hey, all. last thing i'll be doing online before turning in for teh night. CRAZY idea just occurred to me.
okay, everyone here probably knows that the Confederacy tried to get Britain and France to enter the ACW because their independence would mean that the Europeans would get more cotton. both were weighing the options by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and both countries cared more about the abolition of slavery than the acquisition of cotton. probably fewer but still alot of AH.commers will know that, in anticipation of exactly this war when word reached them, the British started looking at Egypt and especially India as alternative sources of cotton and therefore it wasn't as much of a problem for them at all.
now, this just occurred to me while reading about the King Cotton doctrine. for my ASB ATL, i've already decided and will not be changing that Britain does not have Egypt and (most of) India in their pocket when the ACW takes place: almost all of Mediterranean Africa instead belongs to France while India is balkanized into a few major regional states with a tiny rump British Raj mostly comprised of Sri Lank and a few coastal cities (though important ones) resulting from a successful Indian War of Independence replacing the Sepoy Mutiny. with all this in mind, they don't have as much access to cotton as IOTL, though another decision i've made concerning this is that the British have puppetized the area of OTL's Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh (which comprises most of one of the independent Indian states). i don't know much about that region (but plan to learn later on) so i have no ideas as to its cotton-producing capacities.
now, assuming you all haven't left this thread from lack of interest or being confused by my insane stream of time, what does everyone think Britain's response to the possibility of Confederate cotton if they don't have easy access to the stuff via Egypt and India?