When was the war lost?

[damYankee]

I asked this question in another thread and thought it would be a good question for it's own OP.

When did the situation facing the South come to that point when surrender and the salvage of as much of it's national treasure, private property and blood of it's youth outweighed any hopes of defeating the North?

 

[35th MA InfRegt]

Russo-Japanese War.

The Russo-Japanese War took place in the 20th century. 1904-1905 to be precise.

 

[Old Soldier]

I didn't imply that the British gave military aid during the ACW only that if the British would of had formal diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy they could sell freely to the Confederacy.
Ledtyhunter

I appreciate that, but you would be surprised at how many US civil war sites and commentries actually say that we did. I went through a number researching the 'Laird Rams'. How many Americans think likewise?

 

[JerryD]

I didn't imply that the British gave military aid during the ACW only that if the British would of had formal diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy they could sell freely to the Confederacy.
Ledtyhunter

The Brits did sell arms to the Confederacy freely. The neutrality proclamation did not prohibit selling arms, just ships.

 

[JerryD]

The Russo-Japanese War took place in the 20th century. 1904-1905 to be precise.

And this makes a difference how?

 

[damYankee]

The Brits did sell arms to the Confederacy freely. The neutrality proclamation did not prohibit selling arms, just ships.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "some British did sell arms to the Confederacy freely'?

 

[G Low]

And this makes a difference how?

The Japanese were glad the Russians didn't get a hold of them after WW 2. Not that that makes any difference about anything either.

 

[Old Soldier]

The Brits did sell arms to the Confederacy freely. The neutrality proclamation did not prohibit selling arms, just ships.

It prohibited selling WARSHIPS, fitting out merchant ships with weapons to make them into warships/privateers, crewing belligerent ships from British ports and also providing ammunition - projectiles and powder. That was how the Confederates got a number of their raiders - buying merchant ships then sailing them under the Red Ensign to a non-neutral location where they could arm and commission them - raising the Confederate ensign. The Brits got the blame, but it was quite within the terms of neutrality.

Provisioning a ship (water and food) was permitted as was repair of non-warfare damage. That was how the CSS Alabama got caught out off the coast of France at Cherbourg 1864. Alabama had been at sea for 534 days out of 657, never visiting a Confederate port and needed a hull inspection (dry dock) and provisioning. USS Kearsage was waiting just outside French territorial waters.

 

[Old Soldier]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "some British did sell arms to the Confederacy freely'?

You can also say they sold arms to the Union too. No preference was given. NONE were supplied by the government.

 

[G Low]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "some British did sell arms to the Confederacy freely'?

Would you( @damYankee ) say this was frowned upon by the Yankees?

 

[35th MA InfRegt]

And this makes a difference how?

The post you replied to asked for a contemporary example from the 19th century, not the 20th. But be that as it may, yes, Japan, a power greatly inferior to Russia in terms of population and landmass was able to defeat her. The reasons for that are rooted in military geography. Russia's army in the Far East had to be supported along a single-track railroad that was over 5,000 miles long. Japan's LOC was much shorter. Also, Japan was able to concentrate her navy in a single theater of operations, but Russia had a divided fleet much of which was literally trapped on the other side of the world. Military geography greatly favoured Japan in this war, both maximizing her advantages and the disadvantages suffered by Russia. But as Clausewitz reminds us, in war the results are not always final. The USSR was to do rather better against Japan in both 1939 and 1945.

 

[leftyhunter]

The Brits did sell arms to the Confederacy freely. The neutrality proclamation did not prohibit selling arms, just ships.

Yes but my point was the Confederacy if recognized by the British could at least have the possibility of buying whatever they want from the British and the CSN could with permission dock their warships in British ports without time restrictions for repairs.
Leftyhunter

 

[Bruce Allardice]

Russo-Japanese War.

The Russo-Japanese war is neither 19th Century nor European.
Plus, if you look at the force differentials, the battlefield forces in the Russo-Japanese War were relatively equal. Cf the Battle of Mukden, the deciding battle of the land war. Or Tsushima for the naval war.

 

[Bruce Allardice]

That wouldn't be a proper analogy, since no European country except Russia came close to the geographic size of the Confederacy and therefore didn't have the strategic option of trading space for time.

Speaking more generally, one could cite conflicts as diverse as the Greco-Persian Wars, the Roman attempts to conquer Germania, the Mongol attempts to conquer Japan, the Revolutionary War, the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895, the Vietnam War, the conflicts in Afghanistan waged by both Russia and the United States, and countless others. The point is that the strongest side doesn't necessarily win, since the political will to keep paying the price necessary to achieve victory may break. Sun Tzu pointed out that the true objective in war is not to destroy enemy armies or capture enemy territory, but to destroy the enemy's will to fight.

The examples you cite without exception are not in that century, or European.
And the Revolutionary War you cite actually PROVES my case. Britain was defeated by the U.S., France, and Spain, which combined had a much larger population than Britain.

 

[JerryD]

The post you replied to asked for a contemporary example from the 19th century, not the 20th. But be that as it may, yes, Japan, a power greatly inferior to Russia in terms of population and landmass was able to defeat her. The reasons for that are rooted in military geography. Russia's army in the Far East had to be supported along a single-track railroad that was over 5,000 miles long. Japan's LOC was much shorter. Also, Japan was able to concentrate her navy in a single theater of operations, but Russia had a divided fleet much of which was literally trapped on the other side of the world. Military geography greatly favoured Japan in this war, both maximizing her advantages and the disadvantages suffered by Russia. But as Clausewitz reminds us, in war the results are not always final. The USSR was to do rather better against Japan in both 1939 and 1945.

I thought the relative issue being disputed was about smaller countries defeating larger ones in the time period relative to the Civil War. Russo-Japanese war fits that description. That was the genesis of the question, what smaller nation defeated a larger one in the time period of the Civil War. I did not think that the trivial matter of being a couple years past the turn of the Century was really that germane. If that is so, the question is more in the manner of trivia (like what left handed QB won a Monday Night Football Game on his birthday), rather than trying to be representative of a significant issue, like can smaller nations defeat larger ones. I'm not that interested in trivia, but very interested in the larger questions relating to this Civil War.

 

[JerryD]

The examples you cite without exception are not in that century, or European.
And the Revolutionary War you cite actually PROVES my case. Britain was defeated by the U.S., France, and Spain, which combined had a much larger population than Britain.

See my prior post about trivial non-substantive distinctions. The issue arose over whether the CSA, being a smaller nation, could defeat a larger one, and implied this was impossible. If you are going to draw trivial distinctions over issues that are not really germane, then your question is kind of a waste of time. Were you trying to say its q quirk of circumstance that no European nation during the 19th century defeated a larger European nation? Kind of like flipping heads 20 times in a row. Weird, right? In which case you make a trivial point. Or were you trying to make a substantive comment that smaller nations don't defeat larger ones? Which was the whole point of the post you responded to.

 

[Bruce Allardice]

See my prior post about trivial non-substantive distinctions. The issue arose over whether the CSA, being a smaller nation, could defeat a larger one, and implied this was impossible. If you are going to draw trivial distinctions over issues that are not really germane, then your question is kind of a waste of time. Were you trying to say its q quirk of circumstance that no European nation during the 19th century defeated a larger European nation? Kind of like flipping heads 20 times in a row. Weird, right? In which case you make a trivial point. Or were you trying to make a substantive comment that smaller nations don't defeat larger ones? Which was the whole point of the post you responded to.

The odds of flipping a coin 24 times in a row and it coming up heads each time are many billions to one. That is the odds of it being a coincidence that, in all 24 conflicts, the bigger side won. It goes beyond coincidence.
There's an old quote--accredited to Damon Runyan--that "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that's the way to bet."

 

[JerryD]

Yes but my point was the Confederacy if recognized by the British could at least have the possibility of buying whatever they want from the British and the CSN could with permission dock their warships in British ports without time restrictions for repairs.
Leftyhunter

And I am saying I am not sure that is right. The CSA could already buy all the arms they want. The Declaration of Neutrality only applied to prohibit British subjects from enlisting in either nation's forces, or in selling or equipping naval vessels. And even though the US was recognized, it also could not buy ships. The issue of docking ships was not really going to effect the outcome of the war as the CSA only had a couple seagoing vessels and for the most part they did not patrol the Atlantic. Recognition of the CSA was not going to dramatically change the course of the war without intervention, which is a completely different topic. And Great Britain never seriously considered intervening on behalf of the CSA, like the French did in the American Revolution.

 

[JerryD]

The Russo-Japanese war is neither 19th Century nor European.
Plus, if you look at the force differentials, the battlefield forces in the Russo-Japanese War were relatively equal. Cf the Battle of Mukden, the deciding battle of the land war. Or Tsushima for the naval war.

The question was about size of nations, not of forces. If Japan is able to mobilize a larger percentage of its population, that is indicative of relative strength over a larger nation that cannot mobilize more of its population.

 

[DanSBHawk]

When Atlanta surrendered nothing got saved or salvaged. Granted the rebels took or destroyed any thing of value from the city when they left. Then the Yankees burned down what was remaining.

Less than half of Atlanta was destroyed.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

In short, believe the war was lost when the prevailing attitude among the general Southern civilian population shifted to an unwillingness to continue/pursue the armed conflict - this shift would have been a function of catastrophic military defeats or prolonged stalemates of the main armies, as well as the loss of vast areas in the deep South.

Thought this was a fit for the situation by late '64.

(A cynic might argue that it was when the war began on Apr. 12, '61).