Any possibility of the US getting land from Canada?

The source is John Steele Gordon's The Great Game; in addition, there's the initial volume of Koistinen's pentology on the political economy of American warfare, although it covers the period from the late 17th century to the end of the civil war, which goes into a lot of detail on the economic strengthes of an autarky like the US in the mid-19th century. Considering that neither of the comparable European wars in terms of scale in the era ended because one side's economy (or the other) "collapsed" it seems unlikely a continental economy on the western side of the Atlantic would either...:

As it was, all the major transatlantic conflicts have turned on boots on the ground; economic disparities have a tremendous impact on that, but given the disparity between the various alliances in both world wars, the coalitions against Napoleon, and (for example) the U.S. and the rebels in the 1860s, the French and the Mexicans in the 1860s, the Spanish and the Latin Americans in the 1860s, and the British and the South Africans in the 1880s, one can only doubt that the U.S. - which, of course, controlled the Mother Lode, Comstock, and Colorado mines in this period, along with most of the temperate band of the North American continent - is going to be unable to finance itself in the event of conflict with a European power.

Best,



Best,

Sure, the US has a lot of resources. But who are we going to sell to when the Royal Navy is blockading the biggest US ports and destroying American shipping? I'm not suggesting that a total blockade is possible (I think the Civil War proved that the US is too big for that), but Britain could definitely cut off American trade with Europe, which will wreak havoc on the economy (although I doubt anyone would starve). Combine that with a bloody campaign to take Canada and the US Navy chilling somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic, and it seems hard for the US government to justify continuing the war.
 
1) The Crimean War was unpopular due to the fact that it seemed like it was bogging down and killing men without a point. Unless the British somehow manage to lose every single battle and fail to implement a blockade of the American coast I don't see the popularity diminishing appreciably.

You mean kind of how the American Civil war seemed to develop? Lets remember there were more Americans killed at Gettysburg (3200 Union soldier and 4700 Confederate soldiers) than were British killed in action during the entire Crimean war (about 2800 killed in battle, another 2000 dead from wounds). And lets remember, to send enough troops to protect Canada would have required a massive effort that would have dwarfed the American Revolution and the war of 1812. The 11,000 they sent in reaction to the Trent affair was considerably less than the order of battle for either side at Antietam. Also, while the Confederacy was popular with the upper class, that does not appear to have been the case amongst the working class, and probably not Ireland (since large numbers of Irish had already settled in the North).

2) I have actually never seen a source for British dependence on American wheat, I've heard it thrown around alot and have no difficulty believing it could indeed be a large percentage, but I find it difficult to believe that Britain couldn't diversify her sources or that American farmers and merchants would let themselves be cut off from a serious source of revenue.

They did have diverse sources, but see "Pushing Wheat" by Paul Sharp (Can be found by Google). Figure 2 demonstrates that wheat imports from America actually spiked in the early years of the Civil War. England might have made up the short fall, but it would have meant higher prices (particularly since a Blockage would have meant America's wheat production was effectively removed from European markets all together.

3) The plains had their borders settled in a treaty of 1818, maybe some wiggle room could have been found, but the ability to enforce that wiggle room is the issue, and I can't see the US being able to sustain an expansion to BC while defending her Western colonies.

Well the 1818 treaty only covered the border to the Rocky Mountains, but by the Civil War, the border was settled to the Pacific. If a war started, it could have could have ended with a renegotiation of that border.

On the flip side, lets say the Union had lost at Antietam and delayed the Emancipation Proclamation until later in the war. Britain decides to recognize the Confederacy and offer to broker a settlement between the two sides. Now, it might be able to force the issue, but rather than risk a war, it decides it would be harmless to sweeten the pot to the Union and offer them territorial concessions in the western parts of Canada exclusive of British Columbia.

--
Bill
 
How much land from Canada did the US want to take over in the war of 1812?

I could see the rest of the Great Lakes watershed going to the US in a win scenario.

Thank god then that for the sake of civilization, and the future of the human race that they failed to do so.

Yeah? Cry some more. The mere repatriation of our companies’ money out of your banks would collapse them. The world economy exists on the US’ whim.

[picture of an eagle shedding a single tear as the Stars and Stripes wave in the background]
 
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I could see the rest of the Great Lakes watershed going to the US in a win scenario.



Yeah? Cry some more. The mere repatriation of our companies’ money out of your banks would collapse them. The world economy exists on the US’ whim.

[picture of an eagle shedding a single tear as the Stars and Stripes wave in the background]

Now now, no need to feed the troll. It's pretty obvious he's not going to contribute anything but petty invective anyway (given the germane track record boasted), why draw attention to it?

Seriously though, I agree that the Great Lakes region is probably the maximum extent the USA could've gotten between 1776 (they need a better plan for the overland campaign under Arnold, though) and 1812. And really, what else does the US need other than that, as an alternate route westward that doesn't require shadowing the Ohio watershed? Honestly, I'd suspect the US' mean center of population would lie more through upstate New York and Michigan's lower portion in such a scenario, possibly with effects on where the Capital would be (my money is Columbia, PA given it lost out to D.C. IOTL by literally one vote). Nova Scotia is effectively an island (and thus out of reach against the RN), whereas the rest of the West is no great shakes compared to what the US got IOTL.

As an aside, could Canada reach anything close to OTL's prosperity/success if it was just Quebec, the Maritimes and (somehow, maybe with an overland route just south of the Canadian Shield) the west towards B.C.? In other words, shorn of southern Ontario as a whole?
 
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The source is John Steele Gordon's The Great Game; in addition, there's the initial volume of Koistinen's pentology on the political economy of American warfare, although it covers the period from the late 17th century to the end of the civil war, which goes into a lot of detail on the economic strengthes of an autarky like the US in the mid-19th century. Considering that neither of the comparable European wars in terms of scale in the era ended because one side's economy (or the other) "collapsed" it seems unlikely a continental economy on the western side of the Atlantic would either...:

Well an autarky is wonderful in theory, in practice achieving it has always had mixed results. While the US certainly is an autarky in terms of food production and some other resources, what it lacks is self-sufficiency in major war winning materials like iron, steel, mechanics, and saltpeter. In a cruel irony the major exporter of all of the above in this period was the UK.

As it was, all the major transatlantic conflicts have turned on boots on the ground; economic disparities have a tremendous impact on that...one can only doubt that the U.S. - which, of course, controlled the Mother Lode, Comstock, and Colorado mines in this period, along with most of the temperate band of the North American continent - is going to be unable to finance itself in the event of conflict with a European power.

The economic disparity between the US and the UK is fairly large in the 1860s and that won't be changing for about two decades.

The cruel fact about controlling things like the Comstock and Mother Lode is that they are located on the other side of the continent and the fastest way to ship it to where it matters is by ship, which in any Anglo-American war in the 1860s would be subject to interdiction, so essentially it's useless in financing the war effort. You could try sending it overland through trails that kill a few hundred people every year, filled with hostile terrain and Natives, and the further East you go subject to banditry and enemy raids, but is still going to be insufficient.

Even worse is that even with the gold being shipped east OTL this was still not even close enough to cover the governments spending in the war.

I'm afraid that financing the war purely on resources available within the Union is somewhat tenuous at best, and it still depends on the people buying bonds over anything else, and failing a steady string of victories those bonds will zig zag all over the place in terms of worth and public trust. It also depends on the economic situation remaining favorable enough during blockade that people will continue accepting greenbacks as payment.
 
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You mean kind of how the American Civil war seemed to develop? Lets remember there were more Americans killed at Gettysburg (3200 Union soldier and 4700 Confederate soldiers) than were British killed in action during the entire Crimean war (about 2800 killed in battle, another 2000 dead from wounds).

Not exactly. Most of the Crimean War was spent besieging Svestapol which to the public seemed to be going no where and 16,000 soldiers died of disease, which was the reason so many people were upset, not the fairly tame combat casualties.

Not quite the same reasons as the ACW. Wherein content only began to develop in 64 as the war seemed to be grinding on with no end in sight and casualties mounted in costly sieges that didn't seem to go anywhere after three years of costly battles which had at least seemed to go somewhere.

And lets remember, to send enough troops to protect Canada would have required a massive effort that would have dwarfed the American Revolution and the war of 1812. The 11,000 they sent in reaction to the Trent affair was considerably less than the order of battle for either side at Antietam. Also, while the Confederacy was popular with the upper class, that does not appear to have been the case amongst the working class, and probably not Ireland (since large numbers of Irish had already settled in the North).

The British had slated 30,000 men to go to Canada but these orders were suspended when the crisis ended. There could have been as many as 45,000 more sent to the fray to support some 100,000 militia from Toronto to Halifax. They would also be fighting on the defensive mostly, nullifying Union numbers rather handily.

As to the Confederacy's popularity, it would depend on the perception of the North in a continued crisis. As to the Irish, well they weren't exactly unified in a hatred of Britain and willingness to murder them, despite what popular history says. Most didn't expressly care and emigrated to improve their lot in life. I don't doubt many would fight, but some certainly wouldn't.

They did have diverse sources, but see "Pushing Wheat" by Paul Sharp (Can be found by Google). Figure 2 demonstrates that wheat imports from America actually spiked in the early years of the Civil War. England might have made up the short fall, but it would have meant higher prices (particularly since a Blockage would have meant America's wheat production was effectively removed from European markets all together.

I shall. They could have made up the shortfall (mostly I think), and certainly would have taken advantage of Americans attempting to smuggle wheat out of the US in order to keep afloat economically.

It would most likely effect consumption prices, but not to a level which would induce discontent I think.

Well the 1818 treaty only covered the border to the Rocky Mountains, but by the Civil War, the border was settled to the Pacific. If a war started, it could have could have ended with a renegotiation of that border.

Not incredibly likely, for the simple reason that not enough people live in the immediate region to actually to anything about border changes and Britain would only give up territory if she was absolutely forced to.

On the flip side, lets say the Union had lost at Antietam and delayed the Emancipation Proclamation until later in the war. Britain decides to recognize the Confederacy and offer to broker a settlement between the two sides. Now, it might be able to force the issue, but rather than risk a war, it decides it would be harmless to sweeten the pot to the Union and offer them territorial concessions in the western parts of Canada exclusive of British Columbia.

And whoever suggested that would be out of a job before he could blink. Nations don't give up territory unless there is something in it for them, and in this case there is nothing in it for Britain and it has no reason to give up territory.
 
A lot of the people pushing for the retention of the south aren't going to submit economic suicide in a fight against the British Empire. Just because the American entity could hypothetically become self sustaining a lot of the people in charge have much to lose.

The America of the civil war isn't the Soviet Union, there are many influential people who are going to be actively calling for peace when their livelihoods get threatened.

Plus, soldiers are going to desert when they don't get paid, enlistments will collapse, military contractors and suppliers are going to demand specie (which the government won't have much of, if any), the farmers, financiers and anyone with railroad stock will be clamouring for peace all while the soldiers in the field have a powder shortage.

There are plenty of PODs where the British lose pieces of Canada to the USA, the Civil War is a very poor one. The wikipedia article is pretty telling on the Trent Affair, and this where there was a mere war scare and not outright war.

wikipedia said:
The wider U.S. economy was soon hit by the effects of the Trent crisis. On December 16, the actions of the British cabinet reached New York: the stock exchange fell across the board, with government securities dropping by 2.5 per cent and the sterling exchange rising by two points, and an overall suspension seemed imminent.[136] On December 20, Salmon P. Chase's broker refused to sell some of the secretary's holdings of railway stock because they were almost worthless, and informed him that the business community "trust you will have allayed this excitement with England: one war at a time is enough".[137] A run on New York banks followed the stock market troubles, with $17,000,000 being withdrawn in three weeks, and on December 30 the banks voted by 25-15 to suspend specie payments.[138] Banks across the country soon followed them, with only those of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky continuing to redeem in coin.[139] This suspension left the Treasury unable to pay its suppliers, contractors or soldiers.[140] Though the crisis was resolved soon afterwards, these difficulties were not: on January 10, Lincoln asked Quartermaster General Meigs "General, what shall I do? The people are impatient; Chase has no money, and he tells me he can raise no more; the General of the Armies has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?"[141] The Treasury was eventually forced to issue fiat money in the form of "greenbacks" to meet its obligations.[142]
 
There are plenty of PODs where the British lose pieces of Canada to the USA, the Civil War is a very poor one. The wikipedia article is pretty telling on the Trent Affair, and this where there was a mere war scare and not outright war.

When Wikipedia mirrors the thoughts of premier scholars you know there is something right :p

Though I do agree, there are some very good POD's for America gaining more of Canada, some don't even require bloodshed! The Trent War idea however, is not one of them.
 
If the insanely difficult CPR hadn't been built, most settlement of the Canadian Prairies would have come north from Minneapolis up the Red River. If it weren't for the second Riel Rebellion, the CPR would have gone broke, and the section north of Superior might never have been completed.

Or more likely, someone takes a serious look at what building there costs, and financing never happens.


The Brits/Canadians are never simply going to sell off land. However, if the US can settle the area with US citizens (ok, who originally agreed to live by British laws, but still), then the area will vote to be annexed to the US (like Texas), and accommodations will be arranged.

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OTL, Canada lost land to the US in border agreements (e.g. Maine and Alaska) negotiated by the British. Of course, some of those agreements the US might claim they lost land to Canada - depending on whose claims you think were best.

For that matter, Canada lost the Red River Valley to the US (while the US lost portions of the Missouri watershed), when the western border was set at the 49th parallel.
 
The Brits/Canadians are never simply going to sell off land. However, if the US can settle the area with US citizens (ok, who originally agreed to live by British laws, but still), then the area will vote to be annexed to the US (like Texas), and accommodations will be arranged.

In OTL Americans were by far the largest immigrants settling the Prairie Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. American immigration to Canada rose from 2,412 individuals in 1897 to 58,312 in 1908, then to 103,798 in 1910 and 139,009 in 1913. Between 1897 and 1922 some 1,446,000 Americans settled in Canada, with the largest numbers going to Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba. In Alberta it was estimated in 1914 that 65% of the population were Americans and their Canadian-born children. American immigration was just behind that of Britain's and these groups together accounted for over 80% of Canada's 1900-1914 immigration.

Of the immigrants settling in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 46.8% came from North Dakota, 9.4% from Minnesota, 6.8% from Michigan, 4.9% from Iowa, 4.7% Wisconsin, 4.2% Illinois, 3.7% South Dakota, 1.6% Montana, 1.4% Kansas.

Considering that so many did settle in Canada and did not press for annexation to the US, it is a little silly to compare the situation to that of Mexican Texas. Canada had rule of law, stability and a similar enough form of government that these Americans were willing to adapt to. If Canada's government becomes corrupt, inefficient, oppressive I could see pressure for annexation, but in that scenario you'd get some Canadians pressing for it too.
 
If the insanely difficult CPR hadn't been built, most settlement of the Canadian Prairies would have come north from Minneapolis up the Red River. If it weren't for the second Riel Rebellion, the CPR would have gone broke, and the section north of Superior might never have been completed.

Or more likely, someone takes a serious look at what building there costs, and financing never happens.

Poor Riel gets lots of bad press but honestly he did a lot for Canada, not in the way he would have wanted to but he did quite a bit :p

Though I agree, without the CPR the settlement of the prairies would have been impossible, or at the very least more costly or ineffective. Though settlers would have come north regardless as the land was cheaper. Though I think that even without the Riel rebellion the line would still have been built, the continued settlement of the land by somebody would have resulted in the government in Ottawa grudgingly expanding the thing Westward. Slowly sure but one little bit at a time it would happen unless BC decided it wasn't worth it and broke off.

The Brits/Canadians are never simply going to sell off land. However, if the US can settle the area with US citizens (ok, who originally agreed to live by British laws, but still), then the area will vote to be annexed to the US (like Texas), and accommodations will be arranged.

Something like that could happen I agree, but I'm a tad skeptical that it would. I think the prairies would have to be lawless ungoverned territories before settlers got so displeased they decided annexation was a good idea.

OTL, Canada lost land to the US in border agreements (e.g. Maine and Alaska) negotiated by the British. Of course, some of those agreements the US might claim they lost land to Canada - depending on whose claims you think were best.

For that matter, Canada lost the Red River Valley to the US (while the US lost portions of the Missouri watershed), when the western border was set at the 49th parallel.

The Alaska agreement was probably the most detrimental from the Canadian perspective (though from an aesthetic perspective we should have lopped off the top of Maine and given it to New Brunswick :p) in terms of discontent and potential economic benefits at the time.

Considering that so many did settle in Canada and did not press for annexation to the US, it is a little silly to compare the situation to that of Mexican Texas. Canada had rule of law, stability and a similar enough form of government that these Americans were willing to adapt to. If Canada's government becomes corrupt, inefficient, oppressive I could see pressure for annexation, but in that scenario you'd get some Canadians pressing for it too.

I think it is telling that despite how many Americans immigrated to Canada there was never anything resembling a major annexation movement inside the provinces. Shows how content people were under the maddeningly difficult to get right responsible government :p

Though for there to be anything like a major push for annexation you probably have to do a couple of things:

1) Destroy Quebec nationalism, with their very French sense of identity and heritage the Quebec nationalists/radicals would never seek annexation to the United States, without that they may be more willing to work with the US, but I'm still skeptical they would accept yet another batch of English overlords if given a real opportunity at independence.

2) Make the government of Canada so corrupt/inept/repressive that people become genuinely unsatisfied with it's rule, so much so they actually start to see American style republicanism as a viable alternative. Considering how at best apathetic and at worst hostile the Canadian sentiment towards republicanism was OTL it would take one hell of a change to even have them consider it.
 
I honestly think that if more Americans settle the prairies, the biggest result is earlier provincial status.

I think the War of 1812 is a good POD. If America can wind up with Upper Canada (maybe Brock dies at Detroit when Hull won't surrender and Prevost bungles the rest of the war) Britain is going to have extremely hard time projecting power westward beyond lake Ontario.

All the later PODs have Canada just coopting the Americans and bringing them into the Canadian fold with promises of a railway and provincial status.
 
I honestly think that if more Americans settle the prairies, the biggest result is earlier provincial status.(1)

I think the War of 1812 is a good POD. If America can wind up with Upper Canada (maybe Brock dies at Detroit when Hull won't surrender and Prevost bungles the rest of the war) Britain is going to have extremely hard time projecting power westward beyond lake Ontario.(2)

All the later PODs have Canada just coopting the Americans and bringing them into the Canadian fold with promises of a railway and provincial status.(3)

1) Unless they demand annexation, which judging by historical trends is unlikely at best.

2) Could Prevost have bungled it that badly? I know he was fairly sluggish 9 times out of 10 but could he be handled roughly enough that he needs to fall back to Montreal?

3) Ha :p
 
1) Unless they demand annexation, which judging by historical trends is unlikely at best.

2) Could Prevost have bungled it that badly? I know he was fairly sluggish 9 times out of 10 but could he be handled roughly enough that he needs to fall back to Montreal?

3) Ha :p

The settlers would never make it past the border. Just because there weren't any settlers didn't mean the land wasn't policed, the British would just tell the Americans to bugger off and turn around most likely.
 
The settlers would never make it past the border. Just because there weren't any settlers didn't mean the land wasn't policed, the British would just tell the Americans to bugger off and turn around most likely.

Sorry I think I've read my number three post there as 'Canada will conquer America with promises of railways and provincial status' my mistake :eek:
 
Sorry I think I've read my number three post there as 'Canada will conquer America with promises of railways and provincial status' my mistake :eek:

I figured as much.

Given how Confedration happened OTL maybe ol' John A goes to Washington and explains how he's got this idea for Confederation...
 
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