From: agwing@picasso.ocis.temple.edu (Andrew Wing)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: European Intervention (was "exit")
Date: 17 Dec 92 19:13:47 GMT
Organization: Temple University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

P.L. Cowan (cowan@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu) wrote:
.. stuff deleted...
: My question is what form would such intervention
: likely have taken (Just ambassidors? A naval attempt to force the
: blockade? Infantry crossing the Niagra?) a

	England had several options.  Probably the most likely would have
been direct intervention to assist the southern armies in the east, resulting
in a major battle somewhere along the Rappahanock/Rapidan axis.  Then naval
situation would have been some kind of lop sided confrontation near the coast.
The northern ironclads never matched the English designs as seagoing fighting
units.  The New Ironsides was completely unarmored at the ends and too slow
to 'catch' the Warriors.  The monitors never could have fought their guns in
anything but calm waters and harbors.  Only the Dunderberg was a world class
ironclad (she was sold to France after the war).  Raising the blockade would
have been fairly easy for the Royal Navy, raiding a fortified northern harbor
would have been about as successful as the Union attack on Sumpter by its
own ironclad fleet.
	Back to land...  England would of course have to reinforce Canada
from a Union advance, but with a sizeable foreign force only a hundred miles
or so from Washington, the north would have to think twice before trying to
seize Quebec.

	Back to sea...  Confederate raiders had already done considerable
damage to northern commerce and whaling fleets.  England had much more to lose
in this respect.  1812 and the revolution were bad enough for the British
merchant marine.  Imagine the damage possible with the Richmond, Kearsarge,
Niagra, Powhatan and their ilk preying the seven seas, not to mention the 
dozens of smaller steam driven union vessels.

..and what would the likely
: consequences have been?

	English intervention would not have taken place in a vacuum.  The 
world of the 1860s was marked by a Russian nation still bitter over the Crimean
war, an opportunistic France with designs on Mexico and a traditional rivalry
with England, a newly forming Italian state and Prussia who would whip the
French only a few years after Appomattox.  Recall that a Russian squadron
visited the north in 1863 to show the Czars 'support' for the north.  I think
it was more of a thinly veiled warning to the British to 'stay out'.  Increased
British involvement in North America could have been seen as a precursor to
a move on (then still Russian) Alaska.
	The short term consequences would have been some kind of world war
involving England, America, France, Prussia Russia and possibly Italy.  A
southern victory would have had dire consequences for the 20th century.  Would
a bitter nothern USA have helped the British in World War 1?  Maybe, but
probably not soon enough.  Northen anglophobia would have been a powerful
card for the Kaiser to play in 1914.  Europe would most likely have been
turned into a German hegemony.  Back to America...  The Confederacy would most
likely have ended up much like South Africa, today with 'civil rights' on the
books and defacto economic slavery.  With a great need for cheap labor, the
north would have had the underground railroad going full blast through the
industrial revolution.

: I think the timing of such intervention must also be considered. In
: the summer/early-fall of 1862, the Union and CSA armies were still
: pretty evenly matched, and most Union ironclads were (at best) on the
: drafting table.

	The Trent affair was probably the closest that England came to
intervention.  It was best that England stayed out, she had little to gain
by intervening and much to lose.

: There is the precident of the War for US Independence that foriegn
: intervention would be decisive in favor of independece, but another
: issue to consider is the effect on morale on either side. The
: enlistment rate on behalf of the Union was much lower than the CSA,
: but had the war been seen as one for/against England, monarchy, etc,
: would these ratios have changed?

	I think Shelby Footes "other northern arm" would have been brought
out.  Ultimately, the north would have fielded enough men to repel any foreign
force and still take sections of Canada.  Whether this army could have been
raised in time to prevent an Anglo-Confederate victory near or in Washington
is open to debate.  Also open to debate is whether the English working class
soldiers would have really felt a sense of mission intervening in america.

		Thoughts?
			Andy Wing
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