IIRC, wasnt there an attempt by the CSA to build a settlement somewhere in South America? The white settlers more or less assimilated with the local population after awhile, but the people there still perform ceremonies in CSA uniforms. I dont remember where I read/watched/osmosed this.
Confederate colonialism?
- Thread starter Shtudmuffin
- Start date
In any case even the CSA Army was better than a bunch of serfs.
NothingNow
Banned
Maybe. I'd just gotten back from working in an Oven of a K-mart (seriously, 90*f inside, without any AC, with the damn register blowing hot air on me) on Shabbos during a sale. I was not in the mood to read things multiple ways.
And I was Playing the straight man for once.I was making a joke, you goof
Wasn't the CSA printing money without anything to backit and going through massive inflation, if not hyperinflation during the Civil War? Even if it wins the war somehow and gets recognized internationally it's money will be worth about the same as the paper it's printed on, if not less. The CSA we mainly argian in economy with very few factories so it would have to import quite a bit, possibly even the materialls it would need to wage a war. And when tou're trying to import things you need to run your country and expand it with money that might as well be toliet tissue on the international market... Not mention having little indusrial base and no real naval fore to speak of. Yeah the CSA can totally become a colonial power. In all honesty the CSA would be lucky to survie a couple of decades.
In all honesty the CSA would be lucky to survie a couple of decades.Snake Featherston
Banned
In a sense, yes, in another sense both armies had some similarities. The CS Army's greatest distinguishing feature from the Russian army was that its artillery was generally lousy in nature and strategic use. The Russians, by contrast, made good use of their artillery in the Crimean War. One aspect both armies shared was a greater mass of illiterate people (though a lot of USCT began the war illiterate as well), not to mention that the CS Army spent most of the war as a conscript force. The most obvious distinguishing feature of the two was that the CSA was able to wage for yeears a war on a scale equal in size to Western Europe, Russia had huge problems fighting in geographically limited areas, the CSA creating its army on the fly, Russia starting the Crimean War with the biggest army in Europe (which it never fully managed to use much of that mass as it was).
I don't think the CS Army is a good comparison to the blundering mass of Nicholas I. It's more comparable to either the Taiping Army or Solano Lopez's force.
I don't think it's really applicable to compare/contrast the CS Army and that of Nicholas I. Now, the CS Army v. that of the Taiping Tanguo or Solano Lopez's Paraguay, OTOH........
The reasons the latter two matter is both of them also waged war to the bitter end and were rather over-mobilized per proportion of the population, and the Taiping had the same problems of artillery that the CS Army did on a much larger scale.
Snake Featherston
Banned
The British Army, however, would not need as many troops themselves, either. The CS Army and sheer size of the CSA will do the job for them of tying down the bulk of the US Army. I still remain puzzled as to how the Union can simultaneously wage a civil war over a region the size of all of Western Europe and find the troops, supplies, and money to fight the British Empire at the same time. I mean the Qing Army of the Taiping era was a lot bigger in size than the Union Army was at any individual moment and it hardly was able to make sheer quantity and space work to its benefit.
While against France it managed to do both on land. Make of that what you will.
Snake Featherston
Banned
This is AH.com. It's seldom, if ever, that a thread stays *on* topic past a certain point.
Well, the wretchedness of the Confederate army at anything more sophisticated than "hard fighting" is going to be a major problem at doing anything useful outside holding its own (and "its own" does not include Kentucky, Missouri, or Maryland - eastern Tennessee/western North Carolina and part of western Virginia being problematic enough).
That, and what Snake said.
So what will Confederate colonization look like?
West Texas. Maybe a little bit of Oklahoma.
That, and what Snake said.
So what will Confederate colonization look like?
West Texas. Maybe a little bit of Oklahoma.
1) It almost certainly won't be fighting the entire British Empire but a small fraction of it as the CSA isn't worth much to the Brits
2) You go on the Defensive against the CSA and then attack the Brits. The Brits will be massively outnumbered and on a very long supply line. The US can move troops by train. The Brits march and their suppply line goes all the way back to London.
Snake Featherston
Banned
1) No, but a USA that declares war on it or vice versa is an uppity small state that needs to be punished, which is how the UK will see this and intend it.
2) How does the USA come anywhere near damaging the UK enough in this process to go somewhere, especially if as a sane society would do it puts its best generals up against the UK while leaving the dregs to hold down the CSA?
1) How small a fraction?
2) Attack them...where? Canada, where the US has such a stunning record of success before?
Also, it's not as if the railroads only work for Americans. Not sure how much the supply line issue matters, although I wouldn't want to rely on any bases in Canada as the source for a truly substantial source of supplies (as distinct from mere depots).
I don't think the US is in for a curbstomping - although it's going to be a very costly war even under the best circumstances - but I can't see the US doing particularly well here.
Snake Featherston
Banned
I agree, the USA won't be curbstomped. That overstates what the British Empire of the 1860s could be reasonably expected to do in a major war. But the difference between not-curbstomped and winning-at-all is a huge one.
Quite.
I'm not sure what a US "win" would even mean in this kind of war. If "Fighting hard enough that Britain realizes this is utterly moronic to continue" (assuming the UK declared war for discussion's sake) is a win, that's not impossible.
If we're looking at the US emerging stronger and Britain emerging weaker . . . there's only one way that works, and that's wanking the US so hard you get blisters.
Harry Harrison might be a good writer, but his alt-history trilogy is well within the ASB part of the forum.
1) Which has its limits, fairly small limits as it has much more important interests elsewhere
2) The UK can only afford sending a fairly small army as it has much more important interests.