Getting desperate for a plausible CSA victory scenario

One thing that has to be kept in mind that for every bit that Britain is committing to the American Civil War, it has to keep in mind it's potentially greater interests in the Taiping Rebellion, where it actually is actively committed IOTL.
There are three battalions in China on 5 April 1862 (31st, 67th, 99th Regiments) so I wouldn't say "actively committed"- there were six battalions in Malta at the same time (2/3rd, 2/15th, 1/22nd, 2/22nd, 2/23rd, 4/RB). Five battalions returned from China in mid-1861 after the war was over, and most expeditions came out of the Indian establishment in the first place.

EDIT: In 1861, British imports from China were £8,932,581, and exports to China were £3,161,918. For context, imports from Egypt were £8,398,493 and exports £2,398,479.

I simply can't see England committing to a long-term blockade without a seriously good reason. Anglo-American relations would have to be shot beyond all repair to the point that a puppet CSA becomes desirable.
Trent Affair?

1) No, the states of NM, AZ and CA were not part of the CSA.
No, but the state of Texas was. So you have to ship your weapons overland all the way through Mexico (which, if it doesn't simply close its ports under French influence as EnglishCanuck suggest, is in the midst of a civil war and might be tempted to appropriate the weapons) beyond El Paso, then up through New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas to somewhere like Kansas City before you can then transfer them on to the east coast. Which is sort of what I meant by "in the way".

2) Sail around the cape. It was done all the time before the Panama Canal. That was how things usually got imported into California.
Others have ably pointed out the logistical difficulties of this route, but I'd just like to throw another angle onto it.

1) If the goods are registered as being destined for the US, they're liable to seizure. At any point on their journey to California, these ships can be boarded and searched by Royal Navy ships of the North America and West Indies Squadron, the squadron off Mexico, the squadron off the south-east coast of America, or the Pacific squadron.

2) If the goods are sent to Matamoros, they fall under the doctrine of continuous voyage as applied during the Crimean War:
The Dutch ship, Frau Howina, was captured off Cape Rocca while on a voyage from Lisbon to the neutral port of Hamburg... A hostile destination overland into Russia was inferred... there was no such local commercial demand there [Hamburg] for a further supply of that necessary ingredient of gunpowder... it appeared to the satisfaction of the court that it was destined by the owner from the first for, and was being carried to, a belligerent... It will be noted that the ship was captured before it arrived at the neutral port and the second stage of the carriage was to be either by water or land transportation. (Charles Burke Elliott, 'The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages', American Journal of International Law, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan. - Apr., 1907), p.75)

That means the ships would also be liable to seizure on any stage of the journey between the US and Mexico.

3) You're also assuming that the only problem is how to get the guns from Britain to the US. What if the British gunmakers decide they don't really want to sell weapons to a country they're at war with in the first place? Who buys these large orders of guns if the Union is blockaded and the Confederacy is unblockaded? What does a smaller, more poorly-equipped Union army mean for the Union's ability to carry the war into Confederate territory, and to defend their own? What does that mean for popular support for the war?

Incidentally, just to have the full picture, here are the statistics for the proportion of foreign weapons issued in 1862 as well as for Enfields alone. That gives a better impression of the sort of effect a successful blockade might have on the Union's ability to arm its troops, and mitigates the risk that someone will conflate British guns and all foreign guns further down the line.

New York: 57% Enfield/86% foreign
Maine: 37%/63%
New Jersey: 37.5%/75%
Massachusetts: 38.7%/53%
Wisconsin: 30%/87%
Iowa: 50%/96.9%
Ohio: 27%/86.6%

And I'll give the split between smoothbores and rifles for the domestically-produced weapons as well, including smoothbores converted to rifles in the latter category.

New York: 1% smoothbore/13% rifles
Maine: 27%/9%
New Jersey: 19%/6%
Massachusetts: 7%/39%
Wisconsin: 9%/4%
Iowa: 3.1%/0%
Ohio: 1%/12%

Because I researched these statistics, dammit, and I'm going to post them whether anybody cares or not.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
It seems churlish of me to point out that the First Transcontinental Railroad took 1863-69 to construct, so supplies on the Pacific Slope will presumably need to travel a little under two thousand miles overland from San Francisco Bay to reach the US rail network.
In wagons.
This is, to say the least, a non-ideal way to transport bulk goods like tens of thousands of rifle stand. Or powder nitrates.


It's not a complete clampdown - nothing of this sort ever is. It just means that domestic production is increasingly strained and the US is increasingly forced to make difficult allocation decisions due to scarcity.
Conversely, the CSA is less pressured and can make these decisions a little more easily. And, as such, hold out longer and be more tenacious, increasing the probability of some kind of negotiated peace.
 
None of the events of this thread can fell the Union by itself. What can wear down Union will to continue fighting a war which is progressing slower than OTL is a combination events, a death by thousand cuts.

Any comments on my idea of "no Fort Sumnter everybody sits down staring each other"?
 
None of the events of this thread can fell the Union by itself. What can wear down Union will to continue fighting a war which is progressing slower than OTL is a combination events, a death by thousand cuts.

Any comments on my idea of "no Fort Sumnter everybody sits down staring each other"?

It would be neat to see what happens with the border states in such a scenario.

Though I think that at some point, the south being the south will just attack it and get everything rolling.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
So, here's what I think, based on what's in the thread.


If you're writing something which parallels in concept the AA/N War, then you don't need to be too specific. Just make clear that some big stuff happened, the North cried uncle, and basically the CSA managed to attain the status of independent nation.
I'd say hint at a British and French intervention of some kind, and that there was a blockade, and that the Union could not carry the war to the CSA and make it stick for long enough that public opinion turned towards peace.

The meat of the TL is basically what a surviving CSA looks like, after all. No need to go into minute detail how it got that way any more than CalBear dissected the events of 1942-3.
 
then you don't need to be too specific.

I disagree. 20/25 years down the road, Germany will begin its bid for supremacy.

A Union hurt by the recognition of the Confederacy and some privateering might be still brought into Britain orbit with some concessions (e.g. the secret assurance that Britain won't go beyond verbal protests during Round 2).

A Union hurt by the recognition of the Confederacy and specific support measures like nitrates embargo will be out to get even and therefore would find a perfect match with Willy Mk2. Imagine a WWI with a coldly revanchist USA, Germany, AH and Ottomans on one side and Britain, France, Italy, an economy wrecked CSA and Russia on the other: it won't end well for the Entente.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I disagree. 20/25 years down the road, Germany will begin its bid for supremacy.

A Union hurt by the recognition of the Confederacy and some privateering might be still brought into Britain orbit with some concessions (e.g. the secret assurance that Britain won't go beyond verbal protests during Round 2).

A Union hurt by the recognition of the Confederacy and specific support measures like nitrates embargo will be out to get even and therefore would find a perfect match with Willy Mk2. Imagine a WWI with a coldly revanchist USA, Germany, AH and Ottomans on one side and Britain, France, Italy, an economy wrecked CSA and Russia on the other: it won't end well for the Entente.
In all honesty that does depend on where he's going.
It may be necessary to go into the specifics, but it is not mandatory - for example, if the CSA is to collapse in the 1890s.
 
A Union hurt by the recognition of the Confederacy and specific support measures like nitrates embargo will be out to get even and therefore would find a perfect match with Willy Mk2.
Though the ideological commitment to revenge against Britain would be working against most rational strategic calculations, as has been pointed out:

"from the US viewpoint, a US-British alliance against the Confederates would have made much more sense than a US-German alliance against the CSA, Britain, and Canada. It would have permitted the luxury of fighting a war on one front, and concentrating all effort against what would psychologically have been the main enemy --the CSA. It would have protected the industrial capacity of the US against interdiction of its critical iron ore supplies in wartime -- almost certain to be severed in a war with Canada. It would have open the gates to full access to British capital, something that Germany was in no position to replace.

Ironically, Turtledove has the Germans teach the US military proper operational analysis and logistical planning as their alliance unfolds -- but the first generation of bright young West Pointers to apply these tools would have seen the obvious solution staring them in the face. (That would have made a good short story right there -- perhaps an old German watching his US protégé gradually coming to that conclusion, and having mixed feelings of professional pride and nationalistic regret.)

Finally, in a USA-CSA rematch in 1914, the Confederates would have had powerful incentives to keep Britain and France neutral against them, as Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the British and French West Indies would have been convenient bases for a blockade of the Confederacy, and probably seaborne raids and incursions into Confederate territory. Cuba (a Confederate state in Turtledove’s universe) would have been cut off and vulnerable to invasion. Altogether, a USA-British alliance against the Confederates would have made so much sense to both Yankees and Brits that it is hard to see Britain clinging to a costly and vulnerable alliance with Richmond."


In the interest of the narrative, it's certainly possible to skew a relatively mild British involvement into Union revanchism as Turtledove did. However, given the overall strategic considerations highlighted above, it's equally possible to skew a relatively harsh involvement into a grudging Rapallo-style accommodation that may warm into something more meaningful.
 
The confederacy's best bet is to seceede earlier in Buchanans term, say shortly after the mid terms. Plenty of more time to make seccession fait accompli, when a Republican takes office in 1861.
 
It would probably take a closer defeat in 1856 for the Republicans, as well as them taking the House in 1858. Dont think the Senate is possible.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The problem that to have "anything" like the US circa-1860

So I've had an idea in the back of my head for several years now to do onto Confederate wank what The Anglo/American-Nazi War does onto Nazi wank, but I have a problem: there doesn't appear to be any plausible way for the CSA to win the Civil War, and I'm not willing to simply present it as a fait accompli. I bring it up from time to time on this board, generally about once or twice a year, and try to be as open-ended as possible, but, well, nothing really comes of it.

So let's get even more open-ended. The only rules are: (1) that a state recognizable as the CSA (that is, covering roughly the same territory, possessing the same political, economic, demographic, etc. realities that the CSA would have possessed, and preferably calling itself the CSA) must succeed from a state recognizable as the Union (same definition); (2) divine intervention can't be the only possible explanation for the Confederacy's blinding luck (and actively courting luck should probably also be kept to a minimum); and (3) at no point does anyone drink enough lead paint for Sealion to start sounding like a good idea to them.

Use as many PODs as you want, spread apart by however much time and space as you need: Replace Lincoln with a jibbering idiot? Fine. Get Grant ran over by a carriage as a child? Fine. Fuck with European politics to the point where it's actually plausible that one of the great powers would want to get involved on the side of the Confederacy? Fine. Do all of the above because not a single one of them is enough on its own to secure a Confederate victory/keep the war from happening (with the possible exception of that last one)? Fine.

I mean, keeping this bullshit to a minimum would be preferable, but if it takes twenty seven PODs over the previous three hundred years in order to make a Confederate victory plausible, so be it.

The problem that to have "anything" like the US circa-1860, you can't really go for "27 PODs over the previous 300 years"...

Without Lincoln's election in 1860 - or at least a Republican/Freesoil/Liberty party candidate of some type or another - there's no secession winter, so no CSA.

But, if you let Fort Sumter happen, it means war, and the rebellion will lose...

So - here's a possibility: a "lesser" rebellion.

Lincoln is elected in 1860, and takes office as historically in 1861; South Carolina secedes in December, 1860, and the next six follow:

Mississippi: January 9, 1861
Florida: January 10, 1861
Alabama: January 11, 1861
Georgia: January 19, 1861
Louisiana: January 26, 1861
Texas: February 1, 1861

But this predates Sumter; Davis is chosen as president and sworn in February 18, 1861; after consulting the cabinet, he orders Beauregard not to resist the US resupply effort in Charleston. The garrison of Fort Sumter is resupplied and anothwer 200 troops are added, but no shots are fired. Similar situation at Forts Pickens and Taylor; Key West also remains US territory.

So, without the spark at Charleston, there is not a shooting war, and the US does not mobilize. The Upper South states stay in the Union; the lower South states are not recognized as independent by the Europeans, but the situation remains tense...

However, remember, it is 1861-62; the French have invaded Mexico... so, posit "something" that gets the US involved on the behalf of Mexico against the French, and the rebels hunkering down and remaining neutral, and it is - remotely - possible the Lower South becomes an independent confederacy sometime in 1862-63.

So, you get a confederacy - although absent North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas - and the US, and without a conflict.

That's about the simplest path forward I can see for your desired end result.

Best,
 
So, here's what I think, based on what's in the thread.


If you're writing something which parallels in concept the AA/N War, then you don't need to be too specific. Just make clear that some big stuff happened, the North cried uncle, and basically the CSA managed to attain the status of independent nation.
I'd say hint at a British and French intervention of some kind, and that there was a blockade, and that the Union could not carry the war to the CSA and make it stick for long enough that public opinion turned towards peace.

The meat of the TL is basically what a surviving CSA looks like, after all. No need to go into minute detail how it got that way any more than CalBear dissected the events of 1942-3.
In nonpolitical chat there was a discussion as to the Logan's Run Problem, which is basically "I accepted the ridiculous premise of this story until you explained it." The same applies here. A CSA victory is incredibly implausible, so going specific leaves the TL open to criticism that breaks the TL.
 
I agree with whoever said that their best bet is simply not to go to war. Call up local militias, yes. Begin preparing for it, but don't strike the first blow. Try to make it a legal issue. Stall for time. If you're de-facto independent long enough, it'll slowly become a reality. A negotiated end to the war before it begins is probably the Confederacy's best hope.

That was me. I stand by it.

The Confederacy didn't have the strength to launch a knockout blow in the beginning. And there's no way to win a war of attrition. It was a pretty messed up and repulsive society, so its not like it was going to ride a wave of international support.

The Confederacy's best bet was passive aggression. Declare independence. Leave the federal institutions and facilities in place. Throw lawyers at them by the cartload.

It's the only workable solution. But it's ignored because it's not 'epic' enough.
 
That was me. I stand by it.

The Confederacy didn't have the strength to launch a knockout blow in the beginning. And there's no way to win a war of attrition. It was a pretty messed up and repulsive society, so its not like it was going to ride a wave of international support.

The Confederacy's best bet was passive aggression. Declare independence. Leave the federal institutions and facilities in place. Throw lawyers at them by the cartload.

It's the only workable solution. But it's ignored because it's not 'epic' enough.

I agree that it's a great POD to work with, but I just think that the south is so belligerent that it won't last.
 
I Think the problem with having Britain and France weigh in on the side of the Confederacy is that they both at this Point had embraced the anit-slavery rhetoric as a tool to justify Imperialism. So siding with the Confederacy that's all about slavery would hurt the image they were building, and is thus a big no-no.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I Think the problem with having Britain and France weigh in on the side of the Confederacy is that they both at this Point had embraced the anit-slavery rhetoric as a tool to justify Imperialism. So siding with the Confederacy that's all about slavery would hurt the image they were building, and is thus a big no-no.

...except that we mainly know the Confederacy was founded on slavery with hindsight. They were quite good at talking the talk about being pro-Freedom and anti-Tariff, and the Union did not even promulgate the Emancipation Proclamation until a couple of years into the war. (This is incidentally the point at which British-French intervention becomes much less likely.) Before that it's two slave-owning nations at war.

Besides, the British and French had both helped the Ottomans in Crimea, and the Ottomans did not ban slavery entirely until the 20th century.
 
I agree that it's a great POD to work with, but I just think that the south is so belligerent that it won't last.

Also because it is the only way to be successful from a 20/20 hindsight way of looking at it with almost all the data. The Soith obviously have none of this and are not going to take this route because they think they can win a war against the North.
 
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