Survival of Estados Gauchos Following British Invasion

Let's assume that the 1806-07 British invasions of Rio de la Plata are successful, and the British area comprises the Pampas, and over time expands south into Patagonia. However, in the northeast, I'm thinking there would be various Gaucho states (alluded to in a few other threads, but not really discussed), similar to the Boer Republics. They'd be centered around Cordoba and Tucuman. Spain might be able to hold them longer than OTL, but independence is coming. But do these places stay independent?

On the one hand, the British control the only decent ports. The Boers at least could make a deal to import/export from Portuguese Delagoa Bay. The alternative for the gauchos is to go over the Andes. And you've got Bolivia to the north, which in OTL was pretty menacing.

On the other hand, there isn't any gold in them thar hills, so there's no influx of immigrants from British Argentina to swamp the locals. And somehow Paraguay was able to survive, so maybe there's room for more isolationist/protectionist states.

My thinking is that these states are at the very least made into protectorates of Argentina by the 1830s, with the north maybe going to Bolivia. These places would be heavy into ranching and farming and not as remote as Paraguay. And they'd all be in the Plata basin, so they'd need to make friends with Buenos Aires.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Not to be a challenge, but how do the

Not to be a challenge, but how do the "1806-07 British invasions of Rio de la Plata" succeed?

Not only is that a question worth exploring from the sense of avoiding handwaves, it also has tremendous impact on any potential future relationships between an Anglophone colonial elite and the Spanish-speaking criollos, whether "European" "American" or some mix of the two.

It's worth pointing out that the people of Argentina are among the few who can claim - with some justification - of forcing the surrenders of not one but two British armies on ground of the British commanders' own choosing, and essentially all by their lonesomes. No French expeditionary force, for example...

Best,
 
Not to be a challenge, but how do the "1806-07 British invasions of Rio de la Plata" succeed?

Not only is that a question worth exploring from the sense of avoiding handwaves, it also has tremendous impact on any potential future relationships between an Anglophone colonial elite and the Spanish-speaking criollos, whether "European" "American" or some mix of the two.

Best,

Well, we have this to work with: http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/c_strengths.html

This suggests that a fleet could move 10K troops. So the 1806 group of 10K survives long enough for the next batch in 1807. This might hinder the Peninsula War, but maybe the Walcheren Campaign gets scrubbed.

I don't know what sort of political concessions the British could have made that weren't made OTL (and still be in the British character), but something to win over the upper classes.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Okay, fair enough...but even that may not be enough

Historically, like so many British operations of this nature in the period, a tremendous amount of initiative was left in the hands of the local commanders. That could cut both ways, as it did in Buenos Aires.

The 1806 expedition was definitely a case of sending a boy, etc. Bresford landed with 1600 men in JUne; the Spanish governor, Sobremonte, fled, and the criollos - essentially - organized themselves under Liniers and Pueyrrydon, along with Spanish troops from Montevideo, and marched on the British in August with about 2500 men; the Spanish forces drove the British into the citadel, and Beresford surrendered 1200 men and 35 guns.

Sobremonte showed up with his own army, and by October the Spanish had more than 8,000 men, of which some 5,000 were criollos; the British forces had risen to about 12,000 by June, 1807, and they landed about 8,000 of those under Whitelocke far enough from the city he had to make a 4-day-long approach march through rough country to get to a point to mount as assault.

Not surprisingly, in an offensive where the assault force was 1-1 with the defenders, and against a defended city, the result was pretty much what you'd expect; the British beat them in the open field, buy lost against the defensive positions (shades of North Point and Hampstead Hill, six years later).

In the assault on the city, Whitelocke's force (divided into no less than 13 columns in a bid to try and overwhelm the defenses) only two through the city to the river. He ended up surrendering the entire assault force and Liniers' terms included the British evacuating Montevideo, which they had taken in February, after a bloody battle with Auchmuty and Craufurd (no less) in command of the British forces. Losses were ~600 British and ~1500 Spanish (troops and militia).

All in all, the British landed somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 troops over a period of 13 months, lost two battles and won two, but ending up being beaten on the offensive twice and had to withdraw entirely after the final defeat.

And this was against a mostly "American" (i.e. local) force, that did not have control of the sea. Quite a contrast with Yorktown, actually.

It is an interesting campaign, all in all; it certainly does show the impact of time and distance on a European expeditionary force in the Americas in the Nineteenth Century.

Sourcing on all of the above is Scheina's Latin America's Wars, Volume I; his sourcing for the chapter includes multiple British and Argentine texts.

Best,
 
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invasion 1 was an unauthorized adventure by beresford and (drawing a blank) after concluding the authorized adventure in Cape Town. It was a complete success, until everyone realized no one had planned for step two and beresford was alone, unlikely to hold onto his gains without reinforcements. predictably, invasion 1 failed. Alerted to British intent, the Argentinians prepared for round 2.

IF they had combined invasion 1 with invasion 2, success could have been had. What would have cemented the success would have been creating a new country, which is what half the population wanted. put in some puppet king, align with Britain, and now you have a port to flood British goods into the plata region, which is what Britain wanted (and which is why it was stupid of them to give up Montevideo without cause, and in which they were never going to get kicked out of). Simply annexing the region to Britain is going to be a tough row to hoe, but not impossible. Events in Spain a year or so later made the Brits and Spaniards allies, so the whole notion of what happens during the war years becomes interesting. In the Vienna conference ending the Napoleonic Wars, Britain kept whatever it wanted, so long term isn't an issue, but during the period of anti-France alliance of convenience, how does Britain go about consolidating claims at the expense of Spain?

IF Britain somehow creates a Buenos Aires colony/quasi puppet gov't, expect it to be centered around BA, Uruguay, and Entre Rios. with local support, this region expands into Sante Fe and Cordoba. With a king in place and local support, they add the rest of what is OTL Argentina. I'm a bit fuzzy about upper Peru (Bolivia) - it was mostly royalist, but not sure if it would have gone for a new king royal or remain true to Spain. Paraguay goes independent. They didn't want to be ruled from the port by anyone, and there isn't enough reason for Britain to support a forced takeover.



Ultimately, Argentina ended up a British quasi colony anyhow, so what changes is the civil wars that lead up to that point.
 
And, IF you divert Wellington from Venezuela to BA (ignoring that whole pesky penninsular war thing), you have a commander who can actually command, making the whole plata adventure a lot more doable. Britain's woes aren't so much their foes, as it is their inability (aside from Welly) to be any kind of land presence.
 
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