challenge: invade the U.S

"The whole empire" is mostly 3,000+ miles away. How big an army do you think it can support from that distance?

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.
 
It will have to be at the beginning of the century, preferably before WW1 (any POD after WW2 is ASB, as the only realty threat to the Continental US territory is nuclear) and a large coalition of European powers, necessarily including the UK, France and Germany. The UK is necessary because the pre-WW1 British fleet is the only fleet that on its own is able to project a naval force to the atlantic seaboard that would be decisively larger and more powerful then anything the American fleet and thus force it to stay in port (as what happened to the German navy in ww1), and it also controls the necessary bases in the Caribbean and north atlantic to support a blockade of America. Just as importantly the UK merchant marine would be needed to supply and sustain the huge army it would take to launch an invasion (i believe that prior to ww1 the UK had between 1/3 and 1/2 of the worlds merchant shipping). The French and the Germans are the only countries capable of quickly raising and equipping armies big enough to launch a US invasion (largely in OTL because they were preparing for war with each other) and furthermore you need both France and Germany in this Anti-US coalition because if it is only one, then the other will be forced to leave most of its armies at home to guard against an opportunistic attack from the other. Also invasion in this scenario doesn't involve the European powers conquering the whole country between New York and California, it likely would be a blockade on the east coast by the combined navies followed by shelling East Coast cities and invasions of strategically important coastal areas (Chesapeake bay, New York Harbor, ect.) to force a US surrender. Even in this situation it is far from certain that the European powers would be successful as the US government would obviously have prepared its military better than in OTL if they had seen the three strongest powers of Europe all starting to unite in a hostile alliance against them (again the politics behind this render it ASB right off the bat), but a UK/Germany/France alliance is probably the minimum amount of countries necessary to have a chance of successfully invading and defeating the US and only in the pre-WW1 era.

Here is an article about whether it would be possible for the combined militaries of the ENTIRE WORLD to conquer the US today (cliff notes: not even close, even not counting America's nukes as the USN would simply sink the combined assault fleets of the world):
http://www.vice.com/read/we-asked-a...e-whole-world-could-conquer-the-united-states

A previous article discussed the possibility of any power conquering Britain and even that was hard as whomever it would be would have to eat a nuclear retaliation from at least one of the UK's ballistic subs. Another article was about invading Russia which would ultimately be nearly as impossible as invading the USA (RE: being incinerated by nuclear retaliation)
 
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?


Small problem. Not a big deal. Just a little country called Germany. You know, which borders two of those, in OTL defeated one, and occupied the north of another. Without the support of the largest industrial power in the world K might add. The UK, France, and Russia will all have to focus their attention on Germany, because it is by far a larger threat. The U.S. isn't really a threat to the mainland European powers who have little in the way of overlapping interest. Canada of course is a different story. Those Canadian troops who acquitted themselves well in France? Gone. They will all be needed at home. The Royal Navy that kept Germany under blockade? Forced to shift its attention to a war with a power that once awake can build a larger one. Those British troops? Partially needed to defend the Carribean islands and possibly assault American positions worldwide. Unless they decide Germany is a bigger threat, which to be frank they very well might. The U.S. will never threaten the Home Islands. Germany dominating the continent will. Japan? Has no way of sending strength against North America.

In short, no. France and Russia has more important things to worry about. Britain can't beat the United States in the Western Hemisphere alone.

And the Allies now get to fight the Central Powers without American money or materiel. The next few years will go very, very badly for them.

Or to put it another way, they rapidly run into the reality that Europe is more important than North America for their interests.

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 mean, the RN decided that defending Canada was impossible in the long-term, so they wouldn't fight to protect it at all. Instead using the immediate superiority of the Royal Navy to strike the United States elsewhere and enforce a blockade to regain Canada in a peace treaty.
 
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.
 
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.

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?"
 
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Again though, nuclear weapons aren't some kind of magic "I win" button.


.

they are however most definitely a "You Lose" button. It is all a matter of how many lose at that point

Post World War II, at least in OTL, Strategic Air Command has the ability to utterly destroy any power or combination of powers beginning in the mid 1950s, and with expansion of the nuclear triad, even with the end of the Cold War, the United States still retains that power.

For any actual invasion of the United States prior to that point, you will need a pretty significant point of departure and a lot of butterflies.

The US Navy post 1912 is the 3rd largest in the World, and post 1918 is the largest or second largest depending on which year you look at. That matters a lot too.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
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 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!

(It takes time to build a large modern army from civilians - years, any time anyone's tried it - and it gets harder the more new troops you have to spread trained troops out amongst.)

This kind of thing - that the US' standing army plus militia is not very large pre-WW2 and the navy not quite world-class until WW1 or so - is why the US is at some times relatively vulnerable. It takes less time for a hostile power to put together an army large enough to overmatch the US one from long-service militia and regulars... than it takes the US to build to a useful level.
 
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.

a more realistic definition of the heartland would be the heart of American industry, population and agriculture. Basically even now that is the Mid Atlantic and New England States plus the Midwest and part of the Plains states (the eastern parts of those). That is the overwhelming majority of all three of those.

The South and Southwest, even now, are much smaller combined in population to the Midwest and Northeast combined and certainly less important in industry. As to agriculture, the principal staples (wheat, corn, beef, pork, chicken) are from the Midwest and Eastern Plains, while the South and Southwest primarily export things for the US market (various vegetables, luxury foods, some extra staples)

Toss in California (by itself) into the Midwest and Northeast and really the remainder of the US is relatively impoverished. Only Texas is in the same league as California as economic powerhouses
 
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 why? You don't need to project an army into Des Moins, Iowa to force an American surrender. Really pre-WW2 all you need to do is occupy chunks of the east coast.

If the question is could any power or even reasonable coalition in the 20th century project an army across the ocean, supply it and then march it across the entire continental United States and occupy the whole country then the answer is a resounding NO, even all the major powers of Europe combined couldn't do that, not that they would have to to defeat the US.

Also a note on UK vs US shipbuilding capacity: Pre-WW1 it is actually far from certain that the USN would ever be able to catch up to the RN in a shipbuilding race as the UK at this time still posses the most shipbuilding capacity (in terms of major building facilities) in the world and has by far the largest amount of foreign investment holdings in the world which they could liquidate and use to fund a major, extended war and shipbuilding war (which they did in WW1, allowing them to heavily finance the whole Allied war effort). Also considering the gross numerical advantage the RN has over the USN in all aspects of naval combatants I cant see the USN stopping it even in an extended war, especially if the RN is supported by either (or both) the German and French Navy.
 
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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?"


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.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
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".
 
I suppose the easiest way about it would be a Second Civil War followed by a coalition of powers invading to restore order or one faction in the conflict crosses the line so badly that they feel they have to invade. An alternate 1920's/1930's could lead to this with the Great Depression pushing things over the edge.
 
With a PoD of ~1900, it's really, really, really tough.

You'd need the combined might of multiple European powers (e.g. Britain + Germany + ???), just to have the resources necessary.

THEN you have to create some incredibly unlikely scenario that lines up mutually suspicious powers against the US.

You'd almost have to have the US go all McCarthy on German and British immigrants (say), shortly after 1900. And how you'd go about doing THAT, I'm sure I don't know.


Your window is also incredibly short. After WWI, there probably is no believable combination of European powers that could believably threaten the US.

So... Avoid WWI. Have the US go wacko insane about 1910, forcing all Europeans into concentration camps.

Get the British navy and the German and French armies to land in Canada and invade the US, about 1920 or so?

Really, really, really unlikely.

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Alternate scenario
US falls into a desperate Civil War (again, in that same time frame).

Thousands of refugees flee across the border into Canada, portions of the US Army in hot pursuit.

Brits land forces in Canada, first to patrol borders, then (with the aid of at least one other major European power) move into bordering areas as peacekeepers, and to keep the refugees south of the border (in said buffer zone). So Great Lakes littoral, Seattle, probably all of Maine.

All sides in the US fight see this as an invasion (or at least the rabid movers and shakers in those movements do), and the splinters of the US Army they control attack these zones. The UK+ forces then expand those zones, for a buffer zone to keep their occupied buffer zone safe. (So... Say the original buffer zone for handling refugees consisted of 100 miles from the shore of any Great Lake, the secondary buffer zone is another 100 miles. Maybe.) Occupying all of the heavy industry belt in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan to remove the industrial support.

Again. Really, really unlikely. What PoD after 1900 can cause a massive Civil War in the US before WWI breaks out - or causes both a 2nd ACW and no WWI.
 
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.

They were also in a country far more population dense than Canada. The big problem with staging out of Canada is that its population is spread out which means that its infrastructure, outside the cities, although modern is relatively sparse. You could put people and equipment in GB and have a dense enough population to support it and be relatively close to any important area you want to get to as Europe is across the channel.

Also there is the channel stopping anyone from attacking when you build up. Canada has a very diffuse population and the US is right across the border. You can't possibly build up fast enough for the US not to attack Canada before you are ready.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Fidel and Che get lost, reaching the wrong coast, and say, what the hell, let's invade the USA...
 
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 heartland of the United States according to what I've read are the states which don't border an ocean, or the midwest, depending. Either one is ridiculously hard.

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.

Mitt? Okay, I'm guess that isn't the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology.

But okay, so this million man army arrives in Canada, is shipped across the country by its railroad network, which must now also begin shipping the supplies for said army in, but of course these supplies have to come from somewhere, because Britain has to import food as well, and now they don't have the largest producer of food selling to them, which means probably South America. Which also means a much longer supply chain.

Oh, and of course the supplies for said army have to be diverted from France, which as World War I is still going on is still being overrun Which means Britain is going to be heavily pressured by the French to forget the sideshow theater and focus on the actual important enemy (for the French at least).

And so it comes back to the central objection WHY? Why is Britain doing this? Germany is still there. Germany is still moving to dominate the continent. Germany is still capable of fighting France and Russia at the same time. Britain is NEEDED if the Allies are going to stay in the war. At some point, probably relatively quickly, the British military is going to decide that North America simply isn't worth it. Probably at around the same time the ambassadors are all fired because they were somehow stupid enough to get Britain into a shooting war with both Germany and the US at the same time.

But that's the big problem. Forget the US's geographic advantages. Forget the industrial advantages. WHY are they fighting? Why does Britain abandon the policy it has held literally since the Treaty of Paris 1783 of maintaining generally cordial relations to the United States (the only big exception being the lead-up to the War of 1812.) There are no real quarrels between the two countries, the US has no reason to desire conquest of Canada, and Britain has no reason to be hostile. That's what's standing in the way more than anything. There is no reason for Britain and America to go to war in the 20th century. And without Britain whoever else tries doesn't have a chance in hell.
 
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.
 
I think you need Britain and Germany to do this, pre WWI. Any coalition that doesn't include Germany would be vulnerable to German attack and any not including Britain would be vulnerable to having its supply lines savaged by the RN if they decided to intervene on the Americans' side. You would need Britain and Germany to be allies not rivals, maybe keep Friedrich around for long enough to join Britain in a treaty of Peace and Friendship before snuffing it around 1895. Enter Willhelm as his usual charming self but not seeing Britain as a rival, instead focusing on the US. Mexican civil war with Britain and Germany supporting Madero and the US sponsoring his assassination and maybe bringing in some troops, giving a causus belli.

All a bit far fetched but best I could do.
 
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.


Which the US naturally ignores. It doesn't notice the growing closeness of the UK, Germany and Mexico nor the growing hostility of the UK to itself. :rolleyes:
 
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