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
The critical variable is the Confederacy. Confederate 'culture' such as it was, was swept away on the virtues of 'elan', the notion that one southerner was worth ten northerners, and presumably twenty mexicans in a fight.

The Confederate military, for all its vaunted heroism, principally fought on or adjacent to home territory. That meant logistics lines and supply lines were short to nonexistent. I don't think that the Confederacy ever developed a substantive logistical capacity. And I would expect that if they won the war, their military theories or approach would be validated. In which case, they'd be unlikely to develop a logistic capacity.

Projecting power, and maintaining a significant army in northern Mexico would be an extremely hard thing. Impossible perhaps, under the circumstances. I could easily see a handicapped Confederate army, lacking logistical capacity, with poor supply, poor medicine, marching into northern Mexico and simply falling apart.

I'd have to give it to Mexico, minor victory.

Major Mexican victory would be fun, but I don't think that Mexico has much in the way of logistic capacities either.

In a case like this, all advantages go to home ground.
 
The critical variable is the Confederacy. Confederate 'culture' such as it was, was swept away on the virtues of 'elan', the notion that one southerner was worth ten northerners, and presumably twenty mexicans in a fight.

The Confederate military, for all its vaunted heroism, principally fought on or adjacent to home territory. That meant logistics lines and supply lines were short to nonexistent. I don't think that the Confederacy ever developed a substantive logistical capacity. And I would expect that if they won the war, their military theories or approach would be validated. In which case, they'd be unlikely to develop a logistic capacity.

Projecting power, and maintaining a significant army in northern Mexico would be an extremely hard thing. Impossible perhaps, under the circumstances. I could easily see a handicapped Confederate army, lacking logistical capacity, with poor supply, poor medicine, marching into northern Mexico and simply falling apart.

I'd have to give it to Mexico, minor victory.

Major Mexican victory would be fun, but I don't think that Mexico has much in the way of logistic capacities either.

In a case like this, all advantages go to home ground.

On its own, probably not but with United States help they have a good shot. The North had good logistics capability.
 
I'm not sure that the North would make a significant difference. It's not as if the North could simply loan either Mexico or the CSA it's logistics capacity. That capacity is actually a network of sargeants, mules, wagons, purchase officers, record keepers, etc. It has to build organically.

Generally a good logistics capacity is probably tied to a productive industrial economy and an effective centralized government and command structure. I don't give either Mexico or CSA high marks in that regard. I don't know that either country, without some serious butterflies, could evolve that capacity quickly, or otherwise obtain it.
 
I'm not sure that the North would make a significant difference. It's not as if the North could simply loan either Mexico or the CSA it's logistics capacity. That capacity is actually a network of sargeants, mules, wagons, purchase officers, record keepers, etc. It has to build organically.

Generally a good logistics capacity is probably tied to a productive industrial economy and an effective centralized government and command structure. I don't give either Mexico or CSA high marks in that regard. I don't know that either country, without some serious butterflies, could evolve that capacity quickly, or otherwise obtain it.

It certainly can give them mules, wagons, food and ammunition. What the Mexicans do with it is another question. With even fairly minimal competence it should certainly help quite a bit.
 
The critical variable is the Confederacy. Confederate 'culture' such as it was, was swept away on the virtues of 'elan', the notion that one southerner was worth ten northerners, and presumably twenty mexicans in a fight.

The Confederate military, for all its vaunted heroism, principally fought on or adjacent to home territory. That meant logistics lines and supply lines were short to nonexistent. I don't think that the Confederacy ever developed a substantive logistical capacity. And I would expect that if they won the war, their military theories or approach would be validated. In which case, they'd be unlikely to develop a logistic capacity.

Projecting power, and maintaining a significant army in northern Mexico would be an extremely hard thing. Impossible perhaps, under the circumstances. I could easily see a handicapped Confederate army, lacking logistical capacity, with poor supply, poor medicine, marching into northern Mexico and simply falling apart.

I'd have to give it to Mexico, minor victory.

Major Mexican victory would be fun, but I don't think that Mexico has much in the way of logistic capacities either.

In a case like this, all advantages go to home ground.

Given that it's a very likely defensive war for Mexico and that disease is likely to kill more Confederate troops than Mexico, is that really necessarily a requirement for them? Bitch-slapping the Confederates across the border would qualify as a major victory in its own right and Mexico's leaders would hardly want to invite the intervention of the USA *against* them.
 
Given that it's a very likely defensive war for Mexico and that disease is likely to kill more Confederate troops than Mexico, is that really necessarily a requirement for them? Bitch-slapping the Confederates across the border would qualify as a major victory in its own right and Mexico's leaders would hardly want to invite the intervention of the USA *against* them.

Minor victory according to the criteria of the poll. That is, Mexico successfully repels/defends against the confederacy, and advances its borders a few tens of kilometers north.

A major victory defined according to the criteria of the poll would be biting huge chunks out of Texas, or taking Texas back.
 
Didn't vote as my choice wasn't there. Border of Mexico shifts to the Nueces River as Mexico gets huge aid to attack Texas which was the half-assed soft underbelly of the CSA. US aid would be half hearted as the whole idea would be to draw away troops to the Texas/Mexico border to ease the fight on the real fronts.

The US would probably invade Mexico again to push the border back to the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo after a much shorter civil war.
 
Didn't vote as my choice wasn't there. Border of Mexico shifts to the Nueces River as Mexico gets huge aid to attack Texas which was the half-assed soft underbelly of the CSA. US aid would be half hearted as the whole idea would be to draw away troops to the Texas/Mexico border to ease the fight on the real fronts.

The US would probably invade Mexico again to push the border back to the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo after a much shorter civil war.

That is a Minor Mexican Victory as it is more than ten miles but less than half of Texas. I agree that once the US able to take Mexico-siezed Texas back it will. It might be willing to pay some money for it though.
 
I'm not sure that the North would make a significant difference. It's not as if the North could simply loan either Mexico or the CSA it's logistics capacity. That capacity is actually a network of sargeants, mules, wagons, purchase officers, record keepers, etc. It has to build organically.

Generally a good logistics capacity is probably tied to a productive industrial economy and an effective centralized government and command structure. I don't give either Mexico or CSA high marks in that regard. I don't know that either country, without some serious butterflies, could evolve that capacity quickly, or otherwise obtain it.

Railroads... yes the union cant do much IN mexico, but could get supplies to nortern mexico
 
Fiver:

Thanks for scenario #4. I've got a Confederate steampunk TL I'm working on and your scenario makes more sense than my original TL-bit that featured the CSA taking Mexican territory.

(Of course, there were some Northern Mexican states that sought to join the Confederacy in OTL. Given my POD is during the Civil War, I suppose I could always use that.)

Others, including Snake:

About the Confederates' military culture, sanitation, etc., the Confederate commanders were Mexican War veterans. I would imagine they'd have remembered what worked and what didn't last time and taken it into account.
 
But do they know how to fix it? Do they have the resources to fix it?

Taking proper precautions against disease with the medical knowledge of the 1860s is going to be tough.
 
But do they know how to fix it? Do they have the resources to fix it?

Taking proper precautions against disease with the medical knowledge of the 1860s is going to be tough.

In Victorian Britain, people thought "miasma" caused diseases and remedied the situation by getting rid of stinky things--like big heaps of disease-carrying dung.

They might do the right thing with the wrong rationale.
 
Others, including Snake:

About the Confederates' military culture, sanitation, etc., the Confederate commanders were Mexican War veterans. I would imagine they'd have remembered what worked and what didn't last time and taken it into account.

They might know what to do, but would anyone necessarily listen to them? Particularly if the rationale is "We beat the Yankees so we could never ever ever lose to those Mexican darkies?".
 
They might know what to do, but would anyone necessarily listen to them? Particularly if the rationale is "We beat the Yankees so we could never ever ever lose to those Mexican darkies?".

Who is "anyone"?

If a Confederate general orders his men to fill in swamps or avoids swampy areas due to their "miasma" (which, unbeknownst to him, is really malaria-infested mosquitos), are his soldiers going to disobey him because they beat the Yankees?
 
Who is "anyone"?

If a Confederate general orders his men to fill in swamps or avoids swampy areas due to their "miasma" (which, unbeknownst to him, is really malaria-infested mosquitos), are his soldiers going to disobey him because they beat the Yankees?

They aren't going to be doing Scott's route, they'd be following Taylor's. The CSA wouldn't have the naval power to blockade Mexico's east coast *and* land a large army at Vera Cruz. CS troops would consider themselves superior to Mexicans and dismiss Mexicans as mongrels who inbred with Indians and thus racial inferiors. Then reality sets in.
 
Who is "anyone"?

If a Confederate general orders his men to fill in swamps or avoids swampy areas due to their "miasma" (which, unbeknownst to him, is really malaria-infested mosquitos), are his soldiers going to disobey him because they beat the Yankees?

The ACW does not indicate volunteers (and the Confederate Regular Army is pitiful - ten thousand men if it actually fills up) are likely to be too prone to obey orders about sanitation until they learn the hard way that the "miasma" is tougher than they are.
 
But do they know how to fix it? Do they have the resources to fix it?

Taking proper precautions against disease with the medical knowledge of the 1860s is going to be tough.


I was thinking more like the late 1870s or the early 1880s as it will take time for the CSA to get back on its feet.
 
I was thinking more like the late 1870s or the early 1880s as it will take time for the CSA to get back on its feet.

Okay, so there might be some progress by then.

Maybe.

This is the era medicine is finally starting to understand these things, but still.
 
The ACW does not indicate volunteers (and the Confederate Regular Army is pitiful - ten thousand men if it actually fills up) are likely to be too prone to obey orders about sanitation until they learn the hard way that the "miasma" is tougher than they are.

So only 10,000 Confederate soldiers out of all the hundreds of thousands who served were real soldiers subject to military discipline and organization?

No offense, but I find that difficult to believe.
 
I was thinking more like the late 1870s or the early 1880s as it will take time for the CSA to get back on its feet.

To play the devil's advocate, by that point the Mexican War veterans are going to be dead or retired. Their "institutional knowledge" of Mexico's dangers might be lost.
 
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