DBWI: Could the South Have Lost?

Could the South Have Lost?

  • No

    Votes: 7 10.1%
  • Possibly

    Votes: 21 30.4%
  • Yes

    Votes: 41 59.4%

  • Total voters
    69
IC: Well, Kentucky was pretty close to staying in the Union. We all know about Kentucky's importance in allowing the Confederacy to attack vital industrial centers in Ohio.
Missouri was more pro-Union than most CS states too (OOC: think Tenn.), so perhaps that could have been avoided? IMO though preventing Maryland from seceding would be a good idea </understatement>. But I think this is doable. Although it is a shame, New Washington would never get built out West... 'course us Unionians usually just call it plain ol' Washington since the CS renamed our old capital Spartacus after their Revolution.

Actually now that I think about pretty much the only good that came out of the Mexican War was California. The US could have possibly held together otherwise, avoiding the Confederian War of Independence and the Mormon War of Independence. Although after Polk got all of Oregon he had to get land for slavery to balance it out. Which is why the Wilmot Proviso ruined everything. It might have worked if we had just annexed Upper California and Texas and New Mexico to connect, but annexing California (including Baja; yes everyone forgets it was actually a different territory instead of always united with the north), New Mexico (including what's now Arizona), Rio Grande, Sonora (OOC:Including OTL Sinaloa), Chihuaha (OOC: Including OTL Durango) was unneeded. The latter states in particular. Texians are horrible overlords to the Mexican minorities in those states. It's easy to sympathize with the insurgents, although veterans of the Rio Grande War probably see it in a different light.

I just thought of Calhoun. Maybe he could die earlier instead of shortly after his term as CS President ended in '55. He was quite old. Not that an able President mattered that in the states'-rights paradise of the CSA, but Calhoun radicalized the South a lot when the Wilmot Proviso passed.
 
A good chunk of the top-quality political leadership went Southern. Crittenden, Calhoun (of course) - even Buchanan, a Northerner and one of the best diplomats before the war. And backing them up was Louis Napoleon, perhaps the savviest man in the entire 19th century. By contrast, the North had... Millard Fillmore. Not exactly inspiring leadership there. Give Taylor a better VP, and the war probably gets delayed a good deal.
 
Well, now that someone mentioned Oregon, that reminds me that the Union's incompetence and arrogance weren't cured when the Confederacy rammed the Treaty of Philadelphia down their throats. Oh, no. Rather than look in the mirror to see why they lost the war, they decided to play "blame the superpower". If they'd kept it to politics and angry rhetoric, they'd probably have been okay.

But they sent that same poorly trained and disciplined army, led by the same morons that had already lost them half their nation. The battered and broken armies of the least among the great powers of the day, against (and out numbered by) the finest forces of what was arguably the world's first superpower. How did you think that that was supposed to end?

Among other things, we got Oregon back...
 
Why do you think we built that Great White Fleet in the 1880s? Didn't work, and was hopelessly obsolete when Satsuma commissioned, but hey.

I do seem to recall that the Russians were getting uppity with the Brits at the time; maybe Douglas et al thought they'd take advantage? Besides, it did keep the public occupied for a little while. It wasn't until 1864 that the abolitionists began their insurgencies.

Goddamn, the 19th century was an awful time.

OOC: Incidentally, since this TL's Civil War involved the French and was fought from around 1850 to 1853 - and gets followed up with a later war between the US and the UK - what happens with the Crimean War?
 
Why do you think we built that Great White Fleet in the 1880s? Didn't work, and was hopelessly obsolete when Satsuma commissioned, but hey.

I do seem to recall that the Russians were getting uppity with the Brits at the time; maybe Douglas et al thought they'd take advantage? Besides, it did keep the public occupied for a little while. It wasn't until 1864 that the abolitionists began their insurgencies.

Goddamn, the 19th century was an awful time.

OOC: Incidentally, since this TL's Civil War involved the French and was fought from around 1850 to 1853 - and gets followed up with a later war between the US and the UK - what happens with the Crimean War?

The 19th century was just like every other century since the dawn of man. Bloody. It's just that that was the point where the concepts of mass production and organized industry were applied to one of mankind's oldest pastimes: Warfare.

The 20th century was far worse. The "Pax Britannica" simply meant that almost nobody was stupid enough to attack the British Empire. Everybody else was free to attack each other, and they did, and quite vigorously too. And remember, the "Pax" only lasted 51 years, from 1859 to 1910.

The current period of relative peace is due more to the proliferation of atomic weapons than anything. God help us all when that deterrent ceases to be effective.

OOC: One rolls right into the other? And the outcome of both the 3rd Anglo-American War and the Alt-Crimean War lead to the UK being referred to as the "World's First Superpower"?
 
People always talk about the economic might of the Union, but that's hogwash. Southron culture venerates martial glory and ability. Quality beats quantity, every time.
 
People always talk about the economic might of the Union, but that's hogwash. Southron culture venerates martial glory and ability. Quality beats quantity, every time.

Tell that to the Europeans after German Unification. Denmark, the Low Countries, the rest of Poland, the Baltic States, White Russia, the Ukraine, and half of France!?:eek:

Even the "Mighty British Empire" had to punt and recognize de facto Japanese suzerainty over the entire Pacific Basin (Minus Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia of course).

EDIT- It's not having quality. It's interior lines, dude.
 
OOC: I thought I successfully implied the French won the Franco-Prussian War? Or is this a later war?

It is. You know, when the Germans went for their revenge in the first of Europe's two Great Wars? Funny thing is, everybody is in pretty much agreement they were the GOOD guys in the first of them. Whatever made the French think they could get away with annexing the Rhineland? Talk about unifying the Germans! And trying to force Belgium to give passage to the Imperial French Army to the point that they threw the Belgians into the arms of the Germans? And the Russians not mobilizing sufficiently until the French were routed anyway?*sheesh*!

Sadly, the same could not be said for Germany's behavior in Europe's second Great War. Enough is never enough, I guess. I wonder if the Germans might have been less greedy if they already HAD a won war under their belts, like, say, the Franco-Prussian? But thanks to the British Empire being tied up in so many Imperial matters (including it's new holdings in North America), there just was no other power to stop them. I'm not suggesting that if the South had lost it's War for Independence things would have gone any differently in Europe, per se. After all, the USA had a history of strictly staying out of European affairs. Even in the War of 1812, the US did not ally with Napoleon. So a united USA fighting the Germans is pretty ASB. But at least the British Empire would have been less distracted.:(
 
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