Britain, France and a Quasi-involvement in the US Civil War?

What is the most that Britain and France could do in the American Civil War without technically entering the war? Also, if it is less, what is the most they could do without changing the results significantly?
 
What is the most that Britain and France could do in the American Civil War without technically entering the war? Also, if it is less, what is the most they could do without changing the results significantly?

They could recognise the south as a beligerent allowing it to buy weapons and equipment on the european markets. As long as they don't recognise it as a country they should be within their legal rights.
 
They could recognise the south as a beligerent allowing it to buy weapons and equipment on the european markets. As long as they don't recognise it as a country they should be within their legal rights.

which seems kinda pointless with the Union blockade going on. If the two don't put ships at sea (to break the blockade) and boots on the ground (to help the south), simple recognition isn't going to accomplish much...
 
which seems kinda pointless with the Union blockade going on. If the two don't put ships at sea (to break the blockade) and boots on the ground (to help the south), simple recognition isn't going to accomplish much...
simpily helping break the blockade will help the south alot with giving them much needed war supplies so they won't be as under equipped & under gunned
 
which seems kinda pointless with the Union blockade going on. If the two don't put ships at sea (to break the blockade) and boots on the ground (to help the south), simple recognition isn't going to accomplish much...
Wouldn't boots on the ground pretty much guarantee victory for the south though?
 
If France and Britain reconise and send suply the CSA bought I wonder if that would force the USA to attack French and British ships.
 
which seems kinda pointless with the Union blockade going on. If the two don't put ships at sea (to break the blockade) and boots on the ground (to help the south), simple recognition isn't going to accomplish much...

The problem for the South is that they wouldn't do that. Prime Minister Palmerston made it clear he wanted to do nothing that risked war with the US.
 
They could recognise the south as a beligerent allowing it to buy weapons and equipment on the european markets.

The Confederacy was already buying equipment on the European markets.

simpily helping break the blockade will help the south alot with giving them much needed war supplies so they won't be as under equipped & under gunned

Breaking the blockade would require going to war with the US. The OP required less than them actually going to war with the US.
 
Breaking the blockade would require going to war with the US. The OP required less than them actually going to war with the US.
could the UK & CS begin trying to set up a supply/trade route through northern Mexico? If so do you think that would have the CS put more focus on the trans-mississippi theater of the war
 
Would just France be easier? I suppose as long as the CSA doesn't win the war and the US gets no French territory the French could actually deploy troops. My main interest is that the CSA still falls but Canada isn't invaded.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
British and French recognition would be a tremendous boon to the Confederacy even without any military intervention at all. The massive upswing in the Confederacy's diplomatic credibility would allow the South to float loans on foreign bond markets with much greater success than IOTL and would allow the South to avoid much of the fiscal chaos that engulfed it IOTL.
 
British and French recognition would be a tremendous boon to the Confederacy even without any military intervention at all. The massive upswing in the Confederacy's diplomatic credibility would allow the South to float loans on foreign bond markets with much greater success than IOTL and would allow the South to avoid much of the fiscal chaos that engulfed it IOTL.

How plausible would it be for them to do that? (I don't really know much about the US civil war and its effects elsewhere.)
 
British and French recognition would be a tremendous boon to the Confederacy even without any military intervention at all. The massive upswing in the Confederacy's diplomatic credibility would allow the South to float loans on foreign bond markets with much greater success than IOTL and would allow the South to avoid much of the fiscal chaos that engulfed it IOTL.

still, if the south can't actually get supplies in, does having money make all that much difference? You might get more blockade runners making the attempt, and a number of them would get through, but with the Union blockade in place, the south is hurting... and they're still outnumbered and outgunned by the Union...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
still, if the south can't actually get supplies in, does having money make all that much difference? You might get more blockade runners making the attempt, and a number of them would get through, but with the Union blockade in place, the south is hurting... and they're still outnumbered and outgunned by the Union...

True, but the major impact of a stronger Confederate currency is not so much in any increase to purchase supplies abroad as within the Confederacy itself. The simple fact that, with British and French recognition, the Confederate currency would be backed by more secure loans from British and French banks would give the Southern people more confidence in their own currency and thereby strengthen the overall fiscal condition of the South and the morale of its people, both in the field and on the home front. Inflation, which was one of the major causes of the defeat of the South, would be much less ITTL than it was IOTL.
 
they could embargo against the us themselves..refuse them accsess to the european markets and their colonies, loans, etc...make it harder for the states to gain supplies as well

but tbh the outcome wouldnt have changed less the european powers had got involved
 
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You don't want Canada to get invaded? Then OTL is the furthest you can get really, taking the whole Maximilian thing into account.
 
something i've always wondered, what if Britain stayed out but France & Spain joined the CSA in the ACW? Would they have the naval power to defeat the US navy?
 
True, but the major impact of a stronger Confederate currency is not so much in any increase to purchase supplies abroad as within the Confederacy itself. The simple fact that, with British and French recognition, the Confederate currency would be backed by more secure loans from British and French banks would give the Southern people more confidence in their own currency and thereby strengthen the overall fiscal condition of the South and the morale of its people, both in the field and on the home front. Inflation, which was one of the major causes of the defeat of the South, would be much less ITTL than it was IOTL.

I don't think it would matter as much as that as the problem was that the South was already in debt to its eyebrows, was printing money day and night, and the population of newly conquered Union territory is still going to send any CSA money outside of the region conquered because you can't spend CSA dollars in Union territory.
 
something i've always wondered, what if Britain stayed out but France & Spain joined the CSA in the ACW? Would they have the naval power to defeat the US navy?

French fleet was 2nd strongest in the world (after Royal Navy). It'd maul the US Navy in the open sea. Though how the coastal fights would turn out is a big question. But the US blockade of CSA coast would be definately broken.
 
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