# Britain and France recognize the Confederacy. What next? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349 "2011-07-08T19:57:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/21 "2011-07-10T01:08:14Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > A committed French and British intervention would have effectively added the resources and manpower of (French controlled) Mexico and (British controlled) Canada to the Confederate war effort. Barring a negotiated peace, the result would have either been a devastating defeat for the Union or (almost as likely) US annexation of the entire continent. French-controlled Mexico was barely controlled. Maximilian ruled for less than four years before the Mexican Republicans overthrew him in 1867. Napoleon III in France was having financial issues because Mexico had defaulted on its debt (the whole Maximilian Affair was basically a repo situation) and even massive use of the French army was insufficient to hold the country. Napoleon also had to deal with the Prussians to the east, and any significant draw-down in French forces in France might provoke a Prussian invasion. The only thing that French controlled Mexico could offer was open ports, and frankly the French and British navies would be able to open Southern ports anyway. ---
**Author:** ![AntiCoyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@AntiCoyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AntiCoyote)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/22 "2011-07-10T03:34:06Z")
The problem was really cotton. The only reason to break the blockade was to get cotton. And the UK didn’t have much trouble finding other places, like Egypt, to get cotton. The French were too busy with plans for Mexico. No way would France want to do anything the interfere with that. The British would’ve lost parts of Canada and had a bloody mess with the parts they held on to. While Newfoundland, and the Maritimes were safe enough, British Columbia, the Prairies could’ve been taken. Ontario and Quebec could’ve been bloodied. The most important reason was wheat. The UK found other sources of cotton but were still overdependent on wheat and other food sources, which the USA supplied easily. Assuming both France and Britain recognized the CSA, it wouldn’t have been followed up with much support. For example Biafra was recognized by Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia, but that was about all they got. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/23 "2011-07-10T04:29:26Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Let’s say the UK recognized the CSA and stationed more troops in Canada. Considering all of the advantages the USA had it still took 4 years to defeat the US, 3 lost cigars (Antietam) and Ewell having a different definition of “practical” than Lee (Gettysburg); Could the US have fought a two-front war? But look at the disadvantages the British would have had. 1860 was only four years after the Crimean War and that had been a near-disaster. It was only three years after the British almost lost India and they still needed troops there. Plus they were fighting a war with China. And a Maori uprising in New Zealand. The French similarly were campaigning in China, Mexico, Morocco, Syria, and Vietnam at this time. It’s not like either country had a hundred thousand soldiers sitting around the barracks doing nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/24 "2011-07-10T06:29:42Z")
> [@straight\_man](#): > > Hmm, interesting point. How was the _New Ironsides_ as a blockader? (I ask because I glanced at her Wiki, which gave 7 knots as a top speed. It seems as if you’d need an awfully small harbour mouth to be able to keep ships out with that limitation.) She was _terrible_ for catching blockade runners – 7 knots might be generous, as I’ve usually read “6.” You can’t have everything. 🙂 But she wasn’t alone. Faster wooden ships could stand farther out to sea and intercept blockade runners while _New Ironsides_ stood in close to fend off Confederate ironclads and protect the wooden blockaders, or, most typically, pound forts as prelude to capturing and closing the entire harbor. Fletcher Pratt wrote that _New Ironsides_ was struck by enemy fire more times than any other ship in American naval service, while only suffering one fatality. I Googled around trying to verify that online, and found a claim that one of the monitors was hit more often, leaving the _New Ironsides_ in second place, but it was phrased in a way that didn’t give me confidence as to whether it referred to a single battle or the entire war. During the bombardment of the forts at Charleston, she [fired more rounds than all seven monitors in the fleet](http://books.google.com/books?id=SdrYv7S60fgC&pg=PA1406&lpg=PA1406&dq=new+ironsides+ship+struck+more+times+by+enemy+fire+than+any+other+ship&source=bl&ots=lYUxyTUAHz&sig=6qRpFe_29Jo25P4e4EpmQoAOAE0&hl=en&ei=fz8ZTquZN8vTgQeOyOgi&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). She also survived a spar torpedo explosion from a semi-submersible “David” boat, among other things. _New Ironsides_ was a product of the Ironclad Board’s initial competition, to launch an ironclad in 100 days to meet the CSS _Virginia_, which produced three designs, the others being the USS Monitor and the USS Galena. The _Galena_ was a flat failure; a novel system of “lightening” the armor by placing thinner plates over widely-separated ribs led to spalling and fragments passing through the occupied spaces. It was literally worse than no armor at all, and the ship is, to my knowledge, unique in history in that she was stripped of her armor and employed as a _wooden_ ship…the ultimate humiliation for an ironclad. The _Monitor_ was revolutionary, so much so that she was regarded as risky, and the Board made Ericsson agree to assume the cost if she wasn’t ready on time, sank, or failed to perform. She was the first US government project built by subcontractors; Ericsson knew he had no time to get her in the water using normal methods, so different firms built parts and subassemblies and they were shipped to a central location. The rush proved _exactly_ enough: while _Monitor_ was **not** present in Hampton Roads when _Virginia_ came out and began destroying the blockading fleet, she arrived before the job was finished. The _Virginia_ had rammed and sunk the USS _Cumberland_, and set fire to the USS _Congress_, forcing its surrender, and driven the _Minnesota_ aground. The USS _Roanoke_ was present but due to deep draft unable to close with the _Virginia_. When _Virginia_ sailed out the next morning to finish the job, _Monitor_ had literally arrived in the nick of time and was just able to fight her to a draw, fulfilling the purpose of the Ironclad Board competition by the narrowest possible margin. The _New Ironsides_, the third design approved in the competition, would obviously not be built in 100 days – too large a project. A more conventional-looking design than the other two, but strongly armored and armed like no other ship in the world. Despite not being able to even pretend the design would meet the deadline, the Board saw what a strong ship she would be, and funded her construction on the principle that such a mighty vessel was bound to be useful. As indeed she proved to be. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/25 "2011-07-10T07:02:48Z")
One thing no-one has mentioned - armed foreign intervention wauld have caused Northern support of the war to skyrocket. A large segment of Northern society always had a hard time committing to a war against the Southern states, and even endorsing the Confederate position; the moment the war turned into an attack on the sovereignity of the United States by damn’d foreigners, they would have had no choice but to come on board. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/26 "2011-07-10T18:28:16Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I think that might be an overstatement. If we accept the values on[snip] Note that I said More Powerful, not richer or more populous (right at that exact moment). The reason is the somewhat unique American Economy, which more that any other in the world employed labor-saving devices to increase productivity. This freed up vast amounts of labor and allows the United States to field the world’s largest army. Britain and France could have done precisely jack squat, aside from braking the blockade. Even that would have been dubious unless they devoted so many resources as to allow all their other interests to collapse. In truth, the Europeans didn’t want any such conflict - Napoleon III, and Lord whatever-the-hell-his-name-was in England, evidently thought that recognition of the South would compel the Union to make peace without any risk on their part. They hadn’t quite realized how the globe was realigning yet, nor that Americans simply didn’t give a rat’s ass what England thought (and who probably realized that Britain was far dependant on northern grain, not America on British goods). And if you consider it, this was after all the tiny, helpless nation which required long-term wearing down of English armies to win the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. The Union was able to put something like 10% of the entire nation’s labor to the war afford, either as soldiers or direct support of soldiers, and sustain that more or less indefinitely. You dont’ have to big bigger or richer to be the strongest (as Germany proved several times last century, and the Swiss in the centuries before that). ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/27 "2011-07-10T18:43:01Z")
I dont understand a word of post 26. Could someone translate? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/28 "2011-07-10T19:53:53Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > I dont understand a word of post 26. Could someone translate? If I understand correctly, he’s saying the United States was able to apply its resources into military force more efficiently than Britain or France could. So any apparent quantitative advantage the British and French had was illusionary. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/29 "2011-07-10T20:04:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If I understand correctly, he’s saying the United States was able to apply its resources into military force more efficiently than Britain or France could. So any apparent quantitative advantage the British and French had was illusionary. But checking the figures provided by Tamerlane, after the Civil war the US whole pop was more or less that of France. I dont know exactly what was the pop distribution in the US at that time, but considering the US during the war were split in two, that would mean they would have been facing two countries with the same pop or higher, while fighting the Confederation. At least on paper, it doesnt look too good. As for the claims of the US having +10 bonuses in war production, I am not familiar with it. Maybe **smiling bandit** could have provided a link or something. I only have the V1.2 version of the game, maybe that came in a following patch that I didnt DL. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/30 "2011-07-10T20:17:58Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > The reason is the somewhat unique American Economy, which more that any other in the world employed labor-saving devices to increase productivity. I don’t think that’s true. The UK was more industrialized than the US was at that point, and had the largest share of manufacturing output. The US and France were both below that. If you look at per capita levels of industrialization (taken from Baroch’s "International Industrialization Levels from 1750-1980) with UK 1900 levels at 100, the UK in 1860 had a level of 64 compared to France’s 20 and the US’s 21. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/31 "2011-07-10T21:31:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t think that’s true. The UK was more industrialized than the US was at that point, and had the largest share of manufacturing output. The US and France were both below that. If you look at per capita levels of industrialization (taken from Baroch’s "International Industrialization Levels from 1750-1980) with UK 1900 levels at 100, the UK in 1860 had a level of 64 compared to France’s 20 and the US’s 21. I don’t have any figures in front of me but I think Britain took a strong lead in industrializing manufacturing but the United States was the leader in industrializing agriculture. And because agriculture was a larger segment of the economy than manufacturing was, agricultural industrialization would have freed up more manpower than manufacturing industrialization. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/32 "2011-07-10T21:41:20Z")
> [@AntiCoyote](#): > > The problem was really cotton. The only reason to break the blockade was to get cotton. And the UK didn’t have much trouble finding other places, like Egypt, to get cotton. And, those other places were controlled by the British, a distinct advantage vs. getting cotton from the South. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/33 "2011-07-11T14:07:40Z")
Wasn’t the Union dependent on imports of British nitre for it’s gunpowder production? Would a nitre embargo have crippled the Union war effort? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/34 "2011-07-11T16:10:32Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > And, those other places were controlled by the British, a distinct advantage vs. getting cotton from the South. Egypt didn’t come under British control until 1879. It was the cotton boom that allowed Egypt to partially modernize and further expand in the south, but in the end they overspent and insolvency triggered European intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/35 "2011-07-12T01:49:36Z")
Interesting trivia I just heard about American Civil War economics. As I’m sure most of us know, the United States started issuing paper currency during the war. When Congress authorized this, the law that was enacted required each bill to be signed by a Treasury official in order to be valid. Hand-signed - a printed signature wasn’t considered valid. So the Treasury Department had to hire six people whose full time jobs were signing currency day after day. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/36 "2011-07-12T03:51:15Z")
But Britain and France’s armies were on the other side of the Atlantic. The war was happening in North America. Yes, the British navy could have broken the blockade and resupplied the Confederacy. But how many troops are they going to ship over to North America to fight in the meatgrinder of the Civil War? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/37 "2011-07-12T15:29:06Z")
Coincidentally, I just finished Keegan’s book on the war. Britain and France were no more planning to recognize the CSA than were were planning to recognize John Carter as king of Mars; it wasn’t ever really close to happening. Had they done so, however, the military effect would have been next to zero, because recognition of the CSA as a government would almost certianly not have led to military intervention. At the risk of stating the obvious, what would the casus belli be? If Britain recognizes the CSA on Dec. 31, 1862, they recognize them at a moment when the CSA is already in a state of war with the United States. Britain has no compelling reason to go to war, no justification to go to war, and is extremely unlikely to be able to make a difference. They could have broken the blockade but not affected the war on the ground. France, meanwhile, was in the middle of a terrible mess in Mexico. The Confederates could have used that blockade busted up but their disadvantage wasn’t in war material, really, it was in men. Confederate soldiers rarely lacked for weapons or ammunition; they did a remarkable job, all things considered, keeping their men armed. But they ran out of men to fight with, and ran out of land to fight from, two things Europe wouldn’t and couldn’t send them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/38 "2011-07-12T18:02:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Coincidentally, I just finished Keegan’s book on the war. > > Britain and France were no more planning to recognize the CSA than were were planning to recognize John Carter as king of Mars; it wasn’t ever really close to happening. > > Had they done so, however, the military effect would have been next to zero, because recognition of the CSA as a government would almost certianly not have led to military intervention. At the risk of stating the obvious, what would the casus belli be? If Britain recognizes the CSA on Dec. 31, 1862, they recognize them at a moment when the CSA is already in a state of war with the United States. Britain has no compelling reason to go to war, no justification to go to war, and is extremely unlikely to be able to make a difference. They could have broken the blockade but not affected the war on the ground. France, meanwhile, was in the middle of a terrible mess in Mexico. > > The Confederates could have used that blockade busted up but their disadvantage wasn’t in war material, really, it was in men. Confederate soldiers rarely lacked for weapons or ammunition; they did a remarkable job, all things considered, keeping their men armed. But they ran out of men to fight with, and ran out of land to fight from, two things Europe wouldn’t and couldn’t send them. And food too. The south had very little capacity to ship food from areas of local surplus to where it would do any good. As far as the British Navy contributing to the southern war effort, as long as we’re postulating Britain having a rabidly pro-Confederate foreign policy, the next logical step after breaking the blockade would be actively keeping southern ports from being seized by Union naval forces, or retaking them if they were. If Britain nullified the Union ability to attack from the sea, it would eliminate one advantage the Union held, and made things that much harder for the North. Although as I said upthread, simply embargoing nitre would have crippled the Union war effort as much as any active role Britain could play. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349/39 "2011-07-12T18:15:08Z")
A niter embargo would have hurt the United States but I don’t think it would have crippled it. Importing niter was the easiest way to obtain it but it could have been manufactured if needed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britain-and-france-recognize-the-confederacy-what-next/588349.md?page=1)