There will be a quiz...
Hi there! So this is my first post, as well as my first timeline, so I'm hoping I put this in the right forum. I was thinking "what if America joined the Central Powers?" so I was thinking how this scenario could come to be.
Okay, so my POD would be a British intervention in the ACW where they help the Confederates or at least recognize them as a state, due to some bungled diplomacy on both part. The war ends with a US-UK status quo and Union victory.
Sorry for the joke, its my nature to play with user names. Its meant to show that I care...

You should have seen what I did to poor Mad Missouri. Ran through all fifty states plus every Canadian province and the territories.

Now, back to being OP...
To REALLY throw the US/UK relationship into a death-spiral that fully thrusts the US into Germany's arms by the late 1800s you need a lot more than that. How about this:
a) A full blown US versus British Empire/CSA/French Empire War in which the USA loses badly, with its navy destroyed, and the South getting its full independence.
b) Following the war, the Confederacy reneges on its "promises" to the UK to abolish or at least ameliorate the worst aspects of Slavery. Instead, they double down, making any practical manumission illegal. The British People are pissed and the British government is embarrassed.
c) The USA is humiliated, and convinced that without European Intervention the Union would have emerged victorious. A deep sense of revanche now sits in the North.
d) With the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1867 and the founding of the Third Republic, suddenly the CSA's erstwhile "friends" are more than happy to drop any military ties with an odious Slave Power.
e) Emerging victorious from the US Civil War, the Confederacy is emboldened, threatening to push for claims on the Arizona Territory (New Mexico & Arizona), Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland

eek

, and the restoration of West Virginia to Virginia. This, plus cross-border raids looking to kidnap Blacks living near the South's border only throw gasoline on the fires of Union sentiments for revenge.
f) Looking to salve some of their wounds, the North buys Alaska on schedule.
g) Sometime in the 1870s, under the presidency of the North's most successful general (insert your favorite general's name here, except Sherman, who'd never accept the job), the Second American Civil War (probably started due to a border incident/massacre), ends with total Union victory.
h) Leaving the North vindicated in their original belief that only the British and French were to blame for Confederate victory. Worse, that the war "would have been over in a year, otherwise".

i) For the South, the bitter knowledge that their brief time of independence was won not by their own strengths,

but by the overwhelming firepower of this fully armed and operational

battle st-well, you get the idea

And that they themselves were let down by their so-called "allies" for Round 2.


So no joy for the Anglo-French down South anymore either.
j) With victory down South, the North is fully able to begin the exploration and conquest of the Old West, if delayed by several years. But a much more state-of-the-art army, due to rearmament for ACW 2, means the Native Americans will have an even more brutal time of things ITTL.
k) American hostility for the Anglo-French, seen as responsible for supporting one side that eventually resulted in two wars and perhaps nearly one million American deaths, isn't going to cool no matter how many one-handed backflips the British Foreign Office manages to pull off.
l) The OTL US naval buildup (started in 1880 with the Chilean Crisis) starts post-US CW 2, and at a much heavier pace.
m) The Germans begin their own naval buildup.
n) As US-UK relations remain frosty, relations with Germany improve, since the US cheered on the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War. Relations however are also good with Russia, considering their support for the Union and the Alaskan sale.
o) Germany tries to improve relations with the USA even more so, sometimes somewhat clumsily, while British attempts are rebuffed.
p) Despite greatly improved trade ties between Great Britain and the now re-united USA, the business interests of America, even in the Gilded Age, can't get past the political reality that US-UK relations ITTL are, as an American domestic issue, the purest of poisons.
q) Despite the US naval build up, the Royal Navy still has complete naval supremacy by the end of the 19th century. With a Venezuelan Crisis that has a much more aggressive British admiral (read: A guy who still hasn't gotten over New Orleans


), a fight breaks out that leads to a severe USN drubbing, and Washington still helpless to do anything about it.
r) London apologizes and pays indemnities, but the officer goes unpunished (we'll say he's highly connected or something

). Too late, the damage is done.
s) NOW the US naval build up goes into overdrive, and there is no doubt against whom it is directed.
t) US-German ties get even closer, with preliminary talks about treaties of mutual defense.
u) The US attempts to mediate the end of the Ruso-Japanese War stumble, with both sides accusing the US of playing favorites. US-Russian relations sour.
v) The entangling alliances of OTL get progressively worse, extending far beyond the abilities of the feeble aristocracies of Europe to control.
w) A different spark lights off WWI, one that leaves the French holding the bag regarding culpability as the aggressor.
x) Britain's own guarantees to neutrals draw it in.
y) The US Navy has at last attained a qualitative and quantitative equality with the Royal Navy, though not with a combined Anglo-French fleet.
z) The German-American fleet, however, have an edge over the Anglo-French fleet, except that they are handicapped by not being able to combine forces across the Atlantic with the Anglo-French in the way.
aa) The stage is set...
Couple decades later, boom, WWI, USA begin raising men just in case, they're not too eager but something could tip them off, like in OTL before WW1, they joins the Central Powers when a RN ship fires on an American civilian ship. Canadians assault the Michigan and Washington borders, heading for Detroit and Seattle in an attempt to win a quick victory by capturing major cities, but are repelled. The U.S. moves north, gaining some victories and capturing some border cities. Canada sues for a separate peace, they give up their ties to Britain and enter USA's sphere.
Despite the patriotic chest thumping that you may see on this subject today, I promise you that Canada would simply declare its unilateral independence and stay out of any Anglo-American conflicts in the 20th century.
Simply because by the 1910s, if there's war between Britain and the USA, Canada goes. Like Pickett's Charge, its a simple mathematical equation by that point between the two countries. The Canadians could fight bravely, but that's all it would be, a fight. In a WWI situation with the USA as a fully armed and ready member of the Central Powers, I doubt that even the Maritime Provinces could be held forever.
Canada
does have points along its border where it can make a stand against the US Army and Marines, but the whole of Canada east of Vancouver Island all the way to the start of Eastern Ontario would represent an open door for invasion and conquest. Leaving Canada halved and the eastern provinces open to being flanked from the West even if they DO hold on in the East.
Not unless Britain wants to risk letting the Germans escape to the high seas, thereby having what would be the ultimate nightmare for Britain ITTL: A USN-High Seas Fleet link up.
Now, onto the Naval War. I think the combined forces of the USA and Germany's navies could heavily hinder the British thalassocracy, maybe no starving the Germans out.
I highly doubt the British will lighten up their blockade of Germany one whit, as they would represent the "real enemy", figuring that they could neutralize the US once Germany is broken. OTOH, if they do, Anglo-French possessions in the New World beyond even that of Canada are going to be swarmed. Goodbye Jamaica and Martinique, frex.
So, let's say RN can stop some of the American ships, but with support from Germany, American transport ships get through to France. Combined with the armies of America, the Central Powers have a vast numerical superiority, and I'd think this disparity would lead to the end of the war.
Impossible.
logistics-logistics-logistics Oh, and "interior lines", even if they are on the high seas. As I described above, the only way the Germans and Americans can link up is if the Royal Navy is crazy enough to remove a battle squadron or three from the Grand Fleet in the name of...saving Canada? Saving the Caribbean?? Blockading the USA???
I was thinking of making this into a timeline going up into the 1950s and beyond, but I wanted to make sure I first make this stuff make sense. Now, this is my first AH, so be as blunt as possible to tell me what I did wrong.
Well, I hope I have given you some ideas.

No doubt I've made many mistakes too


on this post.
The first thing you did wrong was assume that with British interference in the U.S. civil war everything up to WW1 will be as otl.
Messing with the A.C.W changes A LOT.
Methinks he wanted to throw a butterfly net over events on the European Continent, thereby allowing a relatively recognizable WWI. Not totally crazy under the circumstances. I mean, relations between Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, frex, are unlikely to be effected. Sometimes a butterfly is just a butterfly.
This might work as a prelude:
-UK treats Confederacy as a neutral power with respect to trade, commerce, and diplomacy. They push harder on the RMS Trent affair, forcing not only a formal written apology but also that the Union deliver the diplomats as a redress for interference with their transit. Lincoln is understandably furious but bows quietly.
-Confederate attacks into the far north are thought to originate from Canada (and they do), creating animosity between Washington and London that lingers in years to come.
-Despite the surrender of the Confederacy in March 1866, tensions are slow to resolve, especially following Fenian raiding parties into newly-confederated Canada until 1871.
-Mistrust and misinformation, along with a few bellicose politicians in New England, lead many British citizens to believe the Fenian dynamite campaigns are supported if only passively by the United States.
That's all good, but hardly enough to send doughboys into the trenches, or Tommies to Canada.
-UK declares their candidate for the Throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii the 'legitimate heir', David Kawananakoa (or David I, depending on who is writing the history and where they do so) becomes a thorn in US-UK relations prior to World War I as does his son David II after the former's death in 1908.
Not clear of what you mean...

British recognition isn't going to affect American annexation short of war, and British interests in the Eastern Pacific were hardly for them worth it. Even the USSR didn't fish in EVERY last puddle of troubled waters.
Germany and United States grow closer as the French and British grow closer following the Franco-Prussian War. Cartoons of, 'John Bull and his New Wife Lucretia' become a popular propaganda mechanism. Germany and the United States write out War Plan Emerald (1)
1)
Was there really such a colored War Plan?

....calling for the Germans to annex the balance of Lorraine, Franche-Comte, and Morocco while the Americans to take the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, British Colombia, the Bahamas, and Bermuda with independence for Ireland, Quebec,
No love for Canada's central provinces?
*munch-crunch-engulf-devour*
Lets not get silly!
A rapid German movement into France is planned with the Americans doing the same into the Atlantic Provinces, taking Halifax before the Royal Navy can resupply
Doable under these circumstances.
and Paris before the French can organize.
That'll take more time.+
Its counterpart is 'Plan 23', calling for a rapid British advance into New England from Canada with eventual annexation of Hawaii, Maine, the States of Washington, Vermont, and New Hampshire along with the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a line of territory from southernmost Vermont to Ontario.
Plan 23 goes out the window. Britain cannot afford to keep its eyes off the German ball. Besides, the second the British start sending troops and fleets to Canada, and the Canadian Army/Militia starts mobilizing, the US military goes to DEFCON 2, if indeed not DEFCON 1

There are specific treaties keeping the US-Canadian border completely demilitarized and unfortified. Unless ACW Foreign Intervention destroys those treaties, meaning a permanent force between the two countries. No blitzkrieging the USA.
France is to lead a rapid advance into Germany itself with the Rhine as its new border and the cessation of South-West Africa and Kamerun to the French along with the Philippines, Guam, and a split of control of the Cuban and various Central American governments.
The primitive piss-poor doctrines of the French Army leaves this plan stillborn.
Mexico is to be lured into the Allies with promise of Southern California (to latitude 34 degrees), Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma; California and Nevada are to be made into an independent Republic under British domination possibly including Oregon if the war goes decisively in favor of London and Paris.
We all know how well the Zimmermann Telegram went. Plus, the Mexicans were a little busy at the time.
The Entente:
The UK, France, Italy, Russia, and Portugal
'Newbs' (from a derogatory British assessment of the 'New and Bellicose Powers'): US, Germany, Austria, Ottomans, and Japan. Scandinavia, Belgium, and the Netherlands hope to stay out of the fighting, and individual members are more bellicose towards one another than the entire alliance is (US and Russia have no problem with each other though the US and UK hate each other's guts while Russia and Germany are equally friendly).
How do you get Germany, Japan, and the USA on the same side? I had just assumed Japanese neutrality. Oh wait: Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indo-China, Burma, and points west.
Never mind

, even the Imperial Japanese will understand that the USA has no interest in those regions, and the Imperial Japanese Navy can even use the Philippines as a base to operate from.

I imagine though that the US will want the Japanese to keep their hands off the Lands Down Under.
EDIT: Sorry for the length, but AFAIK the charge of "wall-texting" only applies in straight posts, not long responses to multiple posts.

EDIT2: Something's wrong with the posting structure on this computer, I'll try to fix it later. Sorry again.
EDIT3: Fixed
EDIt4: Oops. Not fixed. Missed Russia being in the Entente. MAJOR Oops.