A Storm Unending

Status
Not open for further replies.

GeneralInTheShell

A Storm Unending​


By: T.R. Finley​

Anarcho-syndicalism.jpg

What if this storm ends?
And I don't see you
As you are now
Ever again
The perfect halo
Of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against
The planet's last dance
Just for a minute
The silver forked sky
Lit you up like a star
That I will follow
Now it's found us
Like I have found you
I don't want to run
Just overwhelm me

What if this storm ends?
And leaves us nothing
Except a memory
A distant echo
I want pinned down
I want unsettled
Rattle cage after cage
Until my blood boils
I want to see you
As you are now
Every single day
That I am living
Painted in flames
All peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless
- " Lightening Strikes Part I " by Snow Patrol

--​

The Election of 1896. By Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Harvard University Press, Cambrige. 1932

It was 1896 and once again a presidential election was at hand. Men commenting on the approaching election had predicted that it would be unusually contentious and divisive. For this was a period of great turbulence in the political life of the United State, when having just had the Monroe Doctrine shattered in the Venezuelan War compounded with economic and social change – almost revolutionary in character- seemed to demand adjustment and reform at a faster pace than those who dominated the ordinary channels of government and politics were prepared to sanction. The economic depression of these years, having been further exacerbated by President Cleveland’s Venezuelan Folly, created harsh conditions in the lives of a people who already felt imposed upon by the unaccustomed demands of a centralized industrial society. In this setting violent currents of social and political criticism welled up to threaten the programs and the power of the established political organizations…

…the Populists had made a strong showing in the presidential election of 1892; and it appeared likely that the heightened unrest which followed the Panic of 1893 and the Venezuelan War of 1895 would stimulate the party’s growth. As depression continued and destabilization of the Democratic Party resulting from the debacle of the Venezuelan War, its leaders became optimistic over the possibilities of making a major gain in the 1896 election…

…the Socialists and their strong anti-imperialist and anti-big business maintained a strong and steady fire of criticism against the Republicans and Democrats and stood to gain more support after the Venezuelan War. What reformers generally expected now was a climactic political disintegration, to be followed by reorganization, and finally the emergence of a great national reform party. The old parties would suffer; if they did not dissolve wholly, they would be seriously divided…

…The Democrats had won a notable victory in 1892. Cleveland’s popular majority was not massive, but the Democrats had made significant inroads in traditional areas of Republican power. This was particularly in the Middle West. Illinois and Wisconsin which had not given their electoral votes to the Democrats since the Civil War, had presented Cleveland and Stevenson with small majorities. The Cleveland administration came to power with a Congress in with both houses were controlled by the President’s party. The election of Democratic state administrations in Illinois and Wisconsin also bore striking evidence of the general surge in democratic strength. But this gain the Middle West came with the defection of Southern Democrats to the Populist Party. The appeal of the Populist Party to Southern Democrats was disconcerting to Eastern Democrats. Since the Civil War the easterners had depended for national victory on their alliance with the Southern Democrats, who usually had followed unquestioningly the leadership of the East. There were other developments to disturb Eastern Democrats. Amongst these was that they did not have absolute control of the Senate…When Cleveland repudiated western fusion with the Populists and attacked Populist platforms as inimical to Democratic policies, western Democrats found themselves in and exceedingly difficult position. Now, as they gave interviews during visits to Washington or when they spoke in the West upon return from visits or periods of service at Washington, they vented their irritation and frustration with the Cleveland Policy…

…In 1894 William Jennings Bryan issues a stern warning to his party at the Nebraska State Democratic Convention when he said “duty to country is above duty to party” and “I promise you that I will go out and serve my country and my God under some other name, even if I must go alone”. Bryan’s defection after the Venezuelan War to the Populist Party and his announcing his intentions to run for president marked the great division of the Democratic Party and would leave it prey to defeat at the hands of the Republicans…

…The bitter political battle that occurred in the election of 1896 led to the disintegration of the Democratic Party as one of the two major national parties, but did not provide the Populists with a presidential victory. The Democratic Palmer/Buckner ticket and the Matchett/Maguire Socialist Labor ticket siphoned enough votes off from the Bryan/Watson Populist ticket to ensure a Republican Victory in November. It did go beyond this of course, Republicans promised an increased defense budget and to protect American business interests that in the aftermath of the Venezuelan War had become tenuous. Speakers like future President Roosevelt roused crowds of revanchist Americans behind the Republican Nominee William McKinley, promising an American naval and military buildup that would put thousands to work and prevent European nations from stepping on the United States again…

--

Die große Annäherungeutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten in der Weltpolitik (The Great Rapprochement: Germany and the United States in World Policy). By Alfred Vagts
2 Bände, London/New York 1935

…German-American relations throughout the seventies were characterized by great identity and interests. The political interests of the United States almost always ran parallel with those of Germany. However things began to change in the later portion of the eighties with the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Relations between the two continued to be turbulent as tariff wars between the United States and Germany forced the two farther apart. It would be the Third Anglo-American War (Venezuelan War) and the rise of Anglophobic American policies and militarism that would pull the Bald Eagle and the Imperial Eagle together.

…One of the multitude of factors that led to what would be known as the “Great Rapprochement” between the United States and the German Empire was the issue of Russian and British domination of the Orient…

…Germany and the United States had much in common in the Orient from the onset of the Open Door policy. Philander C. Knox’s Dollar Diplomacy and co-operative financing in China under the McKinley administration was the culmination of German-American joint diplomacy whose main effort was to prevent Russia’s domination of North China and British domination of the Yangste Valley. In the view of the Kaiser and the German government the real danger, or one of them, was that England was trying to bottle up for herself the trade of the Yangste Valley, and that Germany and the United States alone stood for the real policy of open door…

…In German official circles it was that scarcely anything could be more dangerous to their country and its policies if the United States and England came to a rapprochement that would promote England in China. To prevent this Friedrich von Holstein urged acceptance that no rapprochement could be reached with Russia and that any attempt to bring the two together would drive the United States back into the arms of England…

--
 
Last edited:

GeneralInTheShell

--

The Origins of the Great War By. Ronald Hill
Yale University Press, New Haven. 1928

…With the Great War come and gone it is more often than not believed that German-American solidarity comes as a given and that both powers stand side-by-side against Britain’s global domination; but this solidarity was not always the case. Yes, in the aftermath of the Venezuela War American military reform received a great deal of assistance from the German Empire, but the United States did not look immediately to Germany after the Venezuelan War. The McKinley administration looked first to France and Russia. France and Great Britain had been on the brink of war in 1893 after the Siam Crisis, and Russia had been a traditional friend to the United States. Unfortunately economic issues brought up by tariff wars between Russia and the United States and competing oil interests drove the two former friends apart and the later adoption of German tariffs on Russian Oil in favor of American Oil pulled the United States and Germany together…

…It may be argued that Russian tariffs had a greater effect on politics than on economic relations. The history of tariffs in the United States, Austria-Hungary, France, and other countries demonstrates this fact; and so does that of Germany, whose industry played a vital role in Russia's industrialization…In Russia as elsewhere, tariffs served fiscal needs as well as granting protection for growing industries. German industrialists were well aware of this, of course, but also of the contradictory currents that determined Russian policy. They knew, for instance, that the Russian government carefully weighed the gains from additional customs revenues, which were largely needed to supplement the funds disposable for interest payments on foreign loans, against the costs of indispensable imports. And as to protection, they realized that the immediate purpose of reducing or excluding imports, to further Russian industries, often was tempered by the equally strong intent to spur Russian firms to greater endeavors by exposing them to foreign competition…

…Along with the economic issues that pushed the United States and the Russian Empire apart came the growing rapprochement between Russia and Great Britain that had slowly begun thanks Britain's new position in Egypt since 1882 and the Salisbury governments altered stance towards the Ottoman Empire after the Armenian massacres. Possibly emboldened by the defeat of the United States in the Venezuelan War, Lord Salisbury asked if a naval demonstration up the Tigris River was feasible:

“It would frighten the Sultan more than any other step: for it would loosen the allegiance of his Arab subjects which is loose enough already. It would give a chance of our communicating with Armenians from the other side: & it might give them heart. Our allies would not like it but they cannot well prevent it.”​

When this idea was rejected because the Tigris was not sufficiently deep, Salisbury suggested occupying Jeddah on the Red Sea, observing that the British vice-consul in Jeddah had recently been murdered. Though Salisbury proposed to give full assurances that Britain did not wish to retain the city or annex any territory, he admitted that the action was likely to bring down the Turkish Empire.By the end of August, he had discussed the possibility of such strong action with members of the Cabinet, who responded favorably. In the end the idea was abandoned to appease Russia, and Salisbury’s plan to launch a quick war against the Ottoman was because British willingness to resist Russian threats to the Straits had greatly ebbed and it was feared that should the war not be a brief affair Russia and France, whose alliance was well documented by this point, would lead to war… Under these circumstances the British turned to Russia. On January 19, 1898, they proposed to the Tsar an entente which should put an end to all the long-standing sources of friction between the Bear and the Lion. The idea was to harmonize British and Russian policy in the two decaying empires of China and Turkey, instead of constantly being opposed. Lord Salisbury proposed not a partition of territory but of preponderance. Salisbury suggested an Anglo-Russian defensive alliance. To satisfy Russia’s fears that later British Cabinets might not keep the agreement, he was ready to get the treaty publicly approved by Parliament; this, hover would not prevent the inclusion in the treaty of one or more secret articles. Salisbury hinted that if Britain did not succeed in making an alliance with Russia, which was more natural for her, she might turn towards the Triple Alliance. This was said as a hint but not a threat. The Tsar and his advisors, whose opinion of Germany had decayed because of the ongoing tariff war, hesitantly agreed to the proposition and as a sign of good faith Russia decided against leasing Liaodong in fear of upsetting process of rapprochement…

...The realization that rapprochement between the United Kingdom and France would likely soon follow the announcement of ratification of the Anglo-Russian Treaty by Parliament shook the German Empire to its core. In November 1899, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Boer War and the consequent anti-English outburst across the continent, the Kaiser and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Bernhard von Bülow visited the United States. United States Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt seized upon the occasion for long talks with both. He suggested closer relations between German and the United States. In later meetings with the President a discussion came up on the prospects of partitioning the Spanish Empire with Germany gaining all of Spain’s African possession, the United States its Caribbean ones, and a “satisfactory” division of Spain’s Pacific holdings. Though nothing immediately came from these talks it was noted by Bülow that the German Empire had not the fleet to wrestle the Philippines nor any of Spain’s other possessions from it. Bülow made no mention of the fact that as long as Cuba was in chaos German and American sugar interests were not competing with each other. When talk of an alliance between the two powers was discussed with Mr. Roosevelt, the Secretary assured his German guests that the American people still held a sufficient amount of Anglophobia that they would support any adventure against the United Kingdom, the loss of much the Alaskan pan-handle, the excising of many American interest from the Pacific, the destruction of the American fleet in the Atlantic, and the hit to national pride had left many middle Americans raw and had left many business men itching for an opportunity to regain Hawaii and indeed lost economic interests in the Pacific. Also discussed was the enlargement of the American fleet. The expansion of the United States’ growing Mahanian blue water navy had unsettled the British and forced them to include the United States in its “two to one” parity fleet which had led to sizable growth in the RN. The growth of the RN led the Kaiser to try and grow the size of the Kaiserliche Marine. A few days later President McKinley spoke glowingly of the community of German and American interests, and of the German-Americans that resided within the United States…

--
 
Last edited:

Free Lancer

Banned
Wow from the sounds of it the US got kicked hard into the curve. Is that all they lost or was it more?

Well anyway it’s going to very interesting to see where it goes next, a US and German Special relationship if things go right.

I’m subscribed.
 

GeneralInTheShell

Free Lancer said:
Wow from the sounds of it the US got kicked hard into the curve. Is that all they lost or was it more?

Well anyway it’s going to very interesting to see where it goes next, a US and German Special relationship if things go right.

I’m subscribed.
Click to expand...

Yah, the United States curb stomped by Britain during its brief colonial war. Aside from what is listed, Venezuela lost a good strech of land to the British and the Hawaiian monarchy was restored.
 

benjamin

I hate to pooh-pooh a well written TL, but I'm wondering what is the actual POD?

Unless it goes all the way back to the immediate post Civil War era with a much more difficult Reconstruction or perhaps a second sectional conflict, there is no way Britain can man handle the US this way.

The Royal Navy can clear the USN out of the Pacific and take Hawaii. The RN can defeat the USN's Atlantic Fleet. The RN can even bombard a US city or two. But the British cannot defeat the US by 1895. In fact a war in 1895 will almost certainly help the US recover from the Panic of 1893 and lead to industrial growth and a vast lowering in unemployment.

The best outcome for Britain in a Venezuela War is that Britain losses Canada west of the Great Lakes while gaining Hawaii, American Samoa and a few more Pacific Islands in return. More likely is that they lose all of Canada except Newfoundland. Because unless the RN can sneak a battleship all to Pittsburgh, the US will prevail in North America. Of course the merchant fleet of both nations will be devastated and both will suffer a loss in trade and revenue.

The rest of your TL is good as it's true that any Venezuela War will see the US move closer to Germany.

I hope this doesn't stop you from continuing and I fear it may spark one of those endless "The UK can beat anyone anytime!"..."No way! America kicks perpetual ass!!" And I apologize if it does, but the terms America received post-war are way too harsh given the actual balance of power.

Benjamin
 

GeneralInTheShell

benjamin said:
I hate to pooh-pooh a well written TL, but I'm wondering what is the actual POD?

Unless it goes all the way back to the immediate post Civil War era with a much more difficult Reconstruction or perhaps a second sectional conflict, there is no way Britain can man handle the US this way.

The Royal Navy can clear the USN out of the Pacific and take Hawaii. The RN can defeat the USN's Atlantic Fleet. The RN can even bombard a US city or two. But the British cannot defeat the US by 1895. In fact a war in 1895 will almost certainly help the US recover from the Panic of 1893 and lead to industrial growth and a vast lowering in unemployment.

The best outcome for Britain in a Venezuela War is that Britain losses Canada west of the Great Lakes while gaining Hawaii, American Samoa and a few more Pacific Islands in return. More likely is that they lose all of Canada except Newfoundland. Because unless the RN can sneak a battleship all to Pittsburgh, the US will prevail in North America. Of course the merchant fleet of both nations will be devastated and both will suffer a loss in trade and revenue.

The rest of your TL is good as it's true that any Venezuela War will see the US move closer to Germany.

I hope this doesn't stop you from continuing and I fear it may spark one of those endless "The UK can beat anyone anytime!"..."No way! America kicks perpetual ass!!" And I apologize if it does, but the terms America received post-war are way too harsh given the actual balance of power.

Benjamin
Click to expand...

The PoD is Lord Salisbury listens to Joseph Chamberlain who favored a more belligerent stance in the Venezuelan border dispute thus leading to President Cleveland to send USS Texas to protect American interests in Venezuela. USS Texas and a British battleship shoot at one another survivors from the Texas claiming that the British shot first and the British claiming the Americans shot first. In the end it was the Texas that went down and with its sinking the US declared war on Great Britain. Cleveland had to declare war but wasn’t willing to commit the US to an invasion of Canada over a border dispute in South America. The result is a four month war which sees business men across America pull their hair out and the American merchant fleet take a massive hit. The USN in the Atlantic and Pacific is swept aside by the British and the US comes to the table to negotiate a peace. Mediated by King Leopold II the US surrenders American Samoa and a number of other minor Pacific holdings. It agrees to finally set the border in the panhandle (the border proposed by Canada is the one that is settled upon rather than the one proposed by Great Britain that took even more). The US also had to agree that it would not annex Hawaii in the future (the overthrow of the Republic came later and wasn’t part of the treaty, but most American business men hold the treaty and the war as the reason that Hawaii isn’t a territory of the US. The last bit of the treaty dealt with US having to recognize the new border in Venezuela. All and all the US didn’t exactly loose that much and Britain didn’t gain that much (aside from an enemy). Business men were horrified by the loose of Hawaii (Cleveland and a lot of Democrats and Populists never wanted the US to annex Hawaii in the first place so they weren’t too sad about its loss) Anti-Imperialists were angry that the Europeans were imperializing the Americas, and most Americans were angry about any territorial concessions. All in all it was fairly fair terms (that doesn’t make the American people any less resentful towards the British or any less upset with poor Cleveland) considering that it was a limited war.


Edit: Also I had originally planned to have this be a American/French/Russian alliance against a German/Britian, but ended up going with the American-German alliance after reading about Salisbury's attempt to create an alliance with Russia in 1899 a few weeks before Chamberlain's attempt to create an Anglo-German defensive alliance.
 
Last edited:

GeneralInTheShell

Free Lancer said:
the Democrats were always good at committing political suicide:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

He was screwed either way after entering the war. Since the Democratic Party was pretty much killed in the ITTL 1896 election Clevelands political suicide made sure that he killed the Democratic Paty as well (which is fairly OTL as the 1896 election saw the National Democrats get swallowed into the abyss)
 

Free Lancer

Banned
A question.
it was said that there is going to be a Military and Naval Build up, but is there going to be fortifications on the Canadian border? And is there going to be a earlier US Intelligence agency?
 

GeneralInTheShell

Free Lancer said:
A question.
it was said that there is going to be a Military and Naval Build up, but is there going to be fortifications on the Canadian border? And is there going to be a earlier US Intelligence agency?
Click to expand...

There will be fortification along part of the Canadian border and around certain Canadian cities and Forts and American Cities and Forts. The buildup of Halifax is an inevitability after it becomes obvious that a 4th Anglo-American War won't be a four month colonial naval engagement like the Venezuelan War. Obviously fortifications would be in place to defend vital cities like Moncton (a key railway junction and its fall would cut Nova Scotia off from the rest of Canada), Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Greater Sudbury, and of course Winnipeg. There will be an entire update on the build up on both side, but know this; Britain's main concern is saving Britain's Caribbean holdings and protecting Britain itself in the event of war.

On the other side, American fortifications Seattle, Great Falls, Minneapolis, and Albany can be expected.

An early US intelligence agency can be expected.
 

GeneralInTheShell

--
The Anglo-French Entente. By Arthur Neville Chamberlain
University of Birmingham Press,Birmingham. 1938

…M. Delcassé, who became French Minister of Foreign Affairs in Jun, 1898, is said to have declared that the first object of his policy would be to secure a rapprochement with Great Britain. If France was to expand her colonial empire and someday recover Alsace-Lorraine, the age old hostility with Britain needed to end. Delcassé therefore took steps towards reconciliation with Albion. He approved a treaty settling a long standing dispute as to the Anglo-French boundaries in the Niger Valley. A few months later in the face of Kitchner’s troops and in defiance of traditional French feelings, he had yielded to the British at Fashoda…

…On March, 21, 1899, he reached an agreement with Britain delimiting French and British Spheres of influence in the region between the Upper Nile and the Congo. He had done what he could to open way for better Anglo-French Relation. But public opinion in the two countries was still hostile. It was further aggravated by the Boer War. To overcome this was part of the work of Sir Thomas Barclay. Looking at the two countries from a commercial view rather than a diplomatic one, he secured the approval of Salisbury and Delcassé for a visit to Paris of British Chambers of Commerce in 1900. The banquet of 800 at which he presided proved and encouraging success. Sir Thomas Barclay began to agitate for the conclusion of an Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration, which was to remove possible causes of Friction and place the future of the two countries beyond the dangerous reach of popular emotions….
--

Theodore Rex. By Marion Mitchell Morrison
Heritage Publishing, Anaheim. 1965

mckinley_roosevelt.jpg

…The economic recovery under McKinley’s first term went a long way in garnering support for McKinley in the 1900 election. But once again the public was torn between the newly emerging powerhouse that was the anti-imperialist, Bi-metalist, anti-German, Populist Party and the Expansionist, Gold standard, Pro-German Republican Party. McKinley received a great deal of credit for governing over the US as it came out of the depression which did much to lessen the Bryan’s Free Silver argument, but Bryan, and ardent anti-imperialist, attacked the expansion of the navy, the army, and the Conscription Act of 1899. Bryan’s attacks on Germany and indeed German-Americans alienated a large group of typically anti-imperialist Germans. President McKinley’s choice to have Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate was a tactical move, to ensure the German-American vote. Roosevelt had always championed the Northern European people, but where once Anglo-Americans had been the apple of his eye his dealings with the German government and the his attitude towards Britain after Venezuelan War had drawn him strongly to the multitude of German-Americans. His having lived with a German family in Dresden while visiting Germany as a youngster had led to his ability to speak German fluently and while he championed the learning and speaking English he did give several speeches in German. Roosevelt’s powerful personality and excellent oratory skills drew the masses to the man like so many moths to a flame…

…Despite Bryan's energetic efforts, the renewed prosperity under McKinley, combined with the public's approval of German-American rapprochement and the strengthening of the American military, allowed McKinley to gain a comfortable victory. His popular and electoral-vote margins were both larger than in 1896; he even carried Bryan's home state of Nebraska. Bryan and the Populist Party were able to maintain a hold on the South, though the Democrats challenged them and resulted in Republican victory in regions were the Democrats still maintained a strong presence...

… On the morning of September 6, 1901, McKinley visited Niagara Falls while there a bomb was thrown by anarcho communist Carlo Buda. The explosion killed the president instantly. Though Roosevelt had always wanted to be President, he was horrified at the manner of his being put into the office…

TR_Inaugurationsketch.jpg

President Roosevelt's inaguration after the death of President McKinley

…Roosevelt and his friends symbolized for America the new forces in the world, and their attitudes portended the future and helped explain how and why America entered into the struggle of Empires. Alone Roosevelt could have accomplished little, but as a member of a group of men strategically placed to make themselves felt, he became a leader of the movement to win America a place in the world. Among these articulate men were Henry Cabot Lodge, Henry Adams, Brooks Adams, William Woodville Rockhill, William E. Chandler, P. Frye, Benjamin F. Tracy, and Alfred T. Mahan. What was it that led Roosevelt and his friends to urge on the expansionist role? A number of fundamental preconceptions can be identified, along with a menagerie of associated ideas. First and foremost, Roosevelt and his expansionist compatriots were strong nationalists and were impelled by national pride and the desire to regain lost American glory and pride. Roosevelt was determined that we should put the interests and honor of the United States above those of other nations. He wanted to drive the British out of the continent.

…Second, Roosevelt was convinced that the United States would never act unjustly or wrongly. As such, whatever position America took was the righteous path. So morality, America’s idea of international morality that is, became an important element in the foreign policy of the Roosevelt expansionists…

…Third, Roosevelt shared with other imperialists a sense of superiority to peoples whom we were extending our rule and also to some of those with whose imperialism we would compete against. Roosevelt’s sense of superiority was not the racism preached by many Europeans. He laid the differences of the “races” to acquired characteristics and to the effects of geographic environment. An yet while he talked of the Chinese as if they were a backwards people, he felt much admiration for the Japanese he felt were strong and efficient remarking “What wonderful people the Japanese are…

..Roosevelt felt that the subjugated peoples of the tropics would never be able to overthrow their colonial masters. He had no fear of the “yellow peril” that haunted Mahan, and the Kaiser, along with other contemporaries. Though he did feel that The Chinese might one day push the Western Europeans out of Indo-China, Indonesia, and Malay in the tropics where Europeans could not thrive. He would point to these feelings later in life when asked what he felt about the modernization of China under the Lien Dynasty. Another difference between Roosevelt and so many European imperialists was his acknowledgement that the “backwards people” were not permanently or inherently inferior. He did not limit the possibilities of progress to white men, but stated that he believed it would take hundreds if not thousands of years for the people of Africa to menace Europe or America. He believed that if any of the “tropical races” were to reach industrial and military prosperity and civilization he would not feel threatened as he felt that we would be dealing with a civilized people who just happened to be of non-European blood, and without any thought of their being ethnically distinct. Examining the man’s beliefs and thoughts puts us in his mind an allows us to understand why he and indeed the United States became an imperial power, even if there are those of us today who are strongly against imperialism…

…Roosevelt’s first test and the action that made him adored in the eyes of the American public came in 1902 when Great Britain and Italy menaced Venezuela. The two European powers proposed to extort by coercion the payment of ordinary debts upon which no judgment has yet been obtained from Venezuelan courts. From the moment that Venezuela failed to comply with the terms of the payment agreed upon in its treaties with France and German, both powers unquestionably had a casus belli against that republic, for such a repudiation of treaty rights is a ground for war. Far from availing themselves, however, of this valid excuse for co-operating in the Anglo-Italian demonstration, both France and Germany refrained from putting any violent coercion on her debtor, and confined herself to asserting that, if any sequestration of Venezuelan customs was to take place, the disputed claims which England and Italy had sought to enforce by acts of war ought not to take precedence of French and German claims previously recognized by treaty. France’s relationship with the United States had long been cordial and though France was working towards building an alliance with Great Britain the French government did not wish to push the United States closer to Germany. The German government chose not to exercise force for the same reason it had decided against fermenting revolution in Southern Brazil, the maintenance of the growing cordial attitude between the two nations.

Great Britain had no defensive alliance with France as of yet and Russia and Italy would be quite unable to aid Britain in the event of war. Britain stood quite alone, if the matter of occupying Venezuela was pushed and led to war with the United States it would not end as the Venezuelan War in 1895 had. Then the US had a standing army of barley 25,000 and a feeble, now the United States had at least 24 million men registered for conscription and a standing army nearly ten times the size and an navy that while not as large and powerful as the RN could threaten Britain’s Caribbean holdings and the commerce of the empire. It was realized that in the event of war Canada would be lost quite quickly, if Liberal PM Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Canadian government didn’t choose to declare neutrality all together, which would be just as painful a loss to the empire as if it were to fall to the American military. The British government decided that war with the US at this time was not worth the risk and a peaceful outcome came to pass. It was astonishing how close the world came to a global war a decade early, and it shocked the British into becoming more involved in the protection of Canada as well as the Caribbean…

--
 
Last edited:
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top