AH challenge: European support for the CSA and a Union victory in the ACW

Pretty straightforward, really. Have one or more European powers militarily support the CSA in the American Civil War and still have the Union win, with a PoD no earlier than South Carolina's declaration of secession.

HARD MODE: The Union does not get any support from the European powers. Mexico, Brazil, Japan, etc. are still allowed.

TESTICLE-CRUNCHING MODE: The Union wins without any outside assistence. ASBs are always counted as outside assistence.

STEEL RAT MODE: The US annexes all of North America.
 
POD: France decides to recognize CSA without Britain's support.

In respond, the USA declares war on France. Juárez's government makes a symbolic DoW on the CSA, too. Maximilian I declares war on the USA.

The French navy gains the upper hand at sea but most of its troops and resources are still directed to Mexico. The CSA only receives minor equipment, raw materials and some token support armies.

As a result, the CSA holds longer and better but eventually it is still overheilmed by the Union's industrial and numerical superiority. Roughly around 1867 most of the CSA armies have surrendered and the French find themselves almost alone, fighting a long far war in the middle of a huge economic drain and increased unpopularity.

The USA invade next the Empire of Mexico and once again numbers and tactical errors in the part of the French make the difference. By 1870 the Mexican republic is restored under Juárez and Napoleon III falls to an internal revolution (i.e. No Franco-Prussian War).

Other likely results:

*Mexico and the USA signs an "eternal friendship" treaty that effectively turns the first in a protectorate of the latter (possibly including the building of that proposed channel trough Tehuantepec -?). Diaz is possibly butterflied away.

*Reconstruction in the USA is longer, nastier and more difficult. Bigger KKK or equivalent.

*There is a greater emigration of ex-Confederates and Mexican monarchists, this time to France and her colonies.

*No Statue of Liberty (unless Franco-American relations get better after the proclamation of the III Republic).
 
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