What if european countries helped the CSA?

(If I were the British, by the way, I would seriously consider attacking and seizing Hilton Head/Port Royal. That would have put a major crimp in Union operations along the Confederacy's Atlantic coast and given the British a potential local base to boot, one that they would not have to expend major effort to defend on the land side.)
 
Mark you got that nearly 100% right i think, which is why Farragut has to be defeated or contained very quickly, giving the RN a base ( New Orleans). Milne was also tasked with providing assistance to the CSN to complete the ironclads there.
If he can do those two things he can then concentrate bringing to battle and taking out the rest of the USN's major units.
Britain also needs to ensure that the South retains control of the Mississippi. Apart from sending the re-fitted Crimean gunboats it is not clear how that was to be achieved.
 
Seems like there are two issues:

Under what circumstances would the British or French intervene?

What form would that intervention take?

During the American Revolution, the French intervened decisively on our side. Their motivation was taking another swing at their British enemies: European politics. In 1860, that motivation didn't exist. Without some serious interest at stake, what motivation did the British or French have to expend men, ships and money? None really. Different segments of British society might prefer different sides of the Civil War, but that preference wasn't an interest. Short of an egregious blunder that the United States didn't make, I don't see why they would intervene.
 
What form would such an intervention take?

I think the assumption is mostly naval, breaking the blockade, and/or blockading northern ports. The British have one glaring weak spot: any move against the United States could trigger a Union invasion of Canada. While the British and Canadians have a good track record in defending themselves against the US, the British would always have to worry about that.
 
I would imagine it would have had to be a very fast Naval action, although a quick campaign to capture D.C. or N.Y. could be attractive. The British navy coming up the Potomac or the Hudson transporting a large land force could throw the Union for a loop, although, it would be dicey if the Washington defenses held on long enough.

It would be easier, IMO, for the U.S. to take say, Toronto, than for the Brits to take a major U.S. city. Toronto taken would essentially cut the western half of Canada off from the maritime. I don't really see a city that the British could take that would do the same, except maybe Chicago, and thats a big maybe.
 
What form would such an intervention take?

I think the assumption is mostly naval, breaking the blockade, and/or blockading northern ports. The British have one glaring weak spot: any move against the United States could trigger a Union invasion of Canada. While the British and Canadians have a good track record in defending themselves against the US, the British would always have to worry about that.

Britain also import a lot of Wheat from the US. That would have to be replaced. Then there is the economic dislocation from the loss of US markets.
 
Britain also import a lot of Wheat from the US. That would have to be replaced. Then there is the economic dislocation from the loss of US markets.
The Brits could intervene simply by not buying Northern wheat and other products. But, this would hurt the British more than the U.S.
 
The Brits could intervene simply by not buying Northern wheat and other products. But, this would hurt the British more than the U.S.
Good points.

War is not fought just because, but is an extension of politics. It has to be something real important before the Brits go to war.
 
... During the American Revolution, the French intervened decisively on our side ...

"Decisively" is well said (thank-you for honesty, Matt). It may be hard for 21st Century America to accept the enormous debt owed France (ala "The Demise of AMERICAN History"). French monarchs bankrupted their economy in a successful effort to intervene in the American Revolution; yet within the decade they lost Canada to the British, and the French Revolution at home was a result. By helping America break free from Britain, they unwittingly lost a centuries' old aristocracy. They were a true super power, put their money where their mouth was (it should be honored). That's why I hate to hear Americans slag France (almost a national pastime these days).

Ballsy Frenchmen helped win the Revolutionary War, they sold the center of the continent for a song, they gifted the Statue of Liberty in good faith, and joined akin with an American quest for freedom, equality, despite social status, or even then, race. Though some can't accept as elder more-scarred brothers, they were honorably allowed to disagree with a BS war in Iraq, or unilaterally entitled to intervene in Mali or Libya, perhaps flex ancient muscles still with spirit (true noble aspirations of social revolution), they are undeserving of the constant and merciless derision by American press. Nothing like slandering the men who took your side in an alley (bunch of freedom-fry-loving-frogger-fairies ~ how soon they forget).

Unfortunately for the Confederacy, other monarchs learned from the French experience (nobody wants to be guillotined), and it must necessarily have added to the reticence of European powers to become embroiled in the American Civil War ...... Just too darn dicey, both at home and abroad (who knows how it'll turn out, crazy yanks got an inclination to fight anyone :wink:). Yet that should not diminish the brotherhood a true history-loving American is obligated to feel for the French (maybe it's just me, from way up in the peanut gallery). The Quebecois drive me crazy, like a pack of liberated-country-cousins, but that's why I hold them close to my heart (and can't imagine a Canada without'em!). The French are still part of every man standing in North America. :whistling:
 
I just cannot imagine a possible reason for either European nation to go to war. Economically makes no sense. Militarily, It'll be hard to beat the Union on their own soil. Policitally, I don't think either nation could afford to get tied down or lose a foreign war.
 
I'm of the decided opinion that active foreign intervention on the Confederacy's behalf was pretty much a mirage. There was no tangible payback, and plenty of ways it could go wrong. Unless the US severely ticked off Britain (and they came close to the edge in the Trent incident), it wasn't going to happen.

After Trent, both the US and Britain realized open warfare was not in their best interests, and they both increased their diplomatic efforts. There were plenty of rough patches, but on the whole it was a workable relationship, and some authors have actually dated the early beginnings of the firm 20th-Century Anglo-American alliance to this period.

Both Britain and France would have cheerfully welcomed an invitation to mediate; but that was up to the Lincoln administration, which wasn't going to go that route. (A hypothetical McClellan administration, though, might be a topic for discussion.)
 
After Trent, both the US and Britain realized open warfare was not in their best interests, and they both increased their diplomatic efforts. There were plenty of rough patches, but on the whole it was a workable relationship, and some authors have actually dated the early beginnings of the firm 20th-Century Anglo-American alliance to this period.
Dating the Anglo-American alliance to the years of the CW is a stretch. HM government kept the U.S. Minister Charles Francis Adams at something of a distance while never really engaging the Confederate commissioners. There was already a great deal of anti-British feeling in the U.S. and the British knew it. It might be better to look at the post war resolution of the Alabama claims and the San Juan Islands boundary question as the denouement. Grant's Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Grant can wear the merit badge for that.
 
I'm of the decided opinion that active foreign intervention on the Confederacy's behalf was pretty much a mirage. There was no tangible payback, and plenty of ways it could go wrong. Unless the US severely ticked off Britain (and they came close to the edge in the Trent incident), it wasn't going to happen.

After Trent, both the US and Britain realized open warfare was not in their best interests, and they both increased their diplomatic efforts. There were plenty of rough patches, but on the whole it was a workable relationship, and some authors have actually dated the early beginnings of the firm 20th-Century Anglo-American alliance to this period.

Both Britain and France would have cheerfully welcomed an invitation to mediate; but that was up to the Lincoln administration, which wasn't going to go that route. (A hypothetical McClellan administration, though, might be a topic for discussion.)

But mediate what? The continuation of how the U.S. had been, or formal recognition of the CSA? A compromise to restore the Union would tick off the North, which had become (and still is) the economic powerhouse of the country, over-taking southern agricultural with a fast growing industrial economy. And with the CSA being recognized, would the European powers support it financially?
 
Gents, sorry but I think an element of hindsight is creeping in here. If you can you need to forget everything post Trent, and try to see the world as it was in late 1861 -early 1862.
 
Okay... let's see.

I'm Lord Palmerston, and we've just successfully resolved the Trent crisis, thanks to the Americans seeing sense and backing down from their saber-rattling. Our man in Washington, Lord Lyons, and the RN station commander, Admiral Milne, performed well during that business; glad we have them in those places.

The interests of Her Majesty are not served by getting entangled in that bloody (literally) mess on the North American continent. Her Majesty has already indicated that she wishes her subjects to observe a strict neutrality, and while the recent crisis seemed to threaten thatposition, its peaceful resolution indicates staying that course. Unless Her Majesty's North American possessions in the Caribbean, Canada, British Columbia, and the Maritime Provinces are threatened, and unless her subjects are in danger, she sees no adequate reason to alter her stance.

I feel that the long-term position of Britain would be best served by the fragmenting of the North American republic into two or more competing states, but that actively intervening in the conflict would run a substantial risk. Relations with the republic have improved since the end of that nasty business on the fringe of the war against Napoleon, and the transatlantic trade between us has been increasingly profitable. After the war is concluded, that trade will presumably continue unaffected, though with multiple trading partners, unless we materially damage our relations with one or more of the successor nations. Britain has everything to gain and little to lose by remaining on the sidelines and preparing to treat with whatever nations survive the contest; and it frees up Her Majesty's forces to keep an eye on the turbulence on the Continent.

(How's that?)
 
Nearly, but it was you (Lord Palmerston) who nearly got us in to the mess, by writing the rude missive, and Prince Albert who got to it first ! Did you know that Seward was made aware of the original content - I'd love to know who leaked it ! Had to be someone in your cabinet.
 
I just cannot imagine a possible reason for either European nation to go to war. Economically makes no sense. Militarily, It'll be hard to beat the Union on their own soil. Policitally, I don't think either nation could afford to get tied down or lose a foreign war.

Back in the 1950s, things were going badly for France in IndoChina. The US was considering intervention on the French side. President Eisenhower wanted an opinion he could trust on that mess before he stuck his foot in it, and asked for a report report back on what it would take. IIRR, that was Matthew Ridgway (commander of the 82nd Airborne and then XVIII Airborne Corps in WWII, then 8th Army in Korea, then SACEUR and Army Chief of Staff).

Ridgway produced a thorough outline. It essentially said: "It will take 500,000 troops, it might take ten years, and we might not win." Eisenhower turned to other things. It wasn't until 1963 that another President began to get us more involved there, but he had seen combat too; the commitment was small, and then he died. The next President, not a combat veteran, saw things differently and all of a sudden there we were: in Viet Nam with 500,000 troops, fighting year after year, and not-winning.

The French and the British would have loved to see the US taken down a peg. They weren't above quietly helping a little, and maybe they would have done more -- but I agree that getting involved in the Civil War with any significant forces was a very bad idea for them. Yet all it takes is a few men in the right positions with the wrong ideas, and suddenly a nation can find itself stuck to a tarball.

Tim
 
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