CSA Pacific Ports?

[Shtudmuffin]

Pretty much, yes.

I think Turtledove got it right that an early CS victory gives Maxamillian's Mexico a better chance of survival, as well.

But even if Sonora and Chihuahua don't become part of the CSA they are going to be dependent on the CSA economically, just like how they are with the US IOTL.

That is true, albeit likely less so. I imagine Maximilian's Mexico would be more stable and thus more economically succesful than OTL's Mexico, so that dependence may be lessened.

Personally, I think that Pacific ports for the CSA via purchases/conquests ranges from unlikely to impossible.

If the CSA managed to survive, they would almost certainly try to help prop up Maximilian alongside the French, seeing as how the Republican faction in Mexico was pro-Union. And the USA would likely have less of a border with Mexico, so it would be much harder to "lose" large shipments of weapons for the Republicans. Maximilian would likely then triumph, and the SME would become closely aligned with

The alternative is a French withdrawal and Confederate apathy allow for a Republican victory. I would imagine in that case, the USA and Mexico would grow much closer, perhaps even to the point where any Confederate-Mexican war would bring the intervention of the US. Even without an alliance, the US would likely be against Confederate expansionism, so I would imagine that the CSA would avoid war with Mexico as best they could.

And in any case, I highly doubt Mexico would want to sell more land to a USA-like American state when the humiliation of the Mexican-American war still hung around in their minds.

So yeah, I think that the only way for an independent CSA to get to the Pacific would be by holding its Arizona (and possibly its New Mexico) territory(s) and inciting/supporting a rebellion/pro-CSA movement in Southern California.

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

I would not be sure that Maxs Mex would be more stable. I tend to think there will be tendencies for northern and Southern parts to drift away in the late 60s and the 70s.

If the CSA still exists it might GRAB some northern territory (US migh go for Baya too...

So we might ent with a CSA larger than OTL and a Mexico much smaller (independen Yukatan, Small state on the southern border maybe.

 

[TheNordicBrit]

In southern California Lincoln got 41% of the vote, Douglas 26.5%, and Breckinridge 24.8%. This area actually went more strongly for Lincoln than the state as a whole. Southern California secession was a non-starter.

True, however I was assuming that the Confederacy would do better in the Civil War in order to allow this, though that would likely require an Anglo-French intervention which is a much bigger POD than I envisaged...

 

[Tyr]

The CSA will be lucky to hold on to what it has. It isn't going to be going off and conquering Mexico.
You need a pre ACW POD to have the US conquer more of Mexico or California to side with the CSA or whathaveyou.

 

[Johnrankins]

The only way I see this happening is for the CSA to help France build the canal and being granted a port on the Pacific side of Nicarauga as a result. Even this is one hell of a longshot as there is little the CSA could do to help and France would want total control over the canal. CA was pro-Union and too far away with a lot of Union territory between Texas and California. The US would never sell land to the CSA and neither would Mexico. Max was friendly with the CSA but that doesn't mean he would sell land to them. He had enough troubles to want to stir up more by selling Mexican land to slave-owning Grigos.

 

[robertp6165]

There was a scenario which could have led to the CSA having Pacific Ports (or at least one on the Gulf of Cortez) without having to invade Mexico or buy land from Mexico to get them. In 1861-62 the governors of several northern Mexican provinces, including Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, and Sonora, flirted with the possibility of seceding from Mexico and joining the Confederacy, and actually negotiated with the Confederacy on that possibility. While the fortunes of the Confederacy in the Southwest were going well, the negotiations went well. When the Confederacy lost at Glorieta Pass, however, interest on the Mexican side suddenly evaporated.

In OTL the Confederacy devoted only one cavalry brigade to the project to conquer New Mexico, and the aims they sought to achieve were simply too great to be realistic. But if the Confederacy had limited it's aims to holding onto its Territory of Arizona (basically the southern half of the Territory of New Mexico), rather than attempting to conquer the entire Territory of New Mexico, and had devoted a few more men (say one more cavalry brigade) to the project, they might have been successful at holding what they had taken and the Mexican governors might have not gotten cold feet.

Logistically, this was possible. The Pima and Papago Indians of southern Arizona produced a significant grain surplus every year which could have kept the army fed, and if the Yankees could be kept out of the Confederate Arizona territory, supply lines running back into Texas could be maintained. A larger Confederate force might have allowed the successful siege and reduction of Fort Craig, which would have eliminated about 1/3 of the troops the Union devoted to the New Mexico campaign in OTL, and given the Confederates access to a significant amount of captured supplies as well.

As for the manpower issue, the loss of one Texas cavalry brigade which was deployed elsewhere in OTL would have been felt in whatever theater it was missing from (probably Arkansas or maybe Tennessee), but probably not enough to alter the outcome. So that should have been possible, too. And one more cavalry brigade in the Southwest would have very nearly brought Confederate numbers up to parity with the Union forces there and made defense of the Confederacy's Arizona Territory feasible.

And with the Confederacy successfully holding the Arizona Territory, the governors of the northern Mexican states might just have taken the plunge and joined the Confederacy. That would have given the Confederacy the port of Guaymas, which would have been a significant asset.

 

[Faeelin]

Why would Maximilian, who was an abolitionist and perceived himself as a European liberal, welcome Confederate aid? If they come in and plot to snaffle up his nation isn't it clear he's a puppet?

 

[Reggie Bartlett]

Why would Maximilian, who was an abolitionist and perceived himself as a European liberal, welcome Confederate aid? If they come in and plot to snaffle up his nation isn't it clear he's a puppet?

Because the whole reason why he is in control of Mexico is because he's the puppet of a guy in France who is friendly to CS interests?

 

[Spengler]

Because the whole reason why he is in control of Mexico is because he's the puppet of a guy in France who is friendly to CS interests?

Rule number one of being a ruler, you don't appear weak, unless he is completely crazy he won't do that.

 

[Reggie Bartlett]

Rule number one of being a ruler, you don't appear weak, unless he is completely crazy he won't do that.

Maxamillian certainly won't want Juarez running around with US support.

The CSA is pretty much the only sympathetic non-French force to him, because:

1. The Union is pro-Juarez, and Maxamillian doesn't like that.

2. The CSA may have been recognized by France alongside Britain, and Napoleon III had plans for his Mexican puppet-state that may have involved the CSA. Get on good graces with the Confederates and you could have Juarez's escape to El Paso cut off by the Confederate Army.

3. Having a friend to the North to counter the US isn't a bad thing.

 

[Tobit]

One place the Confederates could gain Pacific ports is through filibustering places like Nicauragua, Panama, or Honduras. The US is probably too powerful to take land from in another war, and expanding to the Pacific during the initial Civil War would be far too much effort for the Confederacy. The Confederacy needed to put all its weight in bringing the North to the bargaining table in the opening of the war, that basically rules out such a long range expedition to the Pacific.

 

[belushi td]

Two ways to do it.

The first way to do it is the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildalgo (I think) in 1848 to end the Mexican-American war. Instead of stopping with taking half of mexico, the US takes another layer of land south. Take Sonora and Chihuahua and points west. Don't need to take all of it, just take far enough south to get to the Gulf of California. That gives you your Pacific port.

The second way is to have the 1853 Gadsden Purchase go further south along the Colorado river to the Gulf of California.

There is one knock on effect here. It makes Baja California a fairly useless appendage. In either case, you might see the US purchasing both Alaska from the Russians and Baja Cali from the Mexicans in the late 1860's or 1870's.

Belushi TD