AHC: American Civil War turns into a World War

the Royal Navy could cause havok for the Union in this era but the British Army (50-60K worldwide) was tiny and still recovering from their dismal performance in the Crimea.

Its amazing though how the Sun Never Sets Crowd (British Exceptionalists, for those who don't know the term) will make serious arguments that every last militiaman and constabulary official can be shipped (teleported) to America's shores to overwhelm her defenses in a single fortnight.

The British don't NEED the British Army in an Anglo-US 1861 War. The CS Army fills that role quite well, thank you very much.:) Anything beyond that is just wish fulfillment to see the USA utterly dismembered. See the "Trent Affair" TL for a detailed ATL on this basis.

I can't see Britain spending the cash to ship 150,000 soldiers (the minimum to make a difference in an american land war) across the Ocean, lose the Union as a profitable trading partner, effectively subsidize the entire Confederate army all so they can get some (but not all) cotton shipping again.
They don't need to, the Royal Navy breaking the Union blockade of the South PLUS establishing one over the North is enough. Economic collapse for the North will force the US to accept all but the most draconian peace terms. Unless Britain is looking for Unconditional Surrender.

Also, even in victory, the southern way of life was due to change as slaves would escape en masse for the next few decades without any Fugitive Slave Laws left in the north. Even losing a minority of their slaves would bankrupt thousands of plantation owners and expedite the eventual emancipation.
I don't see the South EVER giving up Chattel Slavery whatever the damages done to Slavery on the plantations. And those in the Deep South and Texas won't have been as badly affected.

A couple of things.

Anglo French relations are strained at the time.

Britain loves blockades, the more international rules in favour of blockades the better, continuous blockade as US law is a major win for the RN.

VERY very true.:) Hey, if it works, why change it?

The Times does not make policy (its not even the biggest selling newspaper at the time).
Thanks, I didn't know that. Who was the biggest seller? The Sun?:p [SIZE=-4]just kidding[/SIZE]:eek:

I think it was that the London Times WAS considered/perceived by the Union to speak for the Powers That Be in Whitehall and the House of Lords. I think it was only after Sherman finished his March to the Sea that it was realized in America (long since already realized in Great Britain) that the London Times was the Fox News of its day. When Sherman took Savannah, the London Times declared that Sherman "...had escaped to the sea!":p

The UK makes far more money of the US than it ever did off the CSA. Its actually more likely that the UK allies with the US.
If the USA acceptable a British alliance against the Confederacy, it would totally destroy their own legitimacy as a sovereign government. They might as well have burned the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, and asked London to appoint a Governor-General to Washington where he would rule by decree!:eek: Uh, no.

Not to mention that the Confederacy could then declare that THEY were the true representatives of an Independent America.:(:mad:

or even more likely just says How? to any European power thinking of intervening.
Simpler to just say "No" to the French, who would be the only power even remotely interested in intervening.

It would be the third world war anyway (7 years and Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars).
Personally I always counted the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars as separate, but that's just me.:eek:
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Disagree, for oft-stated reasons, but the actual BA numbers were:

The British don't NEED the British Army in an Anglo-US 1861 War. The CS Army fills that role quite well, thank you very much.:) Anything beyond that is just wish fulfillment to see the USA utterly dismembered. ... They don't need to, the Royal Navy breaking the Union blockade of the South PLUS establishing one over the North is enough. Economic collapse for the North will force the US to accept all but the most draconian peace terms. Unless Britain is looking for Unconditional Surrender.:eek:

"Autarky today, autarky tomorrah, autarky FOR-EVAH!"

That's a joke, son...

Realistically, considering how long it took the British to get from the declaration of war to the Russian withdrawal from Sevastopol (2 years, give or take) and that was with French and Turkish expeditionary forces that dwarfed the British field force, plus the Sardinians, in the Crimea, plus a French squadron and a French infantry division in the Baltic, I'm not thinking Operation IMPERIAL STORM is going to quite work out that way.;)

Nonetheless, the actual numbers for the British army, in terms of regulars, in 1861-62, were as follows:

British Regular Forces – 218,309 officers and men (includes active forces, depot and garrison troops, and overseas “local and colonial” forces; all volunteer; no conscription). Of these, there are 192,852 “active” and 25,457 garrison and depot troops; plus
“Foreign and Coloured” troops – 175,153 o&m
Total (Regular) Peace Establishment – 393,462

British North America - Note these are all Reserves, not regulars (the RCR and RNC (all two companies of them) were among the "local and colonial" mentioned above)

Province of Canada – 10,000 militia (August, 1862); + 1,615 VC; 1,687 VA; 202 VE; 10,615 VI (from OCaS, ref below)
NS – 269 VA; 2,132 VI (June, 1862)
NB – 1850 (VA and I) (March, 1861)
PEI – 1,643 (VA and VI) (June, 1862)
NF – 267 (5 cos.) (July, 1862)
BC & VI: 44 (August, 1862)

Sources for the above are:

Hart, Col. H.G. (Depot Battalion – h.p.), The New Annual Army List and Militia List for 1862, London: John Murray (pub. – printed by Woodfall and Kinder), 50 Albermarle Street, 1862 (corrected to 30 Dec., 1861);

Petrie, Capt. Martin (14th F.) and James, Col. Sir Henry (RE - Topographical and Statistical Dept., War Office), Organization, Composition, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office; by direction of the Secretary of State for War, 1863 (preface dated Nov., 1862)

Best,

 
"Autarky today, autarky tomorrah, autarky FOR-EVAH!"<snip>
Best

Be nice.:)

The problem is with your numbers is that when more...patriotic...members get ahold of them they automatically add on every last able bodied male in the Empire and magically award them full British Regulars level training, weaponry, supplies, and then teleport them instantly to the front lines with all logistical problems solved by friendly ASBs.

MIND, this doesn't change the fact that the Union will be absolutely curbstomped, whether on offense or defense, and visions of Union troops pouring into Canada are almost as delusional as those of British Indian garrison troops sailing merrily across the Pacific and invading California.:rolleyes:
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, there is that, but:

Be nice.:)

The problem is with your numbers is that when more...patriotic...members get ahold of them they automatically add on every last able bodied male in the Empire and magically award them full British Regulars level training, weaponry, supplies, and then teleport them instantly to the front lines with all logistical problems solved by friendly ASBs.

MIND, this doesn't change the fact that the Union will be absolutely curbstomped, whether on offense or defense, and visions of Union troops pouring into Canada are almost as delusional as those of British Indian garrison troops traipsing across the Pacific and invading California.:rolleyes:

Well, there is that, but - based on the POD and the realities of the strategic balance in North America in the winter of 1861-62, including the US troops that (historically) poured into Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico/West Texas, (modern day) Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky in 1861-62, I think there could have been some pretty impressive "pouring.";)

21 million in theater vis a vis 3 million (or six, or even nine million) in theater has that impact...

Especially when one side brings both hands out from behind its back.

Best,
 
Well, there is that, but - based on the POD and the realities of the strategic balance in North America in the winter of 1861-62, including the US troops that (historically) poured into Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico/West Texas, (modern day) Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky in 1861-62, I think there could have been some pretty impressive "pouring.";)

21 million in theater vis a vis 3 million (or six, or even nine million) in theater has that impact...

Especially when one side brings both hands out from behind its back.

Best,

I don't think the US would invade Canada if the war against the Confederacy was already lost. The smart thing to do in the event of a British entry into the war would be to try and seize strategically important parts of Canada and then use them as bargaining chips to force Britain to drop out of the war. If the war is already lost, it's going to be because losses have become unacceptable and the public is too war-weary to continue, so the country would be in no shape to invade Canada after that.
 
Its amazing though how the Sun Never Sets Crowd (British Exceptionalists, for those who don't know the term) will make serious arguments that every last militiaman and constabulary official can be shipped (teleported) to America's shores to overwhelm her defenses in a single fortnight.

I hope you're not including me in that, because- as you'll notice- I never said anything of the sort. I'm just curious to see whether the guy's opinion about the deployment capacity of the British army changed when he learned that the regular army was four times larger than his initial estimate; that there were two reserves backing it, neither of which existed as an effective force when the British had to put together an army for the Crimea; that one of those forces (the militia) was twice his initial estimate and had spent much of the past four years continuously embodied.

Be nice.:)

The problem is with your numbers is that when more...patriotic...members get ahold of them they automatically add on every last able bodied male in the Empire and magically award them full British Regulars level training, weaponry, supplies, and then teleport them instantly to the front lines with all logistical problems solved by friendly ASBs.
You say this as if the problem with American numbers isn't that more...patriotic...members automatically add on every last able bodied male in the Union, magically award them full British Regular level training, weaponry and supplies, give them the best generals the Union managed to produce after four years of fumblings and sackings, and then teleport them instantly to the front lines with all logistical problems solved by friendly ASBs. With British entry into the war, the number that matters isn't the number of regular soldiers, but the difference between the total of Enfield rifles purchased by the Union government by 30 June 1862 (116,740) and the total bought before the cessation of foreign purchases in the summer of 1863 (436,000).
 

TFSmith121

Banned
See, there's the problem - based on territory under control,

I don't think the US would invade Canada if the war against the Confederacy was already lost. The smart thing to do in the event of a British entry into the war would be to try and seize strategically important parts of Canada and then use them as bargaining chips to force Britain to drop out of the war. If the war is already lost, it's going to be because losses have become unacceptable and the public is too war-weary to continue, so the country would be in no shape to invade Canada after that.

See, there's the issue - all one has to do is consider the battlefield victories, population, territory, economic capacity, manpower mobilized, arms in hand and produced, specie on hand and being produced, agricultural production, livestock, railway mileage, telegraph mileage, shipping, etc - differential between the U.S. and the rebels in the winter of 1861-62 to see which side was "winning."

In small arms alone, the number of modern percussion rifles - Springfield and HF rifles produced in the U.S. arsenals, Enfields and Lorenz and Minies imported from Europe, Windsors, Sharps, and the like produced by U.S. civilian firms - the U.S. had many times as many as the rebels did, and including older but still serviceable muskets and rifles meant not only could the regulars and volunteers be equipped, but substantial numbers of militia and other auxiliaries as well, to the levels of 500,000 regulars and volunteers for long service in 1861-62 and another 300,000 in the second half of 1862, along with various and sundry state troops and militia for short service and the first of what became 180,000 USCTs, including 90,000 recruited in northern states.

Hint - it was not the rebellion.;)

Best,
 
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See, there's the issue - all one has to do is consider the battlefield victories, population, territory, economic capacity, manpower mobilized, arms in hand and produced, specie on hand and being produced, agricultural production, livestock, railway mileage, telegraph mileage, shipping, etc - differential between the U.S. and the rebels in the winter of 1861-62 to see which side was "winning."

In small arms alone, the number of modern percussion rifles - Springfield and HF rifles produced in the U.S. arsenals, Enfields and Lorenz and Minies imported from Europe, Windsors, Sharps, and the like produced by U.S. civilian firms - the U.S. had many times as many as the rebels did, and including older but still serviceable muskets and rifles meant not only could the regulars and volunteers be equipped, but substantial numbers of militia and other auxiliaries as well, to the levels of 500,000 regulars and volunteers for long service in 1861-62 and another 300,000 in the second half of 1862, along with various and sundry state troops and militia for short service and the first of what became 180,000 USCTs, including 90,000 in norther states.

Hint - it was not the rebellion.;)

Best,

Yeah, that's why I say that asking who would win if the ACW turned into a world war is putting the cart before the horse. Unless Lincoln makes some horrific diplomatic blunders, the ACW turning into a world war means that somehow improbably the Confederacy must already be winning, or other countries wouldn't have jumped in.
 
IF the British lost all sanity and did intervene in the ACW on either side there are one or two minor problems!
1. Two little puddles each side of the American continent between any sort of suitable British Army and the conflicts.
2. The British Commanders at the time were so brilliant! They had just mucked up Crimea and a few years later were initially so successful against the Zulus.
(Damn I'm agreeing with TFSmith121's usual arguments:D)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Its amazing though how the Sun Never Sets Crowd (British Exceptionalists, for those who don't know the term) will make serious arguments that every last militiaman and constabulary official can be shipped (teleported) to America's shores to overwhelm her defenses in a single fortnight.
What!?

I've never seen anything of the sort... the closest I've seen is an argument that enough British troops can be shipped to Canada to make invading difficult, and that some striking power for amphibious attacks can also be put together.
 
Its amazing though how the Sun Never Sets Crowd (British Exceptionalists, for those who don't know the term) will make serious arguments that every last militiaman and constabulary official can be shipped (teleported) to America's shores to overwhelm her defenses in a single fortnight.

Never seen anyone say this either, I've seen plenty of arrogant, idiot British (with various degrees of evil villainy) being crushed by infallible Americans who invent various wonder weapons on the way. Have yet to witness one instance of operation Imperial Storm whatever that may be or anyone advocating it?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Never seen anyone say this either, I've seen plenty of arrogant, idiot British (with various degrees of evil villainy) being crushed by infallible Americans who invent various wonder weapons on the way. Have yet to witness one instance of operation Imperial Storm whatever that may be or anyone advocating it?
The closest I know of may be the defunct TL by 67th Tigers, but the main thing I remember from that was McClellan marching circles around a British force. (He also tends to throw huge piles of statistics at things which is nice.)
 
2. The British Commanders at the time were so brilliant! They had just mucked up Crimea
But they won the Crimea without losing a significant battle, and then went on to win the Persian war, the Indian rebellion, and the Arrow war as well. Given that the Union commanders at the time were responsible for 1st Bull Run, Balls Bluff, 1st Winchester, the Peninsula Campaign, 2nd Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg, I'm not sure that they show a greater degree of strategic brilliance than the people they're going to be fighting.

and a few years later were initially so successful against the Zulus.
Eighteen years later, and a completely different set of circumstances: in other words, similar to arguing that the US army stands no chance in the First Gulf War because they struggled in Vietnam.

(Damn I'm agreeing with TFSmith121's usual arguments:D)
As soon as this happens it's worth going back to the drawing board and checking your assumptions.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Iswandlana is basically the Custer's Last Stand, only even more weighted - 8:1 odds faced by an unprepared rear area encampment run by someone who is not a combat officer.
 
The closest I know of may be the defunct TL by 67th Tigers, but the main thing I remember from that was McClellan marching circles around a British force. (He also tends to throw huge piles of statistics at things which is nice.)

So there may be one, which isn't much compared to all the usual one way traffic, it does seem however that EC isn't giving the British Commanders their traditional lobotomy they always receive from American Authors so we shall how that pans out.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
So there may be one, which isn't much compared to all the usual one way traffic, it does seem however that EC isn't giving the British Commanders their traditional lobotomy they always receive from American Authors so we shall how that pans out.
Yes, WiF seems very balanced thus far.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Time and distance are ignored by no one.

IF the British lost all sanity and did intervene in the ACW on either side there are one or two minor problems!
1. Two little puddles each side of the American continent between any sort of suitable British Army and the conflicts.
2. The British Commanders at the time were so brilliant! They had just mucked up Crimea and a few years later were initially so successful against the Zulus.
(Damn I'm agreeing with TFSmith121's usual arguments:D)

Time and distance are ignored by no one. Not even by our pseudonymous Major General.;)

As a wiser man than I once wrote:

No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in the mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose; the latter its operational objective. This is the governing principle which will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and make its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail.

If and when someone can come up with a) a political purpose that intervention in the US Civil War would provide Britain; and b) an operational objective that would achieve such that comes in on the right side of the cost/benefit analysis, as sketched above, that would be in actually be in Britain's strategic interest in the world of 1861-62, come talk ... until then, there's no point.:rolleyes:

In BROS (which, by the way, has no examples of what the pseudonymous Major General so repeatedly complains about), the best I could come up with is a cascade of events, including several set in motion by the rebels, in an effort to overtly generate an Anglo-American conflict, that basically gets out of hand ... not unlike British entry into the Russo-Turkish war at the point where the Turks had (essentially) already stopped the Russians in the Balkans and said Russians were willing to come to the table.

Absent something like the course of events sketched out in BROS, it wasn't going to happen (because those involved were not insane), but given the interest exhibited here in these sorts of scenarios, I figured it would be worth trying to go through it, month by month, with the aforementioned cascade of events and some basis in reality, in terms of economic, diplomatic, and military events and capabilities of the period.

Having said that, if the British were in fact, insane enough (your words, not mine!) to go to war with the US in the winter of 1861-62, they face the minor strategic issue that such a conflict is both a total war for the US, and going to take place in North America - which is where (just to make things clear) the USians - all 22 million of them in 1861-62 - actually live...

And work, play, and make urine and ordure, among other useful things.

(Note: The total population of the rebel states numbered roughly 9 million in 1861-62, of which a significant percentage - at least one-third - can not truly be counted as whole-hearted supporters of the rebel war effort, for obvious reasons. Likewise, the "settled" population of British North America in 1861-62 numbered all of 3 million, of which a significant percentage - perhaps as many as one-third based on the most obvious divide - are probably not going to be whole-hearted supporters of Gentleman Johnny's Excellent Adventure, 1862 version.)

For the British, of course, such a conflict is neither a total war, nor particularly close (as in, it ain't Flanders, Portugal, or Spain) for the British, and (unlike in the Russian war) there are not entire armies (French and Ottoman, for example) that outnumber the available British expeditionary forces in the theaters where the British ended up fighting...

Just to make it plain (and quoting yet another wiser man than I):

...Between 1861 and 1865, the United States fought its bloodiest war. The existential threat of Confederate rebellion resulted in the deaths of 360,000 Union soldiers. In defense of the institution of chattel slavery, the Confederacy was willing to sacrifice 260,000 soldiers. In total, preserving the Union and freeing four million African-Americans cost the nation 620,000 soldiers drawn from a population of 30 million.

A proportional cost today would amount to no less than seven million dead Americans.

I don't see the British of 1861-62 (even Palmerston at his most belligerent) being ready to lead his nation down the bloody road necessary to win a "victory" for slavery in such a strategic situation.

Now, a former denizen of this board - the same one who suggested naval operations in mid-winter on the Great Lakes was the key to a British victory - apparently thought so; of course, he also was asked to leave because of his opinions on slavery.

My guess is his opinions are rare, even among those who would otherwise recommend his work; one would hope, at any rate.

Best,
 
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