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Here's my latest TL. It will have not one, but two PoDs. The first one will be revealed in this post and the second one in this chapter. Enjoy.
A Very Different Twentieth Century
Chapter I: The Anglo-American ‘Venezuelan’ Conflict, the end of the Monroe Doctrine?, 1896-1898
At the close of the nineteenth century, few could have believed that the great Anglophone powers of Great Britain and the United States could ever clash again. They had friendly relations at the time and the last time that the two had gone to war was in 1812, 84 years ago already. Conflict would come to erupt due to America’s Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was a policy that had been introduced in 1823 which said that further attempts by European efforts to colonize lands in the Americas or interfere in the matters of Latin American nations would be seen as hostile acts toward the United States of America which would require US intervention. The British, needless to say, had been quite angered over the matter and at first had not recognised the doctrine, but over the course of the nineteenth century, as Anglo-American relations improved, they were coming to terms with it. The US and Britain had increasing political and trade links and were on good terms usually with only the occasional dip. The Venezuelan matter would, however, cause US-British relations to take a steep nosedive for several years to come. The border conflict between Guyana and Venezuela dated back for a very long time.
When Britain gained control over the colony that was henceforth known as British Guiana in 1814, they inherited with it one of the most persistent border disputes in all of Latin America. At the London Convention, Holland surrendered the United Colony of Demerara and Essequibo and Berbice to the British. Spain still claimed the region, but the Spanish did not contest the treaty because they were preoccupied with the struggles for independence of their own colonies. In 1835 the British government asked German explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk to map British Guiana and mark its boundaries. As ordered by the British authorities, Schomburgk drew British Guiana's western boundary with Venezuela starting at the mouth of the Orinoco River. A map of the British colony was published in 1840 and of course Venezuela protested, claiming the entire area west of the Essequibo River. Negotiations between Britain and Venezuela over the boundary began, but the two nations could reach no compromise and war was out of the question since Venezuela would surely lose a war of aggression against the mighty British Empire. In 1850 both agreed not to occupy the disputed zone. The discovery of gold in the contested area in the late 1850s, however, reignited the dispute. British settlers moved into the region and the British Guiana Mining Company was formed to mine the deposits. Over the years, Venezuela made repeated protests and proposed arbitration, but the British government was uninterested. Venezuela finally broke off diplomatic relations with Britain in 1887 and appealed to the United States for help. This was when the seeds for a potential conflict were sewn. President Grover Cleveland threatened to intervene in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, but London was unimpressed and called Cleveland’s bluff as they knew they were in a superior position militarily. The state of the US’s armed forces was not comparable with what it would be a few years later. Britain was assured dominance on both sea and land. Their only major concern was a war with Germany and their whimsical Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who was greatly jealous of the British Empire and had announced plans to build a fleet of his own, but in 1896 he still only had five battleships against thirty-two British. Germany couldn’t support the US even if it wanted to. The Boers were some cause of concern as well, but they had been quiet for some time now. The Boer War had ended a long time ago and tensions in South Africa remained under the boiling point even with German support for the Boers. The remarkably arrogant British leaders therefore weren’t afraid of conflict, blind for the repercussions of leaving a vengeful America, believing that they would get over this ‘slap on the wrist’. In retrospect, America came out of the conflict well considering British strength, but the humiliation of defeat never ebbs away easily in any country. Nevertheless, several years of negotiations had led to nothing and impatience grew on both sides who both strived for a permanent solution.
Faced by British obstinacy, President Cleveland was left two options: 1. Back down or 2. Go to war. The former would cause him to lose face and his popularity was already somewhat on a decline in 1896 due to economic woes. Moreover, his opponents would surely accuse him of cowardice if he backed down in the face of Britain compromising the sacrosanct Monroe Doctrine. The second option was equally unattractive as he knew full well who was holding the cards on the military side of things and it was not the US. He had, however, declared he would take action in the event of a violation of the Monroe Doctrine and he wasn’t about to lose face in spite of the best efforts of his generals. Unwilling to back down, British actions would soon force his hand. Britain unilaterally annexed the disputed area over Venezuelan protests which forced the United States to declare war, a futile act as British actions would soon prove.
Britain had a grand total of 32 battleships while the US Navy could only muster five modern pre-dreadnought battleships at the time, USS Maine, USS Texas and the three new ships of the Indiana-class. British policy during that time period had always been to maintain a navy that was larger than the navies of the second and third naval powers of the world together which implied a navy larger than those of France and Russia combined. This was called the Two Power Standard and in the 1890s the Royal Navy more than met this guideline. Even if anyone had wanted to help the US, they couldn’t have as Britain could wipe any fleet that opposed it from the seas. France couldn’t even bring to bear a dozen battleships and Germany could muster a total of five while Russia, as much as they were friendly to the US, was not interested in this conflict as Russia had no interests to defend there and wasn’t about to go to war with Britain over a colonial dispute over some far flung jungle in South America to save the US. America was alone and they would notice this soon enough. The naval disparity first became apparent when the Royal Navy blockaded Venezuela to prevent American troops from helping the Venezuelans. The US Navy attempted to run the blockade, but came out beaten and bruised, returning to port quickly to lick its wounds. The American admiralty quickly realized that waging a naval war was an exercise in futility as the British would surely send any opposition to the bottom of the ocean. American ships would therefore largely remain in port for the duration of the war. The British started on their strategy of forcing the US into submission economically. In a series of quick battles, the Royal Navy all but destroyed America’s commerce fleet and employed a blockade of the entire eastern seaboard which also included raids. British cruisers shelled American ports quite a number of times and they would do so unimpeded for the remainder of the war. The eastern seaboard only had a handful of coastal fortifications. The US could defend a few strong points such as Chesapeake Bay, but only at the risk of forsaking other points. The blockade hurt America economically as trade links with most of the world were cut off and Britain seized overseas possessions (Hawaii), but this wasn’t the most important effect. In the months that the war would last, immigration to the US would cease and a lot of foreign (read British) capital would flee America while potential investors were scared away. In the meantime, the stock market experienced a severe downturn that would lead to a recession although a true crash of American stocks didn’t happen even with this moment of declining confidence and collapse of most foreign trade.
On land, things weren’t much better as the US Army was far from ready for a war with such a mighty adversary. In 1896, America could field about thirty infantry regiments, ten cavalry regiments and ten artillery batteries with four gunpowder pieces each. At that time such a force was equal to about 12.000 bayonets, 4000 sabres and forty artillery pieces, slightly larger than one British division. Britain had an empire which stretched all over the world and thus had worldwide commitments which led to much larger military forces. Considering American naval weakness, the British had needed few ships and here too they wouldn’t need many forces to keep the Americans at bay. The US Army attempted to invade Canada almost immediately after the ink of the declaration of war was dry, mainly Quebec, and made some headway as Canada itself possessed little in terms of an army although they had a considerable militia and invading a country the size of Canada was nearly impossible with the small army that America could bring to bear, more so since the parts of Canada worth taking were separated from the Americans by the Great Lakes where Britain had dominance as well. Any American naval operations here were ruled out as well. While the small Canadian military properly organized a defence on the Saint Lawrence river and in New Brunswick, two British divisions arrived several months later as time had shown that the Americans, even if their economy had been weakened, wouldn’t succumb to the blockade. An effort to blockade the US into surrender would be a drawn out effort and the British weren’t looking for a long war with their European adversaries already sharpening their blades to settle old scores. American forces had only occupied a ridiculously small area of Canada lodged in between the Saint Lawrence river and New Brunswick and they were already facing civilian resistance. Both their inability to break Canadian defences and advance deeper into Canada and them being incapable of quelling the unrest in the occupied areas, revealed the structural weaknesses of the US Army. The British at this time had an excellent army if not as large as the armies of some of its European adversaries such as Russia. It was well equipped and led by a good officers corps unlike the US Army. The US Army hadn’t fought a major war since the American Civil War (1861-’65) which was already over thirty years ago in 1896 and was therefore led by mostly inexperienced officers. It was also poorly equipped with a lot of old weapons while Britain usually fielded state of the art equipment as the Empire was much more likely to get into a war with the Great Game in Central Asia developing between them and Russia, or with a rising hostile Germany for that matter. Armed with modern Maxim machine guns, rifles and artillery, the Americans were no match for Britain. British troops arrived in November and by early January 1897, they had mostly restored the pre-war border. British politicians, however, were not blinded by arrogance or stupidity. They realized that if they invaded the continental US, they would open a whole new can of worms. The American populace would rally and the US would mobilize its entire potential. Romanticists and warmongers aside, no one wanted to get involved in the quagmire that would be the occupation of American territory. Fortunately for both sides, British politicians lacked the short sightedness to expand this war into a full blown one, instead of the rather limited one that it was now. With British troops lining up on the border, towns all over the northern states entered a war panic. Rumours spread about an invasion of Maine, landings in California and Alaska and even battles in Ohio and Michigan. Those remained well in the realm of fantasy as America set out peace feelers in London.
Washington requested an armistice in early February 1897, after a little more than six months of war and peace negotiations commenced. It became clear quite quickly how strong the British position was. As the Americans had no way to enforce otherwise, Hawaii was ceded to Britain. Furthermore, America was to recognise Canadian sovereignty and although it wasn’t explicitly stated in the peace treaty, the Monroe Doctrine was destroyed as the Yankees had been thoroughly declawed for now. America viewed it as a mere temporary interruption, but it was a fact that for now the Monroe Doctrine was dead until the Yankees grew a new set of claws. Britain was also awarded the sliver of Venezuelan territory the war had started over. Britain decided to give clemency and not demand war reparations for the damages caused to Canada. The cession of Hawaii, recognition of Canadian sovereignty, the renunciation of the Monroe doctrine and recognition of Britain’s annexation of Venezuelan territory were recognised by America in the Treaty of Leeds.
This sent shockwaves through the American political landscape. In the presidential elections of 1896, Grover Cleveland had already been decimated as he was associated with the economic woes of the country, not to mention the major military defeats that the US was suffering at the time. In the following Congressional elections, the Democrats would be gutted even further. The Republicans ran on a platform of ending the silly colonial war that had brought the country so much harm, restoring the economy through strong reforms and, most importantly, strengthening America’s armed forces to the point that such a national embarrassment could never happen again. Needless to say, the Democrats were gutted and would remain in the opposition for years to come as they were held responsible for the events that had transpired. The new president was William McKinley and his running mate and, after McKinley’s inauguration, vice president was Theodore Roosevelt. He was still rather young for such a high post, but he was incredibly popular in all sections of American society for he had declined the post of assistant secretary of the navy, also partially to avoid any connection with the Cleveland administration, to lead a unit in the field known as the Rough Riders. This had earned him a reputation as a war hero. This had also given him a large political clout and McKinley rode on Roosevelt’s popularity rather than vice versa as he vigorously argued for military reform. These men made true on their promise of military reforms as they embarked on a massive naval building program which spurred the weakened economy. Up to 1898, the US would complete a total of eight battleships, still not enough, but good for a total of thirteen battleships. Conscription, which the US hadn’t seen since the civil war, was reinstated and the state militias were reformed to function as effective reserve units. Modern equipment was either produced or acquired abroad and coastal fortifications were erected so the raids of the war couldn’t be repeated again by any foreign power. Minefields were laid and early warning posts created. In addition to this, canals to the Great Lakes were widened and deepened so America could send warships there up to the size of frigates and corvettes. Border fortifications with Canada were built and they were impressive. With artillery batteries, bunkers, minefields and barbed wire fortifications, they were daunting. They could also communicate with each other via telegraph wires.
The McKinley administration would also see the dawn of a social welfare state which shifted the Republicans to the Progressive camps, causing a split with the opponents leaving for the Democrat party. They promoted a health insurance program and Roosevelt acted as trustbuster, dissolving forty monopolistic corporations. Large construction projects revived the economy. These were mostly internal politics. Outwardly, little changed. The war had brought cracks into American isolationism, but they still didn’t want to commit to any alliance as the US feared that they would get entangled in a European war over some problem between powers in Europe, a war that didn’t serve the interests of the US. It was enough, however to get the McKinley administration to lower tariffs for traditional enemies of Britain such as Russia and very soon France and Germany as well. The Americans also attempted to take over the French effort to build a canal in Panama.
The French engineer had attempted to dig a sea level canal and had stubbornly refused to adopt the lock plan until late in 1897, but by then financial and engineering problems, high mortality rates and disease, coupled with mudslides and floods had brought the project into serious trouble. Renewed French efforts didn’t really gain any momentum. These financial issues in combination with the serious underestimation of the engineering difficulties and disease, led to the French canal company considering selling it to the highest bidder. In an effort to revive the dead Monroe doctrine, the US were among the bidders, but the British considered controlling this link between their Caribbean possessions and the Pacific interesting as well and wanted to stick the Americans in their face that the Monroe doctrine no longer applied. Britain bought out the French and there was nothing McKinley and Roosevelt could do about it apart from fighting another war which they would surely lose and so they backed down. They, however, did still want to control a canal of their own and so they bought land in Nicaragua. The plan was to follow rivers and then cut across the Rivas isthmus as that seemed to be the easiest route to take. Britain, however, would soon become oblivious to developments in the Americas as a new danger loomed in Africa.