred thousand to fight the Spanish-American War badly over-stretched the available pool of trained officers and NCO's.

For that matter a dire shortage of modern weaponry meant that some troops fighting in Cuba were still forced to carry obsolescent single-shot rifles and ancient Gatling Guns were brought back into service because the US was critically lacking in machine-guns.



The climate and terrain in South Africa worked badly against the British Army in a way a defensive war in Canada would not. The Boers were generally better shots than the British troops and the Mauser Rifles they used gave them greater effective range than the Lee-Metford/Lee-Enfield. Moreover the Boers had better artillery pieces which also out-ranged the guns of the Royal Artillery.

Poorly trained and badly equipped US Soldiers attacking entrenched British troops fighting a defensive war in Canada are going to be slaughtered because they don't enjoy the tactical advantages in equipment and terrain that the Boers did.

If you don't have massive artillery superiority you simply cannot assault an entrenched position in this period which is protected by Maxim Guns and Lee-Enfields. Look at the trouble the US Army had with the Spanish in Cuba and imagine the latter with more discipline, more machine-guns, more artillery support and infantry rifles that fired twice as many shots per minute.

Of course the British have a massive army that they can move at a moments notice. (Sarcasm) Seriously, the British have no army available to send to the Americas without seriously jeopardizing their control over their colonies

Nor are they really particularly well equipped to fight anything other than a rag tag colonial war

As for the Americans, of course they don't have a large standing army. They have no need but can raise an army pretty darn quick especially considering that the State militias rather than the Federal Army is the backbone of its structure at the time.

Arming it isn't going to be hard and Canada is four thousand miles long and 50 miles deep (if you go by where the people live) so its not going to be defended but cut up into a bunch of isolated cities starving to death because the railroads are cut

 

[Hotpoint]

Of course the British have a massive army that they can move at a moments notice. (Sarcasm)

I would have thought the fifty thousand men they deployed from the UK to South Africa in a matter of weeks at the start of the Boer War would count? I mean that's nearly twice the size of the US Army in the period we're talking about.

For that matter the British Army ended up deploying over a third of a million regulars to South Africa.

Seriously, the British have no army available to send to the Americas without seriously jeopardizing their control over their colonies

Other than the army they did send to South Africa you mean?

Nor are they really particularly well equipped to fight anything other than a rag tag colonial war

They're better equipped in rifles, machine-guns and artillery than the US Army.

As for the Americans, of course they don't have a large standing army. They have no need but can raise an army pretty darn quick especially considering that the State militias rather than the Federal Army is the backbone of its structure at the time.

As I said myself they raised a couple of hundred thousand men to fight in the Spanish-American war but they certainly couldn't equip them properly.

If they still had to resort to issuing Springfield Model 1873's to the troops in 1898 how are they going to properly arm a presumably larger army four years earlier?

Arming it isn't going to be hard

It was three years later so why isn't it in 1895?

 

[Westphalian]

By 1895, the most influential voice in German foreign policy was Friedrich August von Holstein, a career diplomat. He was decidedly anti-Russian and pro-British, of course combined with being pro German importance.
That suggests that Germany will be allied with the UK or show UK-friendly neutrality.
But looking at the way German diplomats acted post-Bismarck, I can easily imagine them believing that a pro-UK and anti-US stance will mean that the Monroe doctrine can be copletely ignored and they can count on British support when trying to buy anyone's Caribbean colonies.

OTOH, German public opinion will probably prefer the US.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Assembly Required: US Army 1895: Danger Small Parts!

One of the problems is that a lot of people have heard that the US Army was authorised to raise eight (8) army corps each of three to four divisions of eleven thousand men. Therefore they automatically assume that the US did raise an army of three hundred thousand men.

Yet when you look at the Army Corps that did get raised you see they each mustered fewer men than their authorised strength and not all of those mustered were deployed.

First Army Corps for example did not arrive in Cuba until January of 1899 and was dissolved as a formal command shortly thereafter.

Second Army Corps sent one brigade to Cuba and one Brigade to Puerto Rico.

Third Army Corps only ever seems to have mustered some 8,400 officers and enlisted and then disbanded without seeing combat.

Fourth Army Corps did better mustering almost 21,000 but again never saw combat.

Fifth Army Corps seems to have been the key command under which most units actually sent out to fight in Cuba were organised in the field.

Sixth Army Corps never even seems to have gotten started

Seventh Army Corps was one of the larger army corps by muster rolls but was late into the action and seems to have performed only garrison duties in Cuba.

Eighth Army Corps administered the eleven thousand US troops initially sent to the Philippines and took Manila.

There is an interesting article on that last by a National Guard Officer and on the problems of mustering the Regular Army and State Volunteers into one force.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a566629.pdf

 

[robcraufurd]

There is an interesting article on that last by a National Guard Officer and on the problems of mustering the Regular Army and State Volunteers into one force.

To be fair to them, it was never going to be easy given how utterly neglected the National Guard was. As late as 1903, over 10% of its artillery is from the Civil War and over a third is muzzle-loading. And, again, even that isn't terrible given that the regular army doesn't replace the last of its civil war artillery until 1892.

I think the problem here is that people read one or more of the many, many books that have been written on the organisational shortcomings of the British army before the Boer War, and they assume because there isn't a comparable amount written on the US army that everything must be fine. Alternatively, they read one of the hagiographical works about the Spanish-American war and they assume that everything's absolutely peachy. Look at some of the primary sources- History of the Gatling Gun detachment at Santiago, for instance- and you get a much different picture.

The Volunteers presented many different types: some good, some otherwise. There should be no sympathy with that servile truckling to popular sentiment which speaks of our brave Volunteers indiscriminately, as if they were all good and all equally well instructed... it fosters the popular idea that all there is to do to make soldiers is to take so many laborers, clerks, hod-carriers, or farmers, and put on them uniforms, arm them with rifles, and call them "gallant Volunteers"! Out upon such an insane delusion!

it should be borne in mind that the corps which went to Santiago was virtually the Regular Army. Every regiment which went to Tampa went there ready for service. Its equipment was just as complete on the 26th of April as it was on the 6th of June. There should have been no problems to solve in regard to them—and yet there were many.

The United States has not had an army since 1866. There has been no such a thing as a brigade, a division, or a corps. There has been no opportunity to study and practice on a large scale, in a practical way, the problems of organization and supply. The Army has been administered as a unit, and the usual routine of business gradually became such that not a wheel could be turned nor a nail driven in any of the supply departments without express permission, previously obtained from the bureau chief in Washington. The same remarks apply equally to all the other staff departments.

In authorizing the formation of large volunteer armies, Congress did not authorize any change in the system of administration or make any emergency provision. As before, every detail of supply and transportation had to be authorized from the central head. The administrative bureaus were handicapped to some extent by incompetent and ignorant members.

Other than the army they did send to South Africa you mean?

Average strength of the British army at home (England, Scotland and Ireland) during 1895: 107,636
Class I Army Reserve as at 1 January 1896: 73,057.
Militia Reserve at respective dates of inspection for 1895: 31,498
In other words, the British army has almost four times as many regular soldiers in the UK as the United States has at all, and almost four times as many reserves as the US has regular soldiers. So I'm pretty sure we can all ignore this argument from now on.

Let's see, what else normally crops up in these threads. British officer corps is a bunch of amateurs? Perhaps, but the US ones are hardly going to be better on absolutely no experience. British senior generals are antiquated and incompetent? Cast your eyes over the best the US had to offer in 1898:

William Shafter (V Corps): 63
Joseph Wheeler (2IC): 62
Jacob Ford Kent (1st Division): 63
Henry Ware Lawton (2nd Division): 55
Samuel Sumner (Cavalry Division): 56
Wesley Merritt (VIII Corps): 62
Thomas Anderson (2nd Division [sic]): 62

Hordes of well-trained National Guard ready to leap into action? Let's go into this in detail, with appropriate comparisons to the UK.

New York (population 6,003,174 in 1890)

In 1894, the National Guard numbered 12,846 all arms, with the following artillery:
12 3.2in BL
1 3in ordnance rifle
7 12pdr smoothbore Napoleon
10 Gatling guns
8 mountain howitzers

There was also a single troop of cavalry. The infantry was armed with the .50 Remington rolling block rifle; only 88% of the personnel turned up to camp, the maximum number present at any one time being 6,405.

Old York (Yorkshire, population in 1891 3,218,882)

These statistics are just those who attended training, so deduct 12% from the New York ones or add 12% to these for comparison.

5,961 militia infantry
8,448 volunteer infantry
685 yeomanry
517 militia artillery
3,141 volunteer artillery
Total 18,752 auxiliary troops.

Troops present on parade per thousand population:
New York- 1.88
Old York- 5.83

 

[LordKalvert]

I would have thought the fifty thousand men they deployed from the UK to South Africa in a matter of weeks at the start of the Boer War would count? I mean that's nearly twice the size of the US Army in the period we're talking about.

For that matter the British Army ended up deploying over a third of a million regulars to South Africa.

And we all know what a wonderful record the British Army had against the Boers who had no means of resupply at all. Why the Dutch Republics practically bankrupted the British

And as already noted, American military organization isn't based on the field army of the federal army but the large state militias

Other than the army they did send to South Africa you mean?

Its war record speaks for itself.

They're better equipped in rifles, machine-guns and artillery than the US Army.

As I said myself they raised a couple of hundred thousand men to fight in the Spanish-American war but they certainly couldn't equip them properly.

If they still had to resort to issuing Springfield Model 1873's to the troops in 1898 how are they going to properly arm a presumably larger army four years earlier?

It was three years later so why isn't it in 1895?

The Americans didn't even get started in the Spanish War. Its not like they don't have a massive industrial complex in 1895. The Americans start off slow and then build this huge massive army that says bye-bye to British pretensions in the Western Hemisphere

Besides, as noted, the British are going to see their industry collapse when they are cut off from American raw materials and then there would be the pesky problem of the Americans turning all the British Merchant vessels in her ports into commerce raiders to totally disrupt British trade

 

[EnglishCanuck]

And we all know what a wonderful record the British Army had against the Boers who had no means of resupply at all. Why the Dutch Republics practically bankrupted the British

I'm truly interested in where you're getting these statistics. As far as bankrupting Britain that's an incredibly dubious claim.

Also, guerilla wars tend to be difficult, the Americans don't have a superb record of that either.

And as already noted, American military organization isn't based on the field army of the federal army but the large state militias

Which to be frank, is a terrible system to form an army from. Look at the bungled early performance of US troops in 1917, and in the Spanish American War they didn't exactly cover themselves in glory.

Its war record speaks for itself.

Six months of mediocrity on the British side (and Boer strategic blunders) followed by a series of crushing victories over the overwhelmed Boer forces then an highly destructive yet effective anti-guerrilla campaign that succeeded?

All in all that's not a bad record.

The Americans didn't even get started in the Spanish War. Its not like they don't have a massive industrial complex in 1895. The Americans start off slow and then build this huge massive army that says bye-bye to British pretensions in the Western Hemisphere

Besides, as noted, the British are going to see their industry collapse when they are cut off from American raw materials and then there would be the pesky problem of the Americans turning all the British Merchant vessels in her ports into commerce raiders to totally disrupt British trade

Again what's your justification for any of this? Britain didn't exactly rely exclusively on America for her commerce.

 

[iddt3]

Why is everyone here assuming that the conflict, if it occurs, is total war? Yes Canada is vulnerable, but so is US trade and coastal cities. It seems likely given the personalities involved and the sensibilities of the age, at least initially it's a limited war to just the Caribbean. It might escalate past that, but I don't think either side wants to start out full tilt.

 

[Alstein]

I love the shooting war that develops every time one of these US v UK questions gets posted between the "America F@ck Yeah!" and the 'Empire Strikes Back" posters.

First sensible point: does the war just blow up or do hostilities build over time. This is critical to the UK's ability to build up resources in Canada (if it chooses to - the attitude for a long time in the UK was that they would loose Canada but win the war at sea).

Second sensible point: the economic consequences are potentially catasprophic for both sides.

Final point: during the Boer War everyone (with the minor exception of Austria Hungary) was shitty to the UK (often with good reason). Who has the sympathy in this war? Also does the Anglo-Japanese treaties mean Japan in definitely in this fight (I can remember the timing or the terms).

This is why I think such a war, if it pops up, goes long. The economic consequences and jingoism on both sides would probably make a white peace impossible without outside intervention.

Early WWI is likely from such a war.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Why is everyone here assuming that the conflict, if it occurs, is total war? Yes Canada is vulnerable, but so is US trade and coastal cities. It seems likely given the personalities involved and the sensibilities of the age, at least initially it's a limited war to just the Caribbean. It might escalate past that, but I don't think either side wants to start out full tilt.

I don't think most people are. The general assumption is that since the US cannot directly confront the British in Venezuela they would choose to try and in effect hold Canada hostage.

The problem is that given the balance of power of the age the only way that the US can seriously expect to win such a conflict short of total war is with a zergling rush.

The short war issue is does the United States have the capacity to mount such a blitkrieg before the Empire as it were "Strikes Back"?

In a total war scenario to the last the US would likely eventually win but at a cost of blood and treasure to make victory pointless. Britain and the US would have had their own private great war and both would be horribly weaker than OTL throughout the 20th century.

The likelihood is still that the US would sue for peace before that due to the fact that Britain has not sufficient capacity nor desire to actually impinge US sovereignty.

However it is...just...if you stretch...just about conceivable that a US regime might try and prolong the war long past sensible on the grounds that British losses are not worth the point at hand so they "are bound to see reason" first.

However it is presumably the starting point to examine the short war issue first.

I personally think it is improbable that the US could score such a victory but I have to admit to certain biases