British Brazil Due To Napoleonic Wars

TFSmith121

Banned
For what it is worth, Robert Scheina's

For what it is worth, Robert Scheina's Latin America's Wars (Vol. I) lists the following in the chapter on the Viceroyalty of RdlP, 1810-24:

British June, 1806 expedition (Beresford) - ~2,000; Argentine/Spanish - 6,500 (including 3,000 who did not arrive before the British agreed to withdraw.) Some 1,200 British troops formally surrendered on August 12.

British June, 1807 expedition (Whitelocke) - ~8,000 against BA, another 4,000 in Montevideo; Argentine/Spanish - 7,000 to 8,200 men (differing dates) of which no more than 3,000 were Spanish regulars. Whitelock surrendered July 6; terms included the British withdrawal from Montevideo.

Argentine/Spanish commanders of note were Liniers, Puerrydon, and Alzaga; British included Popham (RN), Stirling (RN), Beresford, Whitelocke, Auchmuty, and Craufurd (!). Obviously, Sobremonte may as well have been fighting for the British for the good he did the Spanish cause...

All in all, pretty impressive showing by the Argentine/Spanish and not exactly a laurel wreath for the British; shades of Dorchester/Boston and Saratoga, certainly.

Best,
 
martin,
Wiki lists Britain as having 6000 soldiers in Montevideo for the first invasion, but I'm baffled as to how this could be, since the initial force was only about 2500 men and they never landed in present day Uruguay, and they never got reinforcements. it was a poorly planned (official version has it as a British General going rogue) invasion with no plans for follow up forces. They took Buenos Aires handily, but were forced to give up because they lacked reinforcements. Given adequate forces, it would have succeeded.

The second invasion was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 soldiers. This is where the 6000 soldiers took Montevideo, then an additional force arrived to try taking Buenos Aires, but failed due to the Spanish prepping for the invasion after the first one, and because of shoddy British leadership. Up until Wellington came on the scene (Portugal), shoddy British military leadership was pretty much the norm. After bungling BA, Whitlocke (British commander) compounded the bungle by giving up Montevideo without a fight, for which he was court marshaled and kicked out of the army. Britain could have easily held Montevideo.


It would have been interesting to see how Wellington would have fared in Venezuela with the troops he was training. Invasion scheduled for 1808, but derailed by the Iberian War.

Anyhow, as I said in my initial post, the Portuguese are not Spaniards. Spanish subjects had a tendency to dig in with defiance. Portuguese were much more used to losing and weren't really all that defiant. I could easily see, under the right conditions, Brazil simply accepting a new overlord.

Plus, there wasn't a lot of people living in Brazil. And due to declining mineral reserves the colony wasn't too important enough by Portugal.
 
Plus, there wasn't a lot of people living in Brazil. And due to declining mineral reserves the colony wasn't too important enough by Portugal.

I'm not sure where you're pulling this information from, but the population of Brazil continued to rise throughout the 18th century from 300,000 in 1700, to over 3 million by 1800.

In 1798 the population was calculated at 3,250,000.
Below is a Breakdown
1,361,000 Black Slaves
221,000 Mixed-Race Slaves
1,010,000 White
406,000 Free Blacks & Mixed Race
252,000 Indigenous Indians

Largest Cities in 1807
Salvador 100,000
Rio de Janeiro 50,000
Recife 25,000

By comparison, the Rio de la Plata Viceroyalty in what is modern Argentina had around 552,000 inhabitants in 1800.

By 1819 that population had risen to around 4 million.

Brazil's population would surpass Portugal's by the 1820s and it was already more populous the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway in 1800.
 
Random,
Brazil was extremely important to Portugal, and P would likely never give it up without a fight. (the problem is that they didn't really have much fight in them).
The question for Britain wasn't whether they could take Brazil from Portugal, but whether they could establish control over the Brazilians (presuming, of course, that they would want to). It was a huge country, and that, more than anything, is what would make it a daunting task in the middle of the Nap Wars.
 
I'm not sure where you're pulling this information from, but the population of Brazil continued to rise throughout the 18th century from 300,000 in 1700, to over 3 million by 1800.

In 1798 the population was calculated at 3,250,000.
Below is a Breakdown
1,361,000 Black Slaves
221,000 Mixed-Race Slaves
1,010,000 White
406,000 Free Blacks & Mixed Race
252,000 Indigenous Indians

Largest Cities in 1807
Salvador 100,000
Rio de Janeiro 50,000
Recife 25,000

By comparison, the Rio de la Plata Viceroyalty in what is modern Argentina had around 552,000 inhabitants in 1800.

By 1819 that population had risen to around 4 million.

Brazil's population would surpass Portugal's by the 1820s and it was already more populous the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway in 1800.

Random,
Brazil was extremely important to Portugal, and P would likely never give it up without a fight. (the problem is that they didn't really have much fight in them).
The question for Britain wasn't whether they could take Brazil from Portugal, but whether they could establish control over the Brazilians (presuming, of course, that they would want to). It was a huge country, and that, more than anything, is what would make it a daunting task in the middle of the Nap Wars.

Yeah, oops.

Of course the British could install a leader willing to cooperate with them.
 
That's silly. History shows differently. Britain has captured Spanish colonies before. Jamaica, Havanna and so on. They captured Minorca during the Napoleonic Wars. The difference is that the French Empire was more important for the British to defeat because of conflicting interests in North America and India.

They have lost many early battles to the French Empire early in the Seven Years War but eventually figured out how to win and defeat the French Empire. Why? because they had the best navy at the time so they could afford to suffer defeats and learn from them. They may have lost at Argentina but it doesn't meant they'll always lose such contests. They would have learned from it and tried better next time especially since their navy was even more dominant during the Napoleonic Wars than during the Seven Years War when they defeated the French Empire.

Britain was primarily a maritime power and did not necessarily have the troops to spare to invade large heavily populated regions. One of Britain's primary objectives in wars with France was to maintain naval superiority, meanwhile utilize its allies to do the fighting on land. Additionally, a large number of troops were always required to protect the home islands as the threat of invasion was always omnipresent.

When Britain did invade and conquer other lands, they tended to be small and never had millions of inhabitants like Brazil did. Even the Rio de La Plata was too big to swallow. Below are some numbers of the places the British did capture with contemporary population sizes.

Jamaica had a population of 1,500 in 1655 when the English captured it, of whom 700 were Spaniards.

New Netherlands had under 9,000 inhabitants at the time of conquest in 1664.

French Newfoundland and Acadia had around 2,000 French inhabitants in 1710.

At the time of Britain's capture of Havana in 1762, Cuba had around 140,000 people, of whom 60,000 were Spaniards. Havana itself had 36,000 inhabitants.

New France had a population of 70,000 at the time of conquest in 1759.

Minorca had 32,000 inhabitants in 1800 and it was captured by the British in 1798.

Dutch South Africa had 60,000 inhabitants in 1806, of these 27,000 were white.

Batavia and its environs had 200,000 inhabitants when the British captured it in 1811, of these around 16,000 were Europeans and Eurasians.
 
Britain was primarily a maritime power and did not necessarily have the troops to spare to invade large heavily populated regions. One of Britain's primary objectives in wars with France was to maintain naval superiority, meanwhile utilize its allies to do the fighting on land. Additionally, a large number of troops were always required to protect the home islands as the threat of invasion was always omnipresent.

When Britain did invade and conquer other lands, they tended to be small and never had millions of inhabitants like Brazil did. Even the Rio de La Plata was too big to swallow. Below are some numbers of the places the British did capture with contemporary population sizes.

Jamaica had a population of 1,500 in 1655 when the English captured it, of whom 700 were Spaniards.

New Netherlands had under 9,000 inhabitants at the time of conquest in 1664.

French Newfoundland and Acadia had around 2,000 French inhabitants in 1710.

At the time of Britain's capture of Havana in 1762, Cuba had around 140,000 people, of whom 60,000 were Spaniards. Havana itself had 36,000 inhabitants.

New France had a population of 70,000 at the time of conquest in 1759.

Minorca had 32,000 inhabitants in 1800 and it was captured by the British in 1798.

Dutch South Africa had 60,000 inhabitants in 1806, of these 27,000 were white.

Batavia and its environs had 200,000 inhabitants when the British captured it in 1811, of these around 16,000 were Europeans and Eurasians.

I just realized Spain would be more likely to take Brazil if both Spain and France cooperate in invading Portugal and forcing the Royal Family to their mercy instead of France backstabbing Spain.
 
Um, India?

Of course, in India, as you are no doubt aware, the British had a lot of local levies they could recruit and train, were not facing people using the same (roughly) military tactics as them, and were not invading a nation over the course of a few weeks.
 
What Britain could do, especially if something befell the Braganza's, is establish a protectorate over Brazil. They tried doing it with Pedro I (more or less, probably less), but by then the colony had independence on it's mind, with a king, and a mother country still intact. with a POD which doesn't put the Braganza's in Brazil, and with the mother country annexed by Spain/France, the situation is ripe for Britain to say to Brazil "we'll protect you, and let you pretend to be autonomous if you let us use and abuse you, er, establish trade"
 
What Britain could do, especially if something befell the Braganza's, is establish a protectorate over Brazil. They tried doing it with Pedro I (more or less, probably less), but by then the colony had independence on it's mind, with a king, and a mother country still intact. with a POD which doesn't put the Braganza's in Brazil, and with the mother country annexed by Spain/France, the situation is ripe for Britain to say to Brazil "we'll protect you, and let you pretend to be autonomous if you let us use and abuse you, er, establish trade"

Sure. However, if Portugal does become independent eventually on a later date than OTL, would the British have enough power in Brazil to keep it from reconnecting it with the motherland?
 
If Brazilians are doing well under the new setup, they're not going back to colonial status under Portugal, and barring some borderline ASB happenings, Portugal won't have the ability to boot out Britain, or bring Brazil forcibly back into the fold.
 
If Britain tried to end slavery in the colony, we could see a possible independence movement launched by the elite. Of course, they could lose since the British would win the hearts and minds of the slaves.

Also, I speculated Brazil would become something like British India. So how would this affect India in particular? I speculate less emphasis.

If Brazil was oppressed enough, I could see a massive independence revolt.

And could Britain possibly lose it to another nation?
 
A british protectorate over Brazil... with the portuguese support.. yes, it is possible.. but the conquer... no, It wasn´t possible for Britain.
About the British invasion: first, it didn´t any argentine army units.. I have the OB and I only see Spanish regular units and Spanish Militia... the same names of the Buenos Aires Militia revealed where the came from.. to speak about argentine army in 1807 is as to speak about French Army in Julius Caesar´s time! or Czech Army about K und K in 1914!

On February 3, 1807, Montevideo was captured in a joint military and naval operation using British reinforcements of 8,000 men under General Sir Samuel Auchmuty and a naval squadron under Admiral Sir Charles Stirling.

By other side, Buenos Aires lacked of fortress. The action was a house by house battle.
And now the British disaster: By March of 1807, nearly 12.000 British soldiers under the command of general Whitelocke arrived in the River Plate Region. Whitelocke attacked Buenos Aires with 9.000 infantrymen, 350 cavalry and 16 guns. Spaniards had 7.000 men (mostly Militia and some hundreds regular troops). And however, the British effort to storm the city´s center met with disaster. In a urban battle from house to house, from barricade to barricade, the British were attacked by flanks and after losing half of their men... the British were forced to fight their way back out of the city. That day were defeated Beresford (POW), Popham, Whitelocke... Don Santiago de Liniers, the Heroe of the River Plate campaing was officially appointed viceroy and ennobled: Marquis of Buenos Aires...but when Buenos Aires uprising... he changed the name by Marquis of Lealtad (Loyalty), title using their descendants.

If Britain was unable to conquest the River Plate Region.. If Portuguese would have showed the same ferocity that Spaniards... I can´t imagine British fighing and conquesting Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio, San Salvador, Manau etc etc etc... As it was said by Viriato, Britain was a naval power, never a military power... Brazil as Spanish Empire were
pieces too large to Britain.
 
I am no expert, but my understanding is that Jamaica in the 1660s is a very different place than Mexico in 1800, or Uruguay in 1800. Havana is a fair analogy, except the British promptly lost thousands of men to disease after conquering the place.

Didn't seem to stop the British from taking Manila a couple of months later. You cannot claim that Havana and Manila were underpopulated or undefended; these were the capitals of Spanish West and East Indies respectively and prided by Spain. Spain was forced to drop out of the war, humiliated and made concessions to get those two capitals back.


Britain's failure to conquer the Thirteen Colonies also gives me pause. A series of provinces across an ocean, where (unlike in the Napoleonic Wars) Britain had a base of support, but they couldn't pull it off.

The 13 Colonies are not a good example. The British navy was not dominant at that time as the combined Franco-Spanish fleet outnumbered the British one. The French navy improved immensely and fought the Royal Navy on even terms throughout the world, winning and losing battles here and there.

France after the Revolution could not maintain its navy and basically had to start over, allowing the Royal Navy to regain dominance at en even greater rate by the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the topic of this thread.
 
exactly a laurel wreath for the British; shades of Dorchester/Boston and Saratoga, certainly.

Best,

Really? What happened after Saratoga? The British won battle after battle until Yorktown. You can count on one hand the number of Rebel victories against the British. The French had to do most of the work in defeating the British from Rochambeau's army who planned and executed the Yorktown campaign to the French navy who fought Britain in America and around the globe thereby stretching the Royal Navy.

In fact, the Rebels were so bad (from incompetence to outright cowardice) that they were an expensive drain on the French war effort; a negative ally like Mussolini was to Hitler. France was constantly forced to supply and finance them. If Wikipedia is to be believed, France spent the equivalent of 13 billion dollars on the Rebels alone. The French realized bitterly that Saratoga was a fluke Rebel victory.
 
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