Considering how amiable US-UK relations have been for the past century especially, it's easy to forget that much of the United States' early history saw the British putting quite a bit of effort into strangling the new country in the crib. In the 1790's and 1800's, we had British support for Tecumseh and other Native American tribes resisting the US government, restriction on American trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, and even an attack on an American warship on the pretext of capturing a Royal Navy deserter. Of course, the retaliatory American embargo managed to get the British to reverse a lot of these policies before things could really go pear-shaped, but what if it hadn't? Hell, what if it still had, but because of the distance between London and Washington the US government declared war on Britain before they could find that out? If there was a war between the two in, say, 1812, how would that go down?
Granted, the US hardly had an army worth mentioning back then, but what if the British overestimated what was there and pulled troops away from the Peninsular Campaign? Would Wellington's army have suffered for that, and if so, how much of a problem would it have been?
Of course, I don't think any of us needs to guess what the outcome of such a war would be, but how harsh would the British government have been on the Americans at a peace conference? Would they have forced the US to cede the Northwest Territories to Tecumseh and his confederates, maybe even guaranteeing the new border? Seems a bit extreme, but if London was really committed to crippling the US back then, then that would have been an awfully good start. Really, the way I see it, the ramifications of such a conflict would be entirely dependent on the whims of British policymakers, who certainly weren't pro-US at the time IOTL. What do you guys think they would have been likely to do?
Granted, the US hardly had an army worth mentioning back then, but what if the British overestimated what was there and pulled troops away from the Peninsular Campaign? Would Wellington's army have suffered for that, and if so, how much of a problem would it have been?
Of course, I don't think any of us needs to guess what the outcome of such a war would be, but how harsh would the British government have been on the Americans at a peace conference? Would they have forced the US to cede the Northwest Territories to Tecumseh and his confederates, maybe even guaranteeing the new border? Seems a bit extreme, but if London was really committed to crippling the US back then, then that would have been an awfully good start. Really, the way I see it, the ramifications of such a conflict would be entirely dependent on the whims of British policymakers, who certainly weren't pro-US at the time IOTL. What do you guys think they would have been likely to do?