What if the Trent affair had happened between the US and France instead?

Except the CSA was unable to acquire any of that territory and, indeed, laid waste to water resources in western Texas to stop the Union from invading from what is now New Mexico and Arizona.


Why on earth would a France feeling more powerful following the 2nd American Revolution be less inclined to resent Prussia's rising position in central Europe?:confused:
 
Who says there'd be a Austro-Prussian war (and Prussia wins) or even that Schleswig goes the same. Or disagreement over Luembourg arrises.
The Franco-Prussian war was far from a very likely event.
 
A very likely event as Bismark needed the war before the deadline on his secret alliances with the South German states.

Neither did French involvment in Mexico OTL have the slightest impact on affairs involving Prussia, Austria or Denmark, except that France was perhaps not quite as attentive due to the North American distraction.
 

Dure

Banned
You cannot get an exact swap of Britain and France in the Trent Affair for at least three reasons. The first is that, as far as I know the French did not have an equivalent of a Royal Mail Ship/Steamer (RMS). Thus Mason and Slidell would have been taken from a French merchant vessel rather than a vessel operating under the auspices of a crown agency, the Royal Mail, thus the insult to the French flag in TTL would be less than the insult to the British flag in OTL. The second difference is that the French are already engaged in a significant expedition in Mexico. They may regard this as an opportunity or a risk but in either case it is a significant difference to the situation in OTL. In OTL they did not have the transports they needed to transport their army to Vera Cruz, the British would not let them hire British ships and consequently they had to use disarmed battleships. Clearly this solution is not viable in TTL. The final difference is that France is not top dog and does not have to prove it is top dog to keep that position. If it were defeated by the USA it would be an embarrassment but not the disaster it would be for the British.

An important point that must not be forgotten is that the Union will still have offended Great Britain (by ‘kidnapping’ their commissioner and flouting the accepted norms of international behaviour) just not nearly so much as in OTL.

My expectation is that this Trent Affair is messy and does not have a peaceful solution. In OTL many sources are of the opinion that apart from Seward and the PMG the entire US Cabinet was in favour of trying to negotiate with the British rather than accede to their demands and that Seward finally talked Lincoln round to the ‘one war at a time’ position. Against France, I feel certain that the Union Cabinet would be totally overconfident and call France’s bluff. France would have no reason to ‘blink’. Indeed France will likely want to use this as an opportunity to consolidate its hold on Mexico and possibly extend its borders north maybe into the silver country. I do not see them fighting for the Confederacy on the ground in the east but diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy, loans and weapons are a racing certainty which means they will need to break the blockade, something they are well able to do. Which puts Britain in a difficult position, what do they want to do? They lose whatever they do. The French are their allies against the Russian Empire they cannot make it too difficult for them to fight the Union. On the other hand they don’t want a French Mexico. I suspect the British end up recognising the Confederacy after the French and a few others do. Then they do not declare neutrality in the Franco-Union war thus enabling them to sell goods to all and sundry. I would also suspect that the Spanish would be unhappy with an independent CSA in this scenario and might concentrate their naval power in North rather than, as they did in OTL, South American waters.

I think we end up with a Union that is smaller in the west than in OTL. A CSA that probably does not get the border states but does get upper New Mexico. Mexico is bigger than in OTL recovering the Arizona and Californian silver country from the USA. I suspect Britain might feel the need to resolve the San Juan Islands affair in her favour whilst the Union is down. You might see a Union-British war over the central provinces a few years later as the USA attempts to recover territory and re-establish itself as the regional power. I also see a CSA-Spanish war in which something very like Numancia and her sisters crush the CSA’s regional aspirations. I would also anticipate strenuous diplomacy by the British to get Texas out of the CSA and France’s orbit and into her own. I think the Franco-Prussian, not our Franco-Prussian but a similar war goes France’s way.

Interesting military-industrial complex thought: in the event of war with the Union in 1862 can the French have the Chassepot in service before the end of the war?
 
A very likely event as Bismark needed the war before the deadline on his secret alliances with the South German states.

Neither did French involvment in Mexico OTL have the slightest impact on affairs involving Prussia, Austria or Denmark, except that France was perhaps not quite as attentive due to the North American distraction.

1 came long after the other events. It makes the war likely once we get into the 70s.
2...is differnet. Butterflies would lead to other events working out differently. A-P war could well have been very different.
 
They were superb, and 30,000 effectives is a lot. Few ACW battles had that many effectives on one side, none had twice that.

Really? What happened to the 200,000+ Confederates you said that McClellan faced in the Peninsula Campaign?
 
A very likely event as Bismark needed the war before the deadline on his secret alliances with the South German states.

Neither did French involvment in Mexico OTL have the slightest impact on affairs involving Prussia, Austria or Denmark, except that France was perhaps not quite as attentive due to the North American distraction.

That was Bismarck's agenda, there is no reason that France actually has to bite as it were and take his bait.
 
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