PC/WI: British mediation in the American Civil War

What would cause Britain to mediate the US civil war and force a ceasefire? Would the Union be willing to accept a ceasefire?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
What would cause Britain to mediate the US civil war and force a ceasefire?

They were coming close in the late summer of 1862, when the Southerners were doing well on the battlefield and before Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This was also when the shortage of cotton was really biting Britain hard, as they had not yet turned to the new sources in India or Egypt. If the big offensive by the Confederates had been successful (Lee in Maryland, Bragg in Kentucky, Price/Van Dorn in north Mississippi), then I think the British would have offered mediation and the French would have followed in their wake.

Would the Union be willing to accept a ceasefire?

No. Lincoln had made it very clear that he would never accept mediation by the European powers. And if the British had gone ahead and unilaterally recognized the Confederacy as an independent state, the United States would have declared war on Britain; that, too, had been made very clear.
 
What would cause Britain to mediate the US civil war and force a ceasefire? Would the Union be willing to accept a ceasefire?

Nothing short of the US invading Canada or something. It wasn't in GB interest to force any cease fire. Cotton is simply not that important to it. War with the US would be far, far more costly than the cotton could ever be worth. It would have been willing to mediate if asked but it wasn't going to force anything. The most the CSA could get is recogniton which wouldn't mean a thing (As Palmerston pointed out) unless GB was willing to go to war with the US by breaking the blockade by force. Even the most pro-CSA members of the cabinet weren't willing to do that.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The most the CSA could get is recogniton which wouldn't mean a thing (As Palmerston pointed out) unless GB was willing to go to war with the US by breaking the blockade by force. Even the most pro-CSA members of the cabinet weren't willing to do that.

But we know in retrospect that diplomatic recognition would have automatically meant war between the USA and Britain, even if they made no attempt to break the blockade by force. Lincoln was not going to back down on this, although it is possible that British thought he was.
 
But we know in retrospect that diplomatic recognition would have automatically meant war between the USA and Britain, even if they made no attempt to break the blockade by force. Lincoln was not going to back down on this, although it is possible that British thought he was.

Maybe, maybe not as it was through Seward that he said it. Push comes to shove he can deny it. I think short of them trying to break the blockade by force there wouldn't be a war. Bluster is one thing war another. Breaking the blockade WOULD mean war though.
 
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