How could the Confederate States get all of Central America?

The only possibility I see it happening is William Walker having a ASB run of good luck, conquering Central America in the 1850's, and joining the CSA in the course of the Civil War or afterwards in the event of a southern victory.
 
The Royal Navy and the US Navy are only relevant factors if there is a war

If we are in the age of filibustering (where that word means supporting dickheads trying to take over failed states and not stopping people from talking in Congress) then the CSA wuld certainly be up to supporting people getting new markets for themselves

It's axiomatic that any foreign policy that does not require much money or actual troops on the ground would be attractive to the CSA

That is True, but all the Filibuster started by USA national Failed quite miserably, except maybe Texas and that one was an independent movement in a sparsely populated land.
 

Pax

Banned
This doesn't matter. The UK has a much larger industrial base. The CSA will be industrialising - they will need to now that they are independent of the USA - but they will be way behind both the UK and USA. CSA will need to focus on internal improvements to support their industrialisation as well as maintain a large army to protect against both USA and Mexico. Building a navy to compete with the RN simply is not possible. OTL's united USA could not compete with the RN.



Supporting the CSA (very unlikely) in its bid for independence in no way guarantees continued support, especially if the CSA turns expansionistic and threatens the UK's dominance of the waves.



First, who is selling them ships? Second, who can build enough ships to sell to the CSA that the UK can't out-build them? Third, who wants to antagonize the UK by helping someone challenge the RN? Finally, who will crew these ships? Even if the CSA manages to buy enough ships, it doesn't know how to run a navy.



A CSA that is attempting to colonize Central America will not have friendly relations with Mexico. Mexico will not consider being encircled by an expansionistic power a desirable situation.


1. It's not like the entire RN is in the Caribbean. Britain has many other, arguably vastly more important matters than the CSA setting up shop in Honduras. Besides, what's to say that Britain would be so antagonistic towards the CSA in the first place? On another note what makes you think the CSA would need or even want a fleet to rival Britain's? Britain, Germany, and the USA IOTL had far flung overseas possessions and trade routes to protect, the CSA only wants to get into Central America's door. That doesn't require much. Besides, it's not impossible for the South, over the course of 50 years from the 1860s to 1910s, to industrialize enough to fulfill it's needs.

2. Threaten UK dominance of the waves? In the Gulf of Mexico? In the Caribbean Sea? Britain wouldn't have "dominance of the waves" there anyways, they didn't IOTL, and they didn't start any fights with anyone. It's not just the CSA and Britain in that area, there's France, Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico, possibly Spain as well depending on how things go. Any one of those and more could be at least accepting towards the South, and be a far more pressing concern to the British.

3. I don't know, France, Spain, Germany...the UK. The CSA's geopolitical interests are not only different from the UK's, they could also line up in the region the CSA would have a vested interest in. Both the CSA and Britain would have a vested interest in keeping German influence over Latin America to a minimum, both would like to check US power, both could have their eyes on colonial holdings of powers like Spain depending on the butterflies. What threat does the CSA pose to Britain in the Caribbean? Perhaps one to Jamaica and the other islands, but with so many other possessions like Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, etc., what's to say the CSA and Britain don't just strike up an agreement and the South focuses on the other stuff? Does Britain really care if the South gets the Nicaraguan government to allow it's corporations to set up some banana plantations?

Now that's just silly, to say the South wouldn't know how to run a navy. Honestly this seems more like your own bias towards the South than anything else.

4. First off I never said annexation, I've been saying that the more likely option is the South doing what the US did IOTL and just setting up governments friendly to their corporations and letting them set up a bunch of plantations and the like. Second of all Mexico could also have similar interests in expanding into CA, and maybe cooperate with the South towards this goal. Third of all, what's to say the Mexicans wouldn't have friendly relations with the South in the first place? Why would Max see Southerners creating banana plantations in CA as a threat?
 

Pax

Banned
Not really though. The US still has California and Panama is still the shortest route to the Pacific.

I think it depends on the circumstance. If this a TL where the South and France are friendly to each other, than the canal's history as we know it could easily be butterflied away. Besides, California isn't that close to the Caribbean/CA, and the North would likely be more occupied in the Pacific.
 
An agro-exporting/plantation economy has no geopolitical interests whatsoever (and will never want to have one). Let's just face the economic constraints: The main international interest of this kind of nation is to simply maintain commodity prices high and guarantee transport of commodities to the consumer market abroad, anything that goes against it is a no-no.

Borderline ASB, let's see why:

1 - there will be no budget to even begin to think about such an ambitious plan, tariffs are low as you need to export cotton.
2 - Antagonize smaller nations will trigger the whole region and make transportation cost on the Gulf of Mexico skyrocket, another great idea for the financial health of cotton planters.
3 - A agro-export economy with a more than certain eternal budgetary problem will now have to face guerrilla war in the tropical jungle on the other side of the continent, just because they're a "superior race". seems reasonable to 19th century minds but not to their respective pockets.
4 - What's the political density of bananas anyway?
 
1. The CSA isn't bottlenecked by Jutland or the straits at Istanbul like Russia.
Not relevant. The key point was that Britain could, and did, outbuild other would-be naval powers because it could afford to. It had the shipbuilding capacity, and it did not have the distraction of needing to maintain a large land-based army. Which the CSA will have in spades - hello, USA.

2. The USA is pretty far away from the Caribbean now that the CSA is independent, and likely focusing on other areas
What other areas? The USA in OTL considered the whole of the Americas as its playground. They aren't going to stop that in a hurry.

3. I doubt the USA and Britain would cooperate in containing the CSA, not even IOTL did the two get along, but in a TL where Britain helps th CSA win (which is pretty much the only way for the South to win)?
The point was that either could do it. Although I wouldn't rule out them cooperating in stopping the spread of slavery; views of being antislavery are only going to harden as the nineteenth century rolls on and into the twentieth.

4. The South could buy ships off people, it doesn't have to build a new Kriegsmarine from scratch.
They could buy a few ships, certainly, and quite possibly from Britain. That's a different matter to outbuilding or outbuying the Royal Navy. As a matter of strategic policy, Britain tried to maintain naval supremacy during this era.

5. The South could very likely have friendly relations with France (and thus Mexico if Max wins) or maybe the CA states themselves.
If the CSA adopts a smart foreign policy (not a given) then friendly relations with Central American states are not impossible. Friendly relations will end pretty quickly if the CSA looks like trying to annex one of the CA states, though.

If France is getting seriously involved, the odds of British intervention, or Anglo-American cooperation, just went up dramatically.

6. Britain's presence in the region was pretty small, and I highly doubt they'd care about the CSA setting up banana plantations in Honduras.

7. British Honduras was a miniscule colony, even by Western Hemisphere standards, why would Britain antagonize a potentially lucrative trade partner because some dying wood colony might be threatened?
Erm, the British Caribbean was a rather significant presence - Caribbean here including countries bordering the Caribbean, not just islands in the Caribbean. That also included trade with countries which were not within its direct colonial control.

More broadly, Britain had and will have an increasing disgust over slavery. They might be persuaded to tolerate it continuing within the CSA and still trading with the Rebs, much as in OTL the British held their noses in buying from the pre-ACW slaveowning USA and from Brazil. But tolerating the expansion of slavery to currently free-soil areas? That's a whole other matter entirely.
 
Not relevant. The key point was that Britain could, and did, outbuild other would-be naval powers because it could afford to. It had the shipbuilding capacity, and it did not have the distraction of needing to maintain a large land-based army. Which the CSA will have in spades - hello, USA.


What other areas? The USA in OTL considered the whole of the Americas as its playground. They aren't going to stop that in a hurry.


The point was that either could do it. Although I wouldn't rule out them cooperating in stopping the spread of slavery; views of being antislavery are only going to harden as the nineteenth century rolls on and into the twentieth.


They could buy a few ships, certainly, and quite possibly from Britain. That's a different matter to outbuilding or outbuying the Royal Navy. As a matter of strategic policy, Britain tried to maintain naval supremacy during this era.


If the CSA adopts a smart foreign policy (not a given) then friendly relations with Central American states are not impossible. Friendly relations will end pretty quickly if the CSA looks like trying to annex one of the CA states, though.

If France is getting seriously involved, the odds of British intervention, or Anglo-American cooperation, just went up dramatically.


Erm, the British Caribbean was a rather significant presence - Caribbean here including countries bordering the Caribbean, not just islands in the Caribbean. That also included trade with countries which were not within its direct colonial control.

More broadly, Britain had and will have an increasing disgust over slavery. They might be persuaded to tolerate it continuing within the CSA and still trading with the Rebs, much as in OTL the British held their noses in buying from the pre-ACW slaveowning USA and from Brazil. But tolerating the expansion of slavery to currently free-soil areas? That's a whole other matter entirely.
Could the Chamber do anything with Haiti, they don't have powerful allies.
 
I don't see any way the Confederacy would gain central America. I could see potentially getting a couple of what is now northern Mexican states. There was a attempt to add some of the northeast states to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Assuming they got the new states added to the union. The big question would be how the south viewed the new states. I don't necessarily see the new territory pro-confederate. The new territory may be a drain on Confederate forces. Even if they were with the confedercy I think a army or at least a few troops to deter the mexican forces to try and retake the territory. Though the Mexican state would be fighting the french at the time.




I actually don't see any way The Confederacy would gain The Confederacy, but given the thought experiment, I agree they simply wouldn't have the currency compete with all the other forces contending for control of that territory
 
Maybe? they have Texas after all, and Texas Is Today a industrial power by itself, but you could argue that Texas have The bless to don't really being part of The slaving económy of The south, so their economic development Is diferent, but overall? No, If The confederation Maintain their dependence on slaving work off their económy ,they would, in the best case scenario, end like Brazil, big and powerful, but rather slow un start their economic development, too dominated by land owing élites, and a net importer of industrial productos until well into The 20 Century



yeah, but the biggest input from TX in TOL is oil, this resource didn't become readily used till much later.
 
yeah, but the biggest input from TX in TOL is oil, this resource didn't become readily used till much later.
Hence my point that their economy Will resemble more The Brazilian one than the USA one, the territory have The natural resources neccesary To be a industrial power, but their social structures( Slave and landower elite) and economic dependency un one cash crop, coffe for Brasil and cotton for The CSA, tend to make a case for similar economic development
 

althisfan

Banned
Less population, much less industry... Texas has oil, but so do other places. Cotton's profitable, but not so much if India and Egypt start to do it too.
When Texas first had oil, not many other places did. Texas dominated the oil industry, like over 50% of the oil being pumped each year, this was before Middle Eastern oil was discovered.
 
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