Poll: What happens if a successful Confederacy invades Northern Mexico?

What happens if a successful Confederacy invades Mexico

  • Major Confederate Victory: Takes everything north of Mexico City

    Votes: 18 11.3%
  • Minor Confederate Victory: Border moves 40 miles south

    Votes: 41 25.6%
  • Stalemate

    Votes: 35 21.9%
  • Minor Mexican Victory: Kicks the Confederates totally out and moves the border 10 miles north

    Votes: 37 23.1%
  • Major Mexican Victory: Confederate Army takes huge casualties Mexico takes back half of Texas.

    Votes: 29 18.1%

  • Total voters
    160
My guess is the us allies with mexico andmlitarily defeats the csa badly. Us gainns all exUS territory west of texas and some or all texas, too.

I wouldnt be surprised if the us actually gained some mexican territory.
 
If the CSA attacks mexico whilst Maximilian is still in charge then it risks getting kicked in the teeth by France, who does not have the Monroe Doctrine to worry about anymore; however, Richmond would KNOW this so wouldn't attack at this time, ergo not going to happen

So it has to be later, once Max is dead, France withdrawn and Juarez victorious albeit never secure. France has lost in Europe and unless the butterflies are jumping up and down has become a republic, the USA has probably still got an isolationist bent, an insular policy, and Britain probably doesn't care all that much.

The questions for the CSA would be how have they got themselves an army? Presumably post-victory they have kept a small core of professionals and will then in war augment this with state forces, called up for the duration. As with the US invasion of Mexico in the 1840s, this provides a good short term army but they start to want to go home as soon as their enlistment expiry comes to term

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Is GB and France willing to actually DO anything about it? Damn unlikely.

Johnrankins

It depends on the circumstances but, barring Britain being dragged into the USCW and a hostile union, its more likely to be opposing the south than supporting it. Might not led to a dow on the south, although its not impossible but you could well see direct support for Mexico against the southern attackers.

The other key factor of course is what state Mexico is in when the south attacks.

Steve
 
The Confederacy gets curbstomped, the Mexican government looks overwhelmingly badass in comparison, CS internal problems get much, much worse.
 
The Union isn't going to like the Confederacy taking any more territory, but there is very little they can do, unless they want to offend Britain and France.

The best the Confederacy can hope for is diplomatic recognition by Britain and France, neither will support the Confederacy in any offensive war.

If the Confederacy invades Mexico, they are almost certainly offending France. They won't be seen as liberators, either. The Union had already been supporting the Juaristas and taking that northern tier of Mexican states will require invading Juarista areas.

The CSA, which has a very strong military tradition, is able to make some initial gains and, possibly, strip the northernmost tier of states from Mexico, but they get drawn into a nasty insurgency.

In OTL, the CSA never succeeded in taking and holding Union territory. Their one attempt in the theatre, the New Mexico Campaign, resulted in some initial gains, followed by abject failure, even though half the Union forces were territorial militia.

The Confederate Army has a tradition of being failing to supply its troops with shoes, clothing, and food. Northern Mexico is not good territory for foraging. The Confederacy is also in bad financial sahpe and wars are expensive.

Mexico has a larger free population than the Confederacy. The northern tier of Mexican states is Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora, and Tamaulipas. Their population is over 600,000. While that's sparsely populated it's about 10 times the population of Colorado and New Mexico, who handily beat the Confederates in OTL.

Looking at the options from worst to best.

1) The Confederacy attacks while France is in control. This is stupid, but an independent Confederacy has at track record of picking fights with bigger powers and winning. They probably end up fighting France, the US, and Mexico and lose badly.

2) The Confederacy attacks while Juarez is in control. They probably end up fighting the US and Mexico and lose badly.

3) The Confederacy attacks while Mexico is still fighting itself. They end up fighting both sides of the Mexicans and probably manage a stalemate.

4) They cut a deal with Maximillian - they get the northern tier of Mexican states if they can defeat the Juaristas there. Maximillian secures the rest of Mexico while the Confederacy plunges into something resembling your scenario. They still probably can't take all of northern Mexico and holding it will be expensive. The Union was already "misplacing" thousands of muskets "near" (across) the border to the Juaristas in OTL.
 
That's just abserd. The US jsut lost the Civil War and had an angry population to deal with. The CSA has likely managed to gain some sort of international backing at this point. The Union isn't going to like the Confederacy taking any more territory, but there is very little they can do, unless they want to offend Britain and France.
Likely? The CSA, which has a very strong military tradition, is able to make some initial gains and, possibly, strip the northernmost tier of states from Mexico, but they get drawn into a nasty insurgency.
This is where the USA comes in; supplying weapons, finances and, most likely, volunteers to the rebels.

The CSA is not the greater USA. For one crude measure of the difference an independent CSA's sanitary facilities are going to be far more rudimentary than the bigger USA's was. Proportionally the Mexican War was the deadliest conflict in US history, and most of that was disease. The CSA, with a smaller economy, more primitive medical care, and also greater trouble raising large armies and replicating Winfield Scott's strategy on top of the problem of slavery during a second war against a free North American state is unlikely to do well. At all.

For one thing Mexico can point out that it's never been a slave society and that the CSA is trying to impose slavery, instant kiss of death for foreign support for the CSA, while Mexico's armies don't need to be Mary Tzus to smash the CSA's own armies. CS armies did lousily in invasions of US territory. Against Mexico with the vast distances, terrain, and a CS military culture that would outdo the French Third Republic in unyielding emphasis on attacks beyond all reason the CSA will be getting a severe beating. And disease and lack of adequate sanitation will probably kill more CS troops than Mexican soldiers. The bigger USA was not as good at this as it should have been in the 1890s, an independent CSA is even less likely to be.
 
This is right after the CW so expect to be the relations of the USA and CSA to be simular to those of the US and USSR in 1951, AT BEST.

In light of that, I expect an complete Confederate victory and the annexation of all territory north of Mexico City. Don't particularly like someone changing the parameters of a WI poll to only achieve a desired result.

First off, the Confederacy isn't going to be doing any annexations at least until the 1870s or 1880s. Also I don't believe relations will be as bad as Harry Turtledove has led many to believe.
 
Why not? The land taken would be from the CSA and not the USA. Unless the USA is able and willing to retake it the entire CSA it will happily allow its chief rival to become weaker. If the CSA folds it can take it then. After the South wins the Civil War they would consider Southerners traitors not "Fellow Americans".

That doesn't matter, the USA views the Confederate states as traitors but part of that reason is because they seceded with land that the Union has claims on, the Union is especially not going to let Mexico retake lands that they ceded to the Union following the Mexican-American War, it isn't an issue of weakening the Confederates it's an issue of retaking what belongs to the Union. Intervening in a Mexican-Confederate War and turning it into a nasty, two-front affair is how they weaken the CSA, giving Mexico territory that is considered to simply have been illegally taken from its rightful owner is not going to happen.
 
In light of that, I expect an complete Confederate victory and the annexation of all territory north of Mexico City. Don't particularly like someone changing the parameters of a WI poll to only achieve a desired result.

First off, the Confederacy isn't going to be doing any annexations at least until the 1870s or 1880s. Also I don't believe relations will be as bad as Harry Turtledove has led many to believe.

Not changing, clarifying. I never thought anything different. I figured around 1880 and if you think that if relations between the USA and CSA a mere 15 or 20 years after the war are anywhere near decent you are SERIOUSLY DELUDING yourself. I thought it was so obvious it would be a given.
 
Last edited:
That doesn't matter, the USA views the Confederate states as traitors but part of that reason is because they seceded with land that the Union has claims on, the Union is especially not going to let Mexico retake lands that they ceded to the Union following the Mexican-American War, it isn't an issue of weakening the Confederates it's an issue of retaking what belongs to the Union. Intervening in a Mexican-Confederate War and turning it into a nasty, two-front affair is how they weaken the CSA, giving Mexico territory that is considered to simply have been illegally taken from its rightful owner is not going to happen.


Like I said it depends how far the Union can go. If it is incapable of taking Texas at the time it isn't going to war against Mexico to help the CSA keep Texas. If it has a choice of taking Texas from Mexico it will do so but if the only choice is between the CSA and Mexico getting Texas the US would will rather have Texas be part of Mexico.
 

loughery111

Banned
the mexican civil war outlasted ours

So? The Chinese Civil War outlasted the Second Sino-Japanese War, but the Japanese simply declared war on the Communists and Nationalists both and tried to conquer the country. I believe the phrase is "kicking them while they're down."
 
Not changing, clarifying. I never thought anything different. I figured around 1880 and if you think that if relations between the USA and CSA a mere 15 or 20 years after the war are anywhere near decent you are SERIOUSLY DELUDING yourself. I thought it was so obvious it would be a given.

I don't think there is any real way of deciding which way relations between the USA and CSA will be. The countries have more in common than different in 1870 or 1880 so I'm inclined to consider that ten years, at most, would see a stabilization of relations between the two.

I don't think it is 'obvious' that the US will come to the aid of Mexico. Until the rise of Diaz, and more importantly, the stabilizing influence of the PRI, Mexico probably is a borderline failed state thru most of the 19th century.
 
That's just abserd. The US jsut lost the Civil War and had an angry population to deal with.

The Copperheads thought the war wasn’t worth continuing, but they sure weren't going to take up arms against the government, either. If the Confederacy is independent, then the Copperheads won the 1864 election. There will, of course, be pro-Confederate guerillas in Tennessee and the Union controlled parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and northern Virginia to deal with.

The Confederacy have a much bigger problem with an angry population. The book Lincoln’s Loyalists estimates 10% of the draft age white men from Confederate states served in the Union Army. Others are in armed rebellion against the Confederacy – there are whole counties where CS recruiting officers and tax collectors were afraid to go. 67th Tigers has estimated 1/7th of the slaves had run off. These Unionist rebels against the Confederacy are in some of the best terrain for guerilla warfare and they’re going to have to be forcibly suppressed.

They’re not the only Confederates unhappy with their own government. The Fire Eaters were unceremoniously shoved to the side. Men who actually believed the doctrine of States Rights are deeply displeased with sprawling CSA bureaucracy. (Emory Thomas points out that by 1863 there were more government employees in Richmond than in Washington.) They also didn’t like the Confederate government instituting the draft or income taxes, requiring internal passports, revoking habeas corpus, confiscating civilian firearms, dictating prices, requiring rails and blockade runners to carry government cargos at well below cost, drafting workers to prevent strikes, impressing $500 million in goods from Confederate civilians, and racking up $2.2 billion in additional debt. The attempts at Prohibition weren’t very popular, either.

Even the Confederates who aren’t angry about the above want to go home, not fight another war. An invasion of Mexico would be a divisive issue that could lead to the fragmentation of the Confederacy.
 
I don't think there is any real way of deciding which way relations between the USA and CSA will be. The countries have more in common than different in 1870 or 1880 so I'm inclined to consider that ten years, at most, would see a stabilization of relations between the two.

The two had more in common than different on 1860. That didn't prevent the South from believing they distinctly different and superior to the North - and they'll feel their victory proves it. Much of period writing drips with racism against the Yankees. They also believed the North was firmly dedicated to the destruction of their way of life.

Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

Mississippi Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

The abolitionist had been the bogeyman invoked by Southern leaders for decades before the war. They aren't going to change that quickly. Those anti-North feelings aren't going to disappear in ten years. For some descendents of Confederates, these feelings still exist 150 years after the war.
 
That kind of sentiment has to be something that would get an equally unfriendly response, to maek things worse.
 
I don't think there is any real way of deciding which way relations between the USA and CSA will be. The countries have more in common than different in 1870 or 1880 so I'm inclined to consider that ten years, at most, would see a stabilization of relations between the two.

I don't think it is 'obvious' that the US will come to the aid of Mexico. Until the rise of Diaz, and more importantly, the stabilizing influence of the PRI, Mexico probably is a borderline failed state thru most of the 19th century.

Do you think that I believe that they would do so FOR Mexico? Nothing I said even implies it. The US government under this scenario are helping the Mexicans to hurt the Confederacy. My assumption is the US government couldn't care less Mexico in and of itself. It is helping the Mexicans to hurt the Confederacy. It couldn't care less if Mexico is stable or not.
 
The two had more in common than different on 1860. That didn't prevent the South from believing they distinctly different and superior to the North - and they'll feel their victory proves it. Much of period writing drips with racism against the Yankees. They also believed the North was firmly dedicated to the destruction of their way of life.





The abolitionist had been the bogeyman invoked by Southern leaders for decades before the war. They aren't going to change that quickly. Those anti-North feelings aren't going to disappear in ten years. For some descendents of Confederates, these feelings still exist 150 years after the war.


While most Yankees considered Southerners traitors. That wouldn't disappear anytime fast either. I wonder if he heard the phrase "Holding a grudge."?? ;)
 
No one considering the possibility where Maximillian/France not only secure their position in Mexico but make themselves more popular by retaking some territory from southern Texas/New Mexico/Arizona AND do it with the support of the United States also retaking some territory?:D
 
No one considering the possibility where Maximillian/France not only secure their position in Mexico but make themselves more popular by retaking some territory from southern Texas/New Mexico/Arizona AND do it with the support of the United States also retaking some territory?:D


It would take a near miracle for the South to take any of NM or AZ unless the Union completly falls apart. But yes, it would likely make Mexico more popular if they took land from the CSA in Texas.
 
Top