WI: America Sends Forces to Repel the French in the Maximiliano Affair?

French: 6,500 under de Lorencz;
Mexicans: 3,791 under Zaragoza.
Casualties: 476 French to 227 Mexican.

That's the problem. It was at the same timle accurate and not.... It's accurate at the point of attack. It's not on the global scale (in and around the city)

Now read the account of battle. It was not a "battle" but an attempt to storm trenches and two forts at the top of a hill while running in mud. The general was a complete moron.

I have a detailed book on the battle and there are some interesting points:
- Zaragoaz had to send 2000 men to protect himself agains mexicam infiltration
- they had 4 batteries of artilley (2 mountain ones and 2 line ones) plus 1200 in forts and 3500 in four columns in trenches
- the French general was thinking that mexicans in the city were pro-conservatives and that he just needed to do a strong show of forces. He was not expecting a battle but a token skirmish. He decided to move his force in front of the forts and to storm them without preparation not significant artillery support. Mexican allies told him that using the convent to attack was a better idea.
- Zaragoza reinforced his troops using trenches
- Zouaves attacked as their training asked them to do: in heavy skirmish lines (not as regular infantry) and what happened? Well, you send a skirmish line (3 times) against an entrenched enemy in forts+trenches at the top of a hill. Zouves reached HtH, exhausted and fall back. Something like Cold Harbor or Fort Wagner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fort_Wagner). Same thing. It was stupid...

Low level French leadership was good. High level was incredibly bad. It's also the reason why they lost the was with Prussia: infantry was excellent at the tactical level but above the regimental level and especially at high level morons were commanding. For example Bazaine was sentenced to death after the war for (among other things) dereliction of duty.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Thanks for the detail...

That's the problem. It was at the same timle accurate and not.... It's accurate at the point of attack. It's not on the global scale (in and around the city)

Now read the account of battle. It was not a "battle" but an attempt to storm trenches and two forts at the top of a hill while running in mud. The general was a complete moron.

I have a detailed book on the battle and there are some interesting points:
- Zaragoaz had to send 2000 men to protect himself agains mexicam infiltration
- they had 4 batteries of artilley (2 mountain ones and 2 line ones) plus 1200 in forts and 3500 in four columns in trenches
- the French general was thinking that mexicans in the city were pro-conservatives and that he just needed to do a strong show of forces. He was not expecting a battle but a token skirmish. He decided to move his force in front of the forts and to storm them without preparation not significant artillery support. Mexican allies told him that using the convent to attack was a better idea.
- Zaragoza reinforced his troops using trenches
- Zouaves attacked as their training asked them to do: in heavy skirmish lines (not as regular infantry) and what happened? Well, you send a skirmish line (3 times) against an entrenched enemy in forts+trenches at the top of a hill. Zouves reached HtH, exhausted and fall back. Something like Cold Harbor or Fort Wagner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fort_Wagner). Same thing. It was stupid...

Low level French leadership was good. High level was incredibly bad. It's also the reason why they lost the was with Prussia: infantry was excellent at the tactical level but above the regimental level and especially at high level morons were commanding. For example Bazaine was sentenced to death after the war for (among other things) dereliction of duty.

Thanks for the detail ... not certain that the additional information does a lot to make the odds look better for a French force under Bazaine against the likes of Sheridan et al in 1865-66, however.

It also doesn't say much for the French in any "French intervene to support the rebels in 1862 alt-Trent just because," either.;)

Best,
 
Europe changes forever

No matter the outcome of the war, even if short, no one in Europe can ignore the USA when plotting their foreign adventures. The sheer growing power of the USA won't be able to be disregarded...
 
I wanted to point out something regarding the state of the French army in Mexico and a difficulty they faced, that armies from the Union would face as well.

French armies were decimated and severely weakened by Yellow Fever and other tropical diseases to which the Mexicans were accustomed. Union soldiers, coming from temperate climates, would face the same difficulties
 
I wanted to point out something regarding the state of the French army in Mexico and a difficulty they faced, that armies from the Union would face as well.

French armies were decimated and severely weakened by Yellow Fever and other tropical diseases to which the Mexicans were accustomed. Union soldiers, coming from temperate climates, would face the same difficulties

All the more reason not to send American troops to Mexico.
 
In the Mexican-American War the Americans very specifically planned their landing so as to be out of the disease infested lowlands before yellow fever season hit. The interior of Mexico was no better or worse than Texas for disease. The relatively high altitude of the interior of Mexico and relatively dry climate were not conducive to the Aedes Egyptii mosquito which was the primary vector of yellow fever. Now the medical science of the 1860s did not know this but they did know that dry/high climates were safe from yellow fever, and they did know that certain seasons of the year in low/wet were worse than others.

US troops entering Mexico via the Texas/Mexico border will not face any particular disease problems other than the usual ones. The problems the French had came from entering via low/wet areas on the Mexican coast during yellow fever season, getting sick there. Also they maintained garrisons there. It is a comment on the incompetence of the French that in spite of their horrific experience in Haiti under Napoleon, and the example of the US in the 1840s in avoiding severe issues by taking seasonal disease in to account, that they screwed up so badly in taking measures to prevent disease. (note: in spite of French medicine per se being pretty advanced for the times, the French military medical system was pretty crappy as far as line commanders giving doctors any say in the planning process).
 
Low level French leadership was good. High level was incredibly bad. It's also the reason why they lost the was with Prussia: infantry was excellent at the tactical level but above the regimental level and especially at high level morons were commanding. For example Bazaine was sentenced to death after the war for (among other things) dereliction of duty.

Which the battle of Camaron supports: highest in command was a captain and it went down in French military history as one of those glorious defeats you love to pass on down, with last stands and even a charge of five men against thousands of enemies. The captain didn't survive the battle and command gradually came to lower and lower ranks until it devolved to the NCOs, I believe.

Thanks for the detail ... not certain that the additional information does a lot to make the odds look better for a French force under Bazaine against the likes of Sheridan et al in 1865-66, however.

It also doesn't say much for the French in any "French intervene to support the rebels in 1862 alt-Trent just because," either.;)

Best,

The less said about Bazaine, the better. He missed several occasions to destroy enemy corps, but at least McClellan didn't surrender the whole Army of the Potomac to the CSA. And the damned coward didn't even face the music. After his death sentence got commuted by his fellow incompetent Mac-Mahon to twenty years in jail, Bazaine got the bloody cheek to escape and live in Spain rather than do anything remotely honourable. When you come to think about it, their conduct in the Franco-Prussian war should have gotten us a reputation of cheese-eating surrender-monkey-generals two wars earlier. Lucky for us, we had had a full-blown Napoléon in the same century. Works wonder for your army street-cred.

However, if things had escalated into a full-blown war with the US and Sheridan had brought his corps into the fray, there might be a chance that Adolphe Niel would have been sent to command troops in the Mexican theater. Still a remote chance, because he was getting old and probably would have died of the strain, but the man was a damn sight better than either of the two previously mentioned nincompoops. It probably would amount to a defeat in rather short order but the American advance might not go as quick as it would if things were left to Bazaine.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Adolphe Niel would certainly have been an interesting

The less said about Bazaine, the better. He missed several occasions to destroy enemy corps, but at least McClellan didn't surrender the whole Army of the Potomac to the CSA. And the damned coward didn't even face the music. After his death sentence got commuted by his fellow incompetent Mac-Mahon to twenty years in jail, Bazaine got the bloody cheek to escape and live in Spain rather than do anything remotely honourable. When you come to think about it, their conduct in the Franco-Prussian war should have gotten us a reputation of cheese-eating surrender-monkey-generals two wars earlier. Lucky for us, we had had a full-blown Napoléon in the same century. Works wonder for your army street-cred.

However, if things had escalated into a full-blown war with the US and Sheridan had brought his corps into the fray, there might be a chance that Adolphe Niel would have been sent to command troops in the Mexican theater. Still a remote chance, because he was getting old and probably would have died of the strain, but the man was a damn sight better than either of the two previously mentioned nincompoops. It probably would amount to a defeat in rather short order but the American advance might not go as quick as it would if things were left to Bazaine.

Adolphe Niel would certainly have been an interesting choice; certainly, as an engineer with extensive active service experience, he could have fought a strong defensive campaign, but still... he was born in 1802, which puts him in his mid-60s for a post-Appomatox campaign.

The thing about de Lorencz and Forey and Bazaine, of course, is they who were sent historically, which suggests they were the best available (or most suitable, I suppose); all three were infantry specialists, as far as I can tell, and Bazaine rose from private soldier to marshal, which suggests he was as much sinned against as sinner. He was also the youngest of the three.

The only other senior general officer engaged overseas in the 1860s would have Montauban in China, who as a cavalryman might have been better suited to the type of war the French were fighting in Mexico ... although he was even older than Niel.

The point being, not certain a change in generals, from the individuals who apparently were seen as the best choices at the time, would have done much for the French.

Best,
 
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