Could the CSA fight Spain?

Not a chance. Whatever the victrorious CSA lacked in diplomatic or power projection finess skills, they would have an extremely lethal and very skillfully led ground army. Any attempts by other powers to grab back Confederate territory would result in diasster for the grabbers (with the exception of a re-armed and re-motivated Federal U.S. power).

That goes doubly so for Mexio. A Mexican move on Texas would really just be a large scale raid and could lead to the CSA grabbing parts of Mexico proper, or Mexican territories such as Baja Calififornia or parts of the Yucatan.

Bollocks. The CS Army will be a glorified militia skilled enough to shoot black and white dissidents but feckless against another army in a combat situation.
 
Whatever the victrorious CSA lacked in diplomatic or power projection finess skills, they would have an extremely lethal and very skillfully led ground army.

Only in Confederate mythology. The average Confederate soldier had insufficient food, inferior equipment, and was more likely to be a conscript.

As to generalship, Burnside is considered one of the Union's worst. Longstreet is considered one of the Confederacy's best. Burnside beat Longstreet. In independent command, Burnside beat every Confederate commander he faced, except for Lee.

Lee was certainly the Confederacy's best, far ahead of Bragg or either of the Johnstons. Lee was beaten by Meade, a Union second-stringer.

A Mexican move on Texas would really just be a large scale raid and could lead to the CSA grabbing parts of Mexico proper, or Mexican territories such as Baja Calififornia or parts of the Yucatan.

The Confederacy never successfully took and held enemy territory. Never. Colorado Territory had a population of about 25,000 and the Confederates were stopped at Glorietta Pass by a force that was half territorial militia. The Mexican states between Texas and Baja had a population of about 300,000. Yucatan had a population of about 680,000.

It (slavery) may well be legal in 1898, but not practiced much at all. Mechanization in agriculture was going to make plantation slavery un economical by 1885 or so.

Machinery for cotton picking only became a practical substitute for human labor in the 1950s.

Factory based slavery was not an option as poor whites needed those jobs.

Factory based slavery was quite popular before the ACW, since poor whites could go on strike. Tredegar Iron works is only one example of a factory that almost exclusively used slave labor.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Let's talk about alliances. Alternate Spanish-Dixie war has always intrigued me about the possibility of the U.S. allying with Spain. Could it happen? How'd that go? And what if the Confeds are allied to the Anglo-French?

Well, the UK and France wouldn't get involved in such a war, except to come down and slap the CSA's shit, while, considering that the Union would hold on to Key West and the Dry Tortugas under any conceivable peace, it really ends up as a question of how involved is the US Navy going to get, and how well defended are Cedar Key and Tampa (two of the likely launching points for the invasion along with New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola)?

Because every other time we've discussed this inteligently, we've come to the conclusion that any CSA expedition into Cuba will end horribly, with Yellow Fever, Malaria and the whole nobody really likes the CSA thing means that the time period the expeditionary force will be effective is measured in weeks at most.

Maybe the better question is - who could lob off pieces of the Confederacy?
The Union, and any independent post-colonial states. The USA and UK wouldn't really allow anything else. Nor would anyone be really interested. Florida's only really strategic at this point because of Key West and the Florida Strait, otherwise there's not much there besides a massive and protected harbor that's kinda hard to sail into (Tampa Bay,) and massive Phosphate deposits.
 
Then in the CSA at this time there is a nasty beetle eating up all the cotton.

Not to mention, an independent CSA now has access to all the shiny new Carbines and rifles the Europeans make. Not to mention that, but the CSA at this point would have it's own prominent munitions industry in Richmond, and possibly one in Georgia, so a weapons economy for the CSA should be considered. Browning and Tredgar are going to make the Confederates some coin, and that should be considered.

Which only reduced not eliminated cotton planting, not talking about all the other types of agriculture that could be done.

How? What are they buying them with? The CSA will wind up being in debt up to their eyebrows owing everyone and his sister in GB and France. They will be making some rifles but they can't possibly compete with either the North or Europe.
 
Factory based slavery was quite popular before the ACW, since poor whites could go on strike. Tredegar Iron works is only one example of a factory that almost exclusively used slave labor.


Yep, the slaveowners cared little more about what Poor Whites thought than their own slaves!
 
Last edited:
Then in the CSA at this time there is a nasty beetle eating up all the cotton.

Not to mention, an independent CSA now has access to all the shiny new Carbines and rifles the Europeans make. Not to mention that, but the CSA at this point would have it's own prominent munitions industry in Richmond, and possibly one in Georgia, so a weapons economy for the CSA should be considered. Browning and Tredgar are going to make the Confederates some coin, and that should be considered.

Not unless Tredegar is willing to sacrifice nonarms related production for arms production. Not sure on Browning, but I suspect that's an issue there as well.

So, guns or locomotives?
 
however that was before a long drawn out war of independence by the Cubans and Yellow fever decimating the Spanish Garrison.

For the CSA to gain Cuba, the most likely action is to buy it from Spain at the height of the Cuban war for Independence when the political will of the Spanish is waning.


As for a War? I think if there is amicable relations between the USA and CSA, (shorter, less bloody war, CSA has all of it's territory plus parts of NM/AZ) the CSA would have money from their Cotton exports (both US and Europe) to build a modern Navy. They already had a history of experienced and capable Army officers. Parts of the south would industrialize quickly to pick up some of the slack that breaking from the USA would leave, Richmond, Atlanta and New Orleans as the most likely area's.

I can see the CSA supporting the Cuban rebels, smuggling in weapons, supplying money and other supplies, in exchange the CSA would promise to make them part of the CSA or some kind of protectorate status.

Which officers aside from Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson are those? Bragg won the only victory for a CS Army where it sent an entire Union army fleeing from the field, for all the good it did him. The majority of the CS Army was lousy and even its best weren't really that good. Whenever Ulysses S. Grant showed up somewhere the CS Army capturing him was gone, and if one guy can do that everywhere in a war, in the last phase on a national scale, then that's pretty much an argument *against* a CS military more formidable than that of Idi Amin's Uganda.
 
Which officers aside from Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson are those? Bragg won the only victory for a CS Army where it sent an entire Union army fleeing from the field, for all the good it did him. The majority of the CS Army was lousy and even its best weren't really that good. Whenever Ulysses S. Grant showed up somewhere the CS Army capturing him was gone, and if one guy can do that everywhere in a war, in the last phase on a national scale, then that's pretty much an argument *against* a CS military more formidable than that of Idi Amin's Uganda.

I can think of a handful of division commanders, And Ewell if he was in better health for corps - not good, but better-than-average.

Of course, that's with "average" being weighted downwards by guys like A.P. Hill and Polk.

And of course, almost of these guys would be thirty years older by the 1890s and old enough to be out for pasture if not dead.

And an army that thinks it has the likes of Robert E. Lee when it gets the likes of Evan Martin ( http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/civilwar/2003fowbat.html ) instead . . .

Well, the best outcome is that he gets himself killed by the enemy or disease quickly.

And its a lot easier to generate Martins than Lees.
 
Not unless Tredegar is willing to sacrifice nonarms related production for arms production. Not sure on Browning, but I suspect that's an issue there as well.

So, guns or locomotives?

More to the point I can see them producing repeating rifles and obsolete cannon in large numbers but I can't see them producing large numbers of machine guns and modern artillary.
 
I can think of a handful of division commanders, And Ewell if he was in better health for corps - not good, but better-than-average.

Of course, that's with "average" being weighted downwards by guys like A.P. Hill and Polk.

And of course, almost of these guys would be thirty years older by the 1890s and old enough to be out for pasture if not dead.

And an army that thinks it has the likes of Robert E. Lee when it gets the likes of Evan Martin ( http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/civilwar/2003fowbat.html ) instead . . .

Well, the best outcome is that he gets himself killed by the enemy or disease quickly.

And its a lot easier to generate Martins than Lees.

It might also be worth noting that even the Lee approach would not win a war against a determined enemy, and if anything ensure the iron law of attrition applies much faster. I'd compare what the CS Army turns into to the Imperial Japanese Army with the exception that up until Guadalcanal the Imperial Army actually had an unbroken record of victories. Even in a short war scenario the CS Army won't have that.
 
Then in the CSA at this time there is a nasty beetle eating up all the cotton.

Not to mention, an independent CSA now has access to all the shiny new Carbines and rifles the Europeans make. Not to mention that, but the CSA at this point would have it's own prominent munitions industry in Richmond, and possibly one in Georgia, so a weapons economy for the CSA should be considered. Browning and Tredgar are going to make the Confederates some coin, and that should be considered.

The CSA, as a huge, poor, underdeveloped country is more likely to have an army on the PLA/IJA model: light infantry, with rifles, possibly machine guns, but not anything approaching a fully modern combined-arms force. Adding in that the CS Army will be spending more of its time serving as a slave patrol force and we wind up with something as sloppy as the Mexican Army and the force structure of the WWII Japanese Army, and likely similar issues with obedient subordinates........

For Spain it's these two emotions: :D:cool:

For the CSA it would be these three: :eek::(:eek:
 
Brilliantly put! ;)

Edit: And I do not believe that the US would get actively involved. Why would they want to annex all that backwards, hostile territory?

Because the US would feel that it was regaining its territory. The reconstruction would be much harsher than OTL though.
 
Because the US would feel that it was regaining its territory. The reconstruction would be much harsher than OTL though.

It would be harsh on both sides. Other than Texan oil, an USA has little to nothing to gain in having 750,000+ square miles of prolonged guerrilla war. 30 years of Slavetocracy and backwardness during some of the most dynamic years of human development would make the CSA not worth the effort. Perhaps they would attempt to annex everything west of the Mississippi. But what would they really want to the east of it? Everyone who actually lost the war (the leaders, to specify) would be retired/dead and those who had their formative years without would simply say "good riddance."
 
It would be harsh on both sides. Other than Texan oil, an USA has little to nothing to gain in having 750,000+ square miles of prolonged guerrilla war. 30 years of Slavetocracy and backwardness during some of the most dynamic years of human development would make the CSA not worth the effort. Perhaps they would attempt to annex everything west of the Mississippi. But what would they really want to the east of it? Everyone who actually lost the war would be retired/dead and those who had their formative years without would simply say "good riddance."

Depends on how much war and bad feelings and so on that there is between the US and CS in the post-war period. If they're dangerous and persistent enough in being dangerous, Washington will want to be rid of the problem permanently.
 
It would be harsh on both sides. Other than Texan oil, an USA has little to nothing to gain in having 750,000+ square miles of prolonged guerrilla war. 30 years of Slavetocracy and backwardness during some of the most dynamic years of human development would make the CSA not worth the effort. Perhaps they would attempt to annex everything west of the Mississippi. But what would they really want to the east of it? Everyone who actually lost the war (the leaders, to specify) would be retired/dead and those who had their formative years without would simply say "good riddance."

Not sure why there'd be a prolonged guerrilla war, save for ensuring that anything like civil rights for blacks is nominal. There wasn't even one during the (OTL) war proper over much of the Confederacy. I think that's kind of telling.
 
It would be harsh on both sides. Other than Texan oil, an USA has little to nothing to gain in having 750,000+ square miles of prolonged guerrilla war. 30 years of Slavetocracy and backwardness during some of the most dynamic years of human development would make the CSA not worth the effort. Perhaps they would attempt to annex everything west of the Mississippi. But what would they really want to the east of it? Everyone who actually lost the war (the leaders, to specify) would be retired/dead and those who had their formative years without would simply say "good riddance."

Not likely, it is far more likely you would have the India/Pakistan type of relationship which results in 30 years of hatred. If they revolt ship them to the Western Deserts. See if they like living among the cacti and rattlesnakes.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Texan oil isn't even guaranteed in an independent Confederacy. The Texas oil boom kicked off in the early 1900s thanks to a deranged Civil War veteran who refused to believe the waves of government, geological, and commercial speculators who said there wasn't oil under a hill on his property. He finally got backing from two Northern oil wildcatters based out of Pittsburgh/Chicago, and even they were skeptical and just hungry after missing out from being on the ground floor of the Oklahoma boom (which was again backed by Yankee capital).

No ready access to Northern capital and neofeudal patrons running counties isn't really the best environment for economic development, accidental or otherwise.
 

Spengler

Banned
It would be harsh on both sides. Other than Texan oil, an USA has little to nothing to gain in having 750,000+ square miles of prolonged guerrilla war. 30 years of Slavetocracy and backwardness during some of the most dynamic years of human development would make the CSA not worth the effort. Perhaps they would attempt to annex everything west of the Mississippi. But what would they really want to the east of it? Everyone who actually lost the war (the leaders, to specify) would be retired/dead and those who had their formative years without would simply say "good riddance."
DId I ever suggest they would try to take all of the confederacy? Just that the pretext would be the enslavement of the blacks.
 
Texan oil isn't even guaranteed in an independent Confederacy. The Texas oil boom kicked off in the early 1900s thanks to a deranged Civil War veteran who refused to believe the waves of government, geological, and commercial speculators who said there wasn't oil under a hill on his property. He finally got backing from two Northern oil wildcatters based out of Pittsburgh/Chicago, and even they were skeptical and just hungry after missing out from being on the ground floor of the Oklahoma boom (which was again backed by Yankee capital).

No ready access to Northern capital and neofeudal patrons running counties isn't really the best environment for economic development, accidental or otherwise.

Yeah, there isn't even a guarantee oil will benefit many people in TX even if found. The locals would be lucky to see nickels on the dollar.
 
Top