Poll: Could the CSA Have Won?

Could the CSA have won?


  • Total voters
    252

67th Tigers

Banned
The Indian Armies are unlikely to be used in such an intervention, though, unless they want yet another risk of mutiny on their arms; the Sepoy rebellion is not exactly far at this point and I very much doubt the british would want to risk it, especially considering they'd be fighting for a country that has a rather dim view of dark-skinned people (hell, if anything could encourage the radical abolitionists to try to influence Lincoln even more it could be that). Deploying from Canada? Do the Indian troops even have winter gear? I know Egypt is a whole other country, but when the Ottoman-Egyptian wars happened, this ended up being one of the major things that bogged down the egyptian offensives in the north: they lacked warm enough clothing and their troops died from it even in the rather mild Syrian and Cilician winter (still goes around -5 to 5 for a couple of weeks).

And if the indian armies get involved, expect the state militias to fight, unlike IOTL, even if both sides end up with record desertion rates.

The navy still has the advantage, to a certain point, but a navy alone doesn't win a war against a country that's not dependent on trade for the survival of its people; sure it is for some of its wealth, but the union won't starve from a blockade.

The planning was for a 30,000 man Anglo-Indian expeditionary force to remove the west coast from the United States.

The force going to Canada and the Maritimes was 85,000 European regulars. There are 60 infantry battalions either in Canada or available for deployment to Canada. An infantry battalion is the bayonet strength of a typical ACW brigade. The available regular force for Canada has more bayonets than the entire realistic disposable force the Union has for operations against the CSA and Canada.
 
In fact the vast majority of the Sepoys remained loyal to the British and that crisis has been over for several years.

Since the nitrates the Union required to make gunpowder had to be imported from outside North America the US is absolutely dependent on foreign trade and will not be able to fight for long once the blockade is established.
 
Can't We All Just Get Along?

In fact the vast majority of the Sepoys remained loyal to the British and that crisis has been over for several years.

Since the nitrates the Union required to make gunpowder had to be imported from outside North America the US is absolutely dependent on foreign trade and will not be able to fight for long once the blockade is established.

All the more reason why Lincoln quietly settled the Trent Affair, as it was the actions of a rogue naval officer, not someone working for the Mission: Impossible crew.:D I don't understand why so many people are ready to accept war over the Trent.* If Lincoln's backing down, how does war start? He won't allow such an unfortunate mess to get that far. After all, Lincoln is Lincoln, not Yosemite Sam.:eek:
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*-Unless it's purely for reasons of abstract discussion, not serious analysis.**
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**-Like this.:eek:***
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***-That is, mine is not the serious analysis, but the abstract discussion:p
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BTW, GR, aren't you supposed to be at work?;):D
 

archaeogeek

Banned
The planning was for a 30,000 man Anglo-Indian expeditionary force to remove the west coast from the United States.

The force going to Canada and the Maritimes was 85,000 European regulars. There are 60 infantry battalions either in Canada or available for deployment to Canada. An infantry battalion is the bayonet strength of a typical ACW brigade. The available regular force for Canada has more bayonets than the entire realistic disposable force the Union has for operations against the CSA and Canada.

How much of it can realistically be deployed, however, is the question.
Armies of the period, except the Prussian one, have the terrible tendency of vastly overinflating their paper numbers.

The Sepoy rebellion ended only 5 years ago, and some areas of India were still likely to blow up again (Punjab, there were not only vassal states in rebellion, and the majority of the states were actually not committed on either side) but, admittedly, if they're only moving 30.000 soldiers... How are they, exactly, planning to do anything? Both sides fielded more troops at that point in their regular armies.
 
That's 30,000 troops, less than a tenth of the British peacetime strength in India, landing in California where Union forces would be extremely outclassed and have no railroad to the east.

The other 85,000, barely half the British Army in time of peace, would join Canada's own forces and, on arrival, already be nearly as numerous as the CSA forces at their peak.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
That's 30,000 troops, less than a tenth of the British peacetime strength in India, landing in California where Union forces would be extremely outclassed and have no railroad to the east.

The other 85,000, barely half the British Army in time of peace, would join Canada's own forces and, on arrival, already be nearly as numerous as the CSA forces at their peak.

That still says nothing about Britain's effective ability to actually do anything that involves a hot war in the period; given how the Boer war went, I feel the british would be extremely overconfident to deal with things, and would likely get their nose bloodied again (and in this case instead of fighting half a million dutch settlers and press ganged sotho, they'd be fighting a modern country with a population of 27 million people); of course landing in California wouldn't be terribly opposed, but the west at the time still has about a million people, if Canada is not a walkover, I doubt the west is (also, how do you plan to make the Canadian forces, almost entirely in the east, join with the British forces; the Pacific railway is still not built and won't be before the 1870s, so such a junction would be slow, hard, and likely cost more troops along the way than the fighting).
 
That still says nothing about Britain's effective ability to actually do anything that involves a hot war in the period; given how the Boer war went, I feel the british would be extremely overconfident to deal with things, and would likely get their nose bloodied again (and in this case instead of fighting half a million dutch settlers and press ganged sotho, they'd be fighting a modern country with a population of 27 million people); of course landing in California wouldn't be terribly opposed, but the west at the time still has about a million people, if Canada is not a walkover, I doubt the west is (also, how do you plan to make the Canadian forces, almost entirely in the east, join with the British forces; the Pacific railway is still not built and won't be before the 1870s, so such a junction would be slow, hard, and likely cost more troops along the way than the fighting).
The Boer War and an Anglo-American war aren't exactly comparable. One has a bunch of people who while there weren't many had lived off the relatively barren land for centuries. A great place for an effective guerilla warfare strategy. The other is again America, a reasonably populated nation with cities and urban areas in numerous locations. Alongside this you have the Canadian forces to help deal as well. Also the Americans are likely to use war tactics, unlike the Boers who used more hit-and-run operations.

Also don't forget the navy, sure naval power isn't everything. But for supplies, reinforcements, easy transportation along the coast and a blockade it's quite effective. Also the economy of the US would drop, while the Confederacy should stay okay-ish with its cotton trading still going on.

I don't think the British would get cocky anyway, their main objective (as I see it) would be to simply keep the Confederacy alive until a treaty can be created. So in the east (where they know they'll face the most offensive actions from the US) they would probably go on the defensive. While in the West it's possible they may try landings in California. In a way the british could keep the Americans out of New Orleans and away from western CSA, while the Confederates would keep the Union concentrated on them in the east.

In this war the main objective would surely be to regain the Confederacy, surely any mass-invasions of Canada would come second? And thus be a lot less viscous.
 

MrP

Banned
I can't say that it seems reasonable to compare Britain's Army in 1862 with her army in 1899 or even 1880, even were one to consider every other factor was equal. It's a two or three decade gap during a period of innovation in the technologies of killing one another. One couldn't compare the RN of 1862, in which Warrior is a modern revolutionary warship, with that of 1899, in which she is quite obsolete. I don't believe the Army had changed so utterly as the Navy, but I hope that the comparison makes my point.
 
The two wars aren't even comparable.

In the Boer War Great Britain doesn't have not one but two substantial allies offering military and economic support on the start while in the ACW Canada and the CSA stand ready.

Canada, with three times the population of the West Coast, will have all of Canada's existing military forces available on the border with the US while most of what little force California and Oregon have were already withdrawn to the east, leaving between five and ten thousand militia of uncertain quality.

There's a vast difference between attacking an enemy with 70,000+ troops already available over terrain which limits the angles of approach and involves significant difficulties of terrain(the St Lawrence River and the Great Lakes coming to mind) and simply landing on the coast under cover of the most powerful navy in the world against, at most, a force of militia outnumbered by five or ten to one.

The Canadians don't need to hook up with British forces in California, they just need to hold until the British reinforcements arrive. At that point the US can't win on any front and peace talks are only a matter of time. Lincoln is thrown out of office, the Democrats take over and make much of this idea that if the CSA was proving difficult to beat then perhaps declaring war on the British Empire at the same time would go better.
 
TheNordicBrit wrote:
Could the British have sent some covert troops and equipment to the Sioux to help them in their war against the American settlers?


Oddly enough I once started an AH novel where this happened. I envisaged a brilliant British commander (loosely based on the Marquis of Montrose from the English Civil War period) taking a reinforced battalion (roughly 1200 men) and some old (smoothbore) 6-pounders onto the Great Plains to support the Indians.

To return to the original point of this thread, I can never understand why people think it unlikely that the British would ally with the Confederacy: it's far more likely than Winston Churchill allying with the USSR....

DM
 

archaeogeek

Banned
TheNordicBrit wrote:
Could the British have sent some covert troops and equipment to the Sioux to help them in their war against the American settlers?




To return to the original point of this thread, I can never understand why people think it unlikely that the British would ally with the Confederacy: it's far more likely than Winston Churchill allying with the USSR....

DM

In 1941, there was the survival of both countries at stake; in 1862, what, exactly, is at stake? For cotton they can go to Brazil, the post-war CSA is still partially wrecked, moreso than the union, while outside of Virginia and a few pockets, the CSA depends on cash crops for its economy, and it in an apartheid situation which in a few areas involves whites becoming, slowly, a minority, with a system of racial based slavery. I know it might, ultimately, not, but if someone is vaguely sensible in the british government, assuming everything breaks down in British-US relationships, at least I'd hope they'll pay attention to the fact that they're going to deal with a country that will be plagued with slave and minority revolts more or less on a constant basis, along with likely losing a major market in America. If not I figure the US can eventually be made to cave, eventually, the war lasts longer, the CSA likely loses Tennessee outright in the peace deal and the US can probably just sit back and watch the fireworks, grabbing back any border state that secedes, probably leaving a situation where the CSA wilts down to the core 7 who may, at this point, have become independent republics anyway. But thats hindsight :p
 
If the US is seizing British ships or invading Canada then it is no longer about the CSA and the CSA's problems will mean as much to London as the USSR's problems did to London and DC in WWII.


And if the US somehow gets into a war with the UK and Canada then not only will Tennessee certainly stay with the CSA but the CSA will gain other territories at the peace talks, with New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky all being plausible candidates. Meanwhile, what may the British or Canadians want as compensation? Washington state? Montana? Alaska and Hawaii in the future?

A United States with 30-35 states becomes very plausible.
 
The British intervening in the American Civil War would have been silly as it wasn't really in her interests. Firstly there was the undeniable point that the Confederacy was founded purely on the right to own slaves, something the British had outlawed 50 years earlier. The political ramifications at home of supporting a slaving 'nation' against one fighting to end that slavery were significant.

Secondly the benefits of entering this war were slim. With hindsight a divided USA might have enabled Britain to maintain it's world dominance for longer (but then only if WWI never happened). At the time of course it was in Britain's interest to have a strong stable USA that the empire could trade with.

Thirdly the risk of entering the war was losing Canada - and this was a very real risk. The Union had fully mobilised for war, and had a large standing army, with the ability to easily raise more troops. Canada on the other hand had a small army and was 3000 miles away from Britain, making reinforcing the troops there difficult, even given the dominance of the RN.

Unless the French were to come in with Britain, and both countries poured ridiculous amounts of conscripts into Canada quickly, it would have been more than likely that the Union would have taken a large chunk if not all of Canada, and then went back to finish off the South.

Britain didnt outlaw slavery fifty years ago. They outlawed slavery in the home islands in the 1770s. They outlawed the slave trade in around 1805. And they outlawed slavery in the West Indies in like the 1830s/40s.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
If the US is seizing British ships or invading Canada then it is no longer about the CSA and the CSA's problems will mean as much to London as the USSR's problems did to London and DC in WWII.


And if the US somehow gets into a war with the UK and Canada then not only will Tennessee certainly stay with the CSA but the CSA will gain other territories at the peace talks, with New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky all being plausible candidates. Meanwhile, what may the British or Canadians want as compensation? Washington state? Montana? Alaska and Hawaii in the future?

A United States with 30-35 states becomes very plausible.

Let's go state by state
- Kentucky: After 1861, impossible, their neutrality wasn't some sort of pro-confederate profession of faith, when the south tried to invade to annex it, they petitioned the union.
- New Mexico; probably goes with Texas
- Arizona; iffy, I'm not sure what contemporary borders for the territories look like, but IIRC New Mexico and Arizona at the time are north and south of each other instead of east and west.
- Oklahoma; the indian territory ultimately seceded
- Washington; BC has less settlers than Washington has militia, the US will also not likely give up its pacific coast without a serious fight
- Montana; how do you intend to go through the Rockies; the british army of 1862 barely knows battlefield medicine, the infrastructure on both sides of the border is non-existent, the best you can hope is that they lost at worst about 5% of their men through the mountain crossing.
- Alaska is Russian, if not sold to the US, it will likely remain russian
- Hawai'i was annexed despite guarantees of independence on both sides, how is this any different?

Ultimately, any gain the British might have will merely buy independence for the CSA, not concessions. The army of 1862 is not the army of 1899, indeed, it's likely even worse, it has few of the advantages it would have then, for one. And this still doesn't make the CSA a viable economy... And Britain still makes no significant gains for itself even if it gets those, all it gets are relatively poor areas that today barely have the combined population of BC, to prop up a plantocracy that only has 25% of the US, a fractious population, and a likely volatile political situation on their hands, for a fraction of the industry.
 
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The US can't get an army to the West Coast so if the British hold Washington or Oregon then they can keep it while alliance with the Sioux, Cheyenne, etc., all of them more favorable to Canada and the UK than the US would net Montana and perhaps more territory.

Of course, if the British get nasty they can always recruit a Mormon theocracy of Deseret and insist on a separate California Republic as well.

The US will certainly be angry in the long term but that's a US which has lost the eleven Confederate states plus as many as three future states or even more, plus the West Coast and much of the Great Plains. Perhaps a US with only 25 or so states and not so formidable.
 
The US can't get an army to the West Coast so if the British hold Washington or Oregon then they can keep it while alliance with the Sioux, Cheyenne, etc., all of them more favorable to Canada and the UK than the US would net Montana and perhaps more territory.

Of course, if the British get nasty they can always recruit a Mormon theocracy of Deseret and insist on a separate California Republic as well.

The US will certainly be angry in the long term but that's a US which has lost the eleven Confederate states plus as many as three future states or even more, plus the West Coast and much of the Great Plains. Perhaps a US with only 25 or so states and not so formidable.

It loses nearly jack shit with the confederacy. Except for New Orleans the loss of the confederate states most likely puts the US in a better economic position. Whether the US would actually lose the plains and west is debatable.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
The US can't get an army to the West Coast so if the British hold Washington or Oregon then they can keep it while alliance with the Sioux, Cheyenne, etc., all of them more favorable to Canada and the UK than the US would net Montana and perhaps more territory.

Of course, if the British get nasty they can always recruit a Mormon theocracy of Deseret and insist on a separate California Republic as well.

The US will certainly be angry in the long term but that's a US which has lost the eleven Confederate states plus as many as three future states or even more, plus the West Coast and much of the Great Plains. Perhaps a US with only 25 or so states and not so formidable.

And then they get bogged down in yet another guerilla war; the british, to get these lands, will need to either do a proper war, which they can't in 1862, or will need to keep occupying them, which they likely can't afford to do either as they then have to reinforce troops thousands of miles away. The last time it looked like Britain was using a war to get a real hegemonic position, it ended with everyone in Europe giving France (and the Netherlands and Spain) their blessing to kick Britain down a notch and US independence.

Note how the french basically kicked the british out of India by the treaty of Paris, and ended up using these gains to justify US independence: that's the most likely scenario, not "RULE BRITANNIA!".
 
So much ignorance, starting with this idea that the British, with peace time forces nearly the size of what the Union took four years to scrape together, on paper, and the most powerful fleet in the world, would be unable to fight a proper war, even with both Canada and the CSA on the spot as allies.

And if you believe the French kicked the British out of India or that the ARW was about the British trying to establish a hegemonic position then you don't know a thing about history.

Not to mention that France would react with delight, seeing this as a British cue to stay in Mexico.



As for the American west, what guerilla war? What guerillas?

There are effectively ZERO Americans in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho and Wyoming while the entire population of Washington and Nevada is well below 50,000. Whose going to be the resistance in these areas where Native Americans, extremely pro-British by virtue of being anti-American, outnumber the settlers?

Meanwhile the Mormons of Utah will accept independence if the British can give it to them and California has well below a half million people, centered on a handful of coastal areas at the mercy of the Royal Navy.
 
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