No Oregon Treaty in 1846

Yeah that 5% did so well in New Orleans.

Americans always bring this up.
One battle does not a war make.
Especially if this battle is a offensive action far from the main theatre of conflict when you are fighting a defencive war.


IOTL a big factor in America getting the amount it did is that Britain wanted a strong and friendly US, they didn't see there as being any harm in a friendly nation owning that territory rather than themselves. America was afterall a major component of the informal empire. If America were to start acting like a dick over it though (i.e. war) then this would change...
 
Thanks for your input guys. It helped me to see this dispute in a different perspective. Though the whole thing is still open to debate, as there seems to be so solid evidence (that I can find) which sheds light on the actual intentions of both sides over the territory. It seems that neither Britain nor the USA had enough confidence in their respective military supremacy over each other to risk open war over a territory which had little real value at the time.
 
The British compromised because the pattern of settlement was swinging badly against them but any map shows that they still got a majority of the land, including all of British Columbia. In fact, the only question was Vancouver Island, which the US ultimately ceded also.

The British were not likely to go to war over the precise border when they were guaranteed a huge tract of land without fighting and when most of the population was increasingly non-British/Canadian.

Despite his noise, Polk was too smart to fight two wars at once, and clearly the British knew this.
 
This is one of those I'm just not certain of. Yes, GB was a global power, but as Spiderman says, with great power comes great responsibility. To gather and fight a war so far away, against a very different United States than either 1776 or 1812, might permit to many competitors to grab too many other 'jewels' from the crown.

Let's consider some of the other things on England's plate in and around the 1840's time frame, in particular: 1) the Irish Potato Famine, although this isn't military, it has the potential of becoming so if too little attention is paid to it; 2) The first of a series of wars in Afghanistan (1839-1842); 3) The First Opium War (1839 - 1842); 4) Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845 - 1849); and the Burma War (1848-1849).

Also consider, England probably knows that the US is not the same nation it faced twice before, you now have a better cadre of professional officers and professional soldiers.

If there were a war, England knows it will be stretched, so it knows it's best course will be to negotiate.

I believe if there had been a war, it would have largely been a Naval one, which GB would win, and a land war, which the US would win. Eventually, both sides would seek peace, and each would seek a concession in area it won in, GB would want a concession that would serve its Navy, and the US territorial concessions.

In the end, it is my belief that the US would probably have more of Western Canada than in OTL, probably offset by lands in the Southwest that would be guaranteed to Mexico (GB would want a regional power to check the US). England would probably want trade concessions in the orient, and would probably take over Hawaii.
 
More likely is that the US loses territory and gains nothing from Mexico. The US army in the war with Mexico was a fraction of the British and a naval conflict doesn't even bear consideration. With Mexico providing a large, if ineffective, ally to Great Britain, the outcome is not going to be pleasant for the US.

Even after the ACW the US was still outnumbered and badly outgunned by the UK, whose own army was far less than it might have been.
 
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