RodentRevolution
Banned
PS for anyone interested in weird little's chapters of British history there is this
Aims and Strategy of the National Service League
Aims and Strategy of the National Service League
Basically everything between Lake Superior and the BC coastal range can be taken by the USA with minimal resistance - its lots of emptiness with few terrain features other than the Rockies and low population. The coastal area of BC and Victoria benefits from RN support, and maybe the IJN helps however the only logistic support is whatever is stockpiled at bases there, and the ability to repair battle damage is minimal, whereas any US battle damage is readily repaired in Seattle or San Francisco and logistical support is functionally unlimited. even if the UK/Japan take Hawaii, that has a limited benefit for supporting BC by threatening raids against the West Coast. The Eastern Great Lakes shores will be heavily defended (think of facing fortifications between Detroit and Windsor) and Halifax will be a fortress. The problem will be the USA can attack from the west, from the south, and force the Canadians to defend the entire lake shore as the US will rapidly have naval dominance. Isolated pockets can hold out, but food, munitions, and manpower will all become issues fairly quickly it is questionable how much money the UK/Canada can or will invest in stockpiles.
IMHO if the USA is with the CP, then the Italians will stay neutral until they are pretty sure of the winning side, which puts an extra burden on the MN and RN in the Med. A CP USA won't be providing any loans to the Entente, nor will they be source for food or any manufactured goods let alone military equipment - all of that was the major US contribution 1914-17. Nobody else can make up this deficit, and even if you have an independent CSA like in the Turtledove series, they certainly can't fill in for what the USA produced/loaned, and trade from such a CSA to the Entente would be as difficult as British reinforcement of Canada. To the extent there are blockade runners or merchant submarines, some of the shortages in Germany can be alleviated.
One possibility for the USA throwing in with the CP, where the CSA does not exist, is a more CP leaning USA to begin with where the irritation at the type and scope of the British blockade is not acceptable and the USA sends an escorted convoy of humanitarian goods to Germany or even a neutral port for transshipment and the RN attempts to block the escorted convoy. Shots are fired, losses on both sides, and away we go...
This makes sense but IMHO if the UK believes the U.S. is a full partner with the CP then I believe keeping the U.S. busy in North America (and helping defend UK subjects in Canada) makes more sense than letting the U.S. take Canada more or less un opposed and subsequently fighting the U.S. in Europe or possibly the UK.The priority for the UK is to keep the CP/Germany from dominating the continent, preventing a single continental hegemon has been the keystone of British foreign policy for a long time. Losing Canada to the USA, while a negative, is not to be prevented at the cost of Germany winning on the continent. If the major deployment of British forces is to Canada, this means for sure Belgium is completely overrun and most likely much more of Northern France and potentially Paris is under direct attack or even siege. Even if Britain was to deploy most of its active duty land force to Canada, the way it was deployed to the continent OTL the USA will be able to make significant advances before they get in place as US forces are right there. It will be substantially more difficult to support a BEF force in Canada than on the continent, both because of distance and shipping requirements and the fact that USN and Kriegsmarine forces/U-boats will cause a certain level of loss in supply shipping. Preventing a German advance on the continent that knocks France out of the war straight away is much more important that fighting the USA somewhere in Canada.
On the naval side, yes the RN can make US trade difficult however the USN is going to be doing the same to British trade and ships raiding US trade can't be protecting British trade - and Britain is much more dependent on maritime trade for even basics like food. This is not a replay of the War of 1812 where the USN is tiny and the RN is larger than all other navies combined. Here the RN and MN have to contend with the USN, the Kriegsmarine/HSF, and the KuK Navy. The Ottomans are basically a local problem for the Entente, the Russian Navy is basically a minimal nuisance for the CP, and Italy is neutral. Japan can help some, but the IJN in 1914 is quite limited. On top of all that the RN has huge areas to protect and long trade routes to police, OTL a few merchant raiders were a headache and with the USN having more of those(on top of German ones) as well as real warships commerce raiding, it will be an issue.
This makes sense but IMHO if the UK believes the U.S. is a full partner with the CP then I believe keeping the U.S. busy in North America (and helping defend UK subjects in Canada) makes more sense than letting the U.S. take Canada more or less un opposed and subsequently fighting the U.S. in Europe or possibly the UK.
Trying to hold the naval bases in Canada will also help the RN interdict the commerce between the USA and the central powers.
If this was the case this would still somewhat align with my fight the U.S. in North America scheme and retain bases to help interdict commerce between the U.S. and the CP.Here’s the problem, their is no way the British can hold Canada. The American population is larger than Britain and Canada combined. And most of the British Army is in Europe. Also America is a huge Industrial power. Their is no way Britain can old Canada because America is bigger in terms of Industry and Manpower. Also the Canadian front would be to large and spread out for their to be trenches so the British can’t use trenches to hold back the Americans. The best case scenario for Britain would be to use their navy to hold onto Newfoundland and Vancouver Island.
Funny but there was a debate about introducing conscription which it had it gone the other way would likely have gone into effect in 1908. Here circumstances for the British are more threatening and thus the chances of adopting such a measure increase. If the British have more manpower in the 1914 campaign then indeed something like the very encirclement of their foremost armies the Germans feared OTL becomes a possibility. Without Germany in the war then matter are problematic for the US.
Yet while I am using one possible range of outcomes from a simple change resulting in your stipulations your stipulations that require no changes to the timeline despite a US that has experienced a far more brutal Civil War and then adopted a strongly anti-British line is fine?
Alien Space Bat intervention requires circumstances that are not available OTL in any way shape or form.
You may not like butterflies but once you introduce one change then even with a major extinction of the wee beasties it only takes just one.
A better answer would be to look at other ways an event such as the British introducing conscription might pan out as there are of course other interpretations.
Well, it's at the very least rather unrealistic to assume the British building a large land army and demonstrating both the ability and willingness to deploy it won't dramatically shift German calculus in terms of their initial war strategy. I doubt they'd be so cavilier an stepping outside the lines of tolerability by London (See; invading Belgium or other incursions into France in force) if the protests and diplomatic notes have the weight of hunderads of thousands of bayonets behind them, which means assuming the Western Front looks like otl (IE Mons) isent really fair.
But I am not the one arguing that change does not have consequences. My point is the idea the British might react to a greater level of international threat by introducing a conscript army is not ASB. That Germany would have likely decided against war in 1914 if there was a large British reserve army is I agree the most likely outcome of such a scenario.
Britain can man and sustain in peacetime either a large and effective navy or a large and effective army (designed to fight European peers, not chase recalcitrant Afghans and others unappreciative of being in the Empire). They can't do both, at least not in peacetime.
IMHO in this Notional Time line the UK plans would not have saving Canada as their main goal but keeping the U.S. tied down in North America, preventing easy comerce between the U.S. and the CP (ie. Helping maintain a blockade) and preventing large scale US troop deployments to Europe. IMHO all of this is far better use of British manpower than being over run on the continent by a large combined US / German army fighting in a battle that entente is almost certain to lose.All these mental hoops about how the Brits will willingly sacrifice the cornerstone of their European policy of the past 200 years to ride to the rescue of Canada.
Sorry, London is not going to trade Brussels and Paris for Toronto and Vancouver. Never gonna happen.
The USA has more factory might than all of Europe - Allied AND Central Powers - COMBINED. They can equip, train and deploy more soldiers than Canada has total residents.
This is not 1812, or 1848, or even 1880. There is a reason why, post-US Civil War, the number one goal of British North American policy was "keep the Americans on our side at all costs". Because the instant it becomes a shooting war, the Brits/Canadians have already lost. And that compounds for every passing decade.
With the Krauts at the door, if carving up Canada is enough to get the Americans out of the war, sorry Nooks, the Brits will stab them in the back and carve Canada up like a Christmas goose.
Which is why if you are having a shooting war, sorry, America wins. Only question is how much of Canada do they want - and mind you, the starting point is probably "everything west of Sault Ste. Marie".
All these desperate hail mary passes - Japan will go to war with the most powerful naval power in the Pacific for the sake of Canada, Britain will sacrifice Europe and Empire to save us, Britain will force conscription against the Yanks when they never did against the Germans, la de freaking da.
The only way Canada wins this game is to not play. The second the die is cast, they have already lost.
Why cannot Britain do both? Yes it will cost a bit and have a penalty that will bite a few decades down the line but I fail to see why they cannot do both. In fact the main loser from the US in the CP is always the US because Germany was her main economic rival but investment in an expanded British arms industry might well draw capital that went OTL into the US economy instead into the British economy. So you could see a temporary apparent British economic boost at the price of slower US economic and industrial growth.
No you wouldn’t. The US during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century had huge tariffs and little foreign investment. Less trade with Britain would have little impact on the US economy and can be compensated by more trade with Germany and Austria. Also less trade between Britain and America would also hurt Britain too.
Again less trade with Britain would have little impact on the US economy as it was for the most part dependent on internal growth. And most US trade was selling grain to Continental Europe during this time, not Britain. It’s hard to see a scenario where less (not an end to) Anglo-American trade would cause the US economy to lose 1% GDP growth each year.