Britain's foreign policy after the early 1800's was to concede North America to the USA in exchange for friendly relations with the growing power. The UK was concerned with so many areas, they knew it was impossible to keep pace with the USA in North America. So a few outposts here, a few islands there, a treaty over Maine....this was worth it. Why fight over a small fur province? All it would gain is an expensive war, threaten Canada, disrupt needed trade and set the stage for further violence. Detente was a far better plan, as history showed.
Third Anglo-American war
- Thread starter Alexander George
- Start date
Saphroneth
Banned
Overly general formation. They didn't concede North America, nor did they decide to give in on everything - and they certainly wouldn't give up Canada.
There is no doubt that all nations are aggressive; it is the nature of man. There start up from time to time between countries antagonistic passions and questions of conflicting interest, which, if not properly dealt with, would terminate in the explosion of war. Now, if one country is led to think that another country, with which such questions might arise, is from fear disposed on every occasion tamely to submit to any amount of indignity, that is an encouragement to hostile conduct and to extreme proceedings which lead to conflict. It may be depended on that there is no better security for peace between nations than the conviction that each must respect the other, that each is capable of defending itself, and that no insult or injury committed by the one against the other would pass unresented. (Lord Palmerston, HC Deb 17 February 1862 vol 165 c393).
It explains why no one was especially eager when crisis flared up in 1839, 1846, and 1861 to go for broke in brinkmanship or militancy. Cooler heads seem to have all been in the right place at the right time.
One shudders to think about if they hadn't been. I mean can you imagine how Andrew Jackson might have responded to the Caroline Affair??
I'm not saying the UK was going to DC on bended knee or that Canada was on the table, but being allies with the USA had real tangible benefits that the UK was willing to give up real things for, even small bits of Canada.
Look at the Webster-Ashburton treaty, look at the Alaska Boundary dispute. The UK was perfectly willing to buy American friendship with North American concessions. Unlike in Europe, Africa or Asia, the UK was willing to let someone else be the dominant power. It was a smart move, recognizing the likely strength of the Americans.
Saphroneth
Banned
This could equally be turned on its head, though, as W-A was a compromise. Would you say the US purchased British friendship with concessions?
Obviously any diplomacy is a two way street, but America generally got what it wanted while the UK had to settle with a secondary role in North America. That is why never broke out, the USA was getting most of what it wanted, save for the nuts who wanted to invade Canada and such.
Saphroneth
Banned
For the record, the 'nuts' included the US SecState during the ACW, the editors of the most widely read newspaper in the world, and a fair number of distinguished luminaries...
Yeah, newsflash, people high up can be nuts. Witness the current American government.
In any case, I'm not sure what you are arguing? That the UK was the secondary power (by far) in North America? That the UK was happy to concede minor points to American in exchange for good relations? That war was unlikely because it would get little (to no) gain for a great loss? That is generally all I am saying.
For a real correction here, Seward wasn't nuts, he was just really high handed in his rhetoric. Once faced with the realities of a situation he showed much more guile than you're giving him credit for. He was inflammatory (which didn't help matters in London) but he was a very smooth operator.
The truth is though, London wasn't keen on war as a solution, and only geared up in 1861 because they felt they were being pushed in that direction based on a very large series of misunderstandings. In 1839 and 1846 London was unapologetic about pushing its own line (hell they basically dared the US to do something about the Caroline, and pushed good grace to the extreme when it came to the Arostook) but realized negotiation was going to get them largely what they wanted (though as I understand it they weren't very satisfied with the final Maine border, but felt it the least bad option).
I agree that in 1865 there would be very little support in the US for a new war, unless it was forced on the US. I'd be interested in your sources that "the American armies were very poor on marksmanship and middling in manoeuvre". Considering the existing railroads, I'm curious how you get your estimate that only a corps could be supplied "each against Montreal, the Niagara Frontier and the Detroit Frontier".
He's pointing out that the US was also happy to concede minor points to British in exchange for good relations.
The point is both sides recognised peace as being more advantageous not that the US held Canada hostage by virtue of their growing power which your post implied (even if not intended).
I agree that in 1865 there would be very little support in the US for a new war, unless it was forced on the US. I'd be interested in your sources that "the American armies were very poor on marksmanship and middling in manoeuvre". Considering the existing railroads, I'm curious how you get your estimate that only a corps could be supplied "each against Montreal, the Niagara Frontier and the Detroit Frontier".
This map also makes clear that the OTL Civil War campaigns in Missouri and Kentucky were critical to defending the remainder of the Union from further Confederate acquisitions and thus why Virginia was hardly the only important campaign.
This map, which shows canals, also provides useful information on how the Union would (and did) move troops and supplies about
it also shows how important the western rivers are
from here
https://books.google.com/books?id=dqIBqiNoB9wC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=us+grain+exports+1860&source=bl&ots=uzI-g_4V6L&sig=V3oVWWi8eeksSftO-dZRXYfUMFE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN6tbewNDUAhXB1IMKHfKpACAQ6AEIWTAI#v=onepage&q=us grain exports 1860&f=false
Note that rail is hardly the only major transportation link for the Union. It should also be remembered that all of the rivers pictured above are navigable by steamboat and indeed are still used by barge traffic in this century.
Saphroneth
Banned
Well, that the British Army considered someone who could only engage targets at 300 yards in training to be "third class" (out of three) where some regiments were 70% or so "first class" (can engage targets at 900 yards in training). There's essentially no examples of the American armies delivering accurate rifle fire from line infantry at 400 yards plus (whereas British armies in the Crimea could manage a far greater range with ease) and at Gettysburg, the time the Army of the Potomac was at their peak, the open-fire range for the Union defenders against Pickett's Charge was ~100 yards if not less (after seeing the Rebels advance half a mile over prime killing ground).
As for manoeuvre, the Union troops prove unable to successfully manoeuvre under fire or properly advance on multiple occasions. Upton's attack at the Mule Shoe is treated as an anomaly, which it is in America, but shock action of that type (attacking without stopping to fire) was common in European armies and indeed was the main way they did things when an attack was called for - compare with, say, Solferino.
Because the capacity of the rail lines is not very good. The lines to Rouses Point (the line of operation against Montreal) are low to very low capacity as they're basically local rail roads, while attacking over the Niagara and Detroit frontiers is dozens of miles through hostile territory until you reach anything (from Detroit to London ON is over a hundred miles, which is totally impractical for Civil War armies to achieve.)
regarding the rifle musket (from civ war talk forum and it has the appropriate work cited)
The Rifle Musket in civil War Combat by Earl J. Hess
"Another, related problem that affected fire effectiveness lay in the parabolic trajectory of the rifle musket. Because of its high arc, the Minié ball created a huge safety zone for the enemy during much of its flight through the air. This problem was most pronounced when firing at distant targets, but this sort of long-distance firing was the key difference between the rifle musket and the old smoothbore weapon. It was incredibly difficult for the average soldier to compensate for the unusual trajectory and make his shots count at ranges longer than about 100 yards. This greatly decreased the effect of the rifle musket precisely in the area where advocates though it might have a revolutionary impact on warfare.
A rifle musket sighted for 300 yards could be deadly at short range, but after about 75 yards the bullet sailed above the height of an average man. The next danger zone lay at the far end of the trajectory, the last 110 yards (about 240 to 350 yards from the shooter). In this last danger zone, the target could be hit at any height along his body, depending on where in the zone he happened to be when the bullet made contact. For the rest, fully 115 yards of the bullet’s flight, only 185 out of 300 yards of the bullet’s journey constituted a danger zone to the enemy."
being able to shoot accurate at 300 yards on the rifle range is less important that one would think... even in the modern era (now) fire fights are generally under 200 yards and most are closer in than that
You might also want to see the river and canal transportation links posted above regarding logistics and ability to move troops about
As to campaign distances... the entire war was fought over distances longer than that with notable exceptions and the Union had an unmatched ability to create depots and points of supply using those river, canal and railroad transportation links in order to move those points of supply further forward.
Saphroneth
Banned
Here's a list of data we do or don't have for American and British marksmanship:
1) Training statistics.
We do NOT have Union training statistics, but we do for the British - they used targets up to 900 yards away, and hit half the time (for First Class shots, which in some regiments was well over half the men).
2) Training amount.
The British fired about a hundred rounds per man per year, well-recorded, in marksmanship training involving range estimation and skirmishing. The Union, so far as I can tell, did not.
3) Battlefield values.
The British at the Alma, and at Inkerman, hit roughly with one round in sixteen. We do not have precise values for the Union but one round in sixteen at Pickett's Charge would imply the charge would be wiped out in three minutes and it manifestly was not.
4) Known firing ranges and achievements.
The British in the Crimea were able to snipe out artillery at 600-800 yards. This is with line infantry, not sharpshooters.
The Union was not able to get this performance from line infantry - or if they were, I'd love to see positive evidence on that front.
ED:
This is basically a structural thing, it's something that grows out of the way the US Army was organized. The US didn't have a large standing army and instead relied on building armies in a tearing hurry out of mobilized militia, but they never really managed to work up the will to enforce the training of the militia and as a consequence they were starting pretty much from scratch.
By contrast the British had a small standing army by European standards, but this functionally meant ten to fifteen times the size of the peacetime US army. As such any British force fighting in North America is going to contain tens of thousands of trained prewar regulars as stiffeners (to the extent that having one regular battalion per brigade could lead to an army nearly 200,000 strong) and going to be a much harder target than the British army.
As an example. During the potential period of a Pig War, the US Army has a few companies within a week or so of a rail line, with everything else pretty much being either fighting Indians or (out of position after) dealing with the Utah War. The British had 16 cavalry regiments, all the Guards (of which 3 battalions could leave) and 26 regular infantry battalions at home, with 4 in Canada; another ten battalions come home from India over the next year or two, and this could be accelerated at need.
So functionally the British can put together as many as five British pattern two-brigade divisions from what they have at home, or can uprate this to three corps by mixing in half a dozen volunteer or active militia battalions from Canada (plus the RCR).
Here's the positions of the US at the time:
Infantry Units
1st US Infantry: Texas
2nd: Missouri
3rd: New Mexico
4th: California
5th: Utah Expeditionary Force
6th: California
7th: Utah Expeditionary Force
8th Texas
9th: Washington Terr. and Oregon
10th: Utah Expeditionary Force
1st US Artillery (as infantry regiment): Texas
2nd: half in Kansas, half scattered along the coast as the garrisons of Ft Monroe
3rd: Oregon (in fact the infantry battalion of the 3rd US Artillery was Pickett's main force)
4th: Dakota Terr. and Minnesota
Artillery with Guns (all 4 gun batteries)
Bty I, 1st US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty A, 2nd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty M, 2nd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty C, 3rd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Mounted Units
Coy B, 4th US Artillery: Indian Terr.
1st US Dragoons: Oregon and Wash. Terr.
2nd US Dragoons: Utah Expeditionary Force
US Mounted Rifles: Utah Expeditionary Force
1st US Cavalry: Utah Expeditionary Force
2nd US Cavalry: Utah Expeditionary Force
Functionally what this means is that the US would need to reassemble their forces at Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) and then head east. The troops in the Utah Expeditionary Force are essentially all at Camp Floyd, which is very remote and which would take months - OTL they left Leavenworth in July 1857 and didn't reach Utah until September, with Camp Floyd being deliberately selected as remote.
Meanwhile, the British would have their first reinforcements feet-dry in Canada within a month of the news steamers leaving for Britain, and troops then arriving at very roughly a battalion every 2-3 days.
1) Training statistics.
We do NOT have Union training statistics, but we do for the British - they used targets up to 900 yards away, and hit half the time (for First Class shots, which in some regiments was well over half the men).
2) Training amount.
The British fired about a hundred rounds per man per year, well-recorded, in marksmanship training involving range estimation and skirmishing. The Union, so far as I can tell, did not.
3) Battlefield values.
The British at the Alma, and at Inkerman, hit roughly with one round in sixteen. We do not have precise values for the Union but one round in sixteen at Pickett's Charge would imply the charge would be wiped out in three minutes and it manifestly was not.
4) Known firing ranges and achievements.
The British in the Crimea were able to snipe out artillery at 600-800 yards. This is with line infantry, not sharpshooters.
The Union was not able to get this performance from line infantry - or if they were, I'd love to see positive evidence on that front.
ED:
This is basically a structural thing, it's something that grows out of the way the US Army was organized. The US didn't have a large standing army and instead relied on building armies in a tearing hurry out of mobilized militia, but they never really managed to work up the will to enforce the training of the militia and as a consequence they were starting pretty much from scratch.
By contrast the British had a small standing army by European standards, but this functionally meant ten to fifteen times the size of the peacetime US army. As such any British force fighting in North America is going to contain tens of thousands of trained prewar regulars as stiffeners (to the extent that having one regular battalion per brigade could lead to an army nearly 200,000 strong) and going to be a much harder target than the British army.
As an example. During the potential period of a Pig War, the US Army has a few companies within a week or so of a rail line, with everything else pretty much being either fighting Indians or (out of position after) dealing with the Utah War. The British had 16 cavalry regiments, all the Guards (of which 3 battalions could leave) and 26 regular infantry battalions at home, with 4 in Canada; another ten battalions come home from India over the next year or two, and this could be accelerated at need.
So functionally the British can put together as many as five British pattern two-brigade divisions from what they have at home, or can uprate this to three corps by mixing in half a dozen volunteer or active militia battalions from Canada (plus the RCR).
Here's the positions of the US at the time:
Infantry Units
1st US Infantry: Texas
2nd: Missouri
3rd: New Mexico
4th: California
5th: Utah Expeditionary Force
6th: California
7th: Utah Expeditionary Force
8th Texas
9th: Washington Terr. and Oregon
10th: Utah Expeditionary Force
1st US Artillery (as infantry regiment): Texas
2nd: half in Kansas, half scattered along the coast as the garrisons of Ft Monroe
3rd: Oregon (in fact the infantry battalion of the 3rd US Artillery was Pickett's main force)
4th: Dakota Terr. and Minnesota
Artillery with Guns (all 4 gun batteries)
Bty I, 1st US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty A, 2nd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty M, 2nd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Bty C, 3rd US: Utah Expeditionary Force
Mounted Units
Coy B, 4th US Artillery: Indian Terr.
1st US Dragoons: Oregon and Wash. Terr.
2nd US Dragoons: Utah Expeditionary Force
US Mounted Rifles: Utah Expeditionary Force
1st US Cavalry: Utah Expeditionary Force
2nd US Cavalry: Utah Expeditionary Force
Functionally what this means is that the US would need to reassemble their forces at Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) and then head east. The troops in the Utah Expeditionary Force are essentially all at Camp Floyd, which is very remote and which would take months - OTL they left Leavenworth in July 1857 and didn't reach Utah until September, with Camp Floyd being deliberately selected as remote.
Meanwhile, the British would have their first reinforcements feet-dry in Canada within a month of the news steamers leaving for Britain, and troops then arriving at very roughly a battalion every 2-3 days.
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Something about pigs and truffles since you (OP) literally said do not use the ACW.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
Honestly, mate, you could make (and be completely correct) that war in general is a stupid waste of resources, a drain on the economy, and all around a complete waste of time.
That hasn't always stopped people from fighting each other before. There are always ways to get two or more countries to fight each other.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
Sure, but there's usually either a perceived threat or a perceived benefit that leads one nation to aggressive action. In the case of the U.S. and Britain in the 19th century, there is neither.
And when BOTH sides see a perceived benefit to remaining peaceful as the U.K. and U.S. did after the ACW?