Or mexican, but I would like to place my bets on the puerto rican army myself just because it'd be funny
Latest PoD for a successful invasion of the continental United States during the 20th century?
- Thread starter Moctezuma1466
- Start date
Or mexican, but I would like to place my bets on the puerto rican army myself just because it'd be funny
"We want you to grant us the Puerto Rico independence"
"Who the fuck are you? This is the New York Republic!"
Britain had already begun sending troops and supplies to Canada during the OTL crisis, and had gone to war over a very similar provocation just a few years previously.
France has relatively good relations with Britain at the time, and is busy with affairs in Mexico. Prussia is preoccupied with Europe, and as yet has neither colonial ambitions nor the naval forces necessary to threaten Britain. Neither has any incentive to fight Britain.
Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world at this time (quite possibly the wealthiest, although I'd have to dig up some historical GDP figures to be sure) and can import from the entire rest of the world. Food is not going to be a problem, which is probably why nobody, British or American, brought it up during the OTL crisis.
If you want to be taken seriously, it might help if you stopped putting words into other people's mouths.
Building an effective navy whilst under blockade is extremely difficult, because you've got no way of training your crews under high seas conditions, practising fleet manoeuvres, etc.
Because the last one was brutally and comprehensively crushed less than five years ago, and that sort of experience tends to make people reluctant to rebel again.
You complain about "magic" and "hypercompetence", but apparently everyone's just going to accept the US' self-serving PR campaign?
Why would it be a war of national survival? Britain had no desire to break up the Union or annexe it entirely. Any territorial concessions it demanded would be vastly outweighed by the loss of the southern third of the country in the event of a CSA victory. Again, you're assuming that everyone just accepts US propaganda, no matter how obviously absurd it is.
"These other people don't respect us and want to take our stuff" is a common motivation for war, including at least one war that had finished just a couple of years ago.
Lots of countries have lost territory in war without seeing their existence as being threatened. This is just pure American exceptionalism.
So they went into the war wildly underestimating how hard it would be, then flubbed an opportunity to end it relatively early... Still not looking good for the Union's war-fighting skills TBH.
So America fighting Britain will instantly go into "existential war of national survival mode", but Canada being invaded by America -- which has tried to conquer them twice already -- will take the side of their invaders? That seems... implausible.
If America could ally with "Uncle Joe" Stalin during the Second World War, Britain can fight a war against the Union concurrently with the Union fighting a war against the Confederacy.
First to get it out of the way since people like to jump to conclusions. I have never once said other nations will just drop what they are doing, rush to America’s aide, and attack Britain.
I find it preposterous that none of its rivals will do anything to take advantage of the situation.
What the OP asked for was a point of divergence. Not an unrealistic timeline on how to split the US to make it available for invasion.
All alt timelines are at their base unrealistic… the definition of alternate history is u realistic events because they… never happened. As much as one wants to say “well this is how it may have gone…”.
As to France… they did not intervene with actual troops until 1862.
Trent Affair leading to war in 1861 would butterfly foreign police so much you may not have a French intervention.
I’ll give ya 1962 for Prussia. After that the butterflies make it unknown what they will do. It’s like saying “the British win 1812 how does World War One go about after Ferdinand gets whacked?”- butterflies.
Possibly. Or in 1862 with Britain so distracted it tries to exert greater control in Central Asia. Who knows. Maybe that is enough to stall a Polish uprising.
Does everything just work out for Britain and other powers reacting to this total war change nothing?
You don’t know that. Especially with France or Russia. Who may see 1862 as Britain sends its army and navy around the world for this pointless war as a chance to do something.
The fiat declaration that everything diplomatically goes wrong for America while Britain can escape anyone contesting this supremacy because —every event benefiting Britain— happens the —exact same— is preposterous.
You flippant disregard for Britain’s economic hit was a “but magic!” excuse for how Britain can just shrug off everything.
So your criticism is quite hypocritical when you don’t present anything other than “it won’t hurt Britain as bad as it does America!” Or dismiss American actions as entirely inconsequential (like grain shipments or commerce raiding).
The commoner wanting to go die in Round 3 of a war with America over a technical legal argument where no Britons were hurt or killed and the US was arresting two traitors…. And 50 years earlier Britain was literally kidnapping thousands of people and violating American neutrality… is a rich argument to make. That the commoner would see total war as the answer v a limited reprisal (breaking the blockade is more likely) is not realistic. Especially as the casualties of this brutal war begin to mount and for what…. Some esoteric legal theory?
Hardly. Just the American soldier who is fighting a foreign invader off is more motivated than a poor conscripted Brit shipped overseas to fight for an esoteric legal theory that benefits the rich aristocracy more than someone who may never even travel outside of Briton…. Yeah. American motivation is going to be a lot more intense when you’re fighting off a foreign invader who just declared war on you at your time of most desperate need. The betrayal would run deep.
But we can ignore all that and just declare by magic the commoner would just love to fight and die 3,000 miles away for legal theories!
The Canadian militia was unorganized and largely untrained at this time and their forts were in such decrepit condition as to be seen as useless by British generals sent to inspect them.
Britain had like 5,000 soldiers spread around Canada in 1962 and only increased that to 15,000 during the course of the war. So are they emptying their army from the rest of the empire?
The US rail network in the north was extensive. The US could shift aoldiers from Illinois to New York faster than Britain could from New Brunswick to eastern Ontario. So how are these soldiers moving around? All of Canada had about 3.5 million people…. So this rail network and populace is going to support a 150,000 man army capable of outmaneuvering the Union Army?
A 150,000 man invasion force against a 150,000 man defense force is not a gamble the Brits would take. They were estimating they needed 150,000 to —defend— in case of war. You need a lot more to attack. 1 to 1 are terrible odds for the attacker.
Britain can’t land an army by secret that can take a major US port city in the north. The US could position its army along the northern border or a more central New England location and redeploy faster than Britain could.
Even late in the Civil War the Confederacy with its shit rail network was redeploying soldiers from the western theater to Virginia. So how the US isn’t outnumbering Britain (on land with big troop movements) is perplexing.
The same- and worse- for Britain. Moving 150,000 men across the ocean and paying for that big war and then needing the supplies to feed them when you would face a huge surge in food prices in Britain due to no more US imports is an issue that you did or did not address?
If like 2/3 of these soldiers are Canadian militia you’re having to train them from nothing. The British generals sent to Canada notes the Canadian “militia” was essentially only existing on paper.
I agree on the seas. But the British aren’t having free reign here. Coal will be important for a fleet moving towards steam and Britain will have no coaling locations between the Maritimes and Norfolk and it would be US priority to prevent any coastal territory falling into British hands as a coaling station.
The US is limited to the Great Lakes (where they’d win) and the littoral. I think the US would just build a fleet of ironclads and gunboats to protect harbors, the upper Chesapeake, Delaware Bay, etc.
US is still going to get its fleet down the Mississippi though it might be a lot harder.
San Francisco was the most important port so defending it would be a huge priority. Even if you could somehow justify Britain taking it (if they just attacked super quick) they can’t hold it. California’s population is too great, the port too important, and military reinforcements would eventually overwhelm the British.
By 1862 after Shiloh Davis thought the war lost. Union victories in the Mississippi theater were perilously close to splitting the Confederacy. Vicksburg sealed the deal and if the CSA were not governed by monsters they’d have surrendered in 1863 and spares 200,000 dead soldiers.
A stalemate along Canada and in Virginia still means an eventual loss as the Union attacks where Britain is not.
The forts around DC made in unassailable as the war dragged on. Making DC and Baltimore true fortress cities and keeping an army of 75-100,000 just lingering in Fairfax, Virginia while raiding the Shenandoah Valley is going to keep the CSA from going north as the British go south.
The western theater was far more important than the glamorized eastern theater… probably until 1865.
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Not to forget, of course, that even assuming other nations feel like screwing Britain over, no one considered the United States important or worth defending. They were a minor power in the grand scheme of things, one that no one cared about.
The scenario I put forward explicitly included that ATL US alienated all other countries to the point where the only people who cared about the country were the members of Anti-US Coalition. (Yeah, the ATL American diplomacy was extremely horrible)
Here it does not appear that Britain has been alienating all the European Powers to that extreme point where they will decide to jump to the aid of the United States without any profit for this.
Magic, magic everywhere
And why the Hindus would care about USA? For what they know USA is only a republican edition of UK.
I think the assumption here is that the United States is its 2023 incarnation and everyone has identified it as the country that everyone will desperately try to appease, defend, and make a good impression on.
People tends to treat as an enormous tragedy that USA obtains one square thumb less of land. MEXICO has more reasons to cry about how his whole existence is threatened by USA.
It sounds more like they behaved like the popular stereotype here, that of the authoritarian dictator who launches an aggressive war against a neighbor solely to distract the population from internal problems...
Not only that.
The assumption seems to be that the population of Canada, which is made up mainly of English Loyalists (people who hate the United States because they were deprived of their property and forced to flee their homes), French-speaking Catholic Quebecois (who know that the United States hates them and will persecute them for being Catholic and French-speaking) and Underground Railroad refugees (that is, people who fled slavery, torture and death under the yoke of the United States)...
...they will decide that they are going to believe that United States is really fighting to abolish slavery (when it sounds exactly like the kind of lie an evil and vicious imperialist would say to sell their aggression and lust for conquest and land grabbing as serving some higher end) and they will rise up against the country who has given them freedom and security...
...in the name of supporting a vicious aggressor who wants nothing more than to oppress, enslave and plunder Canadians.
When, for all everyone knows, it could very well happen that Lincoln decrees “Well, now that we have crushed the rebels and traitors, this ridiculous 'Proclamation of Emancipation' is no longer necessary. YOU ALL ARE SLAVES AGAIN! THIS IS THE LAND OF THE FREEDOM, YES! BUT ONLY FOR TRUE AMERICANS!”
Sorry for the double post my phone is having weird formatting when I try to edit and insert quotes.
Britain sent 10,000 more during the war. Not enough. I even said this. Britain also found forts in serious states of decay. Why are you ignoring this real things that happened?
Britain had like 5,000 troops in all of Canada in 61.
China is a different player than the US and it had allies.
France goes to Mexico in 1862. Trent is in 1861.
Yeah France had good relations just like the US does. Like seriously lol. I don’t think Trent goes to total war. It goes to limited naval action at best.
Britain has no incentive to fight America over Trent either.
Except in OTL it WAS an issue Britain was considering concerning recognition and/or possible war over Trent. You are tying to just magic away this concern when it was a Real Life concern. It’s not a what if. It. Literally. Happened.
I don’t know why this is so triggering. Food was a weapon Britain’s enemies used twice in the 20th century. (You brought up Stalin so it’s fair for me to bring up food issues in WWI and WWII… if you want to keep it time period specific then keep it around the 1850s-1870s and don’t jump 80 years to the future just because you think it benefits your argument).
You need to take your own advice and stop getting so upset and triggered that Britain isn’t roflstomping everyone in this period.
I never said the US would win a naval war. I said they’d do commerce raiding and they’d probably do a good job disrupting British shipping… especially if you’re sending Britain’s ocean going ships to blockade thousands of miles of coasts. That’s a fuck ton of ships when your closest bases are Norfolk and the Maritimes with nothing in between (I guess Bermuda is technically in between). And Norfolk may well be under constant threat from ironclads in the Chesapeake depending how long this goes on.
But let’s magic into existence unlimited coal bunkers, some magic island right off the coast of New York, so Britain can maintain this blockade super easy with no problems!
It’s going to be a logistical nightmare for Britain. Can they do it? Yes. Easily and cheaply? No. Not if they’re also sending 100-150,000 troops to Canada while simultaneously trying to go after the Pacific coast.
Maybe. Now Indians will see the Empire fighting in America with almost all its ready army and its fleet blockading the huge US coasts and diverting huge amounts of support ships to constantly resupply and burning mountains of cash to fight this pointless war.
So we don’t know. I am saying Britain will need to consider another Indian rebellion which means Britain needs to keep resources there that means not available for a US attack.
And maybe even keep its Pacific squadrons around China who was a constant thorn in the side of occupying European powers.
There are many theaters in the world Britain must keep its ships and troops. It can’t just put its entire empire focused on America.
I never said that. I said it’s a far better argument. Because in Real Life it WAS a far better argument. The US tried a legalistic argument around why CSA recognition/succession was illegal to keep Europeans from recognizing them but later changed the argument to a moralistic argument regarding slavery which won the US far more diplomatic support. The moral argument was also the easier argument for commoners to understand rather than a legalistic constitutional one.
Your flippant dismissal of a real life occurrence just points to a desperation ploy on your part to somehow justify British supremacy by fiat.
Yeah Britain has all the advantages. But to just be so flippant in dismissing this flies in the face of an actual thing that happened. So my argument is on much firmer ground since mine actually occurred and yours is just a fantasy argument as it did not happen.
Us propaganda domestically. The dominant empire is invading you as 1:/3 of your nation fights you. That’s a war of survival that is now far bigger stakes than before. Especially if Britain invaded in such a manner as to make it appear they’re trying to further split the USA.
In the 85 years of US existence it had not lost any significant territory. Your completely disconnected from American reality yet you also mention why the US would see it differently. That “exceptionalism.” Manifest Destiny. The US since around the early 1800s wanted to go to the Pacific Ocean and expand expand expand. Now that’s being threatened. Damn right the US will see it as an existential threat. The US has ZERO history of back and forth wars with territorial changes happening like you change underwear. It’s a completely foreign concept to Americans to lose territory in a war like this.
The US and CSA flubbed it both. The US got its shit together and recognized total war. No one applauds early US actions in the Civil War. There were plenty of fuck ups.
I was just positing a possible alt scenario. Not one I find likely. Though I think Canada, on very friendly terms with the USA, could declare its own independence (or some parts) rather than see Britain launch a big war on America which could have serious blowback on Canada should the Union Army invade. —Depending— on multiple factors. Highly unlikely but not impossible. I don’t think Canadians want to be helping the CSA and it’s enslavers win a war which is what a British Invasion does. That’s what Britain is helping.
Canada siding with the US is very low but not impossible —depending— on the timeline of events.
Ah. So we shift the goalposts to 80 years in the future for our standard?
I never said Britain won’t fight a war with the Confederacy. It very well may. I said they will lose the PR battle. That doesn’t mean they won’t fight. But the US will have allies, too, and I think Britain will face more international blowback than America.
Britain escalated this from an internal US matter to a possible worldwide issue (or at least multinational issue) depending on if the US can do effective commerce raiding or push back on the RN.
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Formatting is still screwy on my phone so I can’t cut and paste this and put it in my previous post and apologies for double posting.
This isn’t your timeline dude, the OP was asking for scenarios where the US could be invaded. Alt timelines are unrealistic because they by definition never happened.
This whole argument revolves around a Trent Affair where the US hasn’t alienated other countries so substantially. It’s pissed then off but not to the point of wanting Britain to come in and stomp America. Even if Lincoln didn’t release the two prisoners it’s doubtful this would be war.
Seems to be what a alt timeline of Britain invading is. Magic.
I did not say European powers would defend America. I specifically said they would do what is in their best interest and take advantage of a distracted Britain. But ignore anything that does not make this perfect for Britain. Please. Because Britain gets that perfect roll where it wins all the diplomacy, keeps its rivals impotent, it’s internal problems around the empire are rendered inert for this war, and can rally its populace to a Round 3! with America for Total War!!! because one ship was boarded. Yeaaaaaah……
Ah, the argument no one made! Is it fun attacking arguments no one made? Does that make you feel like you won by attacking a fictitious argument?
I said India could rebel again. Never did I say they give a damn about America. What they would care about is Britain has now taken resources from India to go attack someone else which means chance for rebellion is a bit better with a less powerful British force in India and their military engaged son the other side of the world.
Quote where I said India gave a damn about America?
No one is making America out to be 2023. No one has said it’ll be a cakewalk.
No one is disputing Mexico has significant legitimate grievances against the USA.
Lol. The fantasy going on. In real life here… in real life … not your timeline, Canada and the US had very good relations before and during the Civil War.
The US is not going to want to invade Canada. I mean in your timeline you talk of a British Invasion of the US… so are you confusing real life and your timeline here?
Did you forget the Underground Railroad was run by Americans trying to help slaves? Like you act like you know this stuff but your statements appear to be mixing your timeline fantasy with actual facts.
Dredd Scott changed a lot in regards to slaves fleeing north. Canada was seen as the safest place since it was not the US. American and Canadian abolitionists worked closely together. Abolitionism was centered in the North, the part of the USA that Britain is now attacking, the part of the USA Canadians actually like.
Britain has decided to escalate Trent into an inane total war. Not the US. Unless you make Lincoln mustache twirling evil which it sounds like you did as you get more upset your timeline is critiqued here. So now Canada has to face a possible US invasion… but blames the US completely… even though the US didn’t want a war and its Britain doing the invading? The logic pretzel here is intense.
And then this weird screech against Lincoln when In Real Life neither he, his successor, nor the Congress nullified the EP. But somehow you think that could happen because Lincoln, the Congress, etc. need to suddenly go mustache twirling evil villain to justify your weird, fantastical argument. … “for all everyone knows” they could nullify the EP… oh wait, we —actually— know that didn’t happen but you need to fantasy land that to create a flimsy argument.
I also have an alt Trent Affair TL where Lincoln blundered (and some confusing orders went out to the Navy)… no one acted evil it just ended up being some blunders and misunderstandings…
Trent leads to a limited British involvement but neither Britain nor the US want to really fight each other so no big invasions in Canada. Lol, I even had some militia cross into BC, get captured by Canadians, and the US disavowing those militiamen because neither side wanted to escalate beyond the Virginia area (and the British breaking the blockade).
It’s a fun timeline I might post if I ever finish but it’s not realistic and I won’t argue it as such like you seem to be personally offended on someone critiquing your TL as ignoring certain real life facts to authorial fiat a result.
Your timeline may be fun and entertaining but don’t get offended if someone says you ignored some important facts (like rail logistics, naval logistics, and Canada being woefully not prepared for any war with the US in 162ish).
The US blockade of the south in real life relied on the Union Navy seizing coastal territory along the Southern coast for supply bases. And that’s with the USA right next to the CSA (obviously). I am interested to hear how Britain maintained a blockade (if you had them do one).
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The example I gave that you cling to actually made your point: namely, that to invade the United States with a guarantee of success would require an extreme situation in which the United States alienates everyone. And that it would still be a tough campaign. Something that is actually pretty unlikely to happen, be it "Trent Gets Hot" or OTL.
So essentially you're trying to disprove 90% of my arguments (based on OTL or "Trent gets hot")... resorting to an extremely specific example I did just for one specific point, which is at most 5% of the post , and in which I did not insist precisely because it was for one point, not for all.
As for "Trent heats up", the general scenario we were discussing here, the premise is precisely that Trent heats up to the point of war, so it doesn't make much sense for your main argument to be "that's just not happening."
By the way, thank you very much for making me laugh with your inference that I somehow support Great Britain
.As has been repeatedly pointed out, the problem with the "other powers will want to take advantage of Britain's distraction" argument... no, they won't.
Not because British diplomacy is superior or American diplomacy is run by idiots or "because economics", but because they are on to other things.
In reference to the Total War thing, pointing out that no one is treating it as a total war except you who keep harping on how "no one would want to go to Total War over such a dumb argument" despite essentially all descriptions about "Trent gets hot" were based on a limited war aimed at punishing America. MAYBE a border adjustement. NOT conquering the whole fucking continent.
(OP asked about "successfully invading the United States", not "conquering the United States").
Ehm, what exactly is Britain taking from India to attack America? Are they going to deploy the British Indian Army in America? I don't believe it.
India will provide supplies and volunteers, but the idea that they are going to completely strip India down for an all out war of total conquest against the United States as you seem to expect is absurd.
Especially if one considers that the Indian rebellion was crushed without the need to mobilize resources from other parts of the Empire.
By the way, since I remembered it and you mentioned it: nobody is going to give a damn if America sees it as a national tragedy or an existential threat to have a piece of land taken from them; for the rest of the planet that is the norm, and they will see no reason to adapt to what they will look like Americans by being stupid and thinking themselves special (Alsace-Lorraine had not happened yet, and the rest of the neighbors did not like Germany either, for which alleging "but France did that too" will not fly in this context).
Again, you're still clinging to an unrelated example, and your deliberate resort to trying to mix things up (especially since "Britain invades America" is from "Trent Gets Hot", not anything I said) sounds like you have no arguments on the Canadian issue so you resort to trying to confuse others.
Your attempts to justify why Canada will align with the United States are exactly the reasons why I say they won't: You have a population that resides in one country because they have fled from the next country.
The country next door, the United States, considers that these people are the greatest of garbage and deserve no other fate than slavery, torture and death. In fact, it is fleeing from that fate that these people have come to Canada. That country has tried to invade Canada twice for "reasons" like "because I can" and "I want your land."
This very aggressive neighbor has decided also that it's a great idea to attack British ships without provocation, as well as try to invade Canada (again)...
...and I'm supposed to believe that the people of Canada will see that and decide
"hey, you know what? I'll love it when me and my descendants are slaves again, fuck the British Empire, nothing beats being an American, raise up the Stars and Stripes in every city."
About Lincoln, the point is precisely that at the moment no one will know if they were really going to keep PE or not. After all, they first tried to sell the war as a fight for territorial integrity, and then changed it to a fight for the abolition of slavery. The South also said that the war was not about slavery. Both sides of American politicians looks like liars. Also, people lies in wars.
You assume that the people of Canada would decide to trust the rulers of the country they fled from in the first place and that it is trying to invade them a third time, which is extremely dubious at best.
EDIT: Oh it looks like you thought the proposal for "Trent gets hot" was mine. No, it is not.
Actually mine was so different that I only mentioned the US part to stress that ridiculously stacked conditions against the US are required for an invasion to succeed.
It's funny how somehow a statement meant to highlight how HARD it would be to invade the United States has somehow been read as an argument about how easy it would be.
(Essentially you need a coalition that includes Asian Powers, European Powers, all borders with enemies, and US diplomacy being so ridiculously bad that they literally only have enemies. And not in 1862. But yes, that is an allegate about "how easy is to invade USA" /s)
Someone just mentioned "Trent gets hot" and I kept posting about that because it was the hot topic and I couldn't think of a better POD either (and one that didn't depend on at least 100 years of cumulative prior divergence).
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You’re shifting the goalposts on the posts you’ve made.
I don’t think it would go to war but I said if it did I think it’s a limited naval action.
The OP asked the last time the US can be invaded. That is 1861-65 during the Civil War. Britain “could” invade but it won’t. That point was made to fulfill the OP ask.
By the way, thank you very much for making me laugh with your inference that I somehow support Great Britain
Never said that. Making excuses for Britain is not support. People make up shit about Nazis winning WWII or the Soviets the Cold War that doesn’t make them Nazis or Commies.
An absolute you can’t argue for. During this time period Britain was engaged with other powers around the world in various power plays. To say in a total war no one does anything is unrealistic.
Hell, it’s doubtful the Europeans would’ve invaded Mexico during this period of the US wasn’t in a civil war. … when countries are weakened or distracted their rivals take note and act.
I never said they’re going to conquer America. That’s a made up argument.
I said the propaganda would paint it as such. There is no way Britain is marching from Toronto to burn DC. That does not mean US propagandists won’t gin up nationalist fervor by claiming as such….
Hell, look at the idiots who think China could invade the USA in 2023. They can’t invade Taiwan let alone the USA. But there are plenty of people ginning up support for expanding the US military because of the unrealistic threat from China. Threats don’t have to be real for propaganda. 30 years later the USS Maine… total fiction in regards to how it blew up… didn’t stop propagandists.
That is a vague ask. Mexico could “successfully invade the US” for a day with 50 troops and then withdraw.
Ships. Their own troops. Money. The merchant marine necessary to support this invasion means less trade within the empire and less money.
Never said that. I said they’d need to take resources from India to support this war and weaken their position. Never did I say they strip India nor did I imply it.
I don’t think Europeans will care either about the US losing some land in a “border adjustment by force.” Where did i say that?
There is no confusion with Canada. The confusion seems to be coming from ppl who think Canada is remotely prepared for an invasion or capable of supporting an invasion. It’s not in either case.
On the chance America did invade Canada (specifically lower Canada is probably the best targét, doesn’t stand a chance). Not that the US will invade. I’m only saying if it did. It becomes a game of where Britain can position its troops and who can cobble an invasion force or defense force fast enough… then redeploy them. Unless the Canadian rail network can do that it’s in the US favor here.
I don’t think Canada will align with the US.
I said in a very unlikely scenario maybe… maybe… Canada would declare independence so it does not face a ruinous war for Britain’s pride. That’s not an alliance with America.
50 years ago. If you get to gin up 1812 for why Canadians would be cool with this war I get to use the 1812 period where Britain was kidnapping thousands of US sailors as part of my argument why Britain’s casua belli is weak over Trent and would lose the diplomatic argument.
One ship. No casualties.
there were no slave states admitted to the Union north of the magical line.
Why is there reason to believe Lincoln would rescind the EP?
The civil war was initially about unity but as the war evolved to became about slavery. Plenty of people, famous people, remarked how it was a war over slavery.
As the CW raged it became clear keeping the institution was not tenable. Lincoln thought maybe it was before the start of the war but not as it continued. Him lamenting that he’d keep slavery to save the Union changed as it went on. By the time the EP came about the slavery moralistic argument was becoming popular.
Yeah the north was racist as fuck, it doesn’t mean they were going to just say fuck it and bring back slavery. Abolitionism was fierce in the northern states. Remember Bleeding Kansas? The fights out west? Many of those people came from the mid Atlantic and north east states to fight against slavery.
Politics had shifted. Slavery was going to end once the CW started.
If you’re referencing people who fled as being slaves… slaves fled to Canada because it was safe there. No Dredd Scott. If OTL there was no Dredd Scott I would bet most runaway slaves would’ve just settled someone in New England or around the Great Lakes and not Canada.
Exactly - @JohnnyFive has missed that unlike the 1770s, neither France, nor Spain had a revenge-boner for Britain anymore.
Prussia didn’t have abandonment anger, and had its own, continental, wars to fight. The Dutch and Danes just weren’t a power anymore. People/countries *with* a hate-boner for Britain, like Russia, Chinese, some Indians, some Irishmen, had been there, done that, got beat, got bankrupt recently, didn’t do power projection or didn’t have a state with an army or navy.
As preposterous as you may find it, what the European powers were doing from 1861-65 was already what they wanted to be doing, regardless of Britain's interest in North America. That's not just convenience, its historical fact.
Realistically, the Trent affair is that last and worst possible point of divergence. Britain said they intended to go to war if events were not settled to their satisfaction, and they carried out a partial mobilization because they believed (incorrectly as it happens) that the US was going to lose the civil war and so to save face they would turn around and invade Canada to "make up for" the loss of the Southern states.
Completely untrue, but the British did not know the new American president, but they knew his Secretary of State liked to make proclamations about invading Canada. In sheer historic irony said Secretary of State (William Seward) was the one who pushed the hardest to give in to British demands while trying to save face. He was well aware of the potential disaster a war with Britain would entail while engaged in a civil war simultaneously.
That would be true had the three powers, Spain, France and England, not signed the Convention of London in October while readying forces to move to Mexico across November and December 1861, with Spain occupying Veracruz in December and British and French forces landing at the start of January. France stood to make a lot of money and influence from doing so, and with Britain distracted, he has even more of a free hand to muck about than OTL.
Well Bismarck only gains control of the Prussian Parliament in September 1862, then across 1863 he is helping Von Roon push through the military reforms that had caused the gridlock to the Parliament in the first place, and then conveniently for our purposes in 1863 the Danish king dies and his successor is forced to sign a document saying that Schleswig was part of Denmark, which had long been disputed. Cue the road to the Second Schleswig Holstein War which ties up the German Confederation from February to October 1864.
You have to posit at least a few other things for this war not to happen.
The Polish uprising was kicked off by the effort to enforce conscription on Poland, precisely what would be needed to make some big military expansion for the Russians to do something besides what they were already doing in Central Asia. There's really nothing the Russians could do between 1860 and 1870 that they weren't already doing historically. It took them that long to reform the systems which had let them down so miserably in the Crimean War.
No, but I've looked into the period quite extensively and there's not a whole lot that can happen between 1861-65 that could be considered in Britain's worst interest. Indeed in Wrapped in Flames, I imagined the Tsar trying to make diplomatic overtures to other powers to avoid the diplomatic isolation he suffered in the Crimean War. He tells the King of Sweden that he has no objections to the Swedes flexing their muscles in the Baltic so long as it doesn't hurt Russia, which leads Sweden to intervene for Denmark in the Second Schleswig Holstein War turning parts of the North Sea into a battleground. Haven't written the whole war yet, but it really ticks the Brits off because it disrupts the Baltic trade.
You've sort of hit the nail on the head why Lincoln had a bit of a thorny problem with the Trent affair OTL. If he went ahead he was basically saying that "well actually we can kidnap someone off the deck of a British ship because Britain did it before 1812" which was pointed out to him would not only neuter any potential goodwill from neutral powers, but make his administration look hopelessly hypocritical. However, the initial problem was the capture of the two traitors was so wildly popular that he had to think really hard about releasing them. However, the other issue is he was implicitly threatening the right of neutral ships to travel - the whole incident happened because the Trent was detained while on the open sea, not while trying to run the blockade. That was a very big deal because the British global sea power was extremely important to their empire and image, any power which looked like it might be trying to mess with that had to face severe consequences because Britain's empire depended not just on her actual power at sea, but the image that no one could mess with them.
That had been celebrated and trumpeted by the British press since Trafalgar, and the public would be (and during the Trent affair, were) incensed at an "insult to the British flag" because there was at least an understanding that British prosperity depended on that flag being respected. From all I can find the British people were incensed because, from their perspective, the United States was trying to drag them into the war. Not what was actually happening, but that was the perspective at the time.
While in the 21st century we kinda understand that just an "insult to the flag" is a silly reason for war, not so in the 19th sadly as the later madness of the 20th century can attest.
Given five months between the decision to call out the militia to mobilize and the opening of the campaign season in May 1862, the Canadian militia would be no worse than most of the American Volunteers at the same time. Indeed in the only largely Canadian Volunteer vs American Volunteer battle I depict in Wrapped in Flames (for simplicity I'll shorten it to WiF from now on) the American troops kick the Canadians teeth in. The Canadians only even the odds on the defensive.
While some of the forts were in disrepair and in no condition to hold off opponents, the ones that could be - and were - rapidly reassembled and garrisoned were all at strategic points, Fort Lennox, Fort Wellington, and For Henry were all able to mount heavy guns and support garrisons. While it seems convenient, these were the ones the British would bare minimum need to hang on to in order to hold Kingston in Canada West and the lines south of Montreal in Canada East.
This is more than can be said for the American fortifications which do not exist. No shade to the Americans, but they simply weren't a priority historically! The strategically important Fort Montgomery was not even complete.
The British army in 1861 numbered 239,000 men - exclusive of local troops, former East India company troops, and auxiliaries like the West Indies troops and militia in the UK, Canada, or other colonies. I posited that roughly 60 battalions could be freed up to fight in North America initially in 1862 to support the Canadian militia. Yes that means taking most of the troops from the UK and the Mediterranean, but they'd already done that twice before in the Crimean War and then the Indian Mutiny. They'd still have roughly 150,000 troops around the world at other duties, but could fill in the defences of the UK and the Med with militia from home like during the aforementioned crises.
It is not as extensive as most people believe in the north:
As you can see, it is in fact very extensive in New England, but in the fighting near Canada? Only two rail lines to to Canada East (modern Quebec) and can be attacked/cut by the British at their leisure. Trains to go Portland, true, but they do not go to the New Brunswick - Maine border, which means Britain has the initial advantage of being able to strike and secure their overland routes into Canada at the outbreak of war, which they planned on doing - I describe it in WiF.
This isn't the best map, but its what I can dig up on short notice without access to my proper files.
This is not a "like with like" scenario. In my own TL I have posited for 12 divisions (roughly 120,000 men, irrespective of state troops raised to defend points) that are moved to attack Canada and defend New England. Four of those go to invade Canada West (modern Ontario) while another four are organized into the Army of the Hudson which takes the traditional invasion route up the Richelieu River towards Montreal. They run into a British army of - initially - 25,000 and get clobbered because they're attacking a better armed and more professional force on the defensive.
There's just not a lot of room to maneuver in Canada because you're constricted by the geography.
I've thought about that, and while the British did plan to attack Portland Maine, and the US could free up troops to fight such an attack, the fortifications of Portland were so poor and the city so vulnerable to the Royal Navy that a siege would be over in a few months, sealing up the rest of Maine and cutting it off from the rest of the US.
The kind of movements you're positing tended to take weeks. The shifting of soldiers to the north in the way I've described, plus provisions, ammunition, ect, would take months, which means nobody is starting to fight beyond raids and small attacks until spring 1862. The US could move the forces I've described, but it would take time.
I looked for proof of the "King Wheat" hypothesis that the loss of US grain would cause wheat prices to explode, but frankly I could not find it. It is not mentioned by British sources themselves, but in the economic data, the US does not even supply the lions share of wheat exports to the UK that make up only a quarter of all food consumed in the UK. Prices would go up, but not prohibitively.
The British did plan to seize the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket as supply depots to coal their ships, and if/when Portland Maine falls to a British invasion force, that becomes another northern port to take on supplies and fix their ships. There's also Block Island in the New York harbor which could be used.
On Lake Erie from day one, yes there's no question the US controls it. Lake Ontario is a different story. Thanks to the fact that the northern arsenals had been virtually emptied to support the blockade of the South. Five of six revenue cutters on the lakes were sailed up the St. Lawrence River in late 1861 to use them as blockade boats, and the US did not have any naval ships (unlike on Lake Erie) with which to build a new squadron and must do so from scratch.
The Canadians and the British on the other hand, not quite. The Canadians had known that Lake Ontario would be a battlefield, and at least five militia naval companies were established in 1862 to crew converted gunboats to defend the lakes. The British could also sail gunboats up the Saint Lawrence River to support a squadron on Lake Ontario, while having guns and munitions in the Stone Frigate at Kingston which could rapidly arm a squadron converted over the winter of 1861-62.
The US could extemporize its own squadron, but with much less haste than the British. The one advantage is they can probably float ironclads on Lake Ontario at least a month or two before Britain and float some.
Potentially, but I would be cautious in assuming so as over the course of the entire civil war from 1861-65 the US Navy built a grand total of 24 coastal ironclads*. If they'd stuck with the Monitor design because they were forced to then they could probably build more than historically, but those took 90-100 days to build, and would not be available in numbers until at least June/July of 1862.
*I'm not counting riverine ironclads here, that would be a separate issue and one I address more thoroughly in WiF.
Potentially. The Confederacy can now source ships and guns directly from Britain which would probably have a dramatic effect on the war on the Mississippi River. With New Orleans still in Confederate hands in 1862 that can make a huge difference in the war out West.
While important, it would be stuck on its own resources for military support. Those resources were not huge, and no further supplies and troops could - or would - be sent on the six month overland journey to California. San Francisco could see to its own defence, but an expedition (which in WiF takes over a year to plan and mount) by a superior British fleet with a land force would be able to land and take possession of the city.
Its defences weren't great, the vast San Francisco Bay is vulnerable to a British fleet, and the city can be "bottled up" by a landward siege in 1860.
That's probably a worst case scenario actually. Stalemate is what the US needs to avoid at all costs. In Virginia its bearable, but in Canada its not ideal. The more men that have to be fed into Canada/New England the worse things get as that's less men to fight out West or in Virginia, potentially giving the Confederacy the chance to reconquer lost territory.
Worse, the blockade will slowly strangle the Union economy like the US blockade of the Confederacy did, causing terrible economic damage.
Yes, and no. The forts around Washington were extensive in 1862, but not as extensive and impressive as they would be in 1864. They would not even grow as much as they might want because guns and men which could man them now have to be sent to places like Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Portland to protect against a potential British threat.
More to the point, the Confederacy could now assemble over 120,000 men in Virginia who were either tied up in the Carolinas, Florida or Georgia who were otherwise guarding against the Union blockade. They can now take the fight to the US which means there are only so many troops you can detach from the Washington/Baltimore defences to fight in New England and Canada without fatally weakening the US capital.
Worse, some sort of US offensive has to take place in 1862 less the Army of Northern Virginia entrench itself at Centreville, barely 30 miles south of Washington, which presents a real and present danger to the capital. General McClellan must drive the enemy back to make the now very vulnerable capital secure.
Mitry the Anglophile x3By the way, thank you very much for making me laugh with your inference that I somehow support Great Britain
I didn’t miss any of that at all if you read what I wrote and not what you want to read.
I even addressed French detente with Britain and how they were friendly by saying yeah, just like the US and Britain were on friendly terms in this period despite Trent.
Where did I say anything about Danes or Spain or whatever?
I said nations would take advantage of the situation. That does not mean they go to war with Britain.
Russia and Britain never went to war during their Great Game phase. But if ya think Russia won’t take advantage in the central Asian region as the British are engaged in a (possibly big) war in America…. Whatcha smoking?
The number of people upset over “how dare someone not support Rule, Britannia!” is incredible here. Is it a requirement to just assume Britain rules everything in this period with no road bumps and no one except the USA and Britain are allowed to act differently?
For people obsessed with alt history the staggering devotion to historical orthodoxy in the assumption the only changes are in the USA with no butterflies is perplexing.
@EnglishCanuck
I’m going to have to say I’m not following half of your response because… are you talking about this Trent scenario here in this thread or are we now debating the feasibility of your timeline?
It seems like it’s all being muddled together. (I did that too but it has gotten a bit out of hand IMO)
That's fair. I keep referencing my timeline because after 6+ years of research and writing it's broadly how I answer these questions since its about as reasonable an explanation as to how I think a war between Britain and the US in 1862 would look/go. Essentially, having researched a lot, I can make some (IMO) reasonable speculation as to what would happen at first in such a war based on everything as it was in 1861-62 historically.
It's hard to cram so much research into broad questions, so I do invite you to read Wrapped in Flames and judge for yourself if it answers any of your questions or if you find it unbelievable as to why I think this is the last/worst time for any successful invasion of the US if you are so inclined.
I can cheerfully answer any questions about this period and why I think 1861-62 is the last time any successful invasion of the US could take place too.
If you have figures to suggest US commerce raiders or the like might be devastating for Britain's economy, I'd love to see them - but if you're going to claim that any argument that Britain can face the economic impact of a war with the US or its rivals all be involved in other things is "but magic!" it doesn't look like there's much room for discussion on anyone invading the US after the American Revolution.
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It is certain that there will be some kind of damage from the American raiders. It is highly doubtful that they will devastate British trade to the extent that they can ruin the British economy to the point where they sue for peace. Let us remember that this did not happen even with the much more sophisticated blockades that were strung up in both world wars, where the blocked side continued to fight even if their trade was taking far more damage than the United States could presumably deliver here.
So if going back to the Civil War I'd say this is reasonably easy, the US is relatively weak, it's divided, and it's not got that much of a web of alliances
But looking at the OP the absolute latest, with the pod date before 1900, I suspect you could manage a pod of the early 1890s, with an invasion somewhere around 1910.
The trick isn't necessarily to make other countries more powerful but instead make the US a lot weaker. Plus give other powers of reason to intervene.
The US already had a very nasty recession in the early 1890s, and I believe one of its most active periods of class conflict/trade union activism, so let's start by dialling that up to 11 there's a lot of bad luck with some of the least competent people possible ending up in different political roles, a lot of escalation between union leaders and employers/the government (not hard when you've already got many small pods of worse leaders), and US politics increasingly gets less stable and more radical).
Ideally have this coupled with increased hostility/racial tensions in the South I don't know enough about Southern politics to know how to do this but when you're already making the nation much more unstable and there are pre-existing tensions (and the civil war wasn't that long ago) feels like it should be possible, ideally to the point where you've got a borderline insurgency (or insurgencies) in the south.
This also makes the US a less attractive place to immigrate to (people increasingly associating it with cities on fire from riots), so you see Canada and Mexico get a bit of a boost (this doesn't matter much but every little helps).
Come the early 1900s, the US is not in a stable place and ends up with some species of radical government in charge (probably easiest to go with some sort of Communist-esque one given how the rest of the world sees things), and ends up on the losing side of the world one analogue (my guess would be if this is a leftist militant US joins whatever side the British aren't on to try and liberate Canada and is then surprised Canada doesn't particularly want to be liberated given the reputation of the USA ALT). Ideally in this scenario both Mexico and Canada are on the opposing side to the US (quite possible if the US has had a marked decline in this period and we are talking about a wider network of alliances) many even if the US is able to push and quite a lot of it surrounding territory at first there's a lot of land for other powers to slowly build up their forces in before pushing into the continental US proper.
Also if you want a later date for the actual invasion you can of course just spiral the self-destructive cycle for a bit longer so the above scenario could work just as well with say the 30s or 40s just give the US more time to wreck itself internally (although even a crippled US without heavy Balkanisation feels like a big enough player it could develop its own nuclear arsenal so I'm guessing by the 50s or 60s you're running out of rope for this plan as at that point even this heavily reduced US could threaten its neighbours with MAD to stop a full on successful invasion of the continental United States).
In this scenario you probably see the American theatre end with a successful occupation of at least the southern border states (easy to push through from Mexico), and the important parts of the West Coast (you can grab New England New York and Washington with Naval support relatively easily), followed by the establishment of new government and some sort of somewhat negotiated surrender (so more Germany after World War I than Germany after World War II) but that still seems to fulfil the op
But looking at the OP the absolute latest, with the pod date before 1900, I suspect you could manage a pod of the early 1890s, with an invasion somewhere around 1910.
The trick isn't necessarily to make other countries more powerful but instead make the US a lot weaker. Plus give other powers of reason to intervene.
The US already had a very nasty recession in the early 1890s, and I believe one of its most active periods of class conflict/trade union activism, so let's start by dialling that up to 11 there's a lot of bad luck with some of the least competent people possible ending up in different political roles, a lot of escalation between union leaders and employers/the government (not hard when you've already got many small pods of worse leaders), and US politics increasingly gets less stable and more radical).
Ideally have this coupled with increased hostility/racial tensions in the South I don't know enough about Southern politics to know how to do this but when you're already making the nation much more unstable and there are pre-existing tensions (and the civil war wasn't that long ago) feels like it should be possible, ideally to the point where you've got a borderline insurgency (or insurgencies) in the south.
This also makes the US a less attractive place to immigrate to (people increasingly associating it with cities on fire from riots), so you see Canada and Mexico get a bit of a boost (this doesn't matter much but every little helps).
Come the early 1900s, the US is not in a stable place and ends up with some species of radical government in charge (probably easiest to go with some sort of Communist-esque one given how the rest of the world sees things), and ends up on the losing side of the world one analogue (my guess would be if this is a leftist militant US joins whatever side the British aren't on to try and liberate Canada and is then surprised Canada doesn't particularly want to be liberated given the reputation of the USA ALT). Ideally in this scenario both Mexico and Canada are on the opposing side to the US (quite possible if the US has had a marked decline in this period and we are talking about a wider network of alliances) many even if the US is able to push and quite a lot of it surrounding territory at first there's a lot of land for other powers to slowly build up their forces in before pushing into the continental US proper.
Also if you want a later date for the actual invasion you can of course just spiral the self-destructive cycle for a bit longer so the above scenario could work just as well with say the 30s or 40s just give the US more time to wreck itself internally (although even a crippled US without heavy Balkanisation feels like a big enough player it could develop its own nuclear arsenal so I'm guessing by the 50s or 60s you're running out of rope for this plan as at that point even this heavily reduced US could threaten its neighbours with MAD to stop a full on successful invasion of the continental United States).
In this scenario you probably see the American theatre end with a successful occupation of at least the southern border states (easy to push through from Mexico), and the important parts of the West Coast (you can grab New England New York and Washington with Naval support relatively easily), followed by the establishment of new government and some sort of somewhat negotiated surrender (so more Germany after World War I than Germany after World War II) but that still seems to fulfil the op
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unprincipled peter
Donor
In the spirit of minimizing the USA, POD could be the Civil War results in independent South. Maybe McClellan slips in the bath tub and dies before training up the army and/or the North gets too aggressive early and has a bad loss. Or, a foreign power helps out. Or, Lincoln slips in the bath tub early. Or, the quartermaster who was instrumental in getting resources around for the North. Bottom line, CW ends with two countries.
In a second bout between the two, the South successfully invades into the North.
In a second bout between the two, the South successfully invades into the North.
So in your words by MAGIC!!!
So to be clear you are Magic-ing away the Homeport of the Royal Navy's North America and West Indies Station?