John Fredrick Parker
Donor
I noticed we tend to have discussions on the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the American War of 1812, and the Wars of Latin American Indrpendence as if the conflicts of the two hemispheres were separate from each other; so I figured we could have a thread devoted to looking at how they interplay with one another, from an AH perspective.
One way of looking at this -- how would avoiding the War of 1812 affect the later phases of the Napooeonic Wars in Europe?
One way of looking at this -- how would avoiding the War of 1812 affect the later phases of the Napooeonic Wars in Europe?
Another, related question -- how would a "Napoleonic" Europe affect Latin America and the United States? For example:Apparently, war with the U.S. was the only thing that kept Britain from sending an expeditionary force to the Baltic during Napoleon's invasion of Russia; how would that change the War of the Sixth Coalition and subsequent peace?
Thinking about the geography of such an expedition, if Bernodette found some way to coordinate Swedish efforts with the British, and if Denmark continues to hold to their alliance with France, he might be able to pull off an earlier invasion of Norway with Copenhagen distracted. Actually, I do wonder how Prussia, and various other German states allied to Napoleon at this time, would respond -- it could be Britain intervening actually makes subsequent cooperation between the allies more, not less, difficult.
Regarding Spain, the OTL assassination attempt happened roughly around the time that the Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese forces started to suffer a series of setbacks, such that the French (as they did OTL) could easily push back the British out of most of Spain and into Portugal proper; depending on if the Peninsular War continues for another couple of months or years, the French could certainly reclaim "Joseph's" country, and maybe even retake Portugal (but only if they used a significant fraction of what was used for Russia OTL). AAR, I'd say that a final peace with Britain would likely include Joseph getting Spain, Portugal remaining an independent British ally, and the islands and sea power in general basically being given to Britain... and, of course, ending the blockades.
Britain likely wouldn't cotton to having a Bonaparte commanding the Spanish Empire in Latin America; fortunately, they have been supporting independence and autonimist juntas in the Western Hemisphere, plus France still has possession of Ferdinand. So I'm seeing an endgame here where Britain agrees to let Joseph keep the crown of European Spain, while the Spanish Bourbons cross the Atlantic and Latin America's break with Spain comes several years earlier than OTL. Thoughts?
And something else I just thought of -- would the US still see the election of the war hawks in 1810, and subsequent declaration of war against Great Britain? And if Britain isn't distracted by the War of the Sixth Coalition, and possibly even having reached accord with the French over Spain, will the Americans now do significantly worse? And what does that mean subsequently for North America?
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