AHC: WW1 starts in the Americas
- Thread starter Ahheartlove
- Start date
The POD is after 1865, so that's a no go. No, I'd go with increased meddling in the Spanish-American War. IOTL Spain got left out to hang, but if Spain were aligned with the Entente Cordiale or the Triple Alliance the great powers of Europe would have had an excuse to get dragged in. Whose side the US ends up on depends on whom Spain aligns with.
You might also be able to do something with increased anti-British sentiment in the US over perceived support of the Confederacy, but it would have to get really bad for a US-Canada war to be what sets WWI off, considering how much of a powderkeg Europe was at the time.
Post-ACW filibustering in Mexico or Central America leads to tensions with the British or the French and things spin out of control from there?
I try to use the Venezuela Crisis with a UK more determined to go to war in order to preserve its position.
1. Like OTL, France and Russia ally in 1891-3.
2. Russia achieves strong growth (or seems to achieve strong growth), alarming UK and Germany.
3. An earlier Boxer Rebellion (1880s? 1890s?). France and Russia make gains in China, putting British interests there under pressure.
4. French-Russian alliance begins pressuring Britain on colonial fronts: Iran, Upper Nile etc.
5. France and Russia start beefing up their navies. Probably not necessary to comprehensively challenge UK naval superiority but just threatening key British routes (Suez etc.) will be enough.
6. Britain starts forming counter-alliance with Germany. To heighten the possibility of war, maybe Italy or Austria-Hungary defects from the Triple Alliance towards the Franco-Russian one.
7. In this charged atmosphere, US brings up Venezuela Crisis (maybe later than OTL - 1900s maybe?), and UK is faced with rollback of its influence on every continent.
8. Even here it's likely that UK concedes to USA rather than war with an extra enemy, so France and Russia have to do something to demonstrate that the Venezuela dispute will not just have regional but global implications for Britain's place in the world. Maybe the USA seeks support from France-Russia, or some 'USS Maine' event which can stoke war fever in the US.
9. UK and US go to war, France-Russia intervenes, UK goes to war with them as well and everybody drags in all their allies.
1. Like OTL, France and Russia ally in 1891-3.
2. Russia achieves strong growth (or seems to achieve strong growth), alarming UK and Germany.
3. An earlier Boxer Rebellion (1880s? 1890s?). France and Russia make gains in China, putting British interests there under pressure.
4. French-Russian alliance begins pressuring Britain on colonial fronts: Iran, Upper Nile etc.
5. France and Russia start beefing up their navies. Probably not necessary to comprehensively challenge UK naval superiority but just threatening key British routes (Suez etc.) will be enough.
6. Britain starts forming counter-alliance with Germany. To heighten the possibility of war, maybe Italy or Austria-Hungary defects from the Triple Alliance towards the Franco-Russian one.
7. In this charged atmosphere, US brings up Venezuela Crisis (maybe later than OTL - 1900s maybe?), and UK is faced with rollback of its influence on every continent.
8. Even here it's likely that UK concedes to USA rather than war with an extra enemy, so France and Russia have to do something to demonstrate that the Venezuela dispute will not just have regional but global implications for Britain's place in the world. Maybe the USA seeks support from France-Russia, or some 'USS Maine' event which can stoke war fever in the US.
9. UK and US go to war, France-Russia intervenes, UK goes to war with them as well and everybody drags in all their allies.
damein fisher
Banned
The problem is that the Great Powers at that time are almost non-existent. To get a world war, or an equivalent to it [Such as the Napoleonic wars, or the Seven Years War] you need a lot of great powers with complex alliances, or an extremely aggressive common enemy. None of these things exist in the Americas to a point to cause a world war.
Yeah, any war that starts in the Americas, probably, like an invasion of Canada or an expeditionary force into Mexico would be either the United States punishing Britain for something else, as in the War of 1812, or the Americans simply telling Mexico to sit down and shut up. I don’t really see how either of those scenarios ends up with American armies fighting on threee or four continents at the same time.
And apart from the ineptness of the Cleveland administration in handling the Venezuelan crisis, by 1890 a war between the US and the UK was approaching absurd, if not unthinkable. The two nations had been growing closer for some time, and the common heritage was acknowledged widely. Overlay that on top of the lack of great powers in the western hemisphere at the time, as damein fisher suggests, and this would appear to be a non-starter.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
You can probably get a war between the US and UK in the 1880's or 1890's with a post 1865 POD. Make the Fenian Raids a bit worse, have the Lord Gordon-Gordon affair turn out nasty, cross border pursuit of Native Americans, possible early Venezuelan border issues, early Klondike Gold discovery and skirmishes over Alaska border. Enough of these and US and UK go to war, not enough to start WWI by themselves given the attitudes of the time. But the US will probably lose, and if it loses in the right way to both have a Revanche mindset take hold in the USt and the US be willing to seek allies, then you can get a rematch between US/UK over Canada turn into a full blown world war
Not the most likely course I admit but the likeliest I could think of
Not the most likely course I admit but the likeliest I could think of