I don’t know if the Europeans would have called the US a serious military power until WW1, or WW2 to be sure. Yes, we’d mobilized a large army, but it was busy and we hadn’t grown the Navy to the same extent. I think Chapter 15 of “Makers of Modern Strategy” would back this up, but I don’t have that book at hand.
However, we were a more important economic partner than the rebels, and I suspect being anti-slavery gave the Europeans moral cover to pursue their various projects of colonialism. Besides, there’s always the “what’s in it for us?” aspect - what would they gain from helping the rebels? If I were a diplomat planning strategy for the Confederacy, I would slit my wrists target Napoleon III and try to convince him that the Confederacy would underwrite his expansionistic plans in Latin America if he opened the French markets to southern cotton. Maybe they tried that, I dunno. From a quick search,
From the very start of the war, the Confederates and their sympathizers tried to cast themselves out as the natural allies of Napoleon’s new Mexican regime, but the French had their doubts about the sincerity of the South’s support. Until the eve of secession, Southern nationalism was reflected by an unremitting desire for conquest in the Caribbean, Mexico, or Central America. To the Quai d’Orsay, a Confederate victory would signal the resumption of Southern conquests to fuel a slave empire. At the same time, Maximilian, the new emperor of Mexico set up by Napoleon, preferred to remain neutral and keep his distance from the Confederacy.
I don’t know if the Europeans would have called the US a serious military power until WW1, or WW2 to be sure. Yes, we’d mobilized a large army, but it was busy and we hadn’t grown the Navy to the same extent.
I mean, by the end of the US Civil War, the US Navy was one of the most powerful in the world. Didn’t last, because we didn’t see the point in keeping the expense beyond the war, but my point was primarily that the Union during the Civil War wasn’t some backwater that could be toppled by an expeditionary force.
The US Navy had some 700 warships by the end of the Civil War, which was about the size of the British Navy, if memory serves. While the British navy almost definitely had more large ships, 700 is a sizable force no matter how you slice it, short of them all being a guy in a canoe with a punt gun.
I don’t know if the Europeans would have called the US a serious military power until WW1, or WW2 to be sure. Yes, we’d mobilized a large army, but it was busy and we hadn’t grown the Navy to the same extent. I think Chapter 15 of “Makers of Modern Strategy” would back this up, but I don’t have that book at hand.
However, we were a more important economic partner than the rebels, and I suspect being anti-slavery gave the Europeans moral cover to pursue their various projects of colonialism. Besides, there’s always the “what’s in it for us?” aspect - what would they gain from helping the rebels? If I were a diplomat planning strategy for the Confederacy, I would
slit my wriststarget Napoleon III and try to convince him that the Confederacy would underwrite his expansionistic plans in Latin America if he opened the French markets to southern cotton. Maybe they tried that, I dunno. From a quick search,https://academic.oup.com/north-carolina-scholarship-online/book/31030/chapter-abstract/264006213
So maybe brokering a deal in which French-enabled Confederate economic gains funded French expansionism would have worked…
I mean, by the end of the US Civil War, the US Navy was one of the most powerful in the world. Didn’t last, because we didn’t see the point in keeping the expense beyond the war, but my point was primarily that the Union during the Civil War wasn’t some backwater that could be toppled by an expeditionary force.
Sounds a little fishy (ha!) but I’ll take your word for it, I haven’t even read Mahan.
The US Navy had some 700 warships by the end of the Civil War, which was about the size of the British Navy, if memory serves. While the British navy almost definitely had more large ships, 700 is a sizable force no matter how you slice it, short of them all being a guy in a canoe with a punt gun.
I haven’t either tbf, lol