If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)

[Saphroneth]

29 May

In Mexico, the Battle of Tepeaca takes place. The delays imposed by the use of Gloire have allowed for Charles de Lorencz to be reinforced and resupplied (while also making it clear that no French withdrawal will take place).
Mexican troops hold the high ground to the northwest of the town, and Zaragoza attempts to use his superior numbers to outflank the French attackers. However, de Lorencez - a veteran of the Malakoff - follows adjusted tactics from those used at the Malakoff battle. His men take a formation suggesting that he will send up one or two regiments, then he unleashes a sudden bombardment with his entire gun line as the signal for a full charge up the hill. Only one regiment of infantry does not take part in the sudden assault, remaining deployed in line and using their Minie rifles as a suppressive component.
Zaragoza attempts to react to this, but the thunder of French gunnery impedes his ability to quickly relay commands. Many of his troops are out of position (and those who are able to fire find the majority of their musketry going over the heads of the fast-moving French regulars) and several of his artillery guns are hit early on by the accurate French rifles (though the French guns are not being used to their fullest effect, being held within smoothbore artillery range).

Zaragoza's cavalry are sent in to retrieve the situation as the main French assault force come to blows with their bayonets. They are hit by flanking rifle fire from de Lorencez' reserve regiment, disordering their charge, and the situation degenerates into a confused melee with the lower half of the French assault snap-firing or bayoneting Mexican cavalry and being speared or sabered in return.
While this is going on, the upper half of the French assault - spearheaded by the elite Foreign Legion - break Zaragoza's line. Some of the Legionnaires reach Zaragoza's artillery and begin turning it on the defenders, at which point the Mexican general calls a retreat to save his remaining guns and men.

The Battle of Tepeaca leaves a bloody legacy, with hundreds dead on both sides. It is seen as an example of how the Mexican Republicans are willing to fight hard, but that their men are not the equal of the French regulars one-on-one.



30 May

Confederate troops are repulsed from an assault on Fort Corcoran, part of the Arlington Line. Despite the hundreds of casualties that resulted, the Confederate army claims victory - the assault allowed Fort Woodbury (an outlying lunette) to be captured when it ran low on powder, and this will provide a close base for siege guns to bombard Fort Corcoran directly (supplementing the ever-present Virginia, which has already disabled Fort Haggerty).

Battle of Chambersburg, in which (after much harranguing) McClellan is persuaded to attack Confederate positions with his right wing. The battle has few casualties, with the Confederates withdrawing in good order, but the victory is an important morale boost for the Army of the Potomac and the Union in general.
Upon hearing of this success, Lincoln orders McClellan to follow up on the victory - pushing south into Maryland, then into Virginia, and (if possible) to force the Confederate Army sieging Washington to shift troops and meet the threat.
McClellan agrees to do so, but points out it will take at least a few days to shift the axis of his army to march this route - and that he needs to leave troops to cover the gap between the sea and the Blue Mountains. With this understanding, he begins the staff work.

Meanwhile, the CSA is preparing how it will react. While much of the Confederate Army in the east is tied up in the Washington siege, some preparations are made to pull veteran regiments out of the line and replace them with newly raised ones - and to give the veterans better rifles as well, as several tens of thousands of good rifles (such as Enfields) have arrived since these now-experienced formations were first raised. About half these newly arrived rifles are earmarked for the 'field army' veterans.
Joseph Johnston, knowing that he is not especially well liked by the Confederate president, suggests his classmate for command of the 'field army' to oppose McClellan - Robert E. Lee. This is both a professional and political suggestion, as he feels Lee is a good choice and also that the choice is likely to be successful - and that by not nominating a personal crony he will demonstrate his professionalism and hence rehabilitate his position in the eyes of his President.
No matter the backroom calculations that take place to support it, Robert E. Lee's nomination is accepted - he will take command of what is to be the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on the 1 of June, with the army sieging Washington redesignated to the Army of Maryland.








(Tepeaca was basically alt-Puebla, a few weeks later due to the French using Gloire at Vera Cruz. de Lorencez had a couple of thousand more troops than OTL, and more guns - there were extra supplies and troops sent over with Gloire. I'm not an expert on the Mexican intervention, but hopefully this holds together.
Interestingly, this means no Cinco de Mayo.
As for Lee... well, can you blame me?)

 

[diestormlie]

Whelp.

IIRC, Lee could win battles with fewer troops, guns, and worse arms than his adversaries. Now this is just cruel.

 

[Saphroneth]

Whelp.

IIRC, Lee could win battles with fewer troops, guns, and worse arms than his adversaries. Now this is just cruel.

That's probably because his troops were on average somewhat better - the Confederate hit rate at Gettysburg is significantly better than the Union.
That said, this time McClellan is operating without particularly huge interference from Lincoln (communication is sporadic through the siege).

 

[edgeworthy]

Did anyone else recieve an e-mail alert saying this ....

the British version of "Stars and Stripes Forever"... I salute you

this is a parody right?

which appears to have been hurridly deleted by the poster, you know who you are!

The originator appears to have realised it made them sound like a total ass, but it does seem to be indicative of a certain lack of flexibility on this subject.

Its not even a particularly accurate comparison either.
For a start the British Army does not have a standard issue 20-round magazine fed breechloading rifle.
Nor does the Royal Navy have an Ironclad with three, mysteriously increased from two, twin turrets with a pair of 12 inch interupted-screw breechloaded rifled canon on hydo-pneumatic recoil mountings, capable of crossing the Atlantic under steam at 15 Knots (Faster than the contemporary Blue Riband Holder) yet still of sufficiently shallow draft to make it up the Potomac to the Washington Naval Yard.
One side is not uniformly composed to Brave, Virtuous and Insightful Characters whilst the other is uniformly Stupid and portrayed as a more hirsute version of the Borg, and whose motivation appears to be "For the Evull"!
And so far the geography seems to be reasonably accurate and no-one is defying the laws of physics.

From a certain point of view the TL might be approaching "Britannia's Fist" territory.
However, we have not yet had any woefully innaccurate, and extremely derogatory, physical descriptions of historical figures.
Nor have any modern fictional characters been inserted as if they were actual historical figures.
We have yet to have anyone committing acts of war in neutral territory, and no other powers have engaged in hostilities for "Reasons"!
And we have not a pair of mysterious un-named submersibles conducting a sucessful limpet mine attack on a moving target.

So we are still a long way off there as well.

I'm beginning to think that using the "Stars and Stripes" Trilogy as a comparison when referring to someones TL is becoming the AH version of Godwin's Law, in that it qualifies as automatically losing the argument.

And perhaps suggesting this to Ian or Calbear as an addtion to the rules and guidelines might not be a bad idea?

 

[Ryan]

*snip*

who posted that?

 

[Saphroneth]

From a certain point of view the TL might be approaching "Britannia's Fist" territory.

If so, do let me know - I'll freely admit that this has ballooned far beyond my original intent (my original intent being to purely handle the Union's eastern seaboard and the crazy British ships who wanted to destroy all its forts) so if I'm going off-piste let me know.

 

[edgeworthy]

who posted that?

Well we should give them time to come clean and admit it ... once they realise that just because you delete a post it does not mean that any automatic e-mail alerts will not still have gone out and that someone could easily produce a screenshot of it.
(Its really just too much work and posting images can be a little unreliable).

However, it can only be one of a handful of posters who tend towards American Exceptionalism, although this is the one I usually tend to agree with, so this is an uncommon occurance for them, they are normally much more reasonable and fair-minded!
Whose username might begin with the seventh letter of the alphabet?

 

[Saphroneth]

Well, as for the allegation (now deleted, apparently) I've been doing my utmost to make sure that - where possible - naval battles are accurate. Certainly when the ironclads have clashed it's been the superior unit that's won, and the units are all realistic (the only ones which didn't exist OTL are the Zodiacs and some of the American ironclads, and in both cases I've used SpringSharp to inform my descriptions of them.)

Similarly, while the British are being portrayed as extremely good compared to American formations, they're also not very common - as such the Canadian Militia are bearing much of the fighting.

And, finally, what I've certainly not been doing is taking an advantage nation X had and swapping it completely to nation Y without explanation!

 

[cerebropetrologist]

Remember, that means the war ends before most emancipation measures - so the US at the end of the war has slavery.

I think this probably has the most potential, not from the perspective of the war but from the point of view of post-war politics. President Seward getting curb-stomped by the whole of Europe won't differ a great deal from this story, whereas the difficulty of managing a South hastily defeated rather than ground into the dirt would make an interesting study.

 

[Saphroneth]

I think this probably has the most potential, not from the perspective of the war but from the point of view of post-war politics. President Seward getting curb-stomped by the whole of Europe won't differ a great deal from this story, whereas the difficulty of managing a South hastily defeated rather than ground into the dirt would make an interesting study.

It also sounds like something I might not have the knowledge for myself, sadly. Perhaps I should do a discussion thread with a brief sketch-TL as the preamble...

 

[galveston bay]

Did anyone else recieve an e-mail alert saying this ....



which appears to have been hurridly deleted by the poster, you know who you are!

The originator appears to have realised it made them sound like a total ass, but it does seem to be indicative of a certain lack of flexibility on this subject.


And perhaps suggesting this to Ian or Calbear as an addtion to the rules and guidelines might not be a bad idea?

I posted it, decided that it was mean spirited and deleted it. I don't care if I sound like an ass, after all, I was perfectly willing to argue with 5 different people in another thread. I just try to avoid actually being an ass so I withdrew the comment. For reasons that have been discussed ad infinitum it is clear that myself, as well as several other posters (or former ones) in this forum strongly disagree with the accuracy and historical feasibility of what Saph is proposing here. But cluttering up his thread would be unfair and we had had enough of that kind of thing in other peoples timelines.

So I withdrew the comment for that reason.... and will make no further comment.

As to comparing something to a literary work... and calling it trolling... I wish you the best of luck making that stick. We will see what happens. One could note that Harrison and Tsouras have both sold a lot more books than the most recent ACW timelines from this forum that I am aware of so accurate or not, someone likes them it appears. Those are both works of alternate history, as valid as "For Want of a Nail" and "Man in the High Castle" (and lots of others)

as to Godwins Law, seems a stretch .... bottom line I have made my objections known frequently and as I said I won't rehash them in Saphs story thread. As to American exceptionalism... maybe, but as generally those debating me are inclined to the British jingoism, I don't apologize for that.

 

[Saphroneth]

For reasons that have been discussed ad infinitum it is clear that myself, as well as several other posters (or former ones) in this forum strongly disagree with the accuracy and historical feasibility of what Saph is proposing here.

I normally have you on ignore, for past reasons; however, I'm willing to make an exception to see if a sensible discussion can take place.
So - what is your single largest objection in these categories, if any:
1) A matter of fact. (e.g. rifle numbers, penetration stats).
2) A matter of personality. (e.g. someone doing something that does not fit with their personality.)
3) A matter of tactics or strategy on the part of the British.
4) A matter of tactics or strategy on the part of the Americans.

Note that I'm aware of your objection to British rifle effectiveness; however, this is not a critical part of the TL as such (as in most cases the British have had superior numbers or force present anyway and many of the Union troops haven't had rifles). We can take that one as read.

 

[Dupplin Muir]

It's funny, but one good thing about this TL is that the events tend to reflect the real British superiority in equipment and training, whereas other TL's will sometimes acknowledge the facts, but then ignore them when it comes to accounts of the battles.

 

[Saphroneth]

It's funny, but one good thing about this TL is that the events tend to reflect the real British superiority in equipment and training, whereas other TL's will sometimes acknowledge the facts, but then ignore them when it comes to accounts of the battles.

One of my key points going in was to basically look at the actual state of the British armed forces at this time - arguably (IMO) the best by comparison to the rest of the world they've ever been. Enough numbers to make a serious go of a continental war; excellent modern equipment, cutting-edge in many cases; very skilled men at making use of them, and with enough time to absorb the lessons of the Crimea and the Mutiny without enough time to then go astray.

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

THe problem many have with TLs like this (I.e. the US is not the unbeatable giant of OTL).

But in the TL of the Trent Affair (OTL Late 1861) both sides (USA/CSA) in the war were rather inexperienced in "modern warfare". Both sides experience a steep learning curve though, but 1861/1862(early) the experience of "American" should be significantly lower than the experience of the British (regulars). In 1862 facing a blockade should also lack important war materials - taking OTL US army of 1863-1865 (equipment produced locally and imported) and thinking the 1861/62 army is not different is simply not correct thinking.

Saphro makes an excellent scenario describing the US problems quite realistically - it is simple lack of everything except men.


Ironically the US army might perform "better" if it had less men available

 

[Saphroneth]

The funny thing is, if I did hit the "US screw" button then by now I'm pretty sure the US could have all major cities occupied - the main US powder mill is at most a few miles from a navigable river (the Delaware) and as such a strike by a few thousand British regular troops on day two-three (allowing for neutralizing the fort) could have taken it and blown it to pieces, while I've been going with the assumption that despite total blockade the US has still managed to procure ~100,000 weapons since January (this still leaves them with a great honkin' deficit over OTL of ~500,000!)

You can try to fight your opponent with nothing but numbers - no gunpowder or rifles - but that's got scope for ridiculous casualty counts.

As for the at-sea side of things, I had the US immediately start building many ahistorical ironclads - and indeed lay ahistorical minefields which were invented and emplaced far faster than the Confederacy managed - while also judging the 8" rifle as capable of penetrating Warrior, which is really a rather dubious proposition.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The US at this point had massive industrial potential. Ramping up to produce all the rifles she needs over the next couple of years should be 'easy'. Of course, holding out for those years is a real problem.

However, even that doesn't solve the gunpowder problem. The advantage that controlling the bulk of the world's supply of saltpetre gave the British Empire is rarely mentioned in standard history books, but is huge, HUGE.

Even in the Napoleonic wars, France's tactics were limited by their native supply of saltpetre (which was an industrial scale seizing of farm waste, AND which took about a year to get the product from the raw manure, AND which generated massive unpleasantness with farmers whose manure was seized).

The US could attempt a massive program of nitre leaching beds all through the country - but that takes about a year to produce product once started, would incur violent resistance by independent minded US farmers (what other kind are there? ), and cost a small fortune. It STILL wouldn't be enough to supply the industrial scale warfare that OTL's Civil War turned into, or that this war is turning into.

Yes, exploiting bat caves is a faster method - but the best ones are in Kentucky and northern and Western Virginia, which are awfully vulnerable to CSA attacks - or may be in CSA controlled territory right now. There's also problems with getting your guano OUT of those caves to somewhere that can process it and extract the saltpetre (and chemically convert the other nitrates).

IF the US holds out for 3 years, say, they can do better. If they can get an adequate supply of saltpetre from within their own territory, they can do much, MUCH better - again in about 3 years time. But right now, @Saphroneth has the right of it, I'm afraid.

 

[Saphroneth]

The US at this point had massive industrial potential. Ramping up to produce all the rifles she needs over the next couple of years should be 'easy'. Of course, holding out for those years is a real problem.

Well, that's the thing - OTL with huge investment and obtaining an industrial secret from Britain, it took at least until mid-1864 for the US to become self sufficient in terms of steel for rifle barrels; the alternative is to use trip-hammered barrels instead of rolled ones, which lowers production rates as pre war the US was having trouble getting good enough iron for that!
It's hard to see the US producing their OTL run of Springfield rifles in a blockade situation, and they're also short over a million rifles which arrived over 1862-3.

As for gunpowder - well, the US TTL is starting to have serious problems along those lines. Anywhere still connected to the supply chain has enough, but they don't have much to spare - and this is making it more and more the case that the average Union army has to go into the field with "one basic load" of gunpowder and cartridges. (i.e. enough for one battle - and if you're still fighting the next day, tough luck!)

 

[galveston bay]

Yes, exploiting bat caves is a faster method - but the best ones are in Kentucky and northern and Western Virginia, which are awfully vulnerable to CSA attacks - or may be in CSA controlled territory right now. There's also problems with getting your guano OUT of those caves to somewhere that can process it and extract the saltpetre (and chemically convert the other nitrates).

IF the US holds out for 3 years, say, they can do better. If they can get an adequate supply of saltpetre from within their own territory, they can do much, MUCH better - again in about 3 years time. But right now, @Saphroneth has the right of it, I'm afraid.

West Virginia is firmly in Union control by the end of 1861 (its where McClellan won the victory that propelled him up the ladder). The big caves in Kentucky are in the generally pro Union areas (the pro Southern people lived in the valleys, which is friendlier to plantation agriculture and thus slavery). There is actually something called the Saltpetre Trail from caves on both sides of the West Virginia / Virginia line, first exploited during the American Revolution (so obviously people know where to look in 1862)

 

[Saphroneth]

West Virginia is firmly in Union control by the end of 1861 (its where McClellan won the victory that propelled him up the ladder). The big caves in Kentucky are in the generally pro Union areas (the pro Southern people lived in the valleys, which is friendlier to plantation agriculture and thus slavery). There is actually something called the Saltpetre Trail from caves on both sides of the West Virginia / Virginia line, first exploited during the American Revolution (so obviously people know where to look in 1862)

I think Dathi's allowing for the way the Union's been pushed back generally in Kentucky and Virginia in this TL. (West Virginia is something I'm not sure will even exist as an actual administrative boundary TTL).

Anyway, do you have those objections I was asking for?