alternatehistory.com

What if Napoleon didn't just give America land, but also the means to distract the British?

I always suspected that, once France had lost Hatii, making an empire in the Americas a logistical nightmare, Napoleone saw a different, strategic value in Louisiana: not keeping it, but rather selling it, specifically to the U.S., figuring an enlarged U.S. becomes a problem for Britain and a hinderance to their efforts to oppose him.

Might have worked too, had Napoleone made millitary advisors (officers and non-coms from the French Army, at the time the finest in the world) part of the deal.

It very well could have saved him from the Peninsular War, or,at the very least, blunted the British efforts there, as a U.S. with a well armed, well trained, and most importantly, well organized army could have opted for war with Britain instead of enacting the disasterous Embargo Act of 1807.

Contingent, of course, on Jefferson building up the U.S. Navy and letting the better trained and organized army plan and conduct the war, rather than having Jefferson and his cabinet and the congress muck it up.

Consider an LP that includes French millitary advisors and Jefferson and the Republicans in congress build up the navy "For the purpose of securing neutrality."

The LP goes down as it did OTL on May 2, 1803 (Treaty signed) and the French advisors are already in Louisiana (sent there when it becomes apparent the accord will be reached) or a short time later. The advisors could teach and train the American officers and non-coms for better than two years before the start of the War of The Third Coalition, plenty of time for the French advisors to see what a mess the U.S. millitary establishment was (and organizational nightmare) and rectify it as well as have training manuals translated and implemented to all officers, non-coms and enlistees.

Starting in 1803, the U.S. army is training in the ways of the Grand Armee, with the capable promoted, the patronage commissions and others unfit for command sacked and replaced by men actually capable and worthy of the positions.

Meanwhile, the Navy keeps building; no need to bring the French into the naval/marine corps part of this. The U.S. produced the best ships, officers, crews and marines of the era...they just didn't produce enough of them, (or some would say of the ships, not enough OR big enough) as would be demonstrated in 1812.

So in TTL, you have a larger U.S. Navy and better organized and trained U.S. Army. The British, as in OTL, impress U.S. sailors on the high seas, pass the Orders in Council, blockading Europe and then the final straw The Chesapeake-Leopard Incident on June 22, 1807.

Rather than passing the sub-moronic Embargo Act of 1807 as he did in OTL, Jefferson opts for war.

Jefferson once said that conquering Canada would be "a simple act of marching". The Army, far too diciplined from two years of direct Grand Armee training and conditioning, and a further three years of continuing the practice and implementation of such to ever consider harbor such a foolishness mindset, wouldn't make such a mistake.

They'd inform Jefferson of what they needed and how much. They'd be organized and efficient. They'd have battle experience from frontier clashes with the indians and the Navy and Marine Corps. would have experience from The First Barbary War. They'd have confidence, but not a sense of invincibility. They'd prepare for an inavasion of Canada much more carefully and in much more detail than OTL's WO1812.

In the meantime, the congress raises neccessary funds to construct more ships, raise sufficient soldiers, sailors and marines, take measures to make sure they are well equipped and provisioned and bolster the navy as necessary by issuing letters of mark.

Figure by late spring early summer 1808, juuuust after the first British troops have landed in Iberia and committed to battle there, the army and navy are ready and perhaps congress has secured some naval assistance from France. (Never hurts to have a few extra ships to assist on the other side of the Atlantic, in the Med and Carribbean.)

Congress declares war against GB and the U.S. invades Canada.

Now, even a better trained, diciplined, equiped, provisioned, funded and lead U.S. Army may or may not succede totally in it's war aims. Same for a larger, better funded navy. There are no certainties in war, BUT, I'd have to believe they'd certainly outperform the mess that went to war in 1812.

I don't know what the outcome of "The War of 1808"/"Anglo-American War" or whatever it would end up being called would be. What I can be fairly certain of, is that it would definately disrupt the British war on the Iberian peninsula and that would have ultimately served Napoleone far better than his simple land sale did OTL.

So, Naps, and the U.S., would probably have been better served to have millitary advisors as part of the deal.

He might just have succeded in accomplishing what I suspect was his prime motive in selling it to the U.S. all along.

The US Army was the size and makeup it was because that is how the government, especially Jefferson wanted it. They had a revolutionary belief that standing, well trained armies were threats to liberty. A plan to upgrade and professionalize it would have gone far against the grain of the 1803 government in Washington. They placed their faith on the individual state militias which is why the Army did so badly in the War of 1812. Adding French troops in North America against British Canada or even against American Southwestern possessions might have serious repercussions.

True on the first point, but Jefferson, ever the Francophile, possibly could be persuaded by Napoleone to accept millitary assistance in the form of training the small standing army the U.S. did have at the time.

They wouldn't be enlarging the army so much as training the existing army and shaping it into an effective fighting force that would then train future officers and enlistees to maintain a small but effective standing army, which would, so long as it remained small, be perfectly acceptable in that era.

Note that I specifically said it would take about a year after the Chesapeake-Leopard Incident for the U.S. to be ready for war; it would probably take that long to raise and train a war time army, as well as produce the necessary armaments and provisions to maintain the force. Most of the troops raised would be millitia levies, but they'd still require training; the War of Independence provided plenty of examples of what happens when untrained or poorly trained and undiciplined millitia square off against regulars. A capable and well organized officer corps would make sure the millitia was properly trained and had some sort of dicipline and sense of unit cohesion before deploying them to the field.

On the second point, the number of advisors wouldn't be all that large, as they're only in the U.S. to teach and train, not to serve with the army. Being that the standing army was small, the number of advisors would also be small in number. We're not talking "U.S. in Vietnam" advisors here, where you have something the size of a small occupation force in the country. More so a small contingent of officers and non-coms teaching at the war colleges and training troops at the forts or camps of instruction, so the French millitary presence would be barely noticed outside the forts, CoIs or war colleges.

The small nature of the army and the advisors assigned to it makes sense, but the idea of professionalizing an army through outside help is something of an outlier in terms of the military training process of the times. I may be wrong and maybe there are examples of military forces of these times utilizing foreign experts.

perhaps other countries distained foriegn help in this era, but the united states had already set a very important precedent. Baron von Steuben's work at valley forge was, while not quite instrumental for the cause of american independace, it was still very important. that precedent would probably have played a major role if Sigma7's disturbingly plausible scenario were presented to the american leaders.

Was going to mention the precedent set by von Steuben, but you beat me to it.

There were other professional soldiers such as Tadeusz Kościuszko, Kazimierz Pułaski, who, while they served with the Continental Army, were quite instrumental in their instruction of the troops; Kościuszko as an engineer and Pułaski as a cavalryman of such reknown both for his service in the field and in the training of his own Pulaski Cavalry Legion, he's referred to as "The Father of American Cavalry".

Obviously Murat wouldn't be leading American cavalry units into action, but he and some of his staff and non coms could train the cavalry and teach at the war colleges. Berthier had already served with Americans with Rochambeau during the War of Independence and had become reknowned since then for his combining his experience, accuracy, quick comprehension and attention to (and mastery of) detail to become one of the finest soldiers in the whole of Europe. A bonus there (besides having served with the Americans) he got his start as an engineer. Such a disposition would have made him an ideal instructor at the newly established United States Millitary Accademy at West Point as an instructor of the future officer corp.

That's two of Napoleone's finest, and perhaps he doesn't send them specifically (although Berthier might actually volunteer to lead the mission and win the argument), but sending the men trained by them along with translated French Army field manuals and a cirriculum of texts to be studied by the officers, I think, would suffice.



So, what if?
Top