At what point did it become unlikely for Britain to beat the US in an all out war...

Er you are aware South Africa is twice the distance of the East Coast. If the British Empire can sustain logistics across that distance it can do the same across half that. Consider also that for much of the 19thC more of the US economy was bound up with the British Empire than vice versa so it would be more than a simple economic hit. Consider the 1812 economic hit on New England and imagine that without the British Empire being distracted and an actual blockade.


South Africa was also far smaller, far less populous, had far few ports , had far less infrastructure etc. South Africa was a frontier country with few railroads, virtually no industry, and few people in it. The US was totally connected by rail, had lots of industry and a large population and its coast line is far larger than South Africa. The South African coastline is in no way equal to that of the entire Eastern Seaboard + Gulf of Mexico + the entire Western Seaboard nor did it have nearly as many ports. This is like saying if you can beat up a twelve year old kid you can beat a middleweight champ.
 
South Africa was also far smaller, far less populous, had far few ports , had far less infrastructure etc. South Africa was a frontier country with few railroads, virtually no industry, and few people in it. The US was totally connected by rail, had lots of industry and a large population and its coast line is far larger than South Africa. The South African coastline is in no way equal to that of the entire Eastern Seaboard + Gulf of Mexico + the entire Western Seaboard nor did it have nearly as many ports. This is like saying if you can beat up a twelve year old kid you can beat a middleweight champ.
Then why bring up the distance all?
I have some questions:
In which decade was the US totally connected by rail?
How much industry?
What proportion of the population was involved in the U.S. military or trade?
What was the level of infrastructure to support all this?
I notice some posters have tried to answer these for the US and Britain.
As I previously said:
There are essentially 2 arguments going on.
The first is about war capacity. This depends on resources, trade, and industrialisation. The US doesn't really surpass the British Empire until some time in 1880-1920.
The second is about projection of the capacity. This is more complicated and depends on naval and land logistics. It's also highly asymmetric with regards offensive and defensive projection.
 
Then why bring up the distance all?
I have some questions:
In which decade was the US totally connected by rail?
How much industry?
What proportion of the population was involved in the U.S. military or trade?
What was the level of infrastructure to support all this?
I notice some posters have tried to answer these for the US and Britain.
As I previously said:

1870's
It was the second largest industrial power by the 1870's
Not sure about that one but not much
The US had more railroad miles than the rest of the world combined by the 1870's.

I agree about the power projection, but the UK and US aren't fighting in Africa or Asia but in North America. That is where the US has the logistical infrastructure and the UK does not.
 
At what point did it become unlikely for Britain to beat the US in an all out war, and at what point did it become likely that the US would beat Britain?

I’m defining “likely” as more than a 50/50 chance, “unlikely” as as less than 50/50 chance, “beat” as taking territory or forcing reparations or forcing significant net concessions from the loser, and “all out” as both sides taking the war seriously without any other ways distracting them.

So the questions are, at what point did it become a less than 50/50 chance of Britain imposing a peace on America in a war? And at what point did the US become strong enough that it had a greater than 50/50 chance of imposing a peace on Britain (which likely means taking parts of if not all of Canada)?

About the War of Secession. The huge armies the Union could field would be militarily and logistically unbeatable for Britain, even with the Confederacy's help, whereas the Royal Navy could still largely dominate the seven seas, to an extent.
 
1870's
It was the second largest industrial power by the 1870's
Not sure about that one but not much
The US had more railroad miles than the rest of the world combined by the 1870's.

I agree about the power projection, but the UK and US aren't fighting in Africa or Asia but in North America. That is where the US has the logistical infrastructure and the UK does not.
Ok, good now we're getting a statement that the US is unbeatable in the 1870s rather than never unbeatable.
The British Empire did have logistics capability in Canada, I would say enough to defend Canada long enough for a blockade to bring the US to terms.
Still 1870s does appear when the US begins to start ramping up.
 
Ok, good now we're getting a statement that the US is unbeatable in the 1870s rather than never unbeatable.
The British Empire did have logistics capability in Canada, I would say enough to defend Canada long enough for a blockade to bring the US to terms.
Still 1870s does appear when the US begins to start ramping up.

If you looked at my past posts you would find I said around 1876 or so. I never said the US could never be beaten. It had some logistical capacity in Canada but not much, there were only 4 million Canadians. Note that the "unbeatable" is only in its backyard and sometime in the 1870's perhaps as late as the mid 1880's but no more. It comes from being a huge , well developed country so far away from GB.
 
If you looked at my past posts you would find I said around 1876 or so. I never said the US could never be beaten. It had some logistical capacity in Canada but not much, there were only 4 million Canadians. Note that the "unbeatable" is only in its backyard and sometime in the 1870's perhaps as late as the mid 1880's but no more. It comes from being a huge , well developed country so far away from GB.
Thanks for clarifying.
It needs to be done in these sorts of threads lest one be mistaken for subscribing to any kind of manifest destiny.
 
People need to consider that a British blockade of America would hurt America more than an American occupation of Canada would hurt Britain. In a total war, the American economy would be far more impacted than the British one, though it would be very bad for both sides.

The point at which America can impose terms on Britain one-on-one is either in the 1890s before the Spanish-American war or after 1906 with the launching of the Great White Fleet. At these points America has a large enough standing army to invade Canada and a large enough navy to force the UK to retreat from their periphery to fight the naval war. The US could build up shipbuilding capacity and seaforts during the war to an extent where the British would lose the war of attrition.

After the Spanish-American war and before the Great White Fleet, America is overstretched and would easily lose the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Alaska, and Hawai'i. This erases any gains they could make in North America and the best they could hope for is a status quo peace where they lose a ton of strategically important territory in exchange for couple million upset Anglos.

Of course, I will again state that the US and Britain going to war in this period or later is hard to justify and you would have to change the TL so much that the actual capabilities of the belligerents would be significantly affected.
 
The United States became the largest economy in terms of GDP ppp in the 1870s and surpassed Britain in most industrial aspects by the late 1880s/early 1890s. I'd therefore say sometime during this period.
 
The point at which America can impose terms on Britain one-on-one is either in the 1890s before the Spanish-American war or after 1906 with the launching of the Great White Fleet. At these points America has a large enough standing army to invade Canada and a large enough navy to force the UK to retreat from their periphery to fight the naval war. The US could build up shipbuilding capacity and seaforts during the war to an extent where the British would lose the war of attrition.

The United States became the largest economy in terms of GDP ppp in the 1870s and surpassed Britain in most industrial aspects by the late 1880s/early 1890s. I'd therefore say sometime during this period.

Okay a couple of related points so I thought I would address them in the one post.

I am deeply opposed to the 1890s as the point at which the tipping point between British superiority in the border regions/ coastal areas of the USA switches to US superiority. For a start the US Army was actually in something of a nadir prior to 1898 and so by and large no the US does not have the standing army to invade Canada...as to the Navy...it might interest people to know but Alfred Thayer Mahan's plan for a possible war with Britain in the 1890s basically revolved around the battleships of the US Navy forting up in New York to endure siege. The cruisers of the USN were to conduct commerce warfare against the British Empire. This is not a Navy remotely close to be able to impose control of its home waters.

1906 does see a change in that the US Navy at around this point does have the kind of battle fleet that can interdict landing operations on the US East Coast...it takes a while before the US could muster a fleet that could divide into two to provided the same level of cover for both oceanic coasts. It is a further stretch to suggest it might be able to sever the sea lanes to Canada, that point was not likely reached until the 1920s with the Washington Treaty and even then the RN still remained confident that while it could not support a full up deployment of the British Army to Canada it could cover sufficient convoys to maintain the defence of Nova Scotia and especially Halifax.
Now as to the notion the 1870s marks the tipping point...a lot of people look to total war without actually asking what is involved in providing for a total war. Civilians it turns out do not come pre-equipped with the standard service rifle, pack and webbing/harness, uniform including stout boots and at least six months basic training. In the Spanish-American War the US was able to over provide two things uniform kit and warm bodies...the break down occurred in training personnel and the logistics support between railheads/beachheads and the actual units in the field. In addition but the US forces were only sparingly equipped with field artillery which might have been an issue against the British who would be rather more fully equipped.

In each of America's war be it the Civil War or the Spanish-American War or World War 1 and even World War 2 we see foreign inputs go in to equipping the US War machine. The idea that the US will simply shrug off a British blockade and happily total war their way to power is questionable.

In the 1870s for example the US have a legacy fleet from the Civil War but technology has moved on considerably since then. The monitors designed for bashing Rebel river and coastal forts are not entirely suitable for facing contemporary sea going ironclads and even less so when those same vessels have been up-gunned with modern ordnance. The Civil War artillery kept in stock amounts to some 100 Napoleons and 100 Ordnance Rifles plus a number of howitzers. The supply of small arms is better the 1873 Springfield conversion is up to date for the period and plentiful. The US Army starts the decade nearly 40,000 strong but falls to 26,000 by the end of the it.

Of course things will be different with preparation but the US needs to prepare for years in the 1870s as pretty much it needs to do at any point certainly until the 1920s and even then it would be advisable. This preparation is also likely to provoke an Anglo-Canadian response and even something as simple as proper fortifications on the Canadian border makes a US assault that much more problematic.
 
Okay a couple of related points so I thought I would address them in the one post.


I completely(partially) agree with these assessments. I also think that if one were to make a TL where America and Britain go to war at a point after the Civil War, then you would have to increase tensions over time by a significant amount. Britain and America wouldn't just declare war on each other after having a disagreement over what should happen to Morocco. There would be significant militarization of the Canadian border and expansion of the US Army and Navy. Which would provoke fort-building by the British and an expansion of fleets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. And at that point the actual forces at disposal to each side become up to the author.
 
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