Could a Victorious CSA ever be friends with the US?

Could a victorious CSA ever get along with the USA? What I mean by friendly is like best buddies. Could they ever have an Alliance of some kind?
 
Certainly! Mortal diplomatic enemies become best friends all the time. You might've heard about a few small tiffs between France and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Flash forward to 1963, and they have the Treaty of Friendship. France, again, had a tiff with Britain lasting quite a while (Hundred Years War). And then, 20th century, we have the Entente Cordiale. Austria and Germany were rivals for control of Germany, then we had the Anschluss. And so on, and so on. Assuming peace can last early on between the two nations, people will begin to see the CS as a real nation and not just an upstart rebellion. Once that happens, and the US can take the CS seriously, they can begin to heal their political wounds.


Incidentally, while looking up the Franco-German treaty to remember the name and year, I was looking at a poorly worded article. It was talking about how a lot of high-ups in Germany and France were talking about a unification. It's an idea only being toyed with, but it's still a somewhat serious idea, and not just a fringe world state group or whatever. My jaw was dropped until I read that it was only the armed forces, and not the nations themselves, that would be unified.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
The Confederates better learn to be friends. Who the hell else are they going to trade with over the Ohio? Their own egos?

Just look at the US and Canada for an almost literal translation of what you're talking about: the US invaded Canada not once but twice. More if you count the proxies in the off years with the Patriotes, and the Fenians in 1866.
The US even burned down York (the future Toronto) in 1812 and lost a famous general (Pike, yes...Pike's Peak Pike) in the process, but they still get along famously and Canadian volunteers amounted to over 10,000 men on the Union side in the Civil War.

We've got too much in common to not get along without something really bad happening to get in our way. Look at the Christmas Truce of 1914: even in the middle of a war people who don't speak the same language really just want to get along.
 
It's extremely probably and most likely would happen in the long-term if the South did win the Civil War. If the war was won late, however,they might not be as good chums as the USA and Canada, considering the destruction wrought and the massive loss of lives, but still could be friends. What I find annoying about AH is that not one scenario or book, even early victory ones, have them becoming anything less than mortal enemies. It's irritating, boring, and I've quite had enough of the TL's with the "4th or 5th US-CS War".
 
Part of it would have to do with how the South won it's Independence. If the Union decided that it just wasn't worth the cost to keep the Confederacy in the Union, I can see friendship within a decade. If the South somehow manages to successfully invade the North forcing a peace treaty then the resentment would make friendship possible in say 20 years. However, if the South wins because Britain or France sends in troops one can safely expect a bitter and resentful USA because they were 'robbed' of their states due to foreign intervention.
 
Time heals all wounds they say. But its amazing how long people can hold a grudge.

Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the French made evening scores with Germany a kind of national obsession for 44 years. The Treaty of Versailles in 1918 had a big element of payback. And of course, things didn't warm up between the World Wars. I'd say add it all up, and you've got at least seventy or eighty years of the French despising the Germans.

Or look at the general loathing with which Japan is considered in Asia, a legacy of their War in Asia. They still occasionally have to apologize for that.

Finally, America as a country, is legendary for nursing a grudge. Don't believe it? Just look at Cuba. If there is such a thing as 'national character', then America's has many positive qualities. But a less positive quality is an amazing capacity for hatred and a willingness to hold onto that.

But as its pointed out, give things a century or more, and it all tends to settle down. People move on.

One thing that hasn't been discussed in this thread is Southern Society. The South was a vile and degenerate slave holding society, and slavery had come to be held in worldwide contempt and distaste. England had outlawed slavery in its colonies a generation before. There was a major abolitionist movement in the north. Given the South's commitment to this institution, I'm not sure how warmly the South would be received by anyone.

Even in our timeline, post-civil war, America's treatment of its blacks was a major open running sore that America was frequently criticised with. Any time America tried to publicly argue a moral stance, the issue came up.

South Africa and Rhodesia were international pariahs for generations. I can see the Confederacy being in the same boat. I don't think that the dissolution of slavery in favour of something like segregation and Jim Crow would have made a difference. And I don't think that, given the importance of cheap black labour to the South, that blacks were ever going to get a fair deal.

So, its problematic.
 
Top