War of 1812 PoDs
- Thread starter Boom22
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The most significant thing I believe with Brocks survival is the Natives. When he died, no one of import was around to plead the case of a Native state on the the Great lakes. He was regarded as a man of his word and he and Tecumseh were on good terms. He infact promised Tecumseh he'd help him form one. He was also well liked by the men he served and was decisive and aggressive in his actions towards the Northwest and might have been able to secure the lakes and their environs for Britain. Whether or not it is made part of British North America or actually made into an independant, though British Protectorate, native nation is up in the air.
Affects on a North west ceded to Britain:
-no era of good feelings
-without the federalists being discredited by their seccesion talks because britain won, there could be an era of bad feelings (idea of Britain winning is greatly helped with no New Orleans (maybe those troops shifted towards a Northwest campaign) )
-instead of a soar in nationalism and all around good feelings, America might become more partisan as the democrats are accused of losing the war and the federalists get accused of any number of things
-this era of bad feelings could lead to an earlier civil war, and a perhaps cliche New England Republic, or perhaps a bigger version including Pennsylvania and New York.
-if the Northwest is made into a state, this by no means makes it permanent. Ill treatment of white settlers, american shenanigans, or even a collapse along tribal lines could mean British and American intervention and even a war.
-this northwest war could be the trigger for the earlier american civil war, perhaps northeners viewing it as southern aggression and the south seeing a Norths lack of participation as treason. The results could lead to an independant north and Britain getting the lions share of the northwest, with the south very anti british.
-Red river colony (most of North and south Dekota along with southern Manitoba) stay a british colony resulting in a far lower Canada-US border.
-my history is sketchy on this, but the man who ran the oregon territory for the HBC actually hated the company and did his best to undermine it. He passively supported American settlement in the southern part, thus giving rise to Americas claim. Different man on the job, or even different events (it was only when he was in the Oregon that something happened (forgot what it was) to make him hate the company) and all of oregon remains british.
-with an angry and anti British America to the south, still large, but mostly slave owning, and after two wars to protect her, Canada might be joined together even earlier.
-Also on a side note, Brock never really liked Canada and might not actually be viewed as a hero if he lived. Most Canadians forget that he never really liked the country he died in.
Well anywhooo, thats my two cents.
Affects on a North west ceded to Britain:
-no era of good feelings
-without the federalists being discredited by their seccesion talks because britain won, there could be an era of bad feelings (idea of Britain winning is greatly helped with no New Orleans (maybe those troops shifted towards a Northwest campaign) )
-instead of a soar in nationalism and all around good feelings, America might become more partisan as the democrats are accused of losing the war and the federalists get accused of any number of things
-this era of bad feelings could lead to an earlier civil war, and a perhaps cliche New England Republic, or perhaps a bigger version including Pennsylvania and New York.
-if the Northwest is made into a state, this by no means makes it permanent. Ill treatment of white settlers, american shenanigans, or even a collapse along tribal lines could mean British and American intervention and even a war.
-this northwest war could be the trigger for the earlier american civil war, perhaps northeners viewing it as southern aggression and the south seeing a Norths lack of participation as treason. The results could lead to an independant north and Britain getting the lions share of the northwest, with the south very anti british.
-Red river colony (most of North and south Dekota along with southern Manitoba) stay a british colony resulting in a far lower Canada-US border.
-my history is sketchy on this, but the man who ran the oregon territory for the HBC actually hated the company and did his best to undermine it. He passively supported American settlement in the southern part, thus giving rise to Americas claim. Different man on the job, or even different events (it was only when he was in the Oregon that something happened (forgot what it was) to make him hate the company) and all of oregon remains british.
-with an angry and anti British America to the south, still large, but mostly slave owning, and after two wars to protect her, Canada might be joined together even earlier.
-Also on a side note, Brock never really liked Canada and might not actually be viewed as a hero if he lived. Most Canadians forget that he never really liked the country he died in.
Well anywhooo, thats my two cents.
http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/althistx/WA.html
The POD for this is Napoleon dying during the retreat from Moscow
The POD for this is Napoleon dying during the retreat from Moscow
If nappy is dead, might the USA think twice about a war with Britain-I mean attacking whilst Britain is concentrating on France and so can only spare a few units and ships is one thing but Britain, just out of a war (assuming Nap's death = peace), maybe able to send Wellington himself, well that is a different kettle of fish.
Here's a good timeline for you: http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_(1812_Closure)
A far lesser-known but potentially major PoD would be to have a tree branch along North Point Road break: as the British advanced on Baltimore from the southeast, two young men (last names: Wells and McComas) hid in a large tree. Waiting until British general Ross passed, they acted as snipers and picked him off. That upset and delayed the British advance on the defenses, set up at about what is now Patterson Park in southeastern Baltimore.
Had a branch given way under the weight of one or both, they would have been discovered and captured-and likely Ross would have directed the assault on the Baltimore defenses, quite possibly leading to the capture of Baltimore by land even while Ft. McHenry held off the British fleet in the Patapsco River/upper Chesapeake Bay.
Now the US has suffered the loss of both Washington (the latter destroyed by fire) and Baltimore within a month; moreover, communication between points north and east and the south has been cut. Worse still, the entire Chesapeake Bay is now in British hands, and there is little to stop a two-pronged advance on Philadelphia (cross-country from Baltimore, across northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvanica, and up the Delaware Bay/River).
While transatlantic communications take weeks in this era, news of the debacle at Baltimore will doubtless reach the negotiators at Ghent by late October. A peace would still be signed at about the same point on the calendar (it was Christmas Eve 1814 in OTL) but the terms would be far less generous: likely the British could have insisted upon and gotten territorial concessions around the Great Lakes, for starters.
The domestic impact would have been significant also: I agree with the premise that political infighting might well have increased, with the Federalists on the receiving end of charges of quasi-treason given their opposition to the war, and the Democrats being charged with malfeasance in that the war was lost on their watch.
The bottom line-at least my suggestion, anyhow-is a stronger British presence in North American for a few generations to come; the emergence/creation of a Canadian confederation approximately two generations earlier than in OTL; and delayed/truncated US expansion to the west.
Had a branch given way under the weight of one or both, they would have been discovered and captured-and likely Ross would have directed the assault on the Baltimore defenses, quite possibly leading to the capture of Baltimore by land even while Ft. McHenry held off the British fleet in the Patapsco River/upper Chesapeake Bay.
Now the US has suffered the loss of both Washington (the latter destroyed by fire) and Baltimore within a month; moreover, communication between points north and east and the south has been cut. Worse still, the entire Chesapeake Bay is now in British hands, and there is little to stop a two-pronged advance on Philadelphia (cross-country from Baltimore, across northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvanica, and up the Delaware Bay/River).
While transatlantic communications take weeks in this era, news of the debacle at Baltimore will doubtless reach the negotiators at Ghent by late October. A peace would still be signed at about the same point on the calendar (it was Christmas Eve 1814 in OTL) but the terms would be far less generous: likely the British could have insisted upon and gotten territorial concessions around the Great Lakes, for starters.
The domestic impact would have been significant also: I agree with the premise that political infighting might well have increased, with the Federalists on the receiving end of charges of quasi-treason given their opposition to the war, and the Democrats being charged with malfeasance in that the war was lost on their watch.
The bottom line-at least my suggestion, anyhow-is a stronger British presence in North American for a few generations to come; the emergence/creation of a Canadian confederation approximately two generations earlier than in OTL; and delayed/truncated US expansion to the west.
On what is this based? Where is it said that Brock didn't like Canada.
He was a man who had ambitions and wanted to make a name for himself as a military commander so understandably he was upset that he had been assigned to this out of the way and uneventful corner of the British Empire when Britain was fighting Napoleon and his great Marshalls in Europe.
Indeed in 1811 he lamented his fate to his Brother in London "You who have passed all your days in the bustle of London, can scarcely concieve the uninteresting and insipid life I am doomed to lead in this retirement."
But that doesnt't mean he didn't like Canada. It just means that he thought that he could be better employed somewhere else...that is before War in North America was imminant
Well I'm going to plug my own TL in here right now.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=69394
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=69394
to get Wellington in the war in America and Britain winning the war, you need a pretty simple POD: victory for the Brits on the Great Lakes. IIRC, Wellington refused to go for 2 reasons: control of the Lakes was vital for supply, and he also wanted nothing to do with any demands of territory to be taken from the US. If you give him the first one, maybe he'll waver on the second...
Fine surrender us to Canada. Michigan, Wisconson & northern Minnesota will make a fine province after confederation. Seriously, British victory on the Great Lakes was a really possibility.
didn't the Brits actually want those areas to be an Indian buffer state?
If you have Isaac Brook live, and have this butterfly into a British victory at New Orleans, then you would have quite a cool little timeline. I'm imaging that the attack on New Orleans happens before the British make peace, and so the they follow up the win at New Orleans with the seizure of the rest of Louisiana. The British would seize much of the Old Northwest, support a native buffer state being led by the legendary Tecumseh, and if New Orleans falls then St. Louis could easily be next. The United States is hemmed in on all sides by the British. I'm thinking that the United States would see the rise of politics based on more Hamiltonian principles, ala the Whigs. I don't really see the states' rights thing taking off in this ATL.
Add IL, IN, OH, and MI and Canada gets a corridor of good land suitable for settlement between Ontario and the Prairies!
Nietzsche
Banned
If you want a plausible Canada-wank in which Canada gets everything above the 42nd Parallel(short of the Northeast due to cultural differences), then I suggest my TL (which is a WIP):
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=81207
The advantage of using 1812 as opposed to the 54 40 thing is that in the War of 1812 you have a war which did in fact take place, and during which if Brock hadn't died at such an inopportune time major territorial changes may have taken place. I would say an 1812 descended Canada-wank is a much more plausible starting location than an 1844 descended Canada-wank.
The United States i n 1812-15 has not expanded either territorially or population wise the way that the United States of 1844 had. There is the potential of an Indian buffer state in the Northeast and British control of New Orleans and perhaps also the upper Mississippi. This kind of territorial shift would force a second round of Anglo-American Wars, and would really throw a money wrench into the development of American politics.
The United States i n 1812-15 has not expanded either territorially or population wise the way that the United States of 1844 had. There is the potential of an Indian buffer state in the Northeast and British control of New Orleans and perhaps also the upper Mississippi. This kind of territorial shift would force a second round of Anglo-American Wars, and would really throw a money wrench into the development of American politics.
Black Hawk Up
I had a TL called Black Hawk Up which had multiple deviations in the War of 1812 incl. Brock surviving and Jackson dying. A preliminary version was done here. I fleshed it and revised it elsewhere. Tecumseh survives as the iron fisted ruler of a British Indian protectorate west of the Mississippi. I had the TL into the 1820's at one pt. Had some wild things like Tecummseh's invasion of Mexico which results in the Monroe Metternich Treaty.
I had a TL called Black Hawk Up which had multiple deviations in the War of 1812 incl. Brock surviving and Jackson dying. A preliminary version was done here. I fleshed it and revised it elsewhere. Tecumseh survives as the iron fisted ruler of a British Indian protectorate west of the Mississippi. I had the TL into the 1820's at one pt. Had some wild things like Tecummseh's invasion of Mexico which results in the Monroe Metternich Treaty.
Jackson defeated at New Orleans. By the time the British troops are informed that peace was signed, they are besieging Mobile and the Americans have repudiated the peace treaty as a response to Britain not respecting it. War can extend beyond Napoleon's exile in Elba, leading to multiple butterflies.
- Is Wellington sent to America now that the French threat has disappeared (for a time)?
- Do the Spanish forces in America intervene in behalf of Britain (late in the war the British offered to return Louisiana to them in OTL)?
- Does this mean the British army that fought in Waterloo in OTL isn't available to be send to the continent, and the battle ends in a single Prussian victory? Or a French one, even?
- Is Wellington sent to America now that the French threat has disappeared (for a time)?
- Do the Spanish forces in America intervene in behalf of Britain (late in the war the British offered to return Louisiana to them in OTL)?
- Does this mean the British army that fought in Waterloo in OTL isn't available to be send to the continent, and the battle ends in a single Prussian victory? Or a French one, even?