SEALION: 1860

Should be moved to ASB but if we're going with Stars and Stripes levels of silliness lets figure out how we can get the Foreign Legion involved.

We need both the Foreign Legion, and some Sikhs. Let's not settle for half measures.

Doesn't it, though?;)

Best,

To make this truly good, Ireland's secession should merely be about free-trade - or perhaps the ideology of Indian colonization - but under no circumstances can this Irish secession reflect the realities of Irish society in 1860. If we really want a parallel.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Tariffs on Irish whisky, begorra!

We need both the Foreign Legion, and some Sikhs. Let's not settle for half measures.



To make this truly good, Ireland's secession should merely be about free-trade - or perhaps the ideology of Indian colonization - but under no circumstances can this Irish secession reflect the realities of Irish society in 1860. If we really want a parallel.

Tariffs on Irish whisky. Yep, that's what it's about.;)

Plus - Um - maybe - um - nope, that's all I got.

Best,
 

Driftless

Donor
In all honesty I've certainly not seen "umpteen" such threads.

Seriously, there's a variant on "The South Rises Again" that seem to appear about every third day on this forum. Most of them I don't even look past the title, which is my way of dealing with them. Still, they're like the guy sitting next to you in a waiting room humming the same five notes - off key. After a while they grate, even when you try to ignore.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
Seriously, there's a variant on "The South Rises Again" that seem to appear about every third day on this forum. Most of them I don't even look past the title, which is my way of dealing with them. Still, they're like the guy sitting next to you in a waiting room humming the same five notes - off key. After a while they grate, even when you try to ignore.
I'm not all that surprised there's be a lot of ACW threads. It's the event the US kind of considers to be their defining moment, and there's a wealth of information on it, and it's carefully studied.
I actually disagree with the idea it was impossible for the South to become independent - what I think is that the South could not win militarily and alone.

The requirement for Southern independence is for the North to lose the will to continue the war - which is, at least, possible. And one of the best ways to have that happen is for some kind of European intervention - which reduces the Northern forces available to attack the South, places more drains on their resources, and also makes the South better able to fight the war while having the potential to make the Union civilians feel that victory would come at too high a price.
It's basically a parallel to the ARW, which is why the South was so desperate for recognition from European powers - they wanted the parallel to actually happen.

So I can see why it's a common PoD, anyone who wants to change the US will gravitate there. It's that, the War of 1812 or the Mexican-American War. (Though OP of course considers the War of 1812 also overdone, though I've not found that.)

This is of course in no sense an endorsement of the Southern position!

But declaring that, say, two of the three possible places in the entire nineteenth century the US was at war with a vaguely threatening enemy are off limits for the US to do worse is basically saying that "no, the US can never do worse".
And that does kind of annoy me. I may dislike Sealion, but I don't have any particular objection to a thread trying to make the Germans do better or the Brits do worse. I just join in the argument, that's all.
 

Driftless

Donor
(Though OP of course considers the War of 1812 also overdone, though I've not found that.)

This is of course in no sense an endorsement of the Southern position!

But declaring that, say, two of the three possible places in the entire nineteenth century the US was at war with a vaguely threatening enemy are off limits for the US to do worse is basically saying that "no, the US can never do worse".
And that does kind of annoy me. I may dislike Sealion, but I don't have any particular objection to a thread trying to make the Germans do better or the Brits do worse. I just join in the argument, that's all.

No worries here. I don't generally enjoy dystopic stories or timelines (life can be tough enough as-is) and I count any Confederate victory as truly dystopic, so that's my bias.

On the 1812 issue, I live in Wisconsin, which was under theoretical British military control (they had a few hundred soldiers to cover several future states) at the end of fighting; so I can consider alternative borders for the US & Canada - lots of variables in play in the old Northwest Territory & western Ontario
 

Saphroneth

Banned
No worries here. I don't generally enjoy dystopic stories or timelines (life can be tough enough as-is) and I count any Confederate victory as truly dystopic, so that's my bias.

On the 1812 issue, I live in Wisconsin, which was under theoretical British military control (they had a few hundred soldiers to cover several future states) at the end of fighting; so I can consider alternative borders for the US & Canada - lots of variables in play in the old Northwest Territory & western Ontario
You know what I think would be vaguely amusing?
British Baha California. Just... because the Mexicans decide it's too much hassle or something.
And because it would mean the Brits finally have an overseas territory with better surfing than the British Isles themselves give. ;)


Anyway.
I think it'd actually be interesting - if hard - to have a TL where the Great Rapprochement is decades earlier for some reason. Possibly even the Whigs get back in before the ARW even kicks off and just invent Dominion status early.
If you can swing it, actually, you could have the OTL CONUS divided between some ATL French (+ Indians?) state in the OTL Louisiana Purchase which I will somewhat arbitrarily call Meridién, the Mexicans in the west, and a Thirteen-Colonies-Plus-Canada region - possibly one Dominion, possibly multiple - in the east.
 
US lacks a navy in 1812

I beg to differ

not counting the US Navy, a total of 500 letters of marque were issued during the war to US privateers. They took 400 prizes in the last year, about 300 a year on average during the 3 years of the war (destroying about 10%, losing about the same back to the British, but selling the rest)

this quote is interesting

" On Sept. 30, 1814, Lloyd’s of London reported that two American warships and several privateers had captured 108 British prizes that month. Maritime insurance rates stood at triple and quadruple the rates of 1811—if insurance could be found at all. Hard pressed by merchants, ship owners and a people tired of years of war, the British government joined the Americans at the treaty table in Ghent, Belgium, in late 1814, a year in which losses to American privateers neared 400 vessels."
http://www.historynet.com/war-of-1812

that was pretty much a repetition of losses suffered by the British during the Revolution as well

In other threads I have posted how many actual steam powered warships the US Navy had in 1861 compared to the Royal Navy. Basically it was roughly half the size in cruisers and sloops, which are your raiding types, and the US has the ability to break a local blockade with ironclads after 1863 for short periods to allow raiders out.

That counts as a Blue Water Navy

that said, there is almost no political support in the United States without a British intervention in North America to help the Irish under just about any circumstances I can think of

"Irish need not apply" is a myth, but only just.

The US is far more likely to go looking for a foreign war against the Spanish (Cuba etc) or to steal more of Mexico

But a fully mobilized US could be a serious threat to Spain...but doing anything in the British Isles or France is a bit unlikely in terms of capability
 
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that said, there is almost no political support in the United States without a British intervention in North America to help the Irish under just about any circumstances I can think of

"Irish need not apply" is a myth, but only just.

The US is far more likely to go looking for a foreign war against the Spanish (Cuba etc) or to steal more of Mexico

But a fully mobilized US could be a serious threat to Spain...but doing anything in the British Isles or France is a bit unlikely in terms of capability

Well an interesting item I stumbled across was the Fenian Ram submarine built in 1881.

Endear something like worse feelings over the Laird Rams and the Alabama and maybe you have the US going tit-for-tat and building ships (or selling on the cheap surplus for the war) for a planned Fenian uprising sometime in the 1860-70s?
 
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