In 1812, the U.S. and England were bitter enemies. In 1917, they were allies against Germany. So did the turning point occur before World War 1, and if so, what caused the turnaround and when?
Well, the first Adams administration (1797-1801) wanted to make friends with Britain and turn against France. This alignment caused one heck of a lot of bad blood between Adams’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans. At one point in the Adams administration there were even hostilities between the American navy and the French navy. But there was no declaration of war against France at that point and IIRC no formal alliance with Britain.
Jefferson, of course, wanted to stay friends with France and was not so keen on staying aligned with Britain. The Jeffersonian president Madison went so far as to get into war with Britain. His successor Monroe was also a Jeffersonian but by that time things had cooled down both domestically and abroad.
The Monroe Doctrine (1823) was implicitly backed by British power, as a political cartoon at the time showed Monroe with his Doctrine in a little rowboat being towed by a British man-o’-war. So sometime between 1814 and 1823 the Americans and British had come to some understanding.
In 1812, the U.S. and England were bitter enemies. In 1917, they were allies against Germany. So did the turning point occur before World War 1, and if so, what caused the turnaround and when?
I believe it was around the time of World War I. IIRC, the choice of whether to ally with the Germans or with the French and British was not so clear cut as it would seem (especially now, haha :x) and that many Americans, coming of German heritage, still had loyalties toward Germany.
I’m sure someone will come along with a more detailed and accurate answer.
Officially, it was WWI. The countries often had trade in common, and relations were usually cordial once the War of 1812 was over, but there was no formal alliance before 1917.
One issue, even up to WWII, was that people in the US didn’t like the UK. Americans of Irish descent certainly did not, and there was a carryover feeling of mistrust in some circles that did date back to the revolution.
Hey, how did this thread get duplicated? I answered this one first, I say the other one should get locked.
There was nearly a war in the 1840’s over what is now Oregon, Washington, and British Colombia (54’40 or fight!). In the Buchanan administration, the milestone of the Prince of Wales visiting Washington (and spending a night at the WHite House) was achieved. But then the Civil War, especially the ‘Trent Affair’ and compensation for the C.S.S. Alabama (a Southern ship outfitted in the U.K. which sank some Union vessels) caused further friction, and saber rattling.
I do believe as late as the Venezuela crisis of the late 1890’s (In which there were conflicting claims on the border with British Guyana and Venezuela around 1896 or so), there were open tensions. The United States took the Venezuelan side. Also the Boer War of 1899-1902 was widely opposed. Also, I think there were at least some British sympathies to the Spanish side in the Spanish-American War of 1898.
So I would say the whole period from 1845 until 1917 was one of very slow rapprochment. Another interesting thing is that during much of this period, American-British relations were heavily influenced by American-Canadian relations. Britain was actually a “bordering” nation in a sense.
I believe there was always an interest in keeping relations open due to trading.
One episode in that decades-long rapprochement was the H.M.S. Resolute, abandoned in Melville Sound (northern Canada) by a British crew in 1854. More than a year later, an American whaler rescued the deserted ship and sold it to the United States, which refitted the ship and presented the refurbished vessel to the United Kingdom “on behalf of the people of the United States as a token of the friendly feelings by which our country is actuated.” The Resolute was taken out of service in 1879, when “a desk was made from her timbers which was presented by Queen Victoria to President Rutherford S. Hayes. Apart from short spells, the desk has been in daily use in the Oval Office of the White House by every President of the United States since then.” President Bush still uses the Resolute desk in the Oval Office today.
Don’t forget the time the US and the UK almost went to war over a pig :http://wwwshs1.bham.wednet.edu/zodiac/Lessons/thpigwar(2002).htm
The last really serious tension was the Venezuela border dispute, mentioned above. There were several developments in the period 1898-1903 that reduced tensions considerably:
Unlike many other countries, Britain did not make too much noise about American actions in the Spanish-American War (1898). The U.S. returned the favor by not making too much noise about British actions in the Boer War (1899-1902). The Hay-Pauncefote Treaties (1900 and 1901) permitted the U.S. to build the Panama Canal without fear of British interference. And Britain essentially sided with the U.S. against Canada in settling the Alaska boundary dispute (1903).
That’s not to say there were no tensions after that. For example, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902) was unpopular in the U.S. and continued to be a source of friction even after WWI, until the agreement was allowed to lapse in the 1920s.
Yeah, but I answered the other one. Tell you what, I’ll merge them into one.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Before direct US involvement in WWI, German Americans were a large, if not the largest immigrant group in America.
At some point, several German Americans chided their fellow citizens in the press for not taking the British side. These articles unleashed latent anti-German sentiment in the US. Being German or taking Germany’s side quickly became viewed as “un-American”. So favoring the British was patriotic, favoring their oppopents were not.
More on German Americans here.
In 1914 Americans were already in favour of England and France (Triple Entente) rather than Germany and its allies. Feelings in Europe were quite similar. In addition, Western European democracies were important trade partners to U.S, so allies losing war would have threatened that beneficial trade. And German monarchy was commonly seen as a dictatorship, against which Wilson administration actively campaigned. Add to this all the ship lane violations and U-boat attacks during German unrestricted submarine warfare, and it’s easy to see why Americans ultimately allied with Britain.
Not that it would have stopped war plans against friendly nations “just in case”, as seen in this Staff Report.
Perhaps moot, but certainly during the Civil War period we weren’t allies. England (with some degree of glee) supported the Confederacy pretty openly, running blockades, buying cotton, and otherwise doing all they could short of armed conflict to thwart the Union.
True. But the United Kingdom never recognized the Confederate government, did it? (I’m not certain.) While Britain was certainly playing footsies with the Confederacy for the sake of its cotton imports and mercantile exports, the British government stopped short not only of entering into “armed conflict” against the Union, but of opening formal diplomatic relations with the Confederacy.
Not having any resources other than google handy, I can’t give you a cite, but England definitely had observers with troops on both sides of the US Civil War. If I recall the history correctly, England was waiting for a good reason to recognize the confederacy, and the critical battle never came.
Lots of “what if” scenarios are out there on battles such as Shiloh and Gettysburg and whether altering the outcome of either one would have induced the British to recognize the Confederate States.
You’ll have to search long and hard to find a reputable history supporting the idea that there was a snowflake’s chance in Hell that Britain would recognize the Confederacy unless it appeared that the Confederacy was going to secure independance without UK intervention. What motive would the UK have for such a recognition, which would cost the government support at home (slavery was unpopular) and abroad (if nothing else, the US would not exactly be friendly)? The UK could do a little blocakde running and still trade with the confederacy, thereby being fine if the Union wins since the union wasn’t significantly angered by blockade running, and fine if the Confederacy wins since the Confederacy still needed to trade.
The UK in the 19th century did not get involved in major wars on a lark, and while lots of Confederates wanted the UK to intervene in the war on their behalf, there wasn’t any reason for the UK to do so. They weren’t sitting around waiting for an excuse, they’d need something significant to motivate them to get involved in a large-scale war.
Ok, not a real cite, but a short conversation with my dad, a member of the Blue and Grey Education Society http://www.blue-and-gray-education.org/, led to the following followup points.
Basically, a section of the English parliment wanted to recognize the Confederacy because of the cotton trade (among other reasons). However, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation after Antietem, he made the war officially about slavery. By making a formal political announcement that to support the south was to support slavery, he tied up the British Parliment. They couldn’t recognize the south as long as slavery was officially part of the deal, because England had declared slavery illegeal. So in one sense, the Emancipation Proclamation forced the English to deal with the slavery question rather than the economic question. Up until that point, there had been numerous conversations between Jefferson Davis and members of the English Parliment about formal recognition. Afterwords, the whole issue became impossible short of capture of Washington or another major and critical defeat for the Union.
I don’t think anyone would dispute the amount of material aid supplied by the British to the Confederacy. I also don’t think that you can say that the British government was ever entirely for or against recognizing the South. The same can almost certianly be said for the British people.
In any case, with respect to Riboflavin’s snowflake’s chance in hell of recognition, I’d have to say that the US Civil war is one of the most controversial and controversially researched wars, and that “reputable histroy” rapidly becomes an emotional matter of opinion on any Civil War topic.
Purely in my opinion, the truth is likely that with the right battle at the right time, the South could have won recognition. Capturing Washington isn’t all that unimagineable with or without overt British aid. So until the war changed tenor, official recognition was at the least a viable political ploy for the British and a valid hope for the Confederacy. It would have taken a major blow to the North however.
As this rapidly becomes a Great Debate topic rather than a General Question, I’ll just return to the OP and say that US-British relationships definitely weren’t that solid during or just after the US Civil War (1870’s). For example: .The Alabama Claims
Once again, sorry for the lack of a real cite. Most of the civil war material I have read is in boxes in someone else’s house
Any evidence at all that the British government as a whole, and not just a small section of parliament, was ever seriously contemplating recognition of the Confederacy? All you’ve offered is evidence that there were some people involved in running the UK that talked to some Confederates, you haven’t offered anything that shows there was any chance whatsoever of the UK actually recognizing the Confederacy short of the Confederacy clearly winning the war.
Note carefully that the claim I was responding to was that “England was waiting for a good reason to recognize the confederacy, and the critical battle never came,” which clearly is saying that the government of the United Kingdom wanted to recognize the Confederacy but was waiting for a good opportunity, not that a small faction wanted to recognize the Confederacy and hoped that other MPs would eventually come around to their view. While attempting to argue with your whole somewhat rambling post would be GD material, it’s perfectly appropriate in GQ to look at a particular claim and examine whether it is factual or not. And the fact is, the UK government as a whole was not just looking for an excuse to recognize the confederacy.