Trent Affair Goes Hot

[Sarthak]

General surveys of military and economics do not refute the reality that British aid couldn't substitute for actual soldiers.

If Britain's dominance was so strong then how come they couldn't remove Napoleon in 1805?

Seriously, do you not understand the difference between the economy and the military? Cause your words are seriously not exemplifying this. The British were crushed militarily by the French on land multiple times before the Peninsular War, however Economically outperformed and 'crushed' the French. Perhaps reading the principles of Defense Economics that was linked would be more more fruitful instead of making snarky remarks.

In Layman terms, The Economy is independent of the military, and regards the military as a sector of the economy like the industry sector, manufacturing sector, and service sector. However the Military is dependent on the economy, as the economy dictates how powerful a force the military will be able to perform in the field. Conversely, whilst the Military is dependent on the economy and the economy independent of the military, how the military situation is on the ground, affects how the economy should be driven forward, or diverted towards.

The British economy started to outperform the French after the 1800 after Pitt focused more money on the output sector of Great Britain. Until 1808, Great Britain didn't have any serious land engagement with France other than raids against the Batavian Republic and later French Holland.

Without Russian economic and military mobilisation there wouldn't even have been a War of the Sixth Coalition.

I pinged you to check your 2/5 and 1/3 claim which is absent here as it was absent from your previous citation.


All the money in the world wouldn't work without Austria and Russia willing to pay the blood price.

Oh? Show me proof then, how the Russian supply shortage would have made them able to push into Central and Western Europe without the British goods, because British subsidies and weapons enabled them to invade Napoleonic Central Europe according to almost every historian out there. I also basically gave you the entirety of proof needed when Sweden's, Portugal's, Spain's entire army was virtually equipped with only British weapons, and around 1/2 to 2/3 of the weapons used in the War of the 6th Coalition by the Coalition were British made weapons.

And yet they did. I guess around 600,000 Russians, 376,000 Austrians, 280,000 Prussians died for nothing then, in your view; discounting the civilian deaths.

 

[Belisarius II]

Uh what? It was only due to British Subsidies that the other great powers were able to finance their attacks and wars against Napoleon. Partially this was aided by the breakage of the continental system with Russia, but all in all, without Britain's subsidies, the troops under command of the Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and to many extents the Swedes and Portuguese would have been firing with empty air.

War Loans versus Subsidies: A Note on Great Britain's Advances to Her Continental Allies during the Napoleonic Wars on JSTOR

C. P. H., War Loans versus Subsidies: A Note on Great Britain's Advances to Her Continental Allies during the Napoleonic Wars, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jul., 1931), pp. 683-685

www.jstor.org

Around a third of Russia's troops, 2/5 of Austria and Prussia's troops were subsidized by Great Britain. Yeah so if that isn't economically crushing, I don't know what is.....

And this strategy only took 23 years. Very quick results. Rule Britannia.

 

[Bullmoose713]

Wouldn't it be a three front war? The Confederates in the South, French in Mexico, and British in Canada?

 

[Bullmoose713]

While the Russians wouldn't lift a finger over such a distant conflict, one thing they probably would do would be to move on the Khanate of Kokand a few years earlier than they did IOTL, given the high likelihood of the South's cotton trade falling under British influence.

Didn't the Russians offer assistance in OTL?

 

[Sarthak]

Wouldn't it be a three front war? The Confederates in the South, French in Mexico, and British in Canada?

One of Juarez's main advantages was that he could retreat his troops into America, and make the French stop at the border unwilling to cross the border into America without British intervention. If Britain intervenes, France is going to capitalize huge time by negating this major advantage Juarez held.

 

[Sarthak]

Didn't the Russians offer assistance in OTL?

In 1863, long after the Trent Affair. During the Trent Affair even Tsar Alexander II stated that America had broken international convention.

 

[Sarthak]

And this strategy only took 23 years. Very quick results. Rule Britannia.

Hm, so Britain's promises of 4 million pounds in the War of the Fourth Coalition, and 6 million pounds in the War of the Fifth Coalition which supplied the Austrians and Prussians had absolutely nothing to do with their decision to go to war and distract Napoleon from bringing all his troops into Iberia was a bad decision? Or that British subsidies made French troops die in Germany, each French troops dead = profit for Britain. I don't think the sheer scale of the blockade of Europe is going through with some people. Blockading an entire continent with your navy is already impressive enough, but keeping your own economy afloat, and then outperforming your said opponents in 5 years?

Yes, blockading an entire continent especially in early 19th century technology has been sooooooo easy. (sarcasm).

Get real. If you have no counter, then don't speak. Asserting your position is a debate is fine, and acceptable to all. But making useless snarky comments in the middle of the debate with no meaning is something we call 'arguing in bad faith'. And yes Britannia did rule, especially when it was blockading an entire continent, and the richest continent during that era as well.

 

[von Adler]

Mobilizing all available resources of the nation, is the US capable of producing, say, 1,000,000 Springfield Model 1861s (the total it produced historically throughout the whole war) between 1861-1863 without imported materials? Plus the powder and lead to feed them? I think that determines whether the US is able to sustain the war effort. Based on Confederate efforts, I think the answer is yes. I'm often wrong, so tell me why.

The US is capable of doing it, but not 1861-1863. Gearing up for war production takes time and finding and replacing imported materials with domestic ones takes time. As an example, it took more than 3 years before the massive niter beds the CS built started producing nitrates for gunpowder. It takes time constructing them and loading them, then it takes roughly 2 years before the urine and other ammonia-rich materials have been turned enough to oxidise to nitrates that can be extracted and turned to gunpowder.

Likewise, it takes time to exploit lead and build mining infrastructure for shot. And with the inferior quality of gun-metal the US produced, barrelsmiths are going to be making barrels that does not pass inspection quite a bit, and considering this was a bottleneck, it will reduce production. As I said before, it took Springfield and its subcontractors 4 years to build up to a production of 250 000 rifles per year, and that was with British high-quality gunmetal available. Even with a total focus on producing weapons and gunpowder, it will take years before the US has built up production to the historical levels.

The US can still fight, but it will not be able to equip as many troops, and most of them will be carrying older smoothbore muskets and ammunition will be much scarcer due to the lack of gunpowder.

 

[Belisarius II]

Seriously, do you not understand the difference between the economy and the military? Cause your words are seriously not exemplifying this. The British were crushed militarily by the French on land multiple times before the Peninsular War, however Economically outperformed and 'crushed' the French. Perhaps reading the principles of Defense Economics that was linked would be more more fruitful instead of making snarky remarks.

In Layman terms, The Economy is independent of the military, and regards the military as a sector of the economy like the industry sector, manufacturing sector, and service sector. However the Military is dependent on the economy, as the economy dictates how powerful a force the military will be able to perform in the field. Conversely, whilst the Military is dependent on the economy and the economy independent of the military, how the military situation is on the ground, affects how the economy should be driven forward, or diverted towards.

The British economy started to outperform the French after the 1800 after Pitt focused more money on the output sector of Great Britain. Until 1808, Great Britain didn't have any serious land engagement with France other than raids against the Batavian Republic and later French Holland.


Oh? Show me proof then, how the Russian supply shortage would have made them able to push into Central and Western Europe without the British goods, because British subsidies and weapons enabled them to invade Napoleonic Central Europe according to almost every historian out there. I also basically gave you the entirety of proof needed when Sweden's, Portugal's, Spain's entire army was virtually equipped with only British weapons, and around 1/2 to 2/3 of the weapons used in the War of the 6th Coalition by the Coalition were British made weapons.

And yet they did. I guess around 600,000 Russians, 376,000 Austrians, 280,000 Prussians died for nothing then, in your view; discounting the civilian deaths.

Condescending as usual. Yes people understand the difference between economic, and military power. It would be British presumption to think the success of Wellingtons Arms in the Peninsular would've been possible without the heroic, and almost unprecedented résistance of the Spanish civilian population. The resilience of the Spanish armies was amazing. After being routed, and dispersed multiple times, they reconstituted themselves, and fought on, year after year till their country was free.

Your assertion that the most of the weapons used by the 6th Coalition against France were British is absurd on the face of it. Do you really think that in January 1813 the British suddenly starting shipped into Europe 500,000 muskets, thousands of tons of powder, 2,000 cannon, and all the other equipment for the nearly 1,000,000 men who fought in the 6th Coalition? The subsidies the British paid to their allies over those 23 years of war were mostly used to mobilize their own resources, not buy British weapons. Your talking like a British Rooster boasting his crowing made the Sun come up.

The last sentence of you post is incoherent. What does it even mean, they died for nothing? What was your point.

 

[Belisarius II]

Hm, so Britain's promises of 4 million pounds in the War of the Fourth Coalition, and 6 million pounds in the War of the Fifth Coalition which supplied the Austrians and Prussians had absolutely nothing to do with their decision to go to war and distract Napoleon from bringing all his troops into Iberia was a bad decision? Or that British subsidies made French troops die in Germany, each French troops dead = profit for Britain. I don't think the sheer scale of the blockade of Europe is going through with some people. Blockading an entire continent with your navy is already impressive enough, but keeping your own economy afloat, and then outperforming your said opponents in 5 years?

Yes, blockading an entire continent especially in early 19th century technology has been sooooooo easy. (sarcasm).

Get real. If you have no counter, then don't speak. Asserting your position is a debate is fine, and acceptable to all. But making useless snarky comments in the middle of the debate with no meaning is something we call 'arguing in bad faith'. And yes Britannia did rule, especially when it was blockading an entire continent, and the richest continent during that era as well.

Anyone who has read my posts on relevant threads knows I have great admiration for the RN, but your comments lack perspective. You have a tendency to overstate your case, and make wild assertions. You talk about things in absolute terms, of things being all one way, or the other. Your arguments in this thread for example are technical, IE that because of xyz the Union war effort would just collapse, and nothing could be improvised, or alternatives found. Things are not usually so black & white, there are more possibilities.

 

[NolanFoster]

The Confederate war machine floated because of blockade running of the British and French which supplied around half of their weapons, lead and gunpowder. Even then, the Confederates had massive supply issues and had a massive scarcity of demand. Comparing with the Confederates is a very bad comparison.

Nonetheless, they couldn't, as @Northstar and @cerebropetrologist and to some extent @von Adler gave proof of. They knew the location of the resources, but found it exceedingly hard to be extract; and if the Brits enter the war, then the financial situation the Union would face would be at the least 20% more constraining, which makes it even more hard to properly mobilize that amount of logistics.

I'm very aware of the Confederate situation. Yet despite such pressing shortages they still fought competently until 1865. One can just imagine the double blind conversations about no intervention in a timeline where the British did intervene and the South won independence thanks to that fact. The math just doesn't hold up. The CSA falls by the end of 1862, its troops literally barefoot, and having nothing left to shoot.

Indeed, the Confederate situation was nothing like the US one. The Confederacy had little industry and production, fewer skilled workers, scientists, and engineers, and few resources. But it still organized a war machine that with the aid of blockade running, like you said, was able to hold out - at least staying in the field - against a vastly superior state for years. It accomplished this even with the loss of much of its most potentially productive territory and the country being cut in half early in the war, not to mention the constant new disruptions created by the union advance. In addition, every effort it undertook was forced to deal with the reality of southern infrastructure - woefully inadequate in mileage and in rolling stock, and with multiple different gauges to plan around.

None of this applies to the US. It was one of the most heavily industrialized and economically dynamic countries on the planet. As an example, over 20 firms were contracted to produce the Model 1861 rifle, and that didn't even come close to exhausting the potential pool of arms producers. The US is not an undeveloped state or a minor power. It is a country with massive untapped inputs waiting for necessity to make them come into play to buy that extra month of staying in the fight. The math didn't work for Germany in the first world war either, as early as 1915. But cannibalizing the rest of the economy and civilian standards of living for the war effort will get you a lot of mileage. Obviously, using Confederate and German measures will invite Confederate and German problems, but that's a different conversation. Johnny Reb did it. Fritz did it, then went back for a second serving in two decades. Billy Yank will do it for Union and Republic for a few years. Because the entire political calculus of the war within the US has changed with British hostility.

To bring the US to heel, Britain has to project power into the heart of North America. It has to cut the US in half. It has to inflict on the US and its people something like what the US did on the Confederacy. Otherwise, it has to defeat them in a defensive war and let internal political disintegration take its course over years. And risk its own limitations coming out to undermine itself. Yes, material reality in the form of economics will catch up with you in the long term if you can't make your enemies cave. The central and axis powers learned that lesson. But unless and until your use of superior economic power, or manpower, or firepower, or whatever metric you are strong in actually moves the ouija board of enemy psychology of what's desirable, possible, likely, and fait accompli in your favor politically, a la Clausewitz, you haven't won the war, and you risk finding yourself on the wrong side of that spinning dancer illusion. The US learned that lesson in Vietnam.

It will be exceedingly difficult for Britain to impose its will on the United States in the 1860s, nitrate shortage or no. And look for emancipation being specifically tailored and timed to crack the British home front.

 

[Sarthak]

Condescending as usual. Yes people understand the difference between economic, and military power. It would be British presumption to think the success of Wellingtons Arms in the Peninsular would've been possible without the heroic, and almost unprecedented résistance of the Spanish civilian population. The resilience of the Spanish armies was amazing. After being routed, and dispersed multiple times, they reconstituted themselves, and fought on, year after year till their country was free.

Your assertion that the most of the weapons used by the 6th Coalition against France were British is absurd on the face of it. Do you really think that in January 1813 the British suddenly starting shipped into Europe 500,000 muskets, thousands of tons of powder, 2,000 cannon, and all the other equipment for the nearly 1,000,000 men who fought in the 6th Coalition? The subsidies the British paid to their allies over those 23 years of war were mostly used to mobilize their own resources, not buy British weapons. Your talking like a British Rooster boasting his crowing made the Sun come up.

The last sentence of you post is incoherent. What does it even mean, they died for nothing? What was your point.

I apologize if I came along as condescending. I assure you that was not my intention.

Nevertheless, back to the point. Indeed, without the Spanish Guerillas, it would have made the Peninsular War at least 1/3 to 50% harder for Wellington to conduct, as that would remove his behind the line informants and the distractions that the French had to deal with. No one has doubted that, nor has anyone said that in this thread at least. Nevertheless, Britain did provide the guerillas with around half of their weapons and logistics, without which, the Spanish guerilla campaign would have been severely curtailed, as most of the Spanish stores had been looted by the Grand Armee. A lot of re-organization of the guerilla did happen under British watch, as around 6 to 8 of the 22 guerilla bands were reorganized by the British troops and officers.

My assertion is backed up by sources. I also stated that a plurality of the Coalition equipment was British. The Swedish Army was utilizing almost only British weapons, and the Austrians were half-equipped with British ones. The Swedish Army and the Russians were running on British supplied logistics as well. Can you tell me how the Coalition would have the Battle of Leipzig without 400,000 muskets, and how Schwarzenburg would have been able to equip his men when crossing the Rhine without said muskets? How would Blucher be able to fight properly without a fourth of this weapons? Without the millions of cartridges, and without the gunpowder, which was basically fueling the Coalition along?

Anyone who has read my posts on relevant threads knows I have great admiration for the RN, but your comments lack perspective. You have a tendency to overstate your case, and make wild assertions. You talk about things in absolute terms, of things being all one way, or the other. Your arguments in this thread for example are technical, IE that because of xyz the Union war effort would just collapse, and nothing could be improvised, or alternatives found. Things are not usually so black & white, there are more possibilities.

Truly? Even when faced with facts, you continue to assert that America would have been able to counter the Royal Navy during the 19th Century. And how ironic that when i refuted your hyperbole in an earlier thread, you lashed out at me, and suddenly I cannot conduct a hyperbole as well?

And no. No one stated that the Union War Effort would collapse immediately. They did after all already have 350,000 to 400,000 rifles at hand during the Trent Affair. However Improvisation and Adaptations also need avenues of doing so. Where are said avenues? Like already stated hundred times by now, the deposits of nitrates and leads were not accessible nor usable until long into the 19th century, and imports would have been shut down to the point, that virtually 25% of the Union War Effort would be lost. Of course, internal manufacturing capability of the Union was large for it's size and scale, and that would be able to sustain a war effort for a good amount of time, but that too on the defensive, when you realize that the extension of the Union manufacturing capability came largely from Britain and France. The Union would have to sit on the Defensive, and if the Union went on the offensive with the pre-existing logistical problems that they already had, then multiplied by the lack of imports, and went on said offensive, then you're only opening the Union to a counter-offensive from the other side. Indeed, the union would improvise and adapt, in such a scenario, there is nothing else you can do, and certainly the war would not be easy for any side, however the economic realities and military realities of the scenario are too large to ignore. For example, 70,000 Confederates garrisoned the coasts due to the Union Blockade, that already frees up an army's worth of confederate troops. The weaponry and gunpowder shortage faced by the Confederates would disappear when being able to trade with Britain and Europe easily. That already changes the cards a lot in favor of the Confederates. And then going into weapons, 726,000 Union rifles were British imported from 1861-64. Without the nitrate and lead imports, internal production would be able to replace a good amount of the 726,000 rifles, but then again, there were also around 100,000 to 200,000 Austrian rifles. How would the Union be able to replace all that when being blockaded, and having to face a two front war?

I'm very aware of the Confederate situation. Yet despite such pressing shortages they still fought competently until 1865. One can just imagine the double blind conversations about no intervention in a timeline where the British did intervene and the South won independence thanks to that fact. The math just doesn't hold up. The CSA falls by the end of 1862, its troops literally barefoot, and having nothing left to shoot.

Indeed, the Confederate situation was nothing like the US one. The Confederacy had little industry and production, fewer skilled workers, scientists, and engineers, and few resources. But it still organized a war machine that with the aid of blockade running, like you said, was able to hold out - at least staying in the field - against a vastly superior state for years. It accomplished this even with the loss of much of its most potentially productive territory and the country being cut in half early in the war, not to mention the constant new disruptions created by the union advance. In addition, every effort it undertook was forced to deal with the reality of southern infrastructure - woefully inadequate in mileage and in rolling stock, and with multiple different gauges to plan around.

None of this applies to the US. It was one of the most heavily industrialized and economically dynamic countries on the planet. As an example, over 20 firms were contracted to produce the Model 1861 rifle, and that didn't even come close to exhausting the potential pool of arms producers. The US is not an undeveloped state or a minor power. It is a country with massive untapped inputs waiting for necessity to make them come into play to buy that extra month of staying in the fight. The math didn't work for Germany in the first world war either, as early as 1915. But cannibalizing the rest of the economy and civilian standards of living for the war effort will get you a lot of mileage. Obviously, using Confederate and German measures will invite Confederate and German problems, but that's a different conversation. Johnny Reb did it. Fritz did it, then went back for a second serving in two decades. Billy Yank will do it for Union and Republic for a few years. Because the entire political calculus of the war within the US has changed with British hostility.

To bring the US to heel, Britain has to project power into the heart of North America. It has to cut the US in half. It has to inflict on the US and its people something like what the US did on the Confederacy. Otherwise, it has to defeat them in a defensive war and let internal political disintegration take its course over years. And risk its own limitations coming out to undermine itself. Yes, material reality in the form of economics will catch up with you in the long term if you can't make your enemies cave. The central and axis powers learned that lesson. But unless and until your use of superior economic power, or manpower, or firepower, or whatever metric you are strong in actually moves the ouija board of enemy psychology of what's desirable, possible, likely, and fait accompli in your favor politically, a la Clausewitz, you haven't won the war, and you risk finding yourself on the wrong side of that spinning dancer illusion. The US learned that lesson in Vietnam.

It will be exceedingly difficult for Britain to impose its will on the United States in the 1860s, nitrate shortage or no. And look for emancipation being specifically tailored and timed to crack the British home front.

Erm I feel you are being kind to the CSA. their performance in 1865 was anything but competent. Nonetheless, I get the basic point you are stating. And on many accounts I agree as well. Which is why, like I repeated many times, a realistic Trent War would really be nothing more than a short blockade and a border war for some months that would simply extend the the ACW for a bit.

Tiny nitpick; When the Trent Affair looked like it would become a war, Emancipation wasn't on the table for discussion in proper terms. America changing that fact amidst the war against Britain would not do much.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

The math didn't work for Germany in the first world war either, as early as 1915. But cannibalizing the rest of the economy and civilian standards of living for the war effort will get you a lot of mileage.

Germany got along for a few years, but things were already falling apart by 1918. Even without the Allied armies advancing, it's doubtful Germany could have sustained its war effort past 1919.

And look for emancipation being specifically tailored and timed to crack the British home front.

Why would the British care? They would be fighting over America's disregard for international law, not slavery. If Lincoln did try something like this, I expect British public opinion would just see it as a cynical propaganda move.

 

[The Professor]

Anyone who has read my posts on relevant threads knows I have great admiration for the RN, but your comments lack perspective. You have a tendency to overstate your case, and make wild assertions. You talk about things in absolute terms, of things being all one way, or the other. Your arguments in this thread for example are technical, IE that because of xyz the Union war effort would just collapse, and nothing could be improvised, or alternatives found. Things are not usually so black & white, there are more possibilities.

While you might be able to make an argument about over statement in some parts I don't think you can about wild assertions. Especially as they've shown how and why the U.S. was reliant on the U.K. at this time and that this is why the U.S. would lose a Trent War.
If you want to claim that "U.S. would lose a Trent War" is a wild assertion you need to show why this is the case.

 

[Northstar]

Britain did not "crush Napoleon economically". In fact Britain couldn't hope to remove Napoleon without several other great powers.

It's rather disingenuous to quote the above in a way that makes it look like those are my words. That is a professional published historian's claim, the source of which I included in my post. Please do not remove important context when quoting my posts.

Northstar

 

[Belisarius II]

Wouldn't it be a three front war? The Confederates in the South, French in Mexico, and British in Canada?

The United States wasn't fighting in Mexico.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

Very good.
Now compare to the 1860s Armstrong Breechloaders.

I thought you said you wanted to compare. Absolute numbers don't mean anything when the British - despite it being peacetime - produced so many more artillery pieces than the United States.

Manufactured to 31 March 1863:
202 9pdr
717 12pdr
349 20pdr
895 40pdr
1,029 110pdr

So let's now look at the number of damaged guns which you provided, but instead do so as a proportion of the total made to that point (note - not the total number of guns made over its life):
9pdr: 1 damaged (0.5%)
12pdr: 13 damaged (1.8%)
20pdr: 1 damaged (0.3%)
40pdr: 9 damaged (1.0%)
110pdr: 9 damaged (0.9%)

So the 12pdr, the Armstrong gun most likely to be damaged (and by 'damaged' we include obvious user error like '22 ins. of muzzle blown off by carelessness in leaving in drill-shot'), is still less likely to be damaged than the 15in Dalhgren is to burst (2 of 100; 2%). And that's despite the Armstrong gun being a far more sophisticated design which requires different metal coils to be shrunk onto a core AND being rifled, which only goes to reinforces the point @von Adler was making about the Union's lack of 'industrial know-how in 1861'.

Mobilizing all available resources of the nation, is the US capable of producing, say, 1,000,000 Springfield Model 1861s (the total it produced historically throughout the whole war) between 1861-1863

If the US could have produced a million M1861s between 1861 and 1863, why didn't it? Was a third of the country breaking off, and Confederate troops launching repeated invasions of the North, somehow not important enough to merit trying?

Based on Confederate efforts, I think the answer is yes.

The Confederates manufactured 40,000 rifles by July 1863, and many of those were using skelps of British iron captured at Harpers Ferry. If you want to cut total US production in the same period to about that level, feel free: the evidence doesn't support much else.

Indeed, the Confederate situation was nothing like the US one. The Confederacy had little industry and production, fewer skilled workers, scientists, and engineers, and few resources. But it still organized a war machine that with the aid of blockade running, like you said, was able to hold out - at least staying in the field - against a vastly superior state for years.

The Confederacy bought guns from the British (industrial powerhouse of the world) and shipped them in British vessels (largest merchant marine in the world). Just the British not selling materials of war to the Union is going to cause them all sorts of problems that the Confederacy didn't have. Then you add in the fact that the Royal Navy is both the largest navy in the world and has extensive experience in blockading operations, which will make the blockade of the Union at the start of the war closer to what we see in the South in 1863 and after.

over 20 firms were contracted to produce the Model 1861 rifle, and that didn't even come close to exhausting the potential pool of arms producers.

No, they picked the firms most likely to deliver - and even with access to the British market, they couldn't deliver guns:

domestic industry had provided the Union fewer than 15,000 modern military rifles by mid-1862... This left Washburn, of Worcester, Massachusetts, and Morris, Tasker and Company of Philadelphia as the only potential sources of barrels in a Trent War scenario.

Unfortunately, neither had managed to produce a reliable barrel by mid-1862. John B Anthony ‘found Washburn’s iron bad; nearly every barrel being imperfect’.[31] Sarson and Roberts were ‘losing 50 per cent on our own inspection’ of Morris’s barrels, while Lamson, Goodnow and Yale ‘learned that fifty per cent. of these [Washburn’s barrels] do not turn out well’.[32] Others were more circumspect about the average quality, but it was clear that there was no reliable domestic source of rifle barrels.[33] As a result, by mid-1862, many of the manufacturers were turning to the very British market that a Trent War would have closed off.

It was perhaps not a coincidence that the only company to have started making deliveries, Colt, was the one which had gone to Britain from the start.[34]… Other companies were increasingly coming to realise that the only source of barrels was Britain. John B. Anthony suspended its contact with Washburn when they managed to acquire 200 tons of English Marshall iron, hoping he could improve his iron in the meantime.[37] Sarson and Roberts, meanwhile, abandoned Morris, Tasker and Co’s poor-quality Pennsylvania iron and ordered 1,000 English barrels of Marshall iron instead.[38] They were unsure whether these would be available, however, and as the weapons which they started delivering on 4 November 1862 were second- to fourth-rate weapons using parts provided by the government we can conclude that this attempt was probably unsuccessful.[39] Guns made with steel generally relied on English materials; only a few used steel for the barrels, but many used steel for other parts of the weapon.[40] Separation from the British market, therefore, would have resulted in even lower domestic production.

Indeed, the inability of American domestic industry to provide barrels was already causing delays. John Rice reported in April that ‘the barrel work is so much behind that he cannot promise it before July… the present delay is owning to the non-success of the barrel maker in making barrels of a suitable quality by the methods he has been pursuing.’[41] F.L. Bodine complained that ‘Mr Mason, of Taunton, Massachusetts, furnishes my barrels, and he is responsible for their delivery in time to make good my order. He should have delivered 2,000 about a month since, but he has not yet done so’.[42]

Ordering 854,000 weapons in 1861 resulted in the delivery of fewer than 15,000 weapons by mid-1862. As such, it seems unlikely that dramatically increasing the number of barrels which domestic industry was expected to provide would magically inspire the creation of a working formula or enable American barrel-makers to produce a reliable product. Without Britain, therefore, domestic production for both government and private firms could be more or less written off.

The belief that a private sector that was unable to deliver guns historically will magically do so when the British declare war and cut off vital supplies is probably the most egregious example of American technological exceptionalism we see in this particular conversation.

 

[Belisarius II]

While you might be able to make an argument about over statement in some parts I don't think you can about wild assertions. Especially as they've shown how and why the U.S. was reliant on the U.K. at this time and that this is why the U.S. would lose a Trent War.
If you want to claim that "U.S. would lose a Trent War" is a wild assertion you need to show why this is the case.

Ok. In doing a little research on gunpowder production I found a few items that make me question some assumptions that are being made.

On Dupont, and the founding of his powder mill at the beginning of the 19th Century his assessment was the Saltpeter in American powder was fine, but the milling was poor. When did the U.S. become dependent on British Saltpeter?

Under the Hazard Powder Company I find they supplied powder to the Russians, and British in during the Crimean War, selling 500 tons to the British. Were the British selling saltpeter to Hazard so they could make gunpower, and sell it to them, and the Russians? What was British production if they needed to buy powder from the USA? A war with the Union would require a lot more powder then they needed in the Crimean War.

Production increased over the years in response to the needs of the U.S. military for gunpowder during the Mexican–American War, demand for blasting powder during the California Gold Rush of 1849, and the Crimean War, when the Hazard Powder Company supplied both Britain and Russia with gunpowder, shipping a total of 500 tons to Britain. During the American Civil War, the mill was one of the three chief sources of gunpowder for the Union forces, producing up to 12,500 lb (5,700 kg) a day.

At its peak, the Hazard Powder Company operated in 125 buildings occupying hundreds of acres of land.[1][2][3] It had 25 water wheels and three steam engines along a mile of Scantic River frontage. There were additional mills in East Hartford and Canton.[5] The business declined after the Civil War.[1][2][3] However, Hazardville still had a relatively large population of 1,500 in the 1890s.[6]

Hazard Powder was one of the three largest (with DuPont and Laflin & Rand) among the six companies of the United States Gunpowder Trade Association (popularly known as the powder trust).[7]

On making rifles barrels the Americans would just have to make do with the technology they had available, or could come up with. Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[Belisarius II]

I thought you said you wanted to compare. Absolute numbers don't mean anything when the British - despite it being peacetime - produced so many more artillery pieces than the United States.

Manufactured to 31 March 1863:
202 9pdr
717 12pdr
349 20pdr
895 40pdr
1,029 110pdr

So let's now look at the number of damaged guns which you provided, but instead do so as a proportion of the total made to that point (note - not the total number of guns made over its life):
9pdr: 1 damaged (0.5%)
12pdr: 13 damaged (1.8%)
20pdr: 1 damaged (0.3%)
40pdr: 9 damaged (1.0%)
110pdr: 9 damaged (0.9%)

So the 12pdr, the Armstrong gun most likely to be damaged (and by 'damaged' we include obvious user error like '22 ins. of muzzle blown off by carelessness in leaving in drill-shot'), is still less likely to be damaged than the 15in Dalhgren is to burst (2 of 100; 2%). And that's despite the Armstrong gun being a far more sophisticated design which requires different metal coils to be shrunk onto a core AND being rifled, which only goes to reinforces the point @von Adler was making about the Union's lack of 'industrial know-how in 1861'.


If the US could have produced a million M1861s between 1861 and 1863, why didn't it? Was a third of the country breaking off, and Confederate troops launching repeated invasions of the North, somehow not important enough to merit trying?


The Confederates manufactured 40,000 rifles by July 1863, and many of those were using skelps of British iron captured at Harpers Ferry. If you want to cut total US production in the same period to about that level, feel free: the evidence doesn't support much else.


The Confederacy bought guns from the British (industrial powerhouse of the world) and shipped them in British vessels (largest merchant marine in the world). Just the British not selling materials of war to the Union is going to cause them all sorts of problems that the Confederacy didn't have. Then you add in the fact that the Royal Navy is both the largest navy in the world and has extensive experience in blockading operations, which will make the blockade of the Union at the start of the war closer to what we see in the South in 1863 and after.


No, they picked the firms most likely to deliver - and even with access to the British market, they couldn't deliver guns:


The belief that a private sector that was unable to deliver guns historically will magically do so when the British declare war and cut off vital supplies is probably the most egregious example of American technological exceptionalism we see in this particular conversation.

The Union never had to mobilize as much of it's economy as the South did. In a more desperate situation they would have. It's hard to say what is possible till you have to try. The United States is fames for being an innovative country, that doesn't easily give up. The British were confident they would walk over the Americans during both the Revolution, and the War of 1812, it didn't work out that way, did it?

 

[Belisarius II]

Germany got along for a few years, but things were already falling apart by 1918. Even without the Allied armies advancing, it's doubtful Germany could have sustained its war effort past 1919.



Why would the British care? They would be fighting over America's disregard for international law, not slavery. If Lincoln did try something like this, I expect British public opinion would just see it as a cynical propaganda move.

International law? The Trent Affair? An unauthorized action by a ship captain of stopping a Mail Packet, and taking 2 rebel diplomates off of her? An action in which no one was hurt, or any property damaged would be worth a war that would cost thousands of lives, and many millions of dollars? Not to mention the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade. It would also set back the anti-slavery cause by years.

Regarding the German question. Germany wasn't food independent, and had to mobilize so many men, because she was fighting against armies much bigger then her own, backed by vastly greater material resources.