Unbroken Chains

It isn't as simple as "Ok, we ran out of saltpeter. I guess we give up." America is too large and self-sufficient to blockade. Is it worth fighting a long and economically damnaging war for somethign as empty as West Canada? Rember, brtian didn't want the war.

Also, in my defense, the POD is merely an excuse to get to the good stuff.


Britain went to war for Belgium in WW1 and Poland in WW2, two countries that by all logic meant nothing for british interests and considerations.
WW1 absolutely wrecked and weakened the british economy, yet 25 years later they repeated it all over again.
Canada meanwhile, is part of the commonwealth and when the US run out of salpetre, they would be able to produce some of their own but they´ll still be out-bulleted and out-shelled. They simply won´t be able to keep their gains.
The US didn´t have much of a military tradition at the time, in WW2 military production increased rapidly but it was far slower in WW1 and would be even slower earlier.
Military training, was better among the british and even better among the Germans.
Because of the size of the US army, it would have to expand proportionally much more, that is not very good historically. A factor lowering the ability of the average soldier and officer even more.
Blockading is easy for the british at this stage, the US doesn´t have that many merchant ships and not that many harbours where they can be protected, those aren´t as fast as military vessels. Smaller and faster ones might run the blockade but it would be far too little.

As for abandonning allies in a war, the british leadershipe would have no moral qualms about it but know they would loose credibility, appeare weak and unreliable
Moreover, it is one situation they fear and insiste on an agreement with Japan and Germany for a common peace.
The paranoide belief that the USA would turne against the british later with greater fleets and armies, after having dealth with the Germans and the Japanes, is just too much for them to ignore.
They could be made to give upp thought, if the US agrees to a number of conditions, limiting size of armies and fleet (submarines and aircrafts not into game yet). It wouldn´t be an early versaille treaty but it would be extensive.


But that´s just a few pointing-outs: Why wouldn´t even the Drake Syndrome ocure? It´s not like history is nailed in place by some immutable socio-economio-political "progress" like so many (even on AH) likes to pretend, the dices are a far more powerfull constant.
The rest of the world could well pretend ignorance/stupidity as the US militarises and attack one country after the other, each realising their foolishness only when it is far too late. :D
 
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Britain went to war for Belgium in WW1 and Poland in WW2, two countries that by all logic meant nothing for british interests and considerations.

This is not true of either. We have had an obsession with the place of the low countries in our security architecture since before 1707, and Belgium in 1914 was in any case partly an excuse to go to war on behalf of France, that is, to prevent the destruction of France as an independent great power and German domination of Europe, manifestly against British interests.

And again, in 1939, to allow the Germans to take Poland would have been to hand them domination over Europe. We fought for Europe as well as Poland.
 

mowque

Banned
I am re-doing all stuff posted and going to start a new thread. I have tons of TL written up I'm going to share. These posts and comments have been important to us. We hope some of our readers are still out there.
 
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