WI the French finished the Panama Canal

This is ridiculous, why are people assuming that the US will take the Canal off of France by force? What, we want it, we take it? Ermm yeah, that wont help the US. Again as someone said, the US army before this time wasn't fantastic. Unless relations seriously sour, why would the US want to steal the Canal from France? Just to have it? Politics don't generally work like that without a major war being involved. France and America at this time had good relations, to suddenly turn on a friend like that would be seriously out of the US character. I think the US would gain de facto control over the Canal during WWII after the fall of France, or they'd seize it from the Vichy government. Actually on that note, if WWII followed as it did in our TL who would take the Canal?

And just on the Ho-Chi-Mihn comment, last I checked NO-ONE has scored any real points against him and I can't believe that was even brought up considering the United States fared just as bad the French. Think before making such inane comments.
 
The French didn't do all that well against Ho Chi Minh; what makes you think they stand a chance against Teddy Roosevelt?

Sixty years is a long time and in that time France as a nation had completely changed. In WWI is a great power allied with Great Britain and nearly their equal, by the 1950's when they fought Ho-Chi-Minh they where drained by years of war, political instability, and a lack of urge to bother holding their colonies. The US fighting the French at the height of their empire would likely spark a conflict where Great Britain and France both go to war with the US, which would hurt them immensely.
 
I wonder why no-one even mentions the Nicaragua Canal, which is what the US would build if they insist on on independent access to the Pacific, rather than conquering the Panama Canal from the French.
 
I think the US would gain de facto control over the Canal during WWII after the fall of France, or they'd seize it from the Vichy government. Actually on that note, if WWII followed as it did in our TL who would take the Canal?

this is the only way I see the US gaining control of the Canal, and it would only be temporary. Whether the US built it's own canal in Nicaragua or not, the US would seize control of the Panama Canal after the fall of France simply because they wouldn't want the Nazis (or their Vichy collaborators, as they would see it) having control of it. It would be returned to French control after the war.
As much as I generally hate to agree with the durn furriners on here about anything :p I share their annoyance at the responses on this thread. "Gosh, France has the Panama Canal? The US will take it from them!" Yeah right... :rolleyes:
 
this is the only way I see the US gaining control of the Canal, and it would only be temporary. Whether the US built it's own canal in Nicaragua or not, the US would seize control of the Panama Canal after the fall of France simply because they wouldn't want the Nazis (or their Vichy collaborators, as they would see it) having control of it. It would be returned to French control after the war.
:rolleyes:

That's pretty much what I imagined, would it perhaps draw the US in faster do you think?
 
That's pretty much what I imagined, would it perhaps draw the US in faster do you think?

I don't think so... in the end, the Germans are too tied up in Europe itself to do much more than protest the USA's actions... I doubt they have the capacity to send large forces across the Atlantic and seize the Canal themselves...
 
Top