No Gettysburg

The scenario has Britain and France recognising the CSA and the US withdrawing diplomatic representatives as a result.

What?

No it's not, the scenario is that Gettysburg does not happen. The British recognizing the CSA is in no an unavoidable antecedent of this, in fact it's somewhat unlikely. After the peak tide of CSA fortunes at Antietam and the subsequent Emancipation Proclamation, after the CSA's attempt to use Cotton to strangle-hold Europe into coming to her aid, after the rise of Union grain shipments as almost more important to Europe than Confederate cotton shipments, British recognition of the CSA is almost a non-starter. Sure, Gettysburg was the final nail in the coffin, but it was by no means the only one. Truthfully, Franco-British intervention after the Emancipation Proclamation and especially after the 13th Amendment begins to gather traction in American political circles is bordering on ASB, the bedroom fantasies of Europhiles and British jingoists.

I see no reason to automatically assume Britain will intervene simply because one battle fails to happen. In fact, it's very likely that a similar battle will occur elsewhere on Pennsylvanian soil, perhaps an even more devastating one.
 
stevep, I'll be honest. Not only were you repeatedly insulting but your comments on my position and questions asked in response show that you never actually bothered to read my hypothetical view of how history might subsequently run. Further this isn't the first time you acted in such a manner.

So I'm not sure if there's even a point in a more substantial response.

You find it insulting that someone disagrees with you and asked for reasons for your assumptions? I have read your comments and tried to respond to them, but from the way you ignore my points and questions I'm doubtful if the reverse is true. I was somewhat scathing of your scenario because it was so grossly unrealistic, for the reasons I stated.

I still ask the basic question, that I have yet to receive any reply to. Why do you think the US will persistently act in ways contrary to its and other peoples interests for an extended period and not pay any cost for this action?

Steve
 
What?

No it's not, the scenario is that Gettysburg does not happen. The British recognizing the CSA is in no an unavoidable antecedent of this, in fact it's somewhat unlikely. After the peak tide of CSA fortunes at Antietam and the subsequent Emancipation Proclamation, after the CSA's attempt to use Cotton to strangle-hold Europe into coming to her aid, after the rise of Union grain shipments as almost more important to Europe than Confederate cotton shipments, British recognition of the CSA is almost a non-starter. Sure, Gettysburg was the final nail in the coffin, but it was by no means the only one. Truthfully, Franco-British intervention after the Emancipation Proclamation and especially after the 13th Amendment begins to gather traction in American political circles is bordering on ASB, the bedroom fantasies of Europhiles and British jingoists.

I see no reason to automatically assume Britain will intervene simply because one battle fails to happen. In fact, it's very likely that a similar battle will occur elsewhere on Pennsylvanian soil, perhaps an even more devastating one.

Jaded_Railman

The initial POD was no Gettysburg. However 67 Tigers argued that this, at this time, would trigger an Anglo-French recognition of the south. From here it was argued that this would led to war and then some people have given a scenario where the US goes highly militaristic - at least by its standards for the time - and deeply antagonistic to several neighbours but seem to be assuming that will not affect its latter economic, political or other development in any measurable way, or events elsewhere in the world.

I have not assumed Britain would intervene. Before the discussion in this thread I would have thought it highly unlikely. I'm just carrying on the discussion from where several people have said war between the three powers would have developed and people are talking about the aftermath.

Steve
 
67th, very interesting point indeed.

So, even as Lincoln feared, the Emancipation Proclamation was seen in important British(and European?) circles as seeking to incite 'servile revolt' on behalf of a failing military effort, which was the reason he refused to even issue it until he had something resembling a military victory first.

Any ideas what would have happened if he had issued it a few months later but after a major victory and not a defensive victory like Antietam? Any significant changes if, say, he announced it after Gettysburg and Vicksburg instead?
 

67th Tigers

Banned
67th, very interesting point indeed.

So, even as Lincoln feared, the Emancipation Proclamation was seen in important British(and European?) circles as seeking to incite 'servile revolt' on behalf of a failing military effort, which was the reason he refused to even issue it until he had something resembling a military victory first.

Any ideas what would have happened if he had issued it a few months later but after a major victory and not a defensive victory like Antietam? Any significant changes if, say, he announced it after Gettysburg and Vicksburg instead?

The main concern AFAIK was the possibility that if a British/ European intervention settled the war, the Union would still be in possession of its large army (300,000 men in the field), and free to attack Canada.

British plans assumed 100,000 men would be required to man coastal defences (which is about accurate), an Army of 100,000 men would advance up the Hudson intent on investing Montreal (supplied from Boston), while 4 smaller armies of 25,000 advanced on 4 axis, one at Detroit (supplied from Washington) advancing over the frontier, one at Buffalo (supplied from NY), advancing over the Niagara frontier, another at Sackett's Harbor mounting an amphibious crossing to invest Kingston (again, supplied from NY) and a 4th as a Corps d'Observation at St Johns, Me watching the New Brunswick frontier.

The British counter was to leave the defence of Canada to a heavily reinforced (by regulars) Militia, fighting in what is essentially Trench warfare (in heavily prepared positions with greater firepower densities than Washington's defences) around the major cities (defences were prepared at Amhurstburg, London, Hamilton Toronto, along the Welland Canal, Kingston, Montreal, Cornwall, St Johns (PQ) and Quebec). The British experience of Sebastapol I'd assume led them to this. Meanwhile, the main British Army (mainly regulars and some provincials) will attack across the Maine-New Brunsick frontier, aiming at severing communications between the American Armies and their supply bases.

Anyway, that's an aside. I suspect a badly timed EP, or rather an earlier one, might have led the British to intervene. However, this crisis hardens the front bench against intervention after all was said and done (ISTR Lord Grey won the argument). If we could butterfly a slightly different dynamic in the cabinet, i.e. more confidence in the outcome of the war, say the British get a true intelligence report of US coastal defences, as the one they had (which has been posted on this forum) turns out to be extremely exaggerated, they might be more inclined to roll the dice.
 
Last edited:
Ultimately the US doesn't have to be an active enemy of the British.

1) Post-ACW the USA, CSA and Canada all maintain larger militaries and Canada begins to become a military burden on the UK.

Assume none of the three have sufficient naval strength to worry the British while the US has a quite moderate 100,000 man army, the CSA has 50,000 and Canada has 40,000 while the British keep a contingent of @15,000 in Canada.

2) Armament begins around 1885-1890. US establishes the fleet of 20 coastal battleships originally proposed and a standing army of 250,000. CSA and Canada each establish armies of 100,000 but neither bothers with much in the way of naval strength. British increase army strength to 25,000.

3) @1900. British analysts face the same situation as OTL. They have no real friends and can't afford to keep up with all of their potential adversaries. In OTL this meant concessions to keep the US friendly and not interested in a military confrontation but here the situation is less pleasant. Where do the concessions come from? Any land taken from the US in 1864? Hawaii? Border territories inside Canada or even the CSA? Forfeit all remaining debts owed to the UK from the Second American Revolution? Resurrect old claims from CSS Alabama and pay a massive amount in gold after interest is calculated?

By this point tensions are cooling down and it might be possible to avert a future crisis but London is simply going to have to make it more worthwhile for the US not to fight than to consider the eager hints surely coming from Berlin or St Petersburg.

4) Success! Despite Canadian grumbling and CSA outrage Great Britain and the USA are finally becoming friendlier. When war erupts the USA does NOT get involved militarily, and sells to anyone whose ships reach American ports, ie, they sell only to Great Britain and her allies.

Canada and the CSA can immediately send @150,000 troops to the Western Front, where most are rapidly butchered in pointless trench warfare in late 1914 and early 1915. No real changes take place on the frontlines.

1915: US is now becoming flush with money, UK now a debtor nation.

1916: With added CSA troops and earlier Canadian arrival Germany decides to switch gears and target Russia earlier than OTL. November 1916 revolution takes Russia out of the war.

1917: War ends, negotiated settlement on Western Front. Germany rules Eastern Europe.
Personally I Think The MOST Likely Outcome of this Particular POD is The Same One Advocated by None Other than Winston Churchill ...

In his Classic Counterfactual "If Lee had Not Won The Battle of Gettysburg", he Augers that The Further Disintegration of The English Speaking World would Lead in Turn to Something Similar to The Integration of Germany and Italy at a Later Date ...

Thus a Re-Unified North America Finds itself in Exactly The Right Position to Do Some Good, By Helping The UK to Enforce a Cease-Fire in an Analogue of WWI!

:eek:
 
67th Tigers, a bit confusing that is.

Anglo-French intervention ends the war THEN the US attacks Canada and the UK? Or the British assume that they'll need a permanent commitment of 300,000 men:)eek:) including Canadian forces to prevent USA revenge attacks.

Wouldn't that also mean that, having saved the CSA's...bottom, the British felt they would not be able to count on the CSA if the intervention led to a subsequent US/UK war?

It sounds like the British assumed that intervention would lead to a vengeful USA with a powerful army, an extremely costly and permanent commitment in Canada and a CSA so vile that it wouldn't consider owing its very survival to the UK as meaning that Richmond should actually repay that support when the UK needed help. THAT would be a powerful argument against intervening!

'

Zaphod, you'll note also that all of the suggested military force levels and ship construction was actually considered in OTL and the scenario has no further US/UK war, relations improving within a generation and the US position in the alternate WWI comparable to pro-British neutrality in OTL.
 
67th Tigers, a bit confusing that is.

Anglo-French intervention ends the war THEN the US attacks Canada and the UK? Or the British assume that they'll need a permanent commitment of 300,000 men:)eek:) including Canadian forces to prevent USA revenge attacks.

Wouldn't that also mean that, having saved the CSA's...bottom, the British felt they would not be able to count on the CSA if the intervention led to a subsequent US/UK war?

It sounds like the British assumed that intervention would lead to a vengeful USA with a powerful army, an extremely costly and permanent commitment in Canada and a CSA so vile that it wouldn't consider owing its very survival to the UK as meaning that Richmond should actually repay that support when the UK needed help. THAT would be a powerful argument against intervening!

'

Zaphod, you'll note also that all of the suggested military force levels and ship construction was actually considered in OTL and the scenario has no further US/UK war, relations improving within a generation and the US position in the alternate WWI comparable to pro-British neutrality in OTL.
Yeah, But ...

I Think Sir Winston did you One Better in his Famous Work ...

Armed NEUTRALS Force Realpolitik on The Combatant Nations, Thereby Re-Invigorating The Concert of Europe!

:p
 
Yeah, But ...

I Think Sir Winston did you One Better in his Famous Work ...

Armed NEUTRALS Force Realpolitik on The Combatant Nations, Thereby Re-Invigorating The Concert of Europe!

:p
I've read that, and it's basically just a giant utopian anglo-sphere wank.

Anglo-sphere wank meaning "let's act as a giant happy family despite our very real differences, past wars, and meddeling who go around as masters of the world, enlightening civilization to know their place as equals who none the less must follow our unanimous leadership and everywhere will be a happy place with puppies and kittens while everyone else gladly follows our lead despite differing geo-political realities."

Churchill wasn't my favorite historian, if you can't tell.
 
I've read that, and it's basically just a giant utopian anglo-sphere wank.

Anglo-sphere wank meaning "let's act as a giant happy family despite our very real differences, past wars, and meddeling who go around as masters of the world, enlightening civilization to know their place as equals who none the less must follow our unanimous leadership and everywhere will be a happy place with puppies and kittens while everyone else gladly follows our lead despite differing geo-political realities."

Churchill wasn't my favorite historian, if you can't tell.
ALL True as per your Condemnation ...

Ironically However, 100 Years Later that's Exactly What we're Trying to Accomplish ...

It's Obviously Plagued with Issues Relating to Terrorists, But is an English-Speaking Super-Duper-State Really that Far-Out in The Future?

:D
 
The main concern AFAIK was the possibility that if a British/ European intervention settled the war, the Union would still be in possession of its large army (300,000 men in the field), and free to attack Canada.

British plans assumed 100,000 men would be required to man coastal defences (which is about accurate), an Army of 100,000 men would advance up the Hudson intent on investing Montreal (supplied from Boston), while 4 smaller armies of 25,000 advanced on 4 axis, one at Detroit (supplied from Washington) advancing over the frontier, one at Buffalo (supplied from NY), advancing over the Niagara frontier, another at Sackett's Harbor mounting an amphibious crossing to invest Kingston (again, supplied from NY) and a 4th as a Corps d'Observation at St Johns, Me watching the New Brunswick frontier.

The British counter was to leave the defence of Canada to a heavily reinforced (by regulars) Militia, fighting in what is essentially Trench warfare (in heavily prepared positions with greater firepower densities than Washington's defences) around the major cities (defences were prepared at Amhurstburg, London, Hamilton Toronto, along the Welland Canal, Kingston, Montreal, Cornwall, St Johns (PQ) and Quebec). The British experience of Sebastapol I'd assume led them to this. Meanwhile, the main British Army (mainly regulars and some provincials) will attack across the Maine-New Brunsick frontier, aiming at severing communications between the American Armies and their supply bases.

Anyway, that's an aside. I suspect a badly timed EP, or rather an earlier one, might have led the British to intervene. However, this crisis hardens the front bench against intervention after all was said and done (ISTR Lord Grey won the argument). If we could butterfly a slightly different dynamic in the cabinet, i.e. more confidence in the outcome of the war, say the British get a true intelligence report of US coastal defences, as the one they had (which has been posted on this forum) turns out to be extremely exaggerated, they might be more inclined to roll the dice.

67th Tigers

A couple of questions:
a) Do you know how much reinforcement it was thought to meet the defensive needs for Canada? Think you had ~140k for the militia strength but how many British regulars for the reinforcements.

b) The figure of 300k for the Union army. Under what circumstances are those considered? I.e. in addition to whatever the north has fighting the south or as a post civil-war attack in which the north would need less forces on other fronts. But presumably having some watch against the south in the fear it might be worried enough to strike. [Or since both of the above scenarios might be considered rather AH for the time, in terms of planning for what happened after the south won its independence/was recognised, is this for what would be expected in the event of an attack without the civil war occurring, or possibly after the south had been defeat?]

Steve
 

67th Tigers

Banned
67th Tigers

A couple of questions:
a) Do you know how much reinforcement it was thought to meet the defensive needs for Canada? Think you had ~140k for the militia strength but how many British regulars for the reinforcements.

They say 10-15,000, i.e. about what was in place post-Trent. The troops who reinforced during the Trent were regarded as the minimum backbone to build a defensive militia army around. Colonel MacDougall advocated the militia brigades be based around a single regular battalion, with another 3 militia Bn for field service.

b) The figure of 300k for the Union army. Under what circumstances are those considered? I.e. in addition to whatever the north has fighting the south or as a post civil-war attack in which the north would need less forces on other fronts. But presumably having some watch against the south in the fear it might be worried enough to strike. [Or since both of the above scenarios might be considered rather AH for the time, in terms of planning for what happened after the south won its independence/was recognised, is this for what would be expected in the event of an attack without the civil war occurring, or possibly after the south had been defeat?]

The figure of 300,000 men is bandied around a lot in the press of the time, and seems reasonably consistant with the ORs, which typically report the number of men at between 400 and 425,000 (after deducting deserters, absentees, soldiers under sentence etc.), including troops in the Pacific Dept, and Commisariat, Labour, Railroad, Signals and other similar detachments. Deducting these out you get about 300,000 for much of the war, in fact the number of effective combatants falls in the late war, despite an apparently larger army (Grant increasing the logistic tail, and slowing his armies marching rate in the process, perversely, in terms of marching rate the late McClellan AoP was probably the best US formation).

Thus to British thinking/ counting methods 300,000 is the entire US Army ca 62/3.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
67th Tigers, a bit confusing that is.

Anglo-French intervention ends the war THEN the US attacks Canada and the UK? Or the British assume that they'll need a permanent commitment of 300,000 men:)eek:) including Canadian forces to prevent USA revenge attacks.

The Province of Canada planned (but didn't quite get) a 100,000 man militia, backed up by a small British garrison

Wouldn't that also mean that, having saved the CSA's...bottom, the British felt they would not be able to count on the CSA if the intervention led to a subsequent US/UK war?

I doubt it, the British don't make permanent allies. If ACW take 2 kicked off the British might well support the North. It's rather perverse, but the British might not actually like the CSA postwar.

It sounds like the British assumed that intervention would lead to a vengeful USA with a powerful army, an extremely costly and permanent commitment in Canada and a CSA so vile that it wouldn't consider owing its very survival to the UK as meaning that Richmond should actually repay that support when the UK needed help. THAT would be a powerful argument against intervening!

The possibility of revanche is of course why Lord Grey argued (successfully) against intervention, and remember intervention meant not necessarily troops and ships, but enforced negotiation. The British had the economic clout to impose that without resorting to burning NY.

It's doubtful the US could have sustained these regular force levels. In 1871, when a possible war with the Spanish loomed, it was found that the only functioning state militia was NYs (with about 40-50,000 men). After this a national militia (later renamed the National Guard) was formed, to enforce a militia burden on individual states. When 1898 rolls around, the US find themselves with 250,000 militia effectives on mobilisation (although this includes a contingent from the ex-CSA).

IMHO the US has to get revanche immediately or see the possibility slip away as they draw down to a regular army of 50-100,000 (although they had huge problems sustaining even the OTL regular army, which at one point was suffering annual desertion rates over 50%, blamed on the Irish who formed a massive part of the US Regular Army), and 250,000 militiamen who'll require time to mobilise, thus losing the possibility of catching the Brits with their pants down up north.
 
Actually in OTL the US quickly demobilized to a mere 25,000 men(on paper), which was actually a fifty percent increase from 1860!

This astounded many in Europe who saw a difference between avoiding excess military spending and avoiding practically any meaningful military spending whatsoever.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Actually in OTL the US quickly demobilized to a mere 25,000 men(on paper), which was actually a fifty percent increase from 1860!

This astounded many in Europe who saw a difference between avoiding excess military spending and avoiding practically any meaningful military spending whatsoever.

Well, yes, eventually. The initial reduction created an authorised force of 54,302 offrs and men (10 cav rgts (9th and 10th are coloured), 45 inf rgts (38th-41st are coloured) and 5 arty regts), and the army was actually overstrength. Over a period of time the army was reduced before stabilising in 1876 at an establishment of 27,442. The drawdowns roughly matches the readmitance of states to the Union.

I've no doubt that there was a period of opportunity that the US could have maintained a large volunteer army, and built a regular army ethos earlier.
 
Top