England Supported the Confederacy?

The British presumed to intervene anywhere they pleased - that is arrogance. What was the British national interest in the Russian Civil War? The Boxer Rebellion? The Opium Wars?
I guess it depends on which Russian civil war you are referring to, let’s not forget the USA also stepped in, same with the boxer rebellion. Opium wars, well let’s be honest that was about opium. I don’t think arrogance is correct, it was Britain stepping in to protect its best interests, nobody objected when Britain used its arrogance to defend its allies during WW1 and WW2. Europe is a funny old place, troubles in one country can have a knock on effect, I guess you could argue that we Brits took it upon ourselves to police various parts of the world especially those that we had an interest in but there’s a new kid on the block if you get my drift.
 
International norms changed between the mid-19th century and the late 20th. So did the diplomatic status of the UK and the USA.

I'm also unaware of the UK having called the IRA thing an act of war on the part of the US? As far as I'm aware the main argument the UK had for the USA was "you've got to stop this" and the US did indeed follow up on leads to stop this.



Since the result would have been curtailed CS commerce raiding (not no commerce raiding, the Confederate commerce raiders which did so well were highly effective sailers and could keep the sea for weeks to months at a time) and a highly ineffective blockade, I'd say that would be a net Confederate benefit and not a small one.
I will concede the point about the raiders. Intresting that the Union Navy required British coaling stations when there were plenty of Union naval bases along tbe Southern coast.
My point is the American's could of the told the British that any arms sales to the IRA involve private firms or citizens and therefore were none of the federal government's business.
The British most definitely changed their tune when the shoe was on the other foot.
Leftyhunter
 
I guess it depends on which Russian civil war you are referring to, let’s not forget the USA also stepped in, same with the boxer rebellion. Opium wars, well let’s be honest that was about opium. I don’t think arrogance is correct, it was Britain stepping in to protect its best interests, nobody objected when Britain used its arrogance to defend its allies during WW1 and WW2. Europe is a funny old place, troubles in one country can have a knock on effect, I guess you could argue that we Brits took it upon ourselves to police various parts of the world especially those that we had an interest in but there’s a new kid on the block if you get my drift.
Interesting - the defense of British foreign policy seems to be that the USA now does some of the same things. Wonder where we learned it? Anyhow, someone please tell me what was the overriding British interest being defended by invading Russia during the White vs. Red civil war immediately after WWI. What was the overriding interest in forcing the Chinese to buy opium? If there was a perceived overriding British interest involved with the American Civil War, there is exactly zero doubt they would have intervened. What made them decide there wasn't such an interest? The thought of a war with the USA? The perceived potential threat to Canada?
 
What was the overriding interest in forcing the Chinese to buy opium?

Sir, the reason for the Opium trade was Tea. The Mandarins would only take hard cash (silver) for payment and this created a huge outflow with no return trade to balance payments. Opium was the only product traders could find that they could sell in return to the Chinese. The British Government outlawed the trade but never really enforced it with any vigor. The Brits - Government and traders - wished there was something else they could entice the Chinese with but could find no other product. This was eventually stopped by the growing of tea elsewhere away from Chinese control (kinda like seeking alterative places to grow cotton)

Not that this makes any of it OK but I believe that is a quick explanation for the trade.
1171

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Sir, the reason for the Opium trade was Tea. The Mandarins would only take hard cash (silver) for payment and this created a huge outflow with no return trade to balance payments. Opium was the only product traders could find that they could sell in return to the Chinese. The British Government outlawed the trade but never really enforced it with any vigor. The Brits - Government and traders - wished there was something else they could entice the Chinese with but could find no other product. This was eventually stopped by the growing of tea elsewhere away from Chinese control (kinda like seeking alterative places to grow cotton)

Not that this makes any of it OK but I believe that is a quick explanation for the trade.
1171

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
Not the trade - the war.
 
The British had some diplomatic options that would have hurt the Republicans and helped the Democrats. More public advocacy of a mediated solution was the chief option. But the British could have announced a change in policy with respect to recognizing the blockade.
Unlikely, the British have an interest in blockades being considered legally ironclad. (ahem.)

Depends upon what one means by support. They had honeyed words of support, but, it was Cash on the barrel head, for everything else.
The British government didn't even really have honeyed words of support. Some MPs did.

The British could have concluded that the best way to deal with the Confederacy was to recognize it and treat it like they treated Brazil. But that had already been tried in the case of Texas, and the British had rebuffed.
Though that doesn't even improve the Confederate position. And Texas was recognized only after it had clearly won independence.

North Russia Intervention

I'm speaking of the Mid-Victorian British foreign policy, of course. 1860 and 1918 are distinctly different periods.

The Boxer Rebellion? Wanna have an Opium War? Too many tribal civil wars in Africa and India to count. Britain intervened wherever they felt like it. British foreign policy was always accompanied by breathtaking arrogance.
And I didn't say the British didn't intervene - I said they didn't intervene in Civil Wars. (Second Opium is illustrative - the most bloody war of the 19th century was going on concurrent to a war with China and the British fought entirely separately.) They of course got involved in wars off their own initiative, but what they didn't do was to help a side in an independence war become independent unless there was a preceeding war between the British and the ruling power.

In the case of the Boxer rebellion, that was the Boxers attacking the legations which precipitated the intervention of the Eight-Nation Alliance.
 
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If there was a perceived overriding British interest involved with the American Civil War, there is exactly zero doubt they would have intervened. What made them decide there wasn't such an interest? The thought of a war with the USA? The perceived potential threat to Canada?
Simple:

1) There wasn't one.
 
My point is the American's could of the told the British that any arms sales to the IRA involve private firms or citizens and therefore were none of the federal government's business.


The British most definitely changed their tune when the shoe was on the other foot.

And my point is that that may be a suitable excuse in the 1860s between two not-very-friendly neutral powers, but it's not going to fly in the 1970s and 1980s between two longstanding allies... even before you consider that the arms sales in question were illegal under US law at the time (which is why the dealers got arrested).
International norms change in over a hundred years, especially when the two powers have gone from unfriendly rivals to close allies. Someone who was born at the end of the Civil War would have not only been decades too young to have any say in the decision making for the Enfield sales to the Union and Confederacy but also decades too old to be involved in the IRA's campaign except perhaps as someone asking what all the noise was outside.
 
Incidentally, this may help explain the British point of view.



'the laws of the United States do not forbid their citizens to sell to either of the belligerent powers articles contraband of war or take munitions of war or soldiers on board their private ships for transportation; and although in so doing the individual citizen exposes his property or person to some of the hazards of war, his acts do not involve any breach of national neutrality nor of themselves implicate the Government.'
-Franklin Pierce, 1855.
 
Incidentally, this may help explain the British point of view.



'the laws of the United States do not forbid their citizens to sell to either of the belligerent powers articles contraband of war or take munitions of war or soldiers on board their private ships for transportation; and although in so doing the individual citizen exposes his property or person to some of the hazards of war, his acts do not involve any breach of national neutrality nor of themselves implicate the Government.'
-Franklin Pierce, 1855.
Good point, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
 
In general the British don't appear to have protested at the capture of their citizens and of British flagged ships breaking blockade, though they did protest somewhat about other things which did violate British neutrality (illegal crimping, for example, which took place in the form - among others - of people essentially being kidnapped from Canada and sold for bounty money.)
 
And my point is that that may be a suitable excuse in the 1860s between two not-very-friendly neutral powers, but it's not going to fly in the 1970s and 1980s between two longstanding allies... even before you consider that the arms sales in question were illegal under US law at the time (which is why the dealers got arrested).
International norms change in over a hundred years, especially when the two powers have gone from unfriendly rivals to close allies. Someone who was born at the end of the Civil War would have not only been decades too young to have any say in the decision making for the Enfield sales to the Union and Confederacy but also decades too old to be involved in the IRA's campaign except perhaps as someone asking what all the noise was outside.
True Americans don't hold grudges at least for the most part. The U.S. was militarily inferior to the British at least naval wise until 1943.
Yes although controversial at the time the U.S. did eventually till diplomatically to the British.
My point is simply the British really did change their tune about private arm sales when the shoe was on the other foot.
Leftyhunter
 
True Americans don't hold grudges at least for the most part. The U.S. was militarily inferior to the British at least naval wise until 1943.
Yes although controversial at the time the U.S. did eventually till diplomatically to the British.
My point is simply the British really did change their tune about private arm sales when the shoe was on the other foot.
Leftyhunter
I doubt if the British could field a force of a million men. Their Navy could not possibly have been decisive. There was enough of a U.S. Navy to make life uncomfortable for the Royal Navy with all of Britain's obligations around the globe. This was not 1812 - there was a bit more than untrained militia to face a potential British foe.
 
not so long = 36 years and don't you think that being allied should make a little difference to being at the brink of war after the us navy had illegally boarded a british vessel and 'abducted' passengers just previously?

i accept that british politics may be obnoxious at times but have they done anything to you personally?
Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the excuse "sorry we can't do anything about private arms sales ".
Leftyhunter
 
My point is simply the British really did change their tune about private arm sales when the shoe was on the other foot.
If there's an example of the shoe being on the other foot here, it's the 1855-1862 difference (seven years, most of the same people in the decision making roles and often in the same positions, same question about a neutral selling weapons in time of war to either of two belligerents and the argument being in both cases that the neutral power does not compromise their neutrality if private citizens take on risk in time of war) and not the 1862-1970s difference (over a century, four generations of difference in the decision making people, the question being about the arms supply to an insurgency operation in the territory of a longstanding military ally versus the arms supply to an established (albeit unrecognized) state in time of war.
 
Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the excuse "sorry we can't do anything about private arms sales ".
It's not hypocrisy if it happened over a century later with a total change of international norms... and an alliance, which is probably the bigger deal.

The actions of the arms dealers who supplied the IRA were illegal in the USA - that's why they got arrested. That's another key difference.

The British could justly complain "you're allowing your own citizens to break your own laws to destabilize us, your ally" if the US had not cracked down on the arms deals.
The US could not justly complain "you're allowing your own citizens to break your own laws" because no such laws existed; the neutrality laws did not apply to this situation. The US could also not complain that it was bad treatment of an ally, because the two were not allies.

The British argument was the same as that from Pierce - we can't do anything about private arms sales because they're not illegal, and with a side helping of and you're buying vast quantities of arms from us.
Essentially what the US wants here is not British neutrality but an entirely pro-US British position - bit of an ask in a climate where the US had threatened war to annex Canada in 1856, 1858, 1859...

This is on top of a situation where the US has also declared their opposition pre-ACW to a major international treaty on the grounds that it would impede the ability of the US to commission privateers, then immediately upon the commencement of the ACW declared that it would abide by that treaty (so the Confederacy couldn't use privateers on them!)... but that they weren't actually going to sign the treaty, so once the war was over the US could then use privateers again if they wanted. It's very much trying to hold both positions simultaneously.
 
I doubt if the British could field a force of a million men. Their Navy could not possibly have been decisive. There was enough of a U.S. Navy to make life uncomfortable for the Royal Navy with all of Britain's obligations around the globe. This was not 1812 - there was a bit more than untrained militia to face a potential British foe.
We have had quite a lot of conjecture over the past years of a hypothetical war between the U.S. and UK occurring concurrently with thw Civil War. Of course no one can prove or disprove a hypothetical outcome. However President Lincoln most likely was right when he told his cabinet during the Trent Crisis " one war at a time".
Leftyhunter
 
We have had quite a lot of conjecture over the past years of a hypothetical war between the U.S. and UK occurring concurrently with thw Civil War. Of course no one can prove or disprove a hypothetical outcome. However President Lincoln most likely was right when he told his cabinet during the Trent Crisis " one war at a time".
Leftyhunter
In the War of 1812 six American Frigates gave the Royal Navy all they could handle because the RN was involved with France and their empire. In the 1860's the U.S. Navy was fast becoming a first-rate navy with a lot more than six frigates. It is not conjecture to say that the U.S. Navy of the mid-1860's would have given the Brits fits.
 
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