On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:34:05 +1200, "Andrew Vallance"
Post by Andrew VallanceI've checked the archives and this has all been argued many times before and
tends to get quite heated. Hopefully this can be avoided.
I hope so, but some of todays posts leave me wondering.
Post by Andrew VallanceThe Trent affair (as is) was very unlikely to lead to war because both sides
realised that they had nothing to gain and much to lose. The US realised all
too well that it could not hope to fight the British and the Confederacy at
the same time and the British realised that at that time the US was the
second largest market (or even largest, since the "largest" was actually the
various German states) for British goods.
I would characterize it more that both sides saw that there was no
good reason to go to war at that time because
a) The UK stood to gain next to nothing save an apology and risked
losing a great deal, including face, if the US managed to beat them,
and
b) the US had no interest in fighting a second war that would entail
additional risks without contributing to the governments one overiding
goal, putting down the rebellion.
Neither side had any interest in war and solid reasons for wanting to
avoid unpleasantness. Especially as both sides were slowly moving to a
position that would evolve into the 20th Century defacto
Anglo-American alliance.
Post by Andrew VallanceHowever if push had come to shove, what were the actual facts of the matter?
In 1861 the northern states of the US had a population of some 19 million.
The British population at the same time was 28.7 million. In industrial
power the best measure is iron and steel production. I don't have the
figures for 1861, but in 1880 (after massive post Civil War expansion,
financed mostly by British money), the respective figures were USA: 3.84
million tons, Britian 7.75 million tons. Clearly US industrial power was
simply not in the same league as Britain in this period.
Actually the 1860 population was, IIRC, 22-3 million in the North
(31-2 million nationally, 9 million int he CSA). As for industrial
power, Kennedy's book Rise and Fall has relative industrial production
figures and for 1860 they show the UK at 19.9% of the global output
and the US at 7.7%. Whike the British industrial economy is three
times bigger, it also is a peacetime economy. The US is, oin 1861/2, a
partially mobilized war economy. The ability of the UK to actually
mobilize that economy depends on the nature of the war and the reasons
for entering it. I can find no conceivable way to achieve that popular
war without a massive ASB incursion into the scenario.
Post by Andrew VallanceIn naval matters, again the US just isn't in the same league. The British
shipbuilding industry was the largest and most efficent in the world into
the 20th century. It is true that the US and British *wooden* shipbuilding
capacities were similar. This was because the British had largely abandoned
it in favour of iron (not due to a shortage of timber, but because iron is a
superior material for building ships with).
Actually, the US had, according to Stephen Inwoods book "A History of
London", the lead in shipbuilding and was not surpassed until around
1855-60. Part of the reason, I might add that the US did not retaike
that lead until after 1900 was the effect of the civil war on the US
merchant marine. However, in 1860 the US and UK shipbuilding
industries were of similar size and, as the US proved in the war, the
making of iron hulled ships could be expanded quite rapidly.
Post by Andrew VallanceIn marine engineering, no US ship in this period made its design speed (most
failing by 25% to 50%) and US marine engineering would not be a match for
the British until after the 1st World War. Likewise the US was unable to
forge large armour plates of a single thickness and had to rely on single 1"
plates bolted together for armour (a very inferior solution). The US 15" and
11" smoothbore guns (standard US naval armarment) was an good example of
iron gun casting but had inferior armour penteration (as did all
smoothbores). It is true that the British Armstrong rifles were dangerous,
but at most they only represented 50% of any ship's armarment, there were
ample stocks of smoothbores (with the same proviso as the US smoothbores) to
replace them temporarily and the weapon that would replace them (the
Woolwich muzzle loading rifle) was already in production (as were a number
of other fine naval rifles such as the Lancaster, Scott and Whitworth).
Several mistatements in the above.
1) It is rather difficult to make design speeds when the ships engines
keep getting reduced by design board review. That problem was not one
of capacity but of the idiosyncracies of the officers involved.
2) I keep hearing this stuff about plates and the 1 inch thickness.
Interesting that the USS Puritan and Dictators armor used 2" plates
and others used thicker plates. It turns out the 1" plates some assume
were all the US could produce were used by design, not neccessity.
3) the numbers do not bear out the claim that 11 to 15 inch dahlgrens
had "inferior armor penetration". Using the same kind of shot that was
used by the RN (and was used vs armored targets by the USN) The XV
Dahlgren was capable of punching through 5 to 8 inches of iron plate
at 100 yards. This is superior to anything the RN had that did not
have a breech seal problem, and superior to anything the RN ran
otherwise.
4) The RN smoothbores mentioned are the 64 pdrs in the vast majority
of cases. They are next to useless against armored targets. Adequate
for wooden ones however.
Post by Andrew VallanceIt is true that many of the current RN iron clads would have had difficulty
in the shallow waters off the southern US coast. However, the RN had some
well over one hundred shallow draft gunboats (twelve of which are armoured
and armed with Lancaster MLRs) built for service in the Crimea and Baltic
(some in commission, most in ordinary). These were not ocean going warships,
but considerably more seaworthy than the US monitors and sufficent to
enforce a blockade of the US coast.
Again, several problems with the above. First, the armored shallow
draft boats refered to were less well armored than Warrior. Warriors
armor is inadequate for the kind of gunfire that New York harbor, for
example, would put out. The ships you refer to would not last under
fire from the batteries there. And that is precisely where RN doctrine
would send them.
Second, lumping the seagoing characteristics of all monitors into one
lump indicates you know very little about them. They ranged from the
river monitors that I would barely trust in a largish lake to the
Passaics, one of which weathered gale force winds off Charleston to
the USS Dictator, which sailed thru a hurricane after the war. Ocean
going monitors, as most of the coastal ships were, were vefry
seaworthy. Only 2 sank not from combat damage and one was the
prototype. The other sank due to an open hatch in a storm. This is
equivalent to diving a sub with the deck hatches open.
Post by Andrew VallanceThe US would quickly resort to commerce raiding, as it had done in 1812. The
results are likely to be similar to 1812 as well. The US would acheive some
spectacular local successes up until all the raiders had been hunted down or
blockaded in US ports. In 1812 it took the British about a year to do this
(whilst simultaniously maintaining a blockade on Europe). The RN in 1861 had
135 cruising ships in active commission with another 188 in ordinary. So the
raiders would inflict some annoying and even painful damage on the British,
but hardly fatal. Remember in 1861, the RN has a *huge* reserve pool of
ships to draw on.
Actually far worse than in 1812. The number of raiders will be much
larger. 150 initial surge, with the potential for a fair number more
as the war wears on. As the USN found out with a larger number of
ships for blockade, it is not possible to stop commerce on that scale
of a coast. The second wave will include a larger number of purpose
built raiders, on the type of Alabama but possibly larger. Add better
armament than the CSA had and you have a real problem. Further, the
spectacular successes you allude to could have crippling effects on
the British home situation.
Post by Andrew VallanceWhen ones comes to the respective armies, ones finds a closer match. The
British standing army at this time was some 200,000 troops in India (more
than enough to deal with any colonial unrest that could arise in Asia) and
approximately 100,000 held in reserve in the British Isles (plus some other
scattered colonial garrisons, totaling less than 15,000). These troops were
well equiped and well trained regulars with experience from the Crimea and
India. The British also had an ample cadre of experienced officers and (more
crucially) NCOs to expand around. The US army at this time was some 600,000
(my earlier figures were incorrect, my apologies) strong. However, most of
these were still poorly equiped raw recruits. None of these new units had a
cadre of prior experience (the pre war US army was only 16,000 strong and
its officer corp had been hit heavily by defections of Confederate
sympathisers). The US could (and indeed did) build a world beating army, but
Britian could easily deploy 50,000 to 80,000 troops to Canada at short
notice and raise more than sufficent troops to hold the line against any
conceivable US assault.
Manpower. The US would mobilise some 11% of its population during the war.
The usually accepted figure for full mobilisation is 10%. You can go over
this (indeed the Confederacy reached some 13% mobilisation), however their
are significant costs in doing this; both in terms of long term damage to
your economy and the quality of the additional manpower you are raising.
At peak the US mobilized something like 5 to 6% of it's population in
the ACW. This could have been boosted to 8% or so and not done major
damage. This would have boosted the army by a third. More than enough
to take Canada and the rest of BNA and shorten the war with the CSA.
Post by Andrew VallanceLogistics. The British were past masters at preparing and supporting large
overseas expeditions. They organised and dispatched a force of over 30,000
troops for immediate deployment to India within a month of the outbreak of
the great mutiny in 1857. Again there is no reason to suspect that the
British could not support a signficant (hundreds of thousands of troops) to
Canada, more than sufficent to defend the Maritimes and Quebec (the regions
of Canada that are worth a damn). Likewise, the British could have quickly
raised and supplied an expeditionary from India to invade California. This
would have been just slightly more worthwhile than a US invasion of Upper
Canada (but not by much).
Actually there is good reason reinforcing Canada could have been very
difficult. . At the height of the Trent affair it was discovered that
the army could not reinforce Canada with significant numbers rapidly.
The reason was the frozen state of the Saint Lawrence. Troops had to
be landed in Halifax, railed to Moncton and sledged over the rest of
the route to Quebec.OTL something like half the reinforcements were
sent via Portland Maine after the crisis was over because a direct
rail link existed from Maine to Quebec.
Post by Andrew VallanceAnd finally, would the British have allied themselves with the Confederacy
in any hypothetical war? The evidence points very strongly in that
direction. Palmerston's comments at length in his diaries about how a war
would force Britian into the dubious moral position of defending and
preserving slavery. It seems clear that he was in no doubts that war would
lead to alliance with the Confederacy.
Actually the evidence points strongly to Palmerston doing all he could
to delay that 'inevitabilty' for as long as possible.
Post by Andrew VallanceThe bottom line is that in 1861 the US was a respectable middle rank power
(roughly on a par with the UK now), Britian was the world's current
superpower. If push came to shove the result is quite easy to determine,
Britian would have won. It wouldn't have been a walk over, but the outcome
would not have been in doubt. Lincoln and Seward were well aware of this
reality, which is one of the major reasons why the PoD is so unlikely.
In 1861 the US was the Premier North American regional power. No
Superpower existed. The UK was a Great Power. The difference is that
the US today can pretty much do what it wants anywhere. The UK then
could not. Also note that the only reason the US was not a Great Power
in 1860 was a serious disinclination to play the game. The US had as
much industrial might as any power other than the UK. The US had as
much population as several of what were soon Great Powers.
No, the war would not have been a walkover. And the potential for
disaster was well known on BOTH sides, for both sides.