Mississippi Early Intervention: Fill & Download for Free

It would have made the war more costly for the Union but the Confederacy would have still been defeated. The relative strength of the British Navy would have been the most important element but it would not be decisive for two reasons. First, the most decisive naval actions took place on the rivers leading into the interior of the Confederacy and the British did not have any means of projecting naval power onto the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee rivers. The Union river navy would still have had military supremacy and this would be decisive in the western theater, which, in my opinion, was where the Union won the war. The East was essentially a stalemate between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, and was only decided after the Union Army, with the critical support of the Union river navy, had chopped the Confederacy into pieces and thus denied Lee supplies and reinforcements.Second, the British Navy could have prevented the Anaconda Plan from being as effective as it was, particularly during the early years of the war. However, the British navy would not have been able to threaten any of the major northern ports because there was a significant string of coastal forts that would have substantial advantage against a naval assault. Coastal forts generally had bigger guns that could fire larger shells a longer distance than 19th century warships. They also had the added advantage of a stable firing platform (land vs water) and they had tested their batteries so they knew how to sight their artillery to specific distances whereas a naval force would have had to make an educated guess (albeit the Royal Navy could make very good educated guesses). Better accuracy of bigger shells going a longer distance would mean that the British navy could impose an over the horizon blockade but they would not be able to significantly affect the Union manufacturing base, which would eventually overwhelm the Confederacy.However, the consequences of British intervention would have been very high. First, it would have united the Northern states, which would have been important because there was significant opposition to the war in the North. There would be no Copperheads and the Irish immigrants, who generally opposed the war in spite of what we see in the movies, would have flocked to the Union cause.Second, Canada would become a target and perhaps even be subjected to an invasion. The British Army was relatively small, was scattered around the world, and would not have been able to stop a determined Union invasion. I am sure that senior British officials considered the benefits of gaining an ally in the form of an independent Confederacy but at the potential cost of losing Canada for the Empire.Third, there were domestic situation in Britain would have been roiled by an intervention. Other contributors have already mentioned the likelihood that the British anti-slavery forces would have vigorously opposed intervention but the British manufacturers who lost Northern customers would also have opposed any intervention. Determined domestic opposition would have sapped the British will to fight and would have diminished the effectiveness of any intervention. We Americans only have to look at our own experience with the Vietnam War to understand how domestic opposition can hinder foreign military interventions.

NecessityUnlike Western Europe and the United States, which industrialized in the late 18th and early 19th century, the Russian Empire was mostly agrarian and feudal. So while steamboats plowed Mark Twain’s 19th-century Mississippi, Russian peasants pulled the cargo.Burlaki (barge haulers) at the Ladozhski Canal, Russia. This photo was taken in the 1900s, so this practice continued well into the 20th century. It was often cheaper to hire human transport than to build a steamboat.It was only around the 1880s that the Russian empire started to catch up in economic development with small-scale capitalism and industrialization, but World War I brought that to a screeching halt.After the Russian Revolution, the newly-formed Soviet Union wasDevastated and Underdeveloped: The preceding Russian Empire was mostly agricultural and all prior small-scale industries were damaged, if not razed completely to the ground. Hunger was rampant.Threatened: Or at least, felt as such. Why? It was the only communist country in the world. The liberation of Soviet workers and peasants from capitalist tyranny would lead workers worldwide to rise up from their misery and overthrow their governments and ruling capitalist class in revolutions. Thus, the western capitalist countries and empires would try to squash the USSR to protect themselves. The leadership thought that an invasion could happen at any moment. The Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War solidified its fear of enemies encircling it.This translated into policy. Why do you think the early USSR’s leaders had extensive debates in the 1920s on how to quickly industrialize a heavily-agrarian country? Why do you think Stalin later made a massive push to industrialize the country with his Five Year Plans?The Need To Make Tanks For WarThe state needed engineers and physicists to make them, planes, and more. And unlike today, they couldn’t plug in numbers into a computer program that did everything for them and get a result. They had to work by hand with complex formulas and derivations.Math And Physics Were EssentialThis resulted in the Soviet leadership pouring extensive resources into math and physics education. It also published propaganda making it a prestigious pursuit and called on the best and talented to study them. Standards were high and students were pushed to succeed. Graduates were given good engineering and applied-sciences jobs. That is how the Soviets had a strong space program and almost every factory and organization had a division fulfilling military contracts.And as for the select minority wanting to do theoretical work? No problem. The state controlled the economy and guaranteed everyone a job in a specialty of their choosing. One could freely pursue theoretical math and not worry about whether their work had any market value. This, combined with many being fulfilled by intellectual challenges and having societal prestige, led many top students to pursue it. Finally, the state especially supported them because their famous work maintained the USSR’s national prestige abroad, and their insights sometimes had invaluable applications.I would be also remiss to omit that the Soviet Union continually expanded access to educational programs among its citizens since the 1930s. Those who otherwise would not have been given the opportunity to learn the skills needed to succeed could. The more people enter a field, the more high-quality people get produced.Hence, Soviet Math Boomed

Considering that the South did as well as it did early on without the direct help of the British Empire, I would argue that if the Brits had joined with the Rebels from the beginning, the south could have won.And here comes “But Captain Confederacy, the USA is just too powerful and cannot be defeated, it has historical plot armor that cannot be tarnished until Vietnam…oh and logistics!” hold up Bucky let’s think about this for a second…The question does not posit when the British help arrives. If it’s after a successful battle of Gettysburg, which Lee was playing for, then admittedly it makes a much less of an impact then if they join together right after Bull Run (though I’d argue they could win that as well).If the British enter the American civil war early, they can provide the South with everything they are desperately lacking. A fleet, arms and ammunition. Even if they only land a token force in Canada and play defense, it’s enough to turn the tide of war.In 1861 the British had 53 steam ships of the line. The USN has 0. They simply would have swept the Union Blockade from southern waters and reversed the anaconda plan. This would have the added benefit of keeping southern ports open to trade, preventing the fall of New Orleans and the entire Mississippi valley campaign. It’s the war of 1812 but with the British in New Orleans, heading North.If Lee just does “Lee” up until 1863 the south wins this war. Maybe he gets his Cannae with a better equipped army and Naval support. Even if he doesn’t, there would be tremendous pressure on Lincoln to simply let the south go as American trade would be cut off and its manpower divided between a two front war.Instead of taking Vicksburg, Grant would likely be stationed along the Great Lakes fighting either a defensive or offensive war with British Troops in Canada and Sherman never gets his chance to march to the sea, well unless it’s a prisoner march to Royal Navy ships anchored off shore…Thus I think the south wins its independence in this scenario on the back of British Naval power, arms and ammunition. Though how independent they would be given that intervention and now a trade dependence would remain to be seen.