Wasn't the UK's plan to defend Canada basically "don't"?
cost analysis would be done I assume on the line of "is an independent canada better to provide us with their stuff and to buy ours or would an enlarge USA do the same ?"
Wasn't the UK's plan to defend Canada basically "don't"?
"The whole empire" is mostly 3,000+ miles away. How big an army do you think it can support from that distance?
What about a USA on the side of the Central powers in WWI. Could Canada,UK , France, Russia and Japan. Combine to do some damage?
cost analysis would be done I assume on the line of "is an independent canada better to provide us with their stuff and to buy ours or would an enlarge USA do the same ?"
I'm not thinking Invasion USA would be a main attack would be more a side action.
Maybe to force USA out of the war.
Think gallipoli but the UP & Mitt instead.
Take what South African and ANZAC forces you could pull out, Some French Colony troops , Asian Russian Troops/Eastern Russian troops and the Japan Navy gets to try out the US Pacific fleet. Not looking at top line forces just a group who can hold off USA forces from entering Europe.
Again though, nuclear weapons aren't some kind of magic "I win" button.
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The standing army point is probably the main weakness the US has between about 1850 and 1941. The US has a certain tendency to criminally neglect the armed forces in peacetime, though after the mid 1890s it was at least only neglecting the army!that is a good one, Canada is the staging area for the invasion, just make sure it is early spring. The U.S. didn't maintain a good standing army at the time so mobilization will take awhile
The OP defined what he wanted previously. He wants an occupation of the American heartland for at least 24 hours. That means EVERY state that doesn't border an ocean. That in turn means totally defeating the United States. A side action isn't doing that.
The OP defined what he wanted previously. He wants an occupation of the American heartland for at least 24 hours. That means EVERY state that doesn't border an ocean. That in turn means totally defeating the United States. A side action isn't doing that.
The OP defined what he wanted previously. He wants an occupation of the American heartland for at least 24 hours. That means EVERY state that doesn't border an ocean. That in turn means totally defeating the United States. A side action isn't doing that.
But fine. Where do these troops go? Where are they being landed? How many are there. The U.S. in the Civil War (both Union and Confederate) raised a total of 3 million men. Extrapolating from the population of the time (around 30 million) to the 1914 population (100 million) that means mobilization of at least 8 million is possible (rounding down to give a bottom number of a baseline). That alone is equal to the entire population of Canada, so how many can be sent? A million? That still leaves them outnumbered over 4-1 (Canada mobilized about 630,000). 2 million? A little better, but still about 3-1. How are those soldiers supplied? Who makes up for that, in Europe as Germany bears down on Paris, or as Russia is falling apart?
How long until some British General says "we need those men here?"
Well in WW1 and WW2 apart from the UK, no one in the empire was actually that close to some of the action yet you had australians fighting in africa and canadians in europe.
Assuming the US president didn't simply wake up one morning and decide to invade, there would be build-up and transfer of material, request for volunteer to reinforce the border and the like.
Is Nevada really part of the US heartland?
My guess at what "heartland" means is "the part of the country which has most of the important production and human resources".
The plan is kinda simple Land forces in the UP and the Mitt itself also attack across the border into Wisconsin with the aim to hit the main rail yards in Chicago.
If those yards are taken out your cutting supply from the east and west.
In practical terms I think an Anglo-German alliance in about 1910-14 could muster the military muscle in a way that would be bigger and faster than the US' ability to respond to it. While the pre WW1 USN was pretty big it wasn't as big as the RN or KM, let alone those two combined. The US Army was a joke even compared to the British Regular Army, IIUC the A-US formed its first 3 permanent divisions as late as 1912 at the same time as the British committed 6 regular divisions to France. In only 4 months after WW1 broke out the BEF split into 2 Armys on the Western Front with about 22 divisions, not to mention other reshufflings which saw Territorial Army divisions deploying to India. Germany could easily supply dozens of divisions within weeks of mobilisation, the best equipped in the world in terms of artillery and well lead and organised.
I'd suggest that assuming a political scenario crops up in say 1912-14 an Anglo-German-Mexican alliance could launch a bolt from the blue that the US forces would not be able to stop. A partial mobilisation in Britain and Germany could easily provide 50 divisions on the Canadian and Mexican borders within maybe 2 or 3 months. These forces could launch invasions into the US from several different points of the US at once, the biggest from the areas of Canada near the great lakes on multiple axes that the tiny US military would be powerless to stop with such a minimal warning.