[HN Gopher] What did British officers think of the American civi...
___________________________________________________________________
What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was
happening?
Author : samclemens
Score : 123 points
Date : 2022-05-18 19:47 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| After the war I'm sure they took note. The US Army of the North
| was then the largest army in the world. That had to be
| concerning.
|
| Second place? The US Army of the South.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| without facts, I would expect some central Asian horse army to
| have 200,000 humans, far earlier than that.. Persian and
| Egyptian armies were large at different times too.. sounds
| uninformed..
| jaredsohn wrote:
| The OP says largest army at the time, not largest ever
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Really? In 1865? Which one of those was in existence and
| larger?
| digisign wrote:
| Asia has held the bulk of human population for quite a long
| time.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The Qing dynasty (i.e., China), which had just put down a
| massive rebellion, probably had many times that number of
| men under arms.
| bombcar wrote:
| Luckily the US _Navy_ wasn 't doing so hot, and so the only
| real places to get worried were Canada and Mexico, as neither
| army had worked out how to walk on water.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Japan completely transformed their society, largely in
| response to a visit from that navy.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Looks like the troop strength was 200-600K on each side. I'm
| not sure that would have been the largest army in the world.
|
| source: https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm#:~:text=In%20Jul
| y%201....
| lordgilman wrote:
| There's also an interesting paper written on the Vatican's view
| of the American Civil War: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25018756
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| If we and the French could just help the Confederates a bit more
| America might be ripe for reconquest! The French are already in
| Mexico and we have ships in Canada! The mad king was a fool for
| letting those backwards colonists break away in the first place.
| Those darn Russian fleets showing up in 1863 in NY and SF with
| sealed orders to attack anyone who attacked the US! How dare
| they, those Russians will pay! Get those
| Freemasonic/B'nai B'rith networks pumping out more confederate
| spies! Cotton cotton cotton That Lord
| Palmerston and his Zoo! Whew, they didnt find our
| connections to John Wilkes Booth.
| wilkestelephone wrote:
| What am I reading here?
| westcort wrote:
| My key takeaways:
|
| * Miller and Chesney's lectures describe the course of the war up
| to that point, with Chesney focussing first on fighting in
| Virginia and then on operations in the west and south, such as
| Sherman's March to the Sea
|
| * In his lectures, Chesney laments that Sherman, in his March to
| the Sea near the end of the war, 'has given no voucher or note
| anywhere for the supplies he has seized [from civilians]' and
| expresses concern about whether the North and South could be
| reconciled, given the brutality of the conflict
|
| * The combat between the Monitor and the Merrimac, notable for
| being the first clash between ironclad ships, is referenced but
| purposely not discussed because 'the result has not influenced
| the military progress of the war'
|
| * In some cases, the conduct of the Civil War was used by British
| officers to justify their own opinions of how the UK should
| prepare its military for future wars
|
| * The RUSI lectures demonstrate the challenges of following a war
| as it is occurring from a distance, the disappointment with the
| Union's military performance early in the war and the manner in
| which foreign conflicts were mobilised to justify the policies of
| people like the Duke of Cambridge
| trynumber9 wrote:
| It would be interesting to know what Prussian officers thought of
| the battles as they soon after fought a few wars. But I can't
| read German.
| tokai wrote:
| They thought the Confederate and US commanders lacked training,
| while Stanning for Lee. And generally thought that there was
| not much to learn that was applicable to European wars.
|
| https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/01/05/a-prussian-observe...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| A quote from that article:
|
| _This resulted in "stiffness in the lines and clumsiness in
| management and direction of troops" as large divisions of the
| army fully relied on their higher officers to direct all
| movement. "The loss of an upper-level commander," Scheibert
| states, "Would cripple advance and retard again in battle."_
|
| Interesting, this kind of criticism is leveled at the Russian
| army today.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| In the Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith refers to it as "an
| ongoing disturbance in our North American colonies" IIRC
| kaycebasques wrote:
| "American Civil War" usually refers to the war in the 1860s.
| "American Revolution" is what we US people call the war in the
| 1770s.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| That was the American Revolution. The American Civil War
| typically refers to the conflict of 1861-1865.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| My bad, just got back from a run and obviously my brain was
| scrambled.
| Animats wrote:
| "War of Northern Aggression".
| machinerychorus wrote:
| The south will rise again! and get its ass beat again!
| wilkestelephone wrote:
| Considering the manufacturing and ensuing migration, it's
| rising one way or another.
|
| Won or lose, we still see Carpet Baggers...
| Arrath wrote:
| Alternatively, "War of Southern Treason".
| wilkestelephone wrote:
| Has that one common usage anywhere?
| wilkestelephone wrote:
| "The Recent Unpleasantness," as a certain Great-Aunt used
| to say.
| Animats wrote:
| Not enough, actually. The American Civil War was the first big
| war where railroads and telegraph lines allowed coordinated
| operations over a large area, and machine guns and repeating
| rifles allowed killing large numbers of advancing troops. Grant
| got this; he wrote "War is Progressive", meaning that there was
| progress through technology. This was a radical idea in military
| thinking at the time. Most European military leaders didn't get
| that until WWI. They were still trying mass charges. Which,
| against machine guns, absolutely does not work.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > The American Civil War was the first big war where railroads
| and telegraph lines allowed coordinated operations over a large
| area, and machine guns and repeating rifles allowed killing
| large numbers of advancing troops.
|
| Hi, the Crimean War would like to remind you that it existed.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It also featured a little bit of trench warfare. I imagine the
| European observers who saw that were like "Huh, definitely not
| important, let's not come up with strategies to counter this
| sort of thing" and then forgot about it for the next 50 years
| or so.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The missing ingredient that prevented the ACW from turning
| into static trench warfare similar to the later Western Front
| was probably barbed wire, which was only patented in 1867.
| isk517 wrote:
| I mean, it had been 50 years, it wasn't like there had been
| another war fought 10 years prior that also devolved into
| trench warfare that they completely failed to learn anything
| from.
| [deleted]
| bilbo0s wrote:
| In fairness, I think people thought the Eastern and Southern
| armies fought in a "civilized" manner.
|
| It's just that the Western armies and Western generals came
| in, and they fought in a significantly different fashion. You
| can call the West of the Union more "modern". Or "pragmatic".
| Or maybe "barbaric" is the right word.
|
| No one wanted to be seen as being "Barbaric". Except Western
| armies, who really didn't care what people thought about
| them. (At least, not as much as they cared about their
| orders.)
| francisofascii wrote:
| > What did British officers think of the American civil war as it
| was happening?
|
| Go to the source.
|
| Here is a book written by Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, a
| British officer who traveled with the Confederate army in 1863.
| He is well known due to appearing in the movie Gettysburg based
| on The Killer Angels book. Three Months in the Southern States:
| April, June, 1863.
| https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/fremantle/fremantle.html
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Is Chesney the Guards officer that is portrayed in the "lost
| cause" movie Gettysburg?
| Hayvok wrote:
| The Civil War in America absolutely _dominated_ the British
| national conversation, especially in the early years of the war.
| Politicians followed the conflict closely, and there were even
| several debates in Parliament over British policy toward the
| conflict.
|
| Frequently discussed was a line that a lot of Americans would
| recognize today, of "when should Britain get involved??" because
| of the destructiveness of the conflict. Prime Minister Palmerston
| & Foreign Secretary Russell spent a lot of time maneuvering and
| deflecting calls for Britain to get involved or pick a side.
|
| A few other bits I found surprising when studying this topic--
| 1. Some British MPs were very pro-Confederate, and pushed for
| recognition of the Confederacy as a real country in Parliament.
| 2. British war correspondents were on the ground with both Union
| and Confederate armies, and sent regular dispatches to British
| newspapers. 3. British (and other European) officers
| regularly volunteered on *both* sides. 4. It was
| fashionable for a time in Britain to be pro-Confederate.
| Confederate propagandist networks *in* Britain brilliantly played
| down slavery and played up "self-determination". 5. Britain
| nearly declared war on the Union (Trent affair), to the point
| that Royal Navy was just waiting for the go-signal to commence
| hostilities & Britain sent thousands of additional troops to
| Canada. 6. There were *tons* of ironclads already in
| European fleets, there had just never been a fight between
| ironclads! Europeans watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle &
| adapted their fleets & battle doctrines accordingly. 7. The
| British cabinet had a very serious, "can we even win a war
| against the U.S. anymore?" conversation at the end of the
| conflict, after witnessing the million-man army of the Union, the
| Richmond campaign, and growing effectiveness of the U.S. Navy.
| 8. Americans credit Seward as a brilliant Secretary of State
| during the conflict, but in Britain and France he was considered
| foolish, dangerous, and unpredictable--a lot of the tension
| between the Union and Europe can be laid at his feet. 9.
| Prussian military observers watched how the Union used railroads
| to move massive numbers of troops & supplies around, and adopted
| a lot of the Union tactics to absolutely crush the French just a
| few years later. (Franco-Prussian war of 1870.) Seriously - there
| were European observers *all over the place*.
|
| Strongly recommend _A World on Fire: Britain 's Crucial Role in
| the American Civil War_ by Amanda Foreman. Brilliant book, and a
| page-turner.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _6. There were tons of ironclads already in European fleets,
| there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans
| watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle & adapted their fleets
| & battle doctrines accordingly._
|
| These were very different sorts of ironclads. The British and
| French ironclads mostly resembled traditional ships, at least
| at first glance. They had steam engines but also retained their
| masts, and had broadside guns rather than turrets (except for
| the ill-fated HMS Captain..)
|
| The American ironclads were more bizarre, superficially
| resembling submarines, and weren't particularly seaworthy
| (unlike the European ironclads.) The USS Monitor in particular
| was a novel design; mastless and steam powered with an armored
| turret, a shallow draft and low freeboard (similar to earlier
| ironclad floating batteries, but a lot lower). European navies
| subsequently started building their own 'monitors'.
|
| The monitor class of ships were eventually pushed to the side
| by pre-dreadnought battleships that derived more from the
| traditional and seaworthy European ironclads than from
| monitors, with some lessons learned from monitors. See the HMS
| Devastation particularly; mastless and steam powered with
| armored turrets, but with a hull that was actually seaworthy
| unlike monitors.
| carrionpigeon wrote:
| Karl Marx, who was residing in Britain at the time, also wrote
| much on the topic. He had nothing but _withering_ criticism of
| mainstream /elite British attitudes for the war, namely the
| downplaying the importance of slavery in the formation of the
| Confederacy.
|
| He, unlike his more socially acceptable contemporaries, also
| deeply admired Lincoln. Many pieces published in prominent
| periodicals, like The Economist, painted him as a wily and
| double-dealing politician. One could understand that
| interpretation given the compromises he was desperately trying
| to make with Southern states to prevent the outbreak of war,
| but it gave prominent Brits an excuses to dismiss the sincerity
| of his anti-slavery rhetoric after the war broke out. (Lincoln
| himself was also being deeply transformed by the savagery of
| war. He would come to believe the carnage was divine punishment
| for the sin of slavery.) Marx would have none of it. He called
| out the hypocrisy of those who in the years prior condemned
| American slavery but would not support the cause of Lincoln and
| the Union because it didn't have an unblemished history of
| being totally and consistently anti-slavery.
|
| The claim regarding the effectiveness of "Confederate
| propagandist networks" is overstated, though. People across
| Britain were divided on the issue, even across political camps
| and ethnic groups (e.g. Irish and English). To be clear, by
| "divided", I don't mean that people necessarily individually
| ambivalent. There were some staunch supporters on both sides.
|
| There were also multiple reasons for preferring one side over
| another, too. Slavery was just one issue. Another was potential
| weakening the Monroe Doctrine. (During the Civil War, France
| under Napoleon III invaded and conquered Mexico, and Spain re-
| colonized what would become the Dominican Republic.) Others
| were access to raw materials, support for wars of national
| unity (European nationalists admired Lincoln, as would Hitler
| decades later), etc.
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| If you feel inclined | knowledgeable could you expand on any
| English economic turmoil as a result of the American Civil War.
| All that American Cotton not feeding the British industry must
| have hurt a lot.
| Hayvok wrote:
| You could argue that the Confederacy actually started the
| Cotton Famine, on purpose.
|
| Early on the Union blockade was essentially a paper blockade,
| and therefore of dubious international legality. There were
| laws regarding blockades, but those laws were fuzzy when it
| came to civil wars & a nation blockading their _own ports_.
| The Union would have been in violation of international law
| if the Confederacy were a recognized country, which would
| have given Britain and France a pretext to end the blockade
| by force. Early in the war, almost any European sea power
| (Britain especially) could have broken the Union Navy in a
| matter of hours.
|
| The Confederate government imposed a cotton boycott to
| trigger economic turmoil in Britain especially (Britain was
| always their primary diplomatic target), which they felt
| would create enough political pressure in Parliament to spur
| recognition and a complete lifting of the blockade by the
| Royal Navy.
|
| The economic problems in Britain were very real (triggering
| waves of emigration & from Lancashire & other towns that were
| cotton dependent) but the British largely worked around them.
| They retooled their factories to work with cotton from Egypt,
| India, and the East Indies. Workers found other jobs.
| Government relief. A lot of people suffered though.
|
| The Confederates seriously underestimated the degree to which
| Britain and British politicians _loathed_ slavery. Slavery
| stacked the deck against them diplomatically from the
| beginning. There were other geopolitical reasons (like
| Britain not wanting to risk Canada by sparking a conflict
| with the Union) but the British basically chose to suck it up
| and endure the cotton famine & economic depression because
| they wanted slavery _gone_ , and America was one of the last
| major holdouts at that point.
| gen220 wrote:
| Not doubting to be clear, but do you have recommended
| sources on the desire for the American abolition of slavery
| being a principal motivation for Britain's non-involvement
| in the American Civil War? Would be curious to read it.
|
| I've generally had a pretty cynical view towards British
| abolitionism, which is that the elites only disliked
| slavery to the extent that they found capitalistic
| imperialism (i.e. systems that controlled the lower classes
| through persistent indebtedness and restrictions on
| ownership of real estate) to be more profitable and
| politically stable than the systems constructed on the
| institution of slavery.
|
| And, coincidentally, that their empire, whose 19th century
| wealth was bootstrapped on the profits of slave-trading and
| the manufacture of raw materials extracted via slave labor,
| was uniquely-well-positioned to come out on top in a world
| order deprived of slave labor.
|
| In other words, they opposed slavery on the basis of
| limiting economic volatility, and maintaining their
| geopolitical status, more so than any moral basis.
|
| I'd love to read more sources that balance out my cynicism.
| :)
| Hayvok wrote:
| The book I recommended in original comment (A World on
| Fire) will give you a good inside-look at the British
| political thought & decision making during that time,
| including Parliamentary debates & communiques between
| Palmerston and his ministers. Their motivations are
| complex, like any other politician, but if they were
| purely economic & geopolitical opportunists I would have
| expected them to leap at dividing America and keeping the
| cotton flowing. They didn't.
|
| > I've generally had a pretty cynical view towards
| British abolitionism
|
| I am not an expert on abolitionist movements or their
| political effects, but there was a _strong_ moral outrage
| to slavery in the 19th century and it developed very
| rapidly, starting in Britain. I recommend reading about
| the British public 's reaction to the publication of
| _Uncle Tom 's Cabin_.
|
| > their empire, whose 19th century wealth was
| bootstrapped on the profits of of slave-trading and the
| manufacture of raw materials extracted via slave labor,
| was uniquely-well-positioned to come out on top in a
| world order deprived of slave labor
|
| You're not wrong, and you can toss colonialism in there,
| too. The Japanese were made the same argument in the
| early 20th century as they were trying to expand and
| acquire colonies and kept getting their knuckles whacked
| by the Europeans, who were (mostly) trying to pump the
| brakes on colonialism by that point.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| It's interesting how difficult it is nowadays to field a
| million man army
| kune wrote:
| It was not so easy back then as well. They had draft riots in
| New York City, which had to be suppressed by regular Union
| regiments. There were also deserters and bounty jumpers.
|
| The South had trouble to support their armies. Lee basically
| planned the Gettysburg campaign to live of the land. Soldiers
| were happy because they had enough to eat. A lot of soldiers
| lacked shoes.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Because Vietnam showed that conscripting armies of that size
| was not an efficient way to fight a modern war. You want
| people, volunteers, who want to be in the army. Also
| technology. We're close to that point in, like in Roman
| history, where the income of entire villages was only enough
| to field one Calvary soldier (knight.)
|
| Not that we're going towards feudalism but history has a
| cycle of armies going from a small force with a huge
| technology edge to a giant force with mundane tech. Even
| during the Roman Republic only the richest men could afford
| to fight.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > like in Roman history, where the income of entire
| villages was only enough to field one Calvary soldier
|
| What an interesting data point.
| ufmace wrote:
| A point I found interesting along the lines of perceived
| British ambivalence, my understanding is that the Emancipation
| Proclamation was a brilliant piece of diplomacy. It was anti-
| slavery enough to make it possible to convince Britain that the
| war was all about slavery and so they shouldn't intervene
| because of how much they were against slavery. Yet also weak
| enough against slavery - only freeing slaves in the territory
| they _hadn 't_ conquered yet - to make it possible to convince
| the Union officers and politicians that it was a tactical
| economic ploy against the Confederacy and not a changing of the
| primary war aims. They were rather ambivalent about slavery,
| and Lincoln himself feared that "half the officers would fling
| down their arms and three more states would rise" if he made
| full emancipation a primary war aim.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| A lot more concrete information in this comment than in the
| article itself. Thank you.
| caublestone wrote:
| Don't forget Russia sending ships to America in support of the
| union. The letters between tsar Alex and Lincoln are some of
| the loveliest pieces of writing and highest praises for
| America.
|
| http://beam-inc.org/abraham-lincoln-and-tsar-alexander-ii-pa...
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| American russophobia is a sad state of affair considering
| history, they also gave Alaska for a negligible price. > When
| the Civil War broke out, both England and France considered
| hostile intervention on behalf of the South and they tried to
| convince the Tsar to join them. Alexander II's refusal was
| critically important because the British and French then
| decided to abort their plans. It's crazy to think Russia
| determined modern america fate
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| You mean the country committing war crimes daily and
| threatening the world with nukes?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes, the russophobia of that country is a tragedy.
| klibertp wrote:
| There are two countries that threaten most of the rest of
| the world with nukes. Every other country, including
| China which is 3rd, have only a small fraction of the
| nukes the big two have. Insane, cancer-ridden tsar might
| have made one of them worse for a time, but he'll die,
| and the economic collapse of the country will render it
| toothless and defenseless (for a time). In that
| situation, it's actually rational to fear _not_ Russia,
| but the unchecked, unaccountable (to non-citizens), power
| that will have no competition and global monopoly on
| violence. Such things are inherently dangerous.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| The US does a lot of shit, but it doesn't actively
| threaten countries with nuclear weapons
| edgyquant wrote:
| America and Russia had a great relationship until the end
| of WWI. The Bolshevik's set this in stone towards the end
| of the civil war when the entente (specifically Britain)
| opened dialogue towards a trade deal. Lenin used them as
| the great other, despite knowing they wanted normalized
| relations, and then the USSR taking Eastern Europe sealed
| the deal. Self determination was US policy at that time
| (and kind of ever since.)
| berdario wrote:
| > The Bolshevik's set this in stone towards the end of
| the civil war...
|
| I'm not sure about the events that you're referring to.
| The Treaty of Riga was in 1921, the Anglo-Soviet Trade
| Agreement was signed in 1921 as well, the USSR was only
| declared in 1922, and the UK recognized it in 1924, the
| same year in which Lenin died. In fact, related to the
| Trade Agreement he complained:
|
| > The British government has handed us its draft, we have
| given our counterdraft, but it is still obvious that the
| British government is dragging its feet over the
| agreement because the reactionary war party is still hard
| at work there
|
| So, I don't think it's fair to assume that it was only
| the UK who wanted normalized relations, and that the
| difficulties came from only one side.
|
| > taking Eastern Europe sealed the deal
|
| Which again, seems out of place, since I presume you're
| referring to events that followed the start of WW2.
|
| Talking about WW2, Europe wasn't friendly to the USSR
| leading up to war:
|
| The initial anti-comintern treaty in 1935 was extended to
| the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and China (ruled by
| Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek).
|
| In 1939, Stalin offered to Britain and France to deploy a
| million troops against Nazi Germany, but he had been
| rebuffed:
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/
| 322...
|
| and of course, Churchill's Operation Unthinkable means
| that Britan had a deep, deep distrust of the USSR.
|
| Despite all this, the USSR asked to join NATO in 1954,
| but again: it had been rebuffed, along its proposals of
| reunification and neutrality for Germany.
|
| We often forget about all this, and only think of the
| reasons for why we distrusted the USSR, but we ignore all
| of the opportunities that we missed for a friendlier
| relationship.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| > In 1939, Stalin offered to Britain and France to deploy
| a million troops against Nazi Germany, but he had been
| rebuffed:
|
| WOW thank you I never heard of this
| threatofrain wrote:
| Putin ordered Russian forces to be on the highest level of
| nuclear readiness. We have programs on Russian state TV
| where people talk about using nuclear weapons to drown the
| UK and devastate the European coast with a nuclear tsunami.
| This is a scary time we live in.
|
| The conversation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine may now
| be centered on NATO, but it began with statements of
| routine training exercises at the border and escalated to
| the de-Nazification of Ukraine. Russia has not done well to
| reach the hearts of its neighbors.
|
| That we have to reach past the Cold War into the American
| Civil War to discuss amicable relations does not bode well.
| watwut wrote:
| Right now, Russophobia is kind of healthy thinking. Their
| current mix of tsarism and return to kinda communist
| thinking except the communist ideology is sucky and
| dangerous.
| corrral wrote:
| > 5. Britain nearly declared war on the Union (Trent affair),
| to the point that Royal Navy was just waiting for the go-signal
| to commence hostilities & Britain sent thousands of additional
| troops to Canada.
|
| I wonder how much the Union's need to hedge against British
| intervention--so, to divert resources away from the war against
| the South, affecting troop placement, artillery availability,
| fortification building/maintenance/garrisoning, and fleet
| positioning--prolonged the war.
| Hayvok wrote:
| That's a good question, and I don't know the answer.
|
| However, whatever that need was (to hedge against the
| British) should have been completely necessary, and really
| goes to show you just how _valuable_ a strong diplomatic
| corps can be to a country.
|
| The British _wanted_ to be pro-Union. They _wanted_ slavery
| gone. They _didn 't_ want to have to station huge numbers of
| troops in Canada, or large numbers of ships in the Atlantic.
|
| Silly, unforced errors by Seward & Charles Francis Adams (the
| American ambassador) antagonized Britain throughout the war &
| made them unsure of their North American holdings.
| Ridiculous. Union diplomats should have been talking peace &
| partnership with Britain from day 1 of the conflict.
| notahacker wrote:
| > The British wanted to be pro-Union. They wanted slavery
| gone.
|
| tbf, we had moral reasons for wanting slavery gone but
| practical reasons for thinking we were better off with a
| divided America and an independent Confederacy as a useful
| source of cheap cotton. Some would say our political
| positions haven't got more realistic since. :)
| gen220 wrote:
| It should be understood that the british empire was at the peak
| of economic dependence on the raw material coming from the "new
| world" at the onset of the civil war; in particular, cotton
| exports for consumption by british textile mills [1].
|
| > By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States
| accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton
| consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the
| 192 million pounds used in France, 60 percent of the 115
| million pounds spun in the Zollverein, and 92 percent of the
| 102 million pounds manufactured in Russia.
|
| One reason that there was support for the confederacy was the
| fear that the outcome of the war would lead to the end of
| access to abundant and cheap cotton (due to export duties, end
| of slavery, etc.).
|
| One of the outcomes of the US Civil War was that the British
| Empire realized a need to "diversify" their sources, resulting
| in increasingly imperialistic behavior in India and Egypt,
| among others.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-...
| the whole book is a fantastic peek behind the curtains of the
| history of global capital markets
| klodolph wrote:
| And the reason why Britain wanted those raw resources was
| because it was the epicenter of the industrial revolution.
| Manchester was nicknamed "Cottonopolis"... full of cotton
| mills driven by water and then steam, and connected by the
| first inter-city railway. Cotton picked by slaves in the U.S.
| south was the main source of raw materials for these
| factories.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > 6. There were _tons_ of ironclads already in European fleets,
| there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans
| watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle & adapted their fleets
| & battle doctrines accordingly.
|
| And the fight they got was comically irrelevant to the
| ironclads they had.
|
| I'm sure they had lots of great arguments trying to pull
| anything applicable out of it and apply the lessons to their
| own fleets.
| sillyquiet wrote:
| I think the real answer and probably why the article is a bit
| light on actual anecdotes, is that Britain or its military at the
| time probably didn't think much of it all, especially from a
| military point of view. Plus they were super busy with imperial
| concerns, especially in the British Raj post-1857 rebellion.
|
| The U.S., although gaining steam economically (pun intended), was
| still a backwater, rural, nation isolated by a whole lot of ocean
| (edit: I meant all this from a military point of view). I am sure
| the abolitionists in power in Parliament were interested in the
| outcome of the war from that point of view, but it was really of
| very little consequence to UK or Europe as a whole.
| nostromo wrote:
| The US economy overtook the UK's right around the civil war.
| That's also around when the US population overtook the UK's.
|
| They may have not thought much about the war, but it wouldn't
| be because the US had a small economy or population.
| sillyquiet wrote:
| Right right, you are absolutely correct, but I meant that the
| U.S. was inconsequential to Europe _militarily_.
| digisign wrote:
| Would have taken quite a while to be noticed, given the speed
| of communication and lack of American military presence
| overseas. Compared to the British Empire.
| kensai wrote:
| Really? I thought that happened way after WWI. The UK economy
| back then had a gazillion of colonies to sustain it.
| sillyquiet wrote:
| No OP's correct, the US surpassed the UK both in population
| and in GDP sometime around the middle of the 19th century.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think the point is that looking at the UK in a vacuum,
| outside the context of colonies like India, Kenya,
| Singapore, etc., is probably misleading.
| pirate787 wrote:
| The US South provided 80% of British cotton, and the textile
| industry was the UK's largest employer and industry.[1].
|
| [1] https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/liverpools-
| aberc...
| bloqs wrote:
| I believe both things are true, but I'm going to have to hunt
| for some sources
| bombcar wrote:
| The US was economically beginning to be involved on the world
| level, but wasn't really a "power worth considering" until
| after WWI, partially just because of distance.
| sillyquiet wrote:
| yeah, this was really my point. A (maybe terrible) modern
| analogy is how concerned would we be with a civil war in
| say, South America, where a significant chunk of our
| lithium comes from? We would probably _be_ concerned, but
| our economic and military clout means that we would always
| be the customer for whoever won that civil war.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > We would probably be concerned, but our economic and
| military clout means that we would always be the customer
| for whoever won that civil war.
|
| Don't we typically just give a fuckton of guns and
| resources (and maybe more) to whichever side we want to
| win.
| tomcam wrote:
| Absolutely not. We are also perfectly willing to
| overthrow democratically elected governments as well.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| A good read about that: The Savage Wars of Peace.
| sillyquiet wrote:
| Well yeah you are correct, and I wrote clumsily. That was
| meant to read 'although the U.S. was gaining steam
| economically, it was not of much consequence _militarily_ '
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Quite a few European powers embedded observers with both sides
| of the conflict. The application of improved small arms and
| artillery was something that military minds were very
| interested in, to see how it played out in a large scale
| conflict.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Militarily Europe walked away with simple caricatures of the war,
| but the lionization of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was (rightly)
| recognized as a new kind of general - one that would be far more
| familiar in World War I than in the Napoleonic War. This led to a
| lot of fame.
|
| Generally, the US revolutionary war was viewed very positively in
| parts of Europe. That upstart new world was finally in its place
| and would now tear itself to pieces without European governance.
| Britain considered entering the war early on(on the southern
| side!) and benefited from the economic collapse of the Americas.
| The British commercial fleets went from near-parity with the US
| merchant marine to unquestioned ruler of the commercial seas by
| the devastation of the blockades and the lack of insurance
| underwriting for north or south flagged vehicles.
|
| But a lot of things were missed millitary that they would learn
| in 1914. The role of rail lines and junctions, and the early
| signs of trench warfare and total war were the only thing that
| could break near-industrial societies. The potential of armored
| battleships and submarines. (Though to be fair, imagine how much
| history would have changed if the Turtle had detonated its
| torpedo in the Revolutionary War!) These lessons would be learned
| a hard way sixty years later.
| cperciva wrote:
| Not mentioned: Towards the end of the Civil War, British officers
| became very concerned that the large and now experienced army
| might turn its attention North, as they had some 50 years prior.
| The Civil War was thus a direct catalyst for Canadian
| confederation.
| pcaharrier wrote:
| In fact, there were some men (Irish nationalists) who gained
| military experience during the Civil War that were involved in
| armed raids into Canada from 1865-1871. Encyclopedia article:
| https://www.britannica.com/event/Fenian-raids
| philistine wrote:
| A direct American invasion was not a catalyst for
| confederation. Expansion westward was seen as vital, and
| America's rapid growth made the endeavour even more vital, lest
| American immigrants seize Canadian land.
|
| No one feared the American army would turn north. They could
| have crushed Canada, but peace between Canada and the US was
| seen as assured as long as the UK wanted it.
| rgblambda wrote:
| Perhaps not a direct catalyst as it was the Fenian Raids, in
| particular the battle of Ridgeway, that led to Canadian
| Confederation. The Fenians were largely Union Army veterans of
| the Civil War. Lincoln's decision to allow the formation of
| ethnic Irish regiments to aid recruitment allowed for the
| military organization and training of the Fenian Brotherhood.
| ledauphin wrote:
| this was disappointingly content-light. I'm curious about the
| subject, but this was barely even an introduction.
| Group_B wrote:
| Here's an article I found with more info:
| https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&cont...
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| My chief takeaway: people who weren't there didn't have all the
| details.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'd be interested in how the world would/might react to an
| American civil war _today_?
|
| Would we see America's "enemies" sending arms to the side of
| their choice to fight a proxy war on American soil? Would a side
| accept that aide?
|
| Would America's "allies" sit out or pick sides? Would those sides
| align with the sides "enemies" would choose?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Would we see America's "enemies" sending arms to the side of
| their choice to fight a proxy war on American soil? Would a
| side accept that aide?
|
| If history is any indication, yes and yes.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| I think the world would collectively shit its pants. The
| world's largest economy and military suddenly splintering while
| in control of several thousand nuclear weapons? It would seem
| like Armageddon.
| JimTheMan wrote:
| America's allies would probably not support a side unless there
| was going to be a clear winner OR it was in that nation's
| interest to do so.
|
| America's enemies maybe would pick a side in an attempt to
| destabilize the country more... But I think a splintered
| America would be extremely reluctant to accept help from
| Russia/China.
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