Ruminations on Alternate History WRT the US Civil War

[Laertes]

Carthaginian, you raise an excellent point about the smallish economies leading to less overt colonialism, to which I must respond.

Remember that in OTL, much of the spread of colonies was by individuals acting more or less outside of the government's reach - Clive and Rhodes to name but two (and that's the first time I've said that latter name for a while without spitting) - in the interests of pure profit, and being followed up by people with flags. If you can make a profit within your own borders, then the search for colonial markets to dominate becomes less of an issue - as you point out.

The idea occurs to me that, once a country has IC equal to their pop, further economic development is much less efficient. Therefore, investors within that country might take the stance of Nathaniel Lord Rothschild, and decide to carry out economic development in places with IC less than their pop... at swordpoint if necessary. Far from urging their citizens on, governments may actually be trying to hold them back. (The original definition of an American "filibuster" springs to mind as a failed counterpoint to Clive, Gordon, Livingstone and their brethren.)

[Carthaginian]

LOL... I didn't think that anyone would remember Walker!
The Walker Expedition is probably a horrible example of what you are thinking of- Walker didn't invade a 'stone age' Nicaragua, he invaded a modern nation with poor resources. His was not a mission of colonialism, but rather a mission of ego; Walker had no intent of making Nicaragua a territory of America, he wanted to make independent nations built around the rule of the elite.

Men like Rhodes embarked on schemes which had completely different goals. Rhodes, from the very beginning of his endeavors, intended to bring the entire world under the rule of the Crown. Rhodes was a lot like Andrew Jackson- a murderer, war criminal, and aspiring politician. He didn't so much want a nation with him at the head like Walker did; Rhodes wanted Her Majesty firmly at the top, and himself quietly ensconced in her petticoats... and thus shielded from the kind of 'direct retaliation' that bought Walker an unmarked grave.

[Laertes]

Remember that Rhodes was a diamond speculator by trade, and throughout his career, was open about his desire to enrich his investors. As you point out, his personal aims were patriotic, to an extent which seems comical today - he planned for "the eventual recovery of the breakaway American colonies", one of my favourite phrases - but, judging by his letters to Rothschild, he wasn't interested in invading places where a profit couldn't be made.

Thanks for reminding me of the Nicaragua story; things like that are a wonderful example of how colonialism actually happens. National governments often have no say in launching the colonial adventures; the question becomes only, do they want to give post hoc support or condemnation to a fait accompli?

(Naturally, while Nicaragua, had Walker won, would not have become a territory of the US, it's difficult to see it not having been a dependent satellite, sort of like Ian Smith's South Rhodesia was to South Africa.)

- Laertes
(Got Victoria II today)

[Carthaginian]

If Walker had indeed won, I actually don't think his little kingdom would have had anything to do with the United States. Had Walker won, he would have likely been a satellite of the Confederate States... Nicaragua would have immediately recognized the CSA, sent support, and become a legal channel for the Confederacy to funnel supplies through. Ships like the Alabama, Stonewall, North Carolina and Mississippi would have been bought by Nicaragua with Confederate funds AND would have possessed bases in both the Atlantic and Pacific from which to strike the blockading Union fleet- bases that would have been conveniently close to the Confederacy.. :-)

A part of me is almost sad that the damn fool lost.

[damocles]

Read Lincoln and his Admirals, C.. Walker would have lasted exactly 30 days. 

There was this crazy plan called Chiriqui that Lincoln kept pushing...

[Carthaginian]

Read Lincoln and his Admirals, C.. Walker would have lasted exactly 30 days.  

There was this crazy plan called Chiriqui that Lincoln kept pushing...

Damocles...
Are you quite aware that Walker invaded Nicaragua FIVE YEARS BEFORE LINCOLN WAS ELECTED?
Lincoln would have done NOTHING; he wasn't even the President when Walker invaded Nicaragua! Walker would have been firmly ensconced as President of Nicaragua and would have likely had a fairly large support base from Southern business concerns.

For some reason the people of the United States ascribe godhood to Lincoln. It's almost sickening... Lincoln could not do wrong, nor could anything that he planned to do fail. Like what you are doing now, people ascribe things to him that he couldn't even touch!

Damocles, I'm sorry, but you're about 5 years too early for the Lincon-messiah to save the world. :-\

[Blooded]

Carthaginian, I humbly ask that you please stop spouting the Dixie 'dogma'. This is not a political arena. You demand respect for the Southern cause from others, at least offer a little respect to others with opposing views.

[Carthaginian]

Carthaginian, I humbly ask that you please stop spouting the Dixie 'dogma'. This is not a political arena. You demand respect for the Southern cause from others, at least offer a little respect to others with opposing views.

I'm not spouting a 'dogma'- I'm pointing out something that disturbs me about the schools in our country.
Lincoln is given more credit than Al Gore wants to have.
Lincoln didn't even free all the slaves- just the ones that weren't slaving for him. ::)

Damocles' statement that 'Lincoln would have fixed it' is a prime example of this- Lincoln wasn't even in government at all at the time of the Walker expedition! Yet he is the immediate source of a perfect solution against something in the antebellum period.

I'm not trying to preach anything except "Can we please teach HISTORY instead of creating demi-gods?"

[maddox]

A tad more diplomacy please.  Blooded has a valid point here.

On the other hand, I recognize some issues we have in Belgium with simular "educational effects".

The reason Belgium is "independent" and not a part of France , Germany or the Netherlands is not what is teached in "our schools"

The Belgian people rose up against the Dutch tyrants

is what I learned at school.

My research on the subject, from international sources, learned me that French agigators got something started in Brussels, and that something got supported by France, meaning the Dutch had to deal with a undeclared French invasion.

The British didn't like the idea that France would gain acces to the industrious Flemish people (mostly farmers and weavers in that day) and the resource rich Walloons, so they, the Russians and the Prussians (Germany wasn't united yet) gave France something to chew upon, what cumulated to the London treaty of 1839.  What in itself led to the miserie of 1914-1918 in Flanders.

An independend buffer state, a kind of governemental monster of Frankenstein. Something that is coming to a boil now, and if no serious solution is reached soon, we could end up with a Europe having to deal with another Yugoslavia, but in the rich center of Europe. (actualy, if that blows up the EU, i'm not against)

[Laertes]

An independend buffer state, a kind of governemental monster of Frankenstein. Something that is coming to a boil now, and if no serious solution is reached soon, we could end up with a Europe having to deal with another Yugoslavia, but in the rich center of Europe. (actualy, if that blows up the EU, i'm not against)

Does that mean that we get to go and kill Walloons? If so, awesome.

Less facetiously: While my knowledge of US history is very limited, I doubt Nicaragua would have been any more useful to the CSA than, say, North Korea is to China nowadays. Yes, it's a satellite. If you want such things in order to increase your national prestige, well done. On the other hand, it's not exactly a satellite which is capable of standing on its own feet, let alone giving you any help. For a country as poor as the CSA was, a Nicaraguan colony may not have been affordable.

On the matter of revisionist history: It always happens. When I was a kid, I was taught about the British coming in and invading and taking our country away. That's not to say it didn't happen; that's not to say Cecil John Rhodes was a good man. However, the Afrikaner Republics weren't exactly shining lights of morality, and the British Empire was far more moral than many countries at the time.

I can't think of any country which hasn't rewritten its history so as to make itself appear palatable. Possibly Germany, but then only because we had to beat them up until they agreed to cast themselves as the bad guys.

- Laertes
(Recently reread Niall Ferguson's history of the British Empire; the man is like a less heavyweight, less whorish version of the late great A J P Taylor.)

[damocles]

Carthaginian, I humbly ask that you please stop spouting the Dixie 'dogma'. This is not a political arena. You demand respect for the Southern cause from others, at least offer a little respect to others with opposing views.

I'm not spouting a 'dogma'- I'm pointing out something that disturbs me about the schools in our country.
Lincoln is given more credit than Al Gore wants to have.
Lincoln didn't even free all the slaves- just the ones that weren't slaving for him. ::)

Damocles' statement that 'Lincoln would have fixed it' is a prime example of this- Lincoln wasn't even in government at all at the time of the Walker expedition! Yet he is the immediate source of a perfect solution against something in the antebellum period.

I'm not trying to preach anything except "Can we please teach HISTORY instead of creating demi-gods?"

I was educated in Kansas and Indiana. That is why  I know about Chiriqui, the proposed African American freedman colony project and why it failed.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html

It was the same reason that Walker in Nicaragua failed and Napoleon the III failed in Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_%28filibuster%29

No way short of the full force of an 1880s United States with a new steel navy and an army to boot are you going to Filibuster Latin America.

Just no way.  

By the way, Walker was SHOT by a Honduran firing squad before there was a Confederacy or a Lincoln.to worry about.

[Ithekro]

If I understand the idea correctly, Nicaragua would be more like a place the Confederate negotiators and businessmen could operate though to legally purchase war materials from Europe.  The goods get sent out from Europe then reflagged in the New World as Confederate raiders or the like.  The trouble would be if the United States of America also blockaded Nicaragua as well as the Confederate States of America.  The US Navy was rather spread out on that duty.  Also it would probably require a declaration of war and might be others into the conflict.

Ships would either have to run the blockade or move stuff up through Central America and Mexico to get materials to the Confederacy from Nicaraguan ports.

In a way like todays practise of registering ships in say Panama or some other country were you don't have to pay high rates for things.

[Laertes]

I can only imagine that, in an alternate history where the filibusters held out until the American Civil War, the Union would, you know, be forewarned that there's this little pro-slavery enclave down there, which they might want to blockade. It's not as if it'd get to be neutral until that point and then choose sides. Walker's Nicaragua would have been an American satellite a decade beforehand, which means it would have factored into the plans from day one.

That being said, they may well have tried to do what Sweden did in both world wars; except that Sweden wasn't in danger of revolution or being invaded by Mexicans and Hondurans.

Amusingly enough, if Central America had been filibustered, and then declared for the CSA, then it raises the very real possibility of Mexico entering the Civil War on the US side. After all, it's not as if there was much good blood between the Mexicans and the southern Americans.

[Guinness]

I *do* have degrees in American history and Education, and while born and raised in the South, I've got to roll my eyes at this entire line of discussion.

A friendly satellite state in Nicaragua would have offered more or less no advantage to the south for getting goods past the blockade. The Yucatan Strait is less than 125 miles wide, and fairly easy to block up with a minimal number of ships based out of Key West.

On the other hand, Nicaragua is still 1200 miles from the Confederate coast, and has in this period virtually no useful harbor facilities. Crossing the continent there was a difficult task to say the least. There would also be no possibility of moving goods from Nicaragua to the Confederacy overland in this era, even if the governments in between somehow chose to play ball.

Nicaragua offers no advantages over transshipping goods via blockade runner from Havana, Bermuda, or the Bahamas either.

Basing Confederate raiders there would have just made it easier for the Union navy to find them.

The only alternate history angle I can see is if the Union might have chosen to declare war on Nicaragua (because of its support of smuggling), a sovereign and recognized nation. I don't personally believe that doing so would have been likely to provoke the British to do much, but it may have lead to some diplomatic crisis at some point, I suppose.

At any rate, this has almost nothing to do with Nverse European history, so I'm splitting up this thread.

[damocles]

If I understand the idea correctly, Nicaragua would be more like a place the Confederate negotiators and businessmen could operate though to legally purchase war materials from Europe.  The goods get sent out from Europe then reflagged in the New World as Confederate raiders or the like.  The trouble would be if the United States of America also blockaded Nicaragua as well as the Confederate States of America.  The US Navy was rather spread out on that duty.  Also it would probably require a declaration of war and might be others into the conflict.

Ships would either have to run the blockade or move stuff up through Central America and Mexico to get materials to the Confederacy from Nicaraguan ports.

In a way like todays practise of registering ships in say Panama or some other country were you don't have to pay high rates for things.

Maximilian Mexico was already used as a French dodge to get around the Union blockade. Surreptitious Northern aid to Mexico's legitimate Juarez government, and the Western River Squadron fighting its way down the Mississippi foiled that plan.



Since the American Navy blockade was a close blockade of the US coast, how does Nicaragua help? Especially also since Admiral Charles Wilkes flying squadron of steam cruisers was posted on the South American bulge to deal with just such a scheme? What happened to the CSS Florida?

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-ag/florida.htm