Historical What If: Confederate States

[OzzyKP]

If the South establishes free trade with the UK and becomes a steady trade partner and supplier of raw materials to the UK and the rest of Europe does that present a crunch for the North for cotton and raw materials? If northern manufacturing didn't have an assured and protected source of materials would they be able to compete for CSA resources?

If not, then how severely would that set back northern manufacturing, and/or who would the USA look to for resources if not the South. How would that help drive alliances in this new timeline?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
If the South establishes free trade with the UK and becomes a steady trade partner and supplier of raw materials to the UK and the rest of Europe does that present a crunch for the North for cotton and raw materials? If northern manufacturing didn't have an assured and protected source of materials would they be able to compete for CSA resources?

If not, then how severely would that set back northern manufacturing, and/or who would the USA look to for resources if not the South. How would that help drive alliances in this new timeline?

It will mean a poorer north. The north will still buy cotton from the south, but it will do so on far worse terms of trade - it will have to pay more in manufactured goods for each ton of raw cotton. That combined with the absence of civil war casualties will lower northern wage levels. This will probably aggravate social tensions in the north, which were significant in OTL. Once again, I hate to say this, but its an area that Turtledove gets right.

Though in this TL there will likely be lower european immigration to the USA. Which may lower one source of OTL social tension.

So, youve got a north with growing social tensions, and a need to gain markets and raw materials. You have a relatively wealthy south, exporting raw materials, just starting to industrialize.

A war with the South, to both grab markets/Raw materials, and to turn social tension against an outside enemy, sure begins to look like a good idea to the northern elite, Id expect.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Manufactured goods were cheap in the real world too, and it didn't keep the South from industrializing. All being independant would do would be to restrict the even cheaper goods from the North from flooding the market.

And remember, with the South not being razed to the ground by the war, the economic outlook for the second half of the 19th century would be much brighter.

The South wasn't razed to the ground in the OTL, either. The Southern Planters did get what was coming to them, however.

the Confederacy will remain a backwater in North America.

[Dr Strangelove]

I rather suspect that the Confederacy would not have gone along with the idea of allowing free passage of trade from the midwest down the Mississippi, and that might have triggered a war. If that did not I believe that the escape of slaves to the US would have become a casus belli for the Confederacy.

The completion of the Suez Canal in 1865 gave Great Britain strong incentive to promote the trade of Indian Cotton. Southern sales of its primary crop would have plummeted. It is likely that the Confederacy's primary customer would have become the United States, though it is possible that if relations were bad enough the US might have restricted importation of Confederate products, in which case the Confederacy would have been truly screwed.
If the Confederacy survives until 1917 it's not certain that Germany would have offered an alliance with the CSA. The way the Germans saw it the USA had taken Texas, California and the western states from Mexico, so they expected Mexico to be willing to make an alliance in the hopes of getting their land back. People don't realise that in the 19th century during the reign of Diaz Germany established a modest influence in Mexico. The German foreign service knew that the upper class Mexicans still pined for their lost territories. What would Germany have to offer the CSA when the USA was not occupying any of the CSA's former territory? Probably the Germans would still have worked the Mexican end rather than seeking an alliance with the CSA.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

I rather suspect that the Confederacy would not have gone along with the idea of allowing free passage of trade from the midwest down the Mississippi, and that might have triggered a war.

The OP posits the north "letting the wayward sisters go" I can't imagine them doing that without free passage - though you are right, there would probably be frictions around it.

If that did not I believe that the escape of slaves to the US would have become a casus belli for the Confederacy.

Good point.

The completion of the Suez Canal in 1865 gave Great Britain strong incentive to promote the trade of Indian Cotton. Southern sales of its primary crop would have plummeted.

I guess theres some question to what extent the resourcing happened as a result of US tariff policy, which, in effect, made dixie cotton more expensive to the UK in terms of british manufactures.

It is likely that the Confederacy's primary customer would have become the United States,

Im not sure. IIUC in OTL there were still cotton exports to Europe post-1865, and Id certainly expect more in this TL.

though it is possible that if relations were bad enough the US might have restricted importation of Confederate products, in which case the Confederacy would have been truly screwed.

The US govt cant screw the northern cotton textile industry though, or the other northern industries dependent on southern raw materials. Not unless they really do want red revolution on their hands, as unemployment skyrockets. A sanctions offensive can only happen in extremis, I think.

If the Confederacy survives until 1917 it's not certain that Germany would have offered an alliance with the CSA.

assuming of course, that WW1 happens on schedule.

The way the Germans saw it the USA had taken Texas, California and the western states from Mexico, so they expected Mexico to be willing to make an alliance in the hopes of getting their land back. People don't realise that in the 19th century during the reign of Diaz Germany established a modest influence in Mexico.

I would expect the history of Mexico to go rather differently.

The German foreign service knew that the upper class Mexicans still pined for their lost territories. What would Germany have to offer the CSA when the USA was not occupying any of the CSA's former territory?

hmm, a market for cotton thats not tied to India? Though Im still in the Germany-USA alliance school, not for the ethnic reasons mentioned above, but because I still think the UK-CSA have complementary economies, and that UK-US rivalry gives UK and CSA natural common interests. In this TL its possible that USA can offer (CSA)Texas to Mexico, while CSA offers (USA) California to Mexico. Im not sure which way Mexico goes - of course this rivalry for influence in Mexico will start in 1861, well before any European war.

[Barnabas]

Only after Mexico lost the war to the USA Mexico started to care about populating the northern territories, those territories would have stayed quite underpopulated had they remained in Mexican hands.


Someone asked before if the south and north would re unite in the future, from what happened in latin america, I imagine it would have been unlikely

Countries re unite only if for the existance of one, they need the territory of the other one

Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, were the same country for a while, and separated, and remained separated because they dont need the other one to exist.

In Argentina, for decades there was civil war among the different provinces, finally 2 states were created, the state of Buenos Aires and the confederacy (the rest of the country).
They reunited, because the confederacy couldnt live without Buenos Aires, because Buenos Aires had the harbour thru which everything was exported, Buenos Aires could live and prosper alone, but the confederacy couldnt.

So the confederacy created a federal constitution, and invaded Buenos Aires, the port of Buenos Aires was declared to belong to the state and not the the city, and years later Buenos Aires was declared capital of the state separating it from the homonymous province.

In that case the countries reunited because one couldnt live without the other.

The confederacy would have been a big country, with natural resources, harbours etc, they could have developed alone with no problems. I dont think they would have reunited.

[Shrapnel12]

Here's a few educated guesses:

Slavery still would have ended, but much later and maybe but not neccesarily by force (and if by force, it could have been a country other then the US).

If WWI was won by the Germans, there would not have been a WWII because the Germans would have gotten everything they wanted in WWI and Germans would not be disgruntled over the treaty ending WWI. Hitler would never have ever been known (but this doesn't mean we'd have been better off if the Germans had won WWI).

Communism would have a bigger impact in North America. Not sure if the USA or the CSA would have turned communist (probably not), but it would have been more prevalent.

The various Native American tribes might still be around and independant or eventually wiped out by Mexico.

The USA and CSA might have a lasting peace but we would always be working against each other. We would never be allies because there would always be mistrust.

The USA would never have the kind of influence it does now over the world. We'd never have been a superpower. Russia and or China would be the dominating powers in the world. Perhaps communism would have spread and the world would be red today but maybe not. The freedom loving countries of the world could cause a major headache for these countries creating dozens of "Vietnams" for them.

Russia and China might just be each others greatest rival and WWII (if the Germans didn't start it) or WWIII would be a nuclear war between those two powers.

Another possible scenario is that Japan would conquer China and be Russia's rival, and/or conquer Russia. Japan would probably be communist also, or perhaps a whole new system other then democracy and communism would be founded by Japan.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
If WWI was won by the Germans, there would not have been a WWII because the Germans would have gotten everything they wanted in WWI and Germans would not be disgruntled over the treaty ending WWI. Hitler would never have ever been known (but this doesn't mean we'd have been better off if the Germans had won WWI).

Probably no Soviet Union either. This argument- whether we all would have been better off had the Central Powers won WW1- has been rehashed here multiple times. I say that things would have been better off. Molly Bloom, for example, argues that things wouldn't have been. It usually ends up with one liners over the extent of Kasier Bill's power, the extent of his sanity, the Junkers, the Thule society, the Krupps, and the Herero.

[lord of the mark]

Im not sure why everyone assumes that a divergence as large as no civil war, and a CSA, would have zero effect on the timing and composition of a european great power war.

I call that the Turteldove fallacy:

"hey, if Jesus hadnt been born, WW2 would have gone different, cause Britain would have allied with the USSR sooner, since Churchill wouldnt have been offended by Stalin being an atheist, ya know"

If you can critique THAT what-if, you can see whats wrong with what Turteldove did, and most attempts to ask what the CSA will do in August 1914, "when" WW1 breaks out.

In 1895 or so UK made a conscious decision that they couldnt contest power with BOTH the US and Germany. So they backed down from a confrontation over the Venezuala-Guyana border, and reconciled with the US. This was done to the particular balance that obtained then. A weaker US and maybe A. UK does the same deal, but earlier, and more to their advantage or B. They decide they CAN handle both, and remain hostile to the US or C. They decide to make a deal with Germany and to go to war with the US (perhaps intervening in a USA-CSA dispute) All could lead to very different world wars.

Does the Franco-Prussian war happen the same way if Nappy3 isnt humiliated in Mexico?

Will dramatically different trade relations impact the depression of 1873 and the decline of liberalism in central europe?

Even leaving aside butterfly effects, the odds of the events of 1861 making the power balance of 1914 very different are considerable.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

If you can critique THAT what-if, you can see whats wrong with what Turteldove did, and most attempts to ask what the CSA will do in August 1914, "when" WW1 breaks out.

...

Even leaving aside butterfly effects, the odds of the events of 1861 making the power balance of 1914 very different are considerable.

That's the problem with any historical What If, LoTM. No one can possibly control for every variable. HT does a decent job of telling a story set in a halfway plausible setting. He wanted to tell a story of the Great War in the U.S., so he did. There are so many variables, so many things that might have gone differently, that it's really pointless to "flabble" about it (You can't have a Turltedove discussion without throwing in his favorite made up word). It's a fantasy world, just like any of these discussions here regarding these what if scenarios. He glosses over many details because it would be impossible to deal with every historical nuance. You just have to accept that some of the issues that you raised (like the Venezuela dispute) either didn't happen or were resolved in ways that helped to ensure that his Great War would break out in 1914. He set things up in a way so as to be realistic enough to allow me to suspend disbelief. There's no real way to gauge its plausibility, because he doesn't provide enough information to truly break things down and anaylize the realism of the events. It's not designed to be a textbook(frankly, I found the "For the want of a Nail" more shaky than most of HT's work), it's a novel.

[Kuciwalker]

Would the US have been as much weaker without the South as you think, LOTM?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wycoff


That's the problem with any historical What If, LoTM. No one can possibly control for every variable. HT does a decent job of telling a story set in a halfway plausible setting. He wanted to tell a story of the Great War in the U.S., so he did. There are so many variables, so many things that might have gone differently, that it's really pointless to "flabble" about it (You can't have a Turltedove discussion without throwing in his favorite made up word). It's a fantasy world, just like any of these discussions here regarding these what if scenarios. He glosses over many details because it would be impossible to deal with every historical nuance. You just have to accept that some of the issues that you raised (like the Venezuela dispute) either didn't happen or were resolved in ways that helped to ensure that his Great War would break out in 1914. He set things up in a way so as to be realistic enough to allow me to suspend disbelief. There's no real way to gauge its plausibility, because he doesn't provide enough information to truly break things down and anaylize the realism of the events. It's not designed to be a textbook(frankly, I found the "For the want of a Nail" more shaky than most of HT's work), it's a novel.

Look, HT wrote a bestseller and thats fine. But there is another approach to alt history, the one that used to practiced on SHWI, and thats to treat it not as fantasy, but with the full intellectual rigor that one would apply to real history. That means we can discuss in a fair amount of detail what happens in the few years right after the POD - and I think the question of whether the South will move to industrialize, and what its approach to trade will be (and something we have hardly touched on, its approach to slavery) are fascinating.

50 years out, we can only talk in general terms. Assuming theres been no reunification of USA and CSA, or further splits, we can expect a weaker USA, and a North America subject to internal wars (Again heres where HT was right) and expect SOME impact on the great power balance. You cant, with any rigor, say what would have happened in WW1, cause their might not have been any. You can do it as a fantasy exercise of course - you could also assume that WW2 happens on schedule, and then ask how the USA and CSA will cooperate within NATO. Is youre rigorous enough to say that positing NATO happening in its OTL form anyway is silly, well I dont know its THAT much sillier than positing the Central powers and the Allies in their OTL form either.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Would the US have been as much weaker without the South as you think, LOTM?

I dont have data handy on what % of US GDP in 1895 was accounted for by the seceded states, but it was considerable, even before Spindletop. And you cant guage the impact only by that, because Northern industry will be hurt by the loss of their captive market.

and leaving aside GDP, the US will likely have to maintain a standing army on the border at considerable expense, and wont be able to focus all its resources on development and the navy, as in OTL.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Look, HT wrote a bestseller and thats fine. But there is another approach to alt history, the one that used to practiced on SHWI, and thats to treat it not as fantasy, but with the full intellectual rigor that one would apply to real history. That means we can discuss in a fair amount of detail what happens in the few years right after the POD - and I think the question of whether the South will move to industrialize, and what its approach to trade will be (and something we have hardly touched on, its approach to slavery) are fascinating.

50 years out, we can only talk in general terms. Assuming theres been no reunification of USA and CSA, or further splits, we can expect a weaker USA, and a North America subject to internal wars (Again heres where HT was right) and expect SOME impact on the great power balance. You cant, with any rigor, say what would have happened in WW1, cause their might not have been any. You can do it as a fantasy exercise of course - you could also assume that WW2 happens on schedule, and then ask how the USA and CSA will cooperate within NATO. Is youre rigorous enough to say that positing NATO happening in its OTL form anyway is silly, well I dont know its THAT much sillier than positing the Central powers and the Allies in their OTL form either.

I basically agree with you on all of this. I just don't think that it's fair to disdainfully call it the "Harry Turtledove effect" when every alternate history scenario projecting more than a year or two past a P.O.D. has the same weaknesses. No one can really comprehend how drastically different things would have been had a major historical event happened differently; every life would have been made different in some way. In the end it's just easier for people to try to fit alternate history into frameworks that somewhat resemble what we're used to.

I've found his books to be steadily less plausible, but I didn't really have a problem with his WW1 alliance set up, especially after the way that he set things up in "How Few Remain." Yes, starting the war in 1914 was a bit cute, and Turtledove has a habit of doing that kind of stuff, but I still enjoy his stories.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
"hey, if Jesus hadnt been born, WW2 would have gone different, cause Britain would have allied with the USSR sooner, since Churchill wouldnt have been offended by Stalin being an atheist, ya know"

Oddly enough Tony Blair wsa the first practising Christian to hold the post of Prime Minister since Neville Chamberline.

In 1895 or so UK made a conscious decision that they couldnt contest power with BOTH the US and Germany. So they backed down from a confrontation over the Venezuala-Guyana border, and reconciled with the US. This was done to the particular balance that obtained then. A weaker US and maybe A. UK does the same deal, but earlier, and more to their advantage or B. They decide they CAN handle both, and remain hostile to the US or C. They decide to make a deal with Germany and to go to war with the US (perhaps intervening in a USA-CSA dispute) All could lead to very different world wars.

I don't think that the Venezuala-Guyana border dispute mattered. In any case Germany would not have gone to war 1895 because it thought it important to complete its naval program. The question of possible American involvement is difficult to answer. In the real timeline the US and Great Britain had established close cultural and trade links by 1914. Great Britain was making more money off of investments in the US than it was off of its own colonies. Cultural ties between the elite of the North and the British were closer than had been the ties between the old South and the British. It's likely that the US would have supplied arms to Britain while still neutral, after all, there was money to be made. Allied propaganda would still have been carried in US papers, and German submarines would still have attacked American ships. The US then would have enetered the war on the side of the allies. The population and wealth of the US would still have mads it a crucial factor at the end of the war. Guessing what the CSA would have done is more difficult to decide.

Woodrow Wilson would not have been the President of the US since he was a Virginian, so perhaps there would have been no League of Nations or UN? Would this have increased the likelihood of WW3 in the 1950s or 1960s?

Does the Franco-Prussian war happen the same way if Nappy3 isnt humiliated in Mexico?

The French were losing Mexico, if the US hadn't demanded the withdrawal of French troops then france would have been even weaker in 1870 due to the decimation of its troops. Nappy3 would still have gone to war with Germany because of the "Ems dispatch", which implied that Prussia might allow a Hohenzollern prince to take the throne of Spain. The message was doctored by Bismark, what the Prussian King actually said is that he thought the French ambassador rude for diturbing his morning stroll.

Will dramatically different trade relations impact the depression of 1873 and the decline of liberalism in central europe?

Central European liberalism? What Central European liberalism?

Even leaving aside butterfly effects, the odds of the events of 1861 making the power balance of 1914 very different are considerable.

I don't think it would have mattered so much in 1914 as afterwards when the US began taking a more active role in world affairs. You may ask whether losing the southern states would have weakened the US influence in the western hemisphere, but I think it would not. The US would still have been a major sea merchant and would have dominated the area for the lack of an alternative.