eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jul 4, 2018 7:12:15 GMT
A rather popular scenario in the AH genre is the Confederacy winning the ACW thanks to Anglo-French help. I thought it may be interesting if we turn the stereotype on its head, and have a version of the ARW where the Patriots get Canada but lose the Deep South, which stays a British colony together with the Caribbean which the UK gained during the French and Indian War and the Napoleonic Wars. Later the Southerner slaveholders rebel against Britain when it attempts to abolish slavery, and win independence thanks to US help. I acknowledge this scenario is broadly similar to the "Dominion of Southern America" TL by Glen despite its different outcome. Despite my overwhelming dislike of Balkanization in general and in North America in particular, and my loathing of the Confederacy, I'm somewhat fond of a scenario that divides North America this way for strategic, political, and socio-economic reasons. This scenario necessarily involves a successful CSA and the moral taint for America of an intervention to support it out of dislike for British imperial power. It also involves the proud and mighty British Empire getting a big bloody nose at the hands of upstart colonials not once but twice, and running home with tail between legs for it. If you cannot deal with these elements constructively and in good faith, this is not the TL for you.
ITTL Britain got Florida and Cuba during the French and Indian War in addition to its OTL gains. This divergence triggered a change in the colonial management of British North American territories. As a rule, Quebec and Nova Scotia got a bunch of inept, brutal, and intolerant governors that greatly increased unrest in the settler population. South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Cuba instead got a group of talented and tolerant administrators that went a great way to keep their territories quiet. This in turn drove the British Parliament to approve a different version of the ‘Intolerable Acts’. It included a repressive version of the Quebec Act that substantially worsened the status of the French-speaking settlers and enacted punitive measures for the Canadian colonies just as the other Acts did for the Northern colonies. On the other hand, the governors of the Southern colonies were able to win special concessions from the Parliament for their region that significantly lessened unrest in their territories. As a result, Quebec and Nova Scotia fully joined the American Revolution while South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Cuba mostly stayed loyal to Britain.
The American Revolutionary War took place much like OTL, given the necessary strategic differences. In the end the 13 colonies (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Virginia) won their independence. Britain kept Newfoundland, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Cuba, and the British West Indies. The newborn American nation got Upper Canada and the territory between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains north of the 35° Parallel North (close to the southern border of Tennessee). The Loyalist population mostly fled to British Southern America, while the 13 colonies formed the USA. The new country soon replaced the flawed Articles of Confederation with the much more functional US Constitution supplemented by the Bill of Rights. TTL version of the document was largely similar to the OTL one, with a few significant differences such as a few harmless guarantees to Catholic French-speakers about the status of their language, religion, and legal system, as well as being silent on the issue of slavery.
In fact, in this version of the USA the free section was significantly stronger and more influential than the slave section since the birth of the nation. Even in the slave states of the Mid-Atlantic and the Upper South, attachment to slavery was relatively lukewarm in the late 18th century. Society and economy were less dependent on it than in the Southern colonies that stayed under British rule and were fully in the grip of plantation economy. Many, especially among the educated elites, came to embrace the notion slavery was a flawed, wicked, and outdated system that was doomed to extinction in the long term, and its cautious and gradual elimination was feasible and beneficial. In the ideological atmosphere of the successful American Revolution, this translated into political support for a program of gradual abolition by state and federal legislative action. One by one, all US states abolished slavery in the 1790s, while the federal government forbade Atlantic slave trade, banned slavery in the territories, and eventually outlawed it by constitutional amendment. As the abolitionist movement progressed, the vast majority of American slave-owners got rid of their slaves by selling them into British Southern America or less frequently other New World colonies. In most cases, the states and the federal government tacitly tolerated or supported this trade, since even many abolitionists did not want to create a large population of free Blacks in their country because of emancipation. The government and private humanitarian societies supported the resettlement of a minority into West Africa.
Since the Canadian section took part in the American Revolution and was an integral part of the US experiment from the beginning, it assimilated with the rest of the nation and into the American political system relatively flawlessly despite cultural and religious differences. Apart from such differences, its various areas became similar to nearby US regions in most regards. Its population became somewhat higher than if it had stayed a part of the British Empire, thanks to sizable immigration from Europe and the rest of the USA and the northward focus of American development. Its presence in the nation from its birth fostered tolerance for Catholics and Romance-speakers as a matter of patriotic duty. In a similar way, early abolition of slavery enabled the Upper South to develop its political, social, and economic features in a similar way to the Northern section, and become less conservative than if it had stayed bound to the Deep South and subject to its prevailing influence.
Because of this process, this version of the USA became rather more liberal in outlook and the Federalist Party got stronger and stayed influential much longer. Effects of this included prevalent popularity for deism, mainstream Protestantism, or liberal Catholicism rather than evangelical Christianity, the nation leading the world in establishment of female suffrage, and avoidance of any legal limitation for European or Asian immigration. Thanks to Federalist influence, a national consensus also developed for extensive infrastructure development, a strong military, and a moderate degree of government intervention in the economy to foster growth, stability, and fairness.
On the other side of the border, separation from America, the influx of Loyalists and Black slaves, and unchecked influence of dominant slave interests ensured BSA developed into a conservative oligarchy dominated by landed elites and plantation economy. Initially the flood of Loyalist refugees caused the colony to develop a strong ideological bond to the British Empire, although later developments caused it to fray. In various regards, BSA became relatively similar to the ‘Banana Republics’ states that arose across Latin America after independence, even if British and later American influence allowed it to function to a somewhat higher level.
The French Revolution and the cycle of European wars it caused occurred more or less the same way. At the beginning of the 19th century, steady westward colonization made the Americans and the Southerners highly interested in control of the Mississippi Basin and acquisition of more territory in the rest of North America to fuel their expansion. The European wars provided them with an excellent opportunity. After talks with France and Spain for a peaceful purchase of the Louisiana Territory failed, the USA turned to consider an alliance of convenience with Britain against France and Spain to seize their North American colonies. Negotiations proved successful after Britain agreed to cede Rupert’s Land and Upper Louisiana to America and ensure favorable terms for American trade on the Mississippi route. However, they only defined these free-trade terms and the planned Western border in a sloppy way, and this later became a source of serious problems.
The result was the War of 1804 and a decisive victory of the Anglo-American alliance. The USA annexed Rupert’s Land, the North-Western Territory, and Upper Louisiana, and the British agreed to relinquish their claims on the Pacific Northwest in favor of the Americans. Britain seized Lower Louisiana, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the French Antilles, and the northern two-thirds of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, including Texas, the Southwest, California, and Northern Mexico down to the Tropic of Cancer. Since the British and the Americans claimed different Western borders, the central portion of the Louisiana Territory, the northern portion of the New Spain Cession, and California became contested territories. During their conquest of Hispaniola, the British brutally crushed the ongoing antislavery rebellion in the western portion of the island with a savage repression campaign that left the area largely depopulated. Immigrants and slaves from other colonies later resettled it. The eastern portion of the island suffered much less damage.
Things turned out relatively quiet in North America for almost a decade as the Napoleonic Wars raged on in Europe, but eventually tensions heated up between Britain and the USA. Various factors were involved, including British blockade harassing US merchant shipping, the British practice of summary impressment in the Royal Navy targeting American sailors, contested borders in the Western territories, and controversies about trade on the Mississippi River. The result was the War of 1812. Because the Federalist Party had been politically dominant or at least influential since the establishment of the US Constitution, America had kept its regular army and state militias to a good degree of efficiency and had been busy building up its infrastructure to a remarkable level of development. The USA was going to retain these traits thoroughout its history. In addition to substantially accelerating the pace of westward settlement and economic deelopment, these national traits first paid dividends for the young republic in this conflict.
The US military made a surprisingly good performance against Britain, allowing the Americans to invade and occupy sizable tracts of BSA and repel all British attempts to land in US territory and raid American cities. Although the US Navy could be no match for the Royal Navy in open battle, it was able to deal an impressive amount of damage to British merchant shipping with its raiding. However, the Americans failed to conquer all of BSA, because of the effective resistance of British forces and Southerner militias, the Loyalist hostility of the Southerner population, logistic difficulties, the vast size of BSA, and its spread-out settlement pattern. British blockade almost entirely shut down US merchant shipping causing substantial economic damage to America.
In a couple years, it became evident to both sides they had reached a strategic stalemate. Royal Navy supremacy could do serious economic damage to America but could not win the land war for Britain. The USA could not be defeated in North America and would always have the upper hand in its home turf but was not yet able to kick the British out of the continent, especially with a hostile BSA. Economic damage from the blockade was painful for the Americans and the British were getting tired of pointless squabble with their former colonies, especially after a very long and exhausting cycle of wars in Europe.
Therefore, after some diplomatic maneuvering they made a compromise peace that was favorable to America and acceptable to Britain and the Southerners. They agreed to extend the 35° Parallel North border across North America, leaving most of Western North America and the West Coast to the USA. The treaty acknowledged US sovereignty over the entire northern two-thirds of North America, with the sole exceptions of Russian Alaska and British Newfoundland. The peace treaty established a more favorable free-trade regimen for US shipping in the Mississippi river basin. It was not full control as the Americans wished, but it was sufficiently good for them to accept the deal. The British also agreed to exempt American sailors from impressment in the Royal Navy according to American naturalization laws. The imminent end of the European wars removed the blockade problem.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Jul 4, 2018 7:12:56 GMT
The War of 1812 had important effects for the USA and the BSA. For the Americans, it increased their sense of self-confidence and their trust in their nation’s ability to protect its security and interests. They came to see the ARW and the Wars of 1804 and 1812 as successive steps of one protracted struggle for independence and their combined outcome as an affirmation of America’s destiny. Many regretted the failure to expel British imperial power from their continent and advance the unification of North America under the US flag, even if they often acknowledged the USA had performed well in the trial of fire given the circumstances. For the BSA, the war was an important boost for the formation of a distinct Southerner identity and national consciousness. For the moment, this movement had a strong Loyalist imprint that highlighted the bond between the colonies and Britain, although this was later to change.
Soon afterwards, the European wars ended with the victory of the anti-French coalition and the continent settled down in an uneasy peace of exhaustion. The European peoples groaned under the reactionary regime of the Restoration imposed by the victor powers that stood as a sworn enemy of liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism. Latin America shook off its colonial bond with Europe in a frantic sequence of revolutions, coups, independence wars, and civil wars, and established its independence as a series of states.
As a rule, the Latin American republics and empires soon became notorious for their severe political instability, frequent falls into authoritarianism, and socio-economic backwardness. This sharply contrasted with the political stability, liberal-democratic regime, nascent industrialization, and vigorous growth of the young American republic. On the other side of the border, BSA came more and more under the thrall of plantation economy, slavery, and an oligarchic elite of proud landowners that oppressed and exploited a captive workforce of different ethnicity and lorded over the poorer classes. Because of these features, the colony grew more similar in several aspects to the Latin American states than to its Northern neighbor despite the obvious cultural differences, and the gap with the USA grew wider every year. British rule and feelings of loyalty to the motherland still ensured a good measure of stability and ordered development for BSA, although over time serious malcontent grew in the colonies about lack of autonomy, limited political representation, and oligarchic control of local elites. However, political changes in Britain and the slavery issue were the immediate causes that precipitated a crisis.
Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an ultra-conservative faction of the Tories dominated the British government and Parliament and frustrated all efforts for much-needed reforms, including electoral reform, emancipation of the Catholics, and change of the Corn Laws. The ultra-Tory faction dug its heels in, resisted the ever-growing pressure for reform, and enforced the conservative status quo by increasingly repressive and violent means, also thanks to the full support of King Ernest Augustus, an unpopular reactionary who took the throne after George IV. The result was a liberal revolution in Britain and a nationalist Irish uprising in Ireland. A Liberal government took over and replaced Ernest Augustus with his liberal-minded brother Augustus Frederick. It enforced an extensive program of reforms, which included reform of Parliament, expansion of male suffrage, Catholic emancipation (although this came too little, too late to stop the rebellion in Ireland), reform of the Corn Laws, and abolition of slavery.
The new government faced a series of challenges, including lingering resistance from defeated conservatives, a power struggle with the Radicals that pressured for more ambitious reforms than the Liberals were willing to give, the ongoing uprising in Ireland, and the rebellion of BSA. The announcement that post-revolutionary Britain was planning to abolish slavery threw the Southern American colonies into a panic. The perspective of suddenly losing the linchpin of their economy and society quickly shifted Southerner public opinion from affectionate loyalty to Britain to belligerent support for revolutionary separation and creation of an independent nation. The ranks of independence supporters in Southerner society who agitated about lack of autonomy and political representation massively swelled, all attempts of British government and Parliament to stem the tide by promising gradual and compensated emancipation schemes and half-baked plans for political reform failed, and revolution swept BSA. The revolutionaries overthrew the British authorities and seized control of the vast majority of British Southern America.
They set up a new state, the Confederation of Southern America. Its constitution broadly imitated the US one, although it established a slightly weaker federal government and more importantly it was explicitly dedicated to the preservation of slavery. Despite the vast power gap between Britain and the CSA, many Confederates were confident in their ultimate victory, out of a mix of reasons. These included a high opinion of their own martial prowess, the successful example of their Northern cousins two generations ago, the pro-revolution zeitgeist of the time, lingering instability in Britain and ongoing rebellion in Ireland, and hope in American help. Drawing on the precedent of the USA, the Southerners expected they would be able to defeat the British on the battlefield, and then resume profitable trade relations with Britain as an independent nation in relatively short order. Although feelings between antislavery USA and pro-slavery CSA were mixed at best, the Confederates also assumed if things turned too difficult for them, the USA would come to their rescue out of continental and republican solidarity and dislike for British imperialism.
Early in the conflict, the British were stunned by the vast support the slavers’ uprising got and the ease with which the rebels overtook the garrisons in continental British Southern America, Cuba, and Hispaniola. Although naval power allowed the British to keep control of the Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles without excessive difficulty, in the rest of BSA the British regulars had to evacuate by sea or retreat in the hinterland where they joined forces with Loyalist militias. This led the British to adopt a blockade strategy to cripple the rebel provinces in Southern America.
However, the plan was quickly shown to have several flaws, the most serious being American unwillingness to close trade at their long border with British Southern America. The British Parliament made the critical mistake of approving an embargo against America in retaliation for the border remaining open to trade, and this pushed the neutral USA to throw away antislavery principle and side outright with the Confederacy. The embargo caused US elites and public opinion to set aside their dislike of slavery in favor of resurgent loathing for British imperial power in their continent that lingered since the War of 1812. The USA and the CSA negotiated an alliance in exchange for the Americans getting territorial compensations in the Western territories, full free trade rights on the Mississppi River, and special economic concessions in the CSA. America declared war to Britain and joined the conflict.
The US army helped the Confederate regulars wipe out the British regular forces and Loyalist militias that remained in the continental mainland, and its support was decisive to frustrate all British attempts to land. On the seas, the pattern of the War of 1812 repeated in a manner more favorable for the North American allies. Although the Royal Navy dominated the high seas and severely reduced (but not entirely eliminated) enemy trade with Europe, American and Confederate raiding inflicted serious damage to British shipping, which the RN was unable to prevent. The combination of US and CS naval power was also good enough to contest regional control in the North American theater to a good degree. This allowed the allies to supply their forces in the Greater Antilles, gradually eliminate British and Loyalist forces in Cuba and Hispaniola, and ensure intermittent control of the Bahamas. It also allowed the survival of a decent degree of coastal shipping. This combined with the high degree of infrastructure development in the USA significantly lessened economic damage to the allied nations from British blockade. As a rule, the US forces purposefully shunned anything in their intervention that would put them in the role of directly supporting slavery, such as returning fugitive slaves that joined their encampments or fighting bands of runaway Blacks unless they attacked first or threatened civilians. However, they gladly cooperated in fighting hostile Indian tribes that took the side of the British or tried to exploit the situation to resist White colonization.
Soon enough, the British came to face the same frustrating stalemate they had suffered in the War of 1812, only worse. The rebellion of Southern America got them ousted from the North American continent, with little realistic hope of a rollback. Although their naval power could wound their enemies’ economy greatly, it could not win the land war for them or bring the North Americans to their knees. Ongoing rebellion in Ireland was a pressing concern closer to home, and there was a creeping fear of renewed political instability in Britain, a worsening of the Irish uprising, or trouble in India from excessive strategic focus on, or repeated defeats in, Southern America. In the end, a peace faction prevailed in the British Parliament that assumed North America was a lost cause for British imperialism and their realistic best hope in that area was to resume normal trade relations with the USA and the CSA.
Peace negotiations started and ensued in a treaty that recognized the CSA’s independence and sovereignty over all of British Southern America. At the Americans’ insistence, the British also reluctantly ceded Newfoundland to the USA. The USA got several important concessions from the CSA as a compensation for its aid; the most important one was the cession of the Southwestern territories, including Southern California, Baja California, the southern portions of Arizona and New Mexico, Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, and the Trans-Pecos area of Texas. The Confederates regretted losing access to the Pacific Coast and the mineral resources of the Southwest, but the loss was bearable for them, since these territories looked scarcely suitable to plantation economy, and they kept the valuable areas of Texas, Rio Grande (Coahuila, Neuvo Leon, and Tamaulipas), San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas. The USA also got very favorable terms for their trade on the Mississippi River, and in turn granted the CSA free access to the Pacific Coast. The two nations agreed to share free access to, and optimally control on, any trans-oceanic canal in North America. The issue of the fugitive slaves and free Blacks that had joined Loyalist forces or sought shelter with US troops proved complex, but in the end the three powers agreed to re-settle them in West Africa.
As many expected, the slavery issue quickly proved to be an impassable obstacle that dashed any hope of unification between the USA and the CSA. However, thanks to their wartime alliance the two nations developed friendly relations, and in fairly short time the CSA turned into a client state of the more powerful and developed USA. The relationship was especially close in the economic field; rather less so in domestic matters since the slavery issue often drove both nations to keep each other at arm’s length. The two states also frequently cooperated in military matters, such as repression of hostile Indian tribes. Defeat of Britain made the Tsar willing to listen to America's proffered wish to acquire Alaska. The Americans wanted to consolidate their exclusive strategic control over northern and western North America and Russia agreed to sell Alaska to the USA.
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jjohnson
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Post by jjohnson on Oct 27, 2019 5:30:19 GMT
Interesting scenario, and indeed, similar in some respects to the DSA timeline. Add in some maps so we can see how it unfolds. Keep on going!
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 29, 2019 20:09:54 GMT
Interesting scenario, and indeed, similar in some respects to the DSA timeline. Add in some maps so we can see how it unfolds. Keep on going! I am glad and thankful this scenario got such positive interest. I may see what I can do about maps, but please don't hold your breath or set your expectations too much. Map-making is a tedious, time-consuming work, and my skills and free time for it are limited at best. At the very least, doing a map would require me to define any significant late 18th and early 19th century divergences (or their lack) in the rest of the world, esp. South America and Europe. Especially as it concerns the latter, this period is so rich in potential divergencies compliant with my geopolitical interests (e.g. to get the continent rid ASAP of the Balkanized state that the 1815 settlement left Germany and Italy in) that I reluctant to follow the least-resistance path of OTL determinism when North America got changed so much. Coming back to review this TL thanks to your comment, I am tentatively thinking to revise the post-Napoleonic, second half of the TL and plug in a secondary major divergence for Europe. I am thinking of using my other idea of the July Revolution triggering a general European conflict. I assume it would fit in nicely with the other events of this TL. Going to post the revised and expanded version of the TL. I am not sure what to do about South America. |
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 29, 2019 23:13:42 GMT
This revised version of the TL substantially expands it by adding a general European conflict that rewrites the map of the continent just before the War of Southern Independence. I hope it pleases readers even more.
ITTL Britain got Florida and Cuba during the French and Indian War in addition to its OTL gains. This divergence triggered a change in the colonial management of British North American territories. As a rule, Quebec and Nova Scotia got a bunch of inept, brutal, and intolerant governors that greatly increased unrest in the settler population. South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Cuba instead got a group of talented and tolerant administrators that went a great way to keep their territories quiet. This in turn drove the British Parliament to approve a different version of the ‘Intolerable Acts’. It included a repressive version of the Quebec Act that substantially worsened the status of the French-speaking settlers and enacted punitive measures for the Canadian colonies just as the other Acts did for the Northern colonies. On the other hand, the governors of the Southern colonies were able to win special concessions from the Parliament for their region that significantly lessened unrest in their territories. As a result, Quebec and Nova Scotia fully joined the American Revolution while South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Cuba mostly stayed loyal to Britain.
The American Revolutionary War took place much like OTL, given the necessary strategic differences. In the end, the 13 colonies (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, and Virginia) won their independence. Britain kept Newfoundland, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Cuba, and the British West Indies. The newborn American nation got Upper Canada and the territory between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains north of the 35° Parallel North (close to the southern border of Tennessee). The Loyalist population mostly fled to British Southern America, while the 13 colonies formed the USA. The new country soon replaced the flawed Articles of Confederation with the much more functional US Constitution supplemented by the Bill of Rights. TTL version of the document was largely similar to the OTL one, with a few significant differences such as a few harmless guarantees to Catholic French-speakers about the status of their language, religion, and legal system, as well as being silent on the issue of slavery.
In fact, in this version of the USA the free section was significantly stronger and more influential than the slave section since the birth of the nation. Even in the slave states of the Mid-Atlantic and the Upper South, attachment to slavery was relatively lukewarm in the late 18th century. Society and economy were less dependent on it than in the Southern colonies that stayed under British rule and were fully in the grip of plantation economy. Many, especially among the educated elites, came to embrace the notion slavery was a flawed, wicked, and outdated system that was doomed to extinction in the long term, and its cautious and gradual elimination was feasible and beneficial. In the ideological atmosphere of the successful American Revolution, this translated into political support for a program of gradual abolition by state and federal legislative action. One by one, all US states abolished slavery in the 1790s, while the federal government forbade Atlantic slave trade, banned slavery in the territories, and eventually outlawed it by constitutional amendment. As the abolitionist movement progressed, the vast majority of American slave-owners got rid of their slaves by selling them into British Southern America or less frequently the other New World colonies. In most cases, the states and the federal government tacitly tolerated or supported this trade, since even many abolitionists did not want to create a large population of free Blacks in their country because of emancipation. The government and private humanitarian societies supported the resettlement of a minority into West Africa.
Since the Canadian section took part in the American Revolution and was an integral part of the US experiment from the beginning, it merged with the rest of the nation and assimilated into the American political system relatively flawlessly, despite cultural and religious differences. Apart from such differences, its various areas became similar to nearby US regions in most regards. Its population became somewhat higher than if it had stayed a part of the British Empire, thanks to a northward focus of American development and sizable immigration from Europe and the rest of the USA. Its presence in the nation from its birth fostered tolerance for Catholics and Romance-speakers as a matter of patriotic duty. In a similar way, early abolition of slavery enabled the Upper South to develop its political, social, and economic features in a similar way to the Northern section. It became less conservative than if it had stayed bound to the Deep South and subject to its prevailing influence.
Because of this process, this version of the USA became rather more liberal in outlook and the Federalist Party got stronger and stayed influential much longer. Effects of this included prevalent popularity for deism, mainstream Protestantism, or liberal Catholicism rather than evangelical Christianity, the nation leading the world in establishment of female suffrage, and avoidance of any legal limitation for European or Asian immigration. Thanks to Federalist influence, a national consensus also developed for extensive infrastructure development, a strong military, and a moderate degree of government intervention in the economy to foster growth, stability, and fairness.
On the other side of the border, separation from America, the influx of Loyalists and Black slaves, and unchecked influence of dominant slave interests ensured BSA developed into a conservative oligarchy dominated by landed elites and plantation economy. Initially the flood of Loyalist refugees caused the colony to develop a strong ideological bond to the British Empire, although later developments caused it to fray. In various regards, BSA became relatively similar to the ‘Banana Republics’ states that arose across Latin America after independence, even if British and later American influence allowed it to function to a somewhat higher level.
The French Revolution and the cycle of European wars it caused occurred more or less the same way. At the beginning of the 19th century, steady westward colonization made the Americans and the Southerners highly interested in control of the Mississippi Basin and acquisition of more territory in the rest of North America to fuel their expansion. The European wars provided them with an excellent opportunity. After talks with France and Spain for a peaceful purchase of the Louisiana Territory failed, the USA turned to consider an alliance of convenience with Britain against France and Spain to seize their North American colonies. Negotiations proved successful after Britain agreed to cede Rupert’s Land and Upper Louisiana to America and ensure favorable terms for American trade on the Mississippi route. However, they only defined these free-trade terms and the planned Western border in a sloppy way, and this later became a source of serious problems.
The result was the War of 1804 and a decisive victory of the Anglo-American alliance. The USA annexed Rupert’s Land, the North-Western Territory, and Upper Louisiana; the British agreed to relinquish their claims on the Pacific Northwest in favor of the Americans. Britain seized Lower Louisiana, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the French Antilles, and the northern two-thirds of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, including Texas, the Southwest, California, and Northern Mexico down to the Tropic of Cancer. Since the British and the Americans claimed different Western borders, the central portion of the Louisiana Territory, the northern portion of the New Spain Cession, and California became contested territories. During their conquest of Hispaniola, the British brutally crushed the ongoing antislavery rebellion in the western portion of the island with a savage repression campaign that left the area largely depopulated. Immigrants and slaves from other colonies later resettled it. The eastern portion of the island suffered much less damage.
Things turned out relatively quiet in North America for almost a decade as the Napoleonic Wars raged on in Europe, but eventually tensions heated up between Britain and the USA. Various factors were involved, including British blockade harassing US merchant shipping, the British practice of summary impressment in the Royal Navy targeting American sailors, contested borders in the Western territories, and controversies about trade on the Mississippi River. The result was the War of 1812. Since the Federalist Party had been politically dominant or at least influential since the establishment of the US Constitution, America had kept its regular army and state militias to a good degree of efficiency and had been busy building up its infrastructure to a remarkable level of development. The USA was going to retain these traits throughout its history. In addition to substantially accelerating the pace of westward settlement and economic development, these national traits first paid dividends for the young republic in this conflict.
The US military made a surprisingly good performance against Britain, allowing the Americans to invade and occupy sizable tracts of BSA and repel all British attempts to land in US territory and raid American cities. Although the US Navy could be no match for the Royal Navy in open battle, it was able to deal an impressive amount of damage to British merchant shipping with its raiding. However, the Americans failed to conquer all of BSA, because of the effective resistance of British forces and Southern militias, the Loyalist hostility of the Southern population, logistic difficulties, the vast size of BSA, and its spread-out settlement pattern. British blockade almost entirely shut down US merchant shipping causing substantial economic damage to America.
In a couple years, it became evident to both sides they had reached a strategic stalemate. Royal Navy supremacy could do serious economic damage to America but could not win the land war for Britain. The USA could not be defeated in North America and would always have the upper hand in its home turf but was not yet able to kick the British out of the continent, especially with a hostile BSA. Economic damage from the blockade was painful for the Americans and the British were getting tired of pointless squabble with their former colonies, especially after a very long and exhausting cycle of wars in Europe.
Therefore, after some diplomatic maneuvering they made a compromise peace that was favorable to America and acceptable to Britain and the Southerners. They agreed to extend the 35° Parallel North border across North America, leaving most of Western North America and the West Coast to the USA. The treaty acknowledged US sovereignty over the entire northern two-thirds of North America, with the sole exceptions of Russian Alaska and British Newfoundland. The peace treaty established a more favorable free-trade regimen for US shipping in the Mississippi river basin. It was not the full control the Americans wished, but it was sufficiently good for them to accept the deal. The British also agreed to exempt American sailors from impressment in the Royal Navy according to American naturalization laws. The imminent end of the European wars removed the blockade problem.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 29, 2019 23:15:05 GMT
The War of 1812 had important effects for the USA and the BSA. For the Americans, it increased their sense of self-confidence and their trust in their nation’s ability to protect its security and interests. They came to see the ARW and the Wars of 1804 and 1812 as successive steps of one protracted struggle for independence and their combined outcome as an affirmation of America’s destiny. Many regretted the failure to expel British imperial power from their continent and advance the unification of North America under the US flag, even if they often acknowledged the USA had performed well in the trial of fire given the circumstances. For the BSA, the war was an important boost for the formation of a distinct Southern identity and national consciousness. For the moment, this movement had a strong Loyalist imprint that highlighted the bond between the colonies and Britain, although this was later to change.
Soon afterwards, the European wars ended with the victory of the anti-French coalition and the continent settled down in an uneasy peace of exhaustion. The European peoples groaned under the reactionary regime of the Restoration imposed by the victor powers that stood as a sworn enemy of liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism. Latin America shook off its colonial bond with Europe in a frantic sequence of revolutions, coups, independence wars, and civil wars, and established its independence as a series of states.
As a rule, the Latin American republics and empires soon became notorious for their severe political instability, frequent falls into authoritarianism, and socio-economic backwardness. This sharply contrasted with the political stability, liberal-democratic regime, nascent industrialization, and vigorous growth of the young American republic. On the other side of the border, BSA came more and more under the thrall of plantation economy, slavery, and an oligarchic elite of proud landowners that oppressed and exploited a captive workforce of different ethnicity and lorded over the poorer classes. Because of these features, the colony grew more similar in several aspects to the Latin American states than to its Northern neighbor despite the obvious cultural differences, and the gap with the USA grew wider every year. British rule and feelings of loyalty to the motherland still ensured a good measure of stability and ordered development for BSA. However, over time serious malcontent grew in the colonies about lack of autonomy, limited political representation, and oligarchic control of local elites. However, political changes in Britain and the slavery issue were the immediate causes that precipitated a crisis.
Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an ultra-conservative faction of the Tories dominated the British government and Parliament and frustrated all efforts for much-needed reforms, including electoral reform, emancipation of the Catholics, and change of the Corn Laws. The ultra-Tory faction dug its heels in, resisted the ever-growing pressure for reform, and enforced the conservative status quo by increasingly repressive and violent means. They stayed in control also thanks to the full support of King Ernest Augustus, an unpopular reactionary who took the throne after George IV.
A similar situation in France caused the July Revolution since King Charles X stubbornly kept antagonizing liberals and moderates with an ultra-reactionary policy and tried to bring France back into Ancient Regime conditions as much as possible. The success of the revolution drove many liberal-national activists across Europe to try to imitate it. Its aftermath left the Party of Movement in control of the French government. They became free and eager to implement an ambitious foreign policy platform that aimed to enforce the traditional expansionist goals of France and support liberal revolutionaries across Europe. They mistakenly assumed agitation for electoral reform in Britain, revolutionary unrest in the Low Countries, Italy, and Poland, and various other domestic concerns such as war debt for Prussia were going to keep the other great powers distracted enough, and yield themselves enough support from liberal-national revolutionaries, for France to rearrange the 1815 settlement to its liking.
Orleanist France intervened in the Belgian Revolution, made territorial demands about the Left Bank of the Rhine, and took steps to support the Polish and Italian insurgents. It did not back down when the other great powers showed an increasingly alarmed and hostile attitude to this apparent revival of French attitudes of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic times. Austria, Prussia, and Russia declared war when the crisis escalated, eventually followed by Britain when its mediation attempts proved fruitless. Savoy-Piedmont, Naples, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the German Confederation at large joined the coalition when the French forces started to intervene in the Southern Netherlands, western Germany, and northern Italy.
At first, things seemed rather promising for the French and their allies: they defeated the Dutch and the Piedmontese with ease and pushed back the Austrians and the Prussians, occupying large tracts of the Low Countries and northern Italy, and making serious inroads in western Germany. The Belgian and Italian revolutionaries enthusiastically supported the French forces and the Polish insurgents kept the Russians busy. Expansion of revolutionary unrest to Switzerland gave the French an excuse to violate the neutrality of the Swiss Confederation and invade its territory, which became another battleground of the war. This had the unfortunate long-term consequence of making the Coalition powers (especially Austria, Prussia, and Russia) lose interest in the preservation of the Confederation, since they came to regard its weakness and neutrality as a strategic liability.
After a while, however, things started to fall apart for the French and their allies, much like it had happened in 1812-15 or would happen in 1870-71 in a different timeline. The seeming revival of French aggressive expansionism at its worst greatly alarmed the British, driving them to push aside their domestic controversies for a while and focus on the war in Europe. They poured generous amounts of money to support their continental allies, allowing Austria, Prussia, and Russia to sidestep any financial obstacles to large-scale mobilization. Britain also raised an army to intervene in the Low Countries. French invasion of, and territorial ambitions on, the Rhineland triggered a massive wave of German nationalist sentiment across the German states that boosted the war effort of Austria, Prussia, and the German Confederation. This turn of German public opinion suppressed any sympathy the German liberals might have shown for revolution. Anglo-Prussian forces supported by troops from the other German states stopped French advance in the Low Countries and western Germany, and started to push back with increasing success. After a while, the Russians defeated the Polish insurgents and geared up for intervention in Western Europe. Austro-Russian troops gradually pushed the French out of Italy and Switzerland, crushed the Italian revolutionaries, and backed their allies on the German front.
When the military situation really started to turn bad, and the Coalition forces reached the French borders on multiple fronts, the French government pleaded for a white peace, but by then the other great powers had gotten in a seriously punitive mood. They deemed the 1815 peace settlement had been far too generous for France, since it had relapsed into its aggressive bad habits just 15 years after Napoleon. They made their demands known for serious territorial concessions and large reparations, and when the French refused, they engaged in an all-out effort to fight their way to Paris. The French overthrew Louis Philippe, put a republican regime in charge, and desperately tried to resist by staging a 1790s-style revolutionary mobilization, but by then their military situation had become far too compromised. When the Coalition forces got close to Paris, France had to surrender.
The peace treaty made a few major adjustments to the Congress of Vienna settlement. The victors' goals included weakening France and pushing it back into pre-Louis XIV borders, reinforcing its neighbors, compensating the Coalition powers for their war effort, fulfilling their ambitions as long as they did not utterly disrupt the balance of power, and trying to prevent further revolutionary instability in Europe by lessening its political fragmentation. This time, not even Talleyrand's vast diplomatic skills were up to the Herculean task of winning defeated France a lenient deal or any significant say into the peace settlement, which came as the unilateral imposition of the Coalition powers. As a rule, legitimism became a less important issue for the great powers than it had been during the Congress of Vienna, even if they kept their usual disregard for the wishes of the European peoples. A notable consequence was the partition of the Swiss Confederacy, which joined other once prestigious states such as the Republic of Venice and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the graveyard of history.
Britain seized the French colonial holdings in the Caribbean, Senegal, and India. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands annexed Calais, the French Flanders, French Hainaut, and Artois. Sardinia-Piedmont got Corsica, Genève, Valais, and eastern Provence. Spain took Roussillon and the French occupied territories in Algeria. Alsace and Lorraine merged with Luxemburg, Saarland, and Palatinate to form the Kingdom of Lorraine, which joined the German Confederation. Franche-Comte merged with western and central Switzerland to form the Kingdom of Burgundy, which also joined the German Confederation.
The Wittelsbach and the Wettin took the thrones of Lorraine and Burgundy respectively, since Austria and Prussia annexed Bavaria and Saxony as part of their war booty. Prussia got Saxony, Thuringia, Hesse, Nassau, and Franconia. Its expansion across central Germany compensated its war effort, fulfilled its old expansionist ambitions in the region, and enabled it to get a sizable land connection between the two halves of its kingdom. Much the same way, Austria annexed Old Bavaria, eastern Switzerland, Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, Romagna, Marche, and Umbria. This expansion across southern Germany and northern Italy fulfilled old territorial ambitions of Austria, worked to compensate its war effort, and was an attempt to suppress revolutionary instability in Italy by imposing direct Austrian rule, since indirect control by small vassal states had worked poorly. The victors ignored the Pope's bitter complaints about the loss of all his old possessions but Latium. His government had a well-deserved reputation for misrule and ineptitude, and the powers judged the remaining lands of the Papal States were sufficient to secure his independence and prestige.
Russia annexed Posen, Galicia, Krakow, and Bukovina. Concurrent events related to the Greek War of Independence and the Egyptian-Ottoman conflict enabled the Russians and the Austrians to increase their war booty at the expense of the Ottoman Empire with the assent of the other powers. Russia annexed Moldavia and the eastern half of Western Armenia, and Austria got Wallachia. The Russians effectively brought all of Poland under their control to compensate their own war effort, and in the expectation that this would better enable them to suppress Polish unrest. Austria and Prussia agreed to cede their own pieces of Poland without much fuss, since they were getting their own generous compensations elsewhere.
The renewed threats of French expansionism and revolution, and the wave of German nationalism unleashed by the war, persuaded the ruling elites of Austria and Prussia that conservative unification of Germany would better suit their interests than the 1815 settlement. Therefore, they implemented a centralizing reform of the German Confederation that turned it into a functional federation. The outline of the new German constitution broadly resembled the 1863 Austrian proposal for a reform of the Confederation. In practice, Austria and Prussia agreed to make a power-sharing compromise for a dual leadership of Germany. The new federation expanded its borders to include Prussia proper, Lorraine, and Burgundy, but not the Habsburg lands that did not already belong in the German Confederation. The Austrians and the Prussians agreed to this compromise in exchange for Germany providing the Habsburg Empire a military guarantee about the defense of its non-German territories in Italy, Hungary, and the Balkans. The Habsburg also agreed to use the title of King, and the same order of precedence as the rulers of Prussia, Hanover, Lorraine, and Burgundy, in all German affairs.
As a consequence of Germany's unification and the territorial changes of the Habsburg Empire, the Austrian ruling elites decided to reorganize their patchwork possessions with the assent of the federalizing German Confederation into three main administrative units: the German lands (including Bohemia-Moravia and Carniola), which belonged in the new German union; the Kingdom of Hungary (including Croatia and Wallachia); and the restored Kingdom of Italy (including Ticino, Trent, the Kustenland, and most of Dalmatia). These changes considerably pleased Prussia, the other German states, German nationalist public opinion, and the three main nationalities (Germans, Italians, and Hungarians) of the Habsburg Empire, even if it often displeased the other nationalities.
Besides inflicting the aforementioned severe territorial losses, onerous reparations, and a period of military occupation until they got paid, the victor powers were at a loss about the political settlement of France. Legitimist scruples about the rights of the House of Bourbon were at an all-out low among the great powers, since the senior line had proved to be utterly inept at containing, and the Orleanist line actually in a bed with, the forces of revolution and French aggression. Moreover, the war made the Coalition powers mindful that French expansionism and belligerence were a problem that predated the Revolution and Napoleon, and its first serious bout had occurred with Louis XIV on the throne.
The powers understood that to put reactionary and inflexible Charles X or his like-minded son back on the throne, or setting up a weak and unpopular Legitimist regency for his grandson, were an open invitation for the revolutionaries to seize power again the moment their backs were turned. The senior line was on the brink of extinction if his last legitimate member in the male line failed to have sons, and the Orleanist line was discredited among the powers for its role during the war.
The victors seriously considered putting Napoleon II on the throne, thanks to his ties with Austria, but his sudden death removed this option. Napoleon's brothers and the powers had no interest in their re-entering public life, and at this point in his life, future Napoleon III looked like an obscure adventurer. There was not any other royal family of sufficient legitimacy for the French to accept them, and radical solutions, such as a partition of France, appeared unfeasible. A republic was unacceptable, for ideological reasons and because the republicans had been among the staunchest supporters of the war. For lack of a better option, the powers decided to let the abdications of Charles X, his son, and Louis Philippe stick. They seriously vacillated between the default solutions of Charles X's grandson (senior claim but a child, and belonging to a very unpopular line) or the son of Louis Philippe (sufficiently old to take the throne and popular, but tainted by revolution and the war). In the end, they embraced the compromise solution of putting the former on the throne, under the regency of the latter.
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eurofed
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Post by eurofed on Oct 29, 2019 23:15:45 GMT
The European war also indirectly affected significantly the course of events in the Eastern Mediterranean. At the time, the region was dealing with the Egyptian-Ottoman War and the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence and the Russo-Turkish War. Explosion of the European conflict delayed the final settlement for Greece and left the great powers too distracted to interfere in the Egyptian-Ottoman war. As a result, Muhammad Ali's Egypt was free to reap the full fruits of its decisive victory against the Ottomans. The Egyptian army reached Constantinople and dictated terms to the Sultan. Egypt achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, with control of Arabia, the Levant, and Mesopotamia and Muhammad Ali's dynasty as its hereditary rulers. Sultan Mahmud II was deposed and replaced with his son, the infant Abdülmecid, largely putting the Ottoman Empire under the control of the Egyptians. This outcome and the distraction of the powers due to the European war made the Ottomans eager to restart the conflict with Greece in order to recoup their losses. It also made Muhammad Ali confident enough to support them again in order to consolidate his hold on La Porte.
The renewed Ottoman-Egyptian attack made the Greeks hard-pressed for a while, in the absence of support from the powers. However, such Ottoman treachery considerably angered Russia, and alienated any sympathy they might have reaped from the other European powers. As soon as the European conflict winded down with the defeat of France, and the Russians could spare the effort, they attacked the Ottomans. The British, the Austrians, and the Prussians realized they could hardly afford to antagonize Russia in these circumstances, so they decided to join the intervention in order to put their own spin on the outcome. France was defeated, occupied, and in no condition to act. The European armies and navies quickly crushed the Ottoman-Egyptian forces, driving the Muslim powers to beg for peace. The powers compensated Greece for the Ottoman breach of the truce with considerably expanded borders, which came close to fulfilling all of its potential claims, with the exceptions of Thrace, the Straits, and Ionia. Greece got Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, Crete, and the Aegean Islands. Russia picked its war booty by annexing Moldavia and the eastern half of Western Armenia (the provinces of Erzurum, Bitlis, and Van). Austria followed suit by taking over Wallachia. The Egyptian hold on La Porte was broken and Mahmud II restored on the throne. Egypt had to withdraw from the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, which returned to Ottoman control. However, it kept Sudan and its independence under the hereditary rule of Muhammad Ali and his descendants.
Soon after the foreign conflicts winded down, public attention in Britain turned back to the pressing concerns of stalemated reform and continuing conservative deadlock on power. Pressure for reform continued to grow out of popular frustration and with added urgency created by the war effort, but failed to budge Tory opposition by peaceful means. The result was a liberal revolution in Britain and a nationalist Irish uprising in Ireland. A Liberal government took over and replaced Ernest Augustus with his liberal-minded brother Augustus Frederick. It enforced an extensive program of reforms, which included reform of Parliament, expansion of male suffrage, Catholic emancipation (although this came too little, too late to stop the rebellion in Ireland), reform of the Corn Laws, and abolition of slavery. Ernest Augustus fled to Hanover and kept the throne of the German state, putting an end to its personal union with Britain.
The new government faced a series of challenges, including lingering resistance from defeated conservatives, a power struggle with the Radicals that pressured for more ambitious reforms than the Liberals were willing to give, the ongoing uprising in Ireland, and the rebellion of BSA. The announcement that post-revolutionary Britain was planning to abolish slavery threw the Southern American colonies into a panic. The perspective of suddenly losing the linchpin of their economy and society quickly shifted Southern public opinion from affectionate loyalty to Britain to belligerent support for revolutionary separation and creation of an independent nation. The ranks of independence supporters in Southern society who agitated about lack of autonomy and political representation massively swelled. All attempts of British government and Parliament to stem the tide by promising gradual and compensated emancipation schemes and half-baked plans for political reform failed, and revolution swept BSA. The revolutionaries overthrew the British authorities and seized control of the vast majority of British Southern America.
They set up a new state, the Confederation of Southern America. Its constitution broadly imitated the US one, although it established a slightly weaker federal government. More importantly, it explicitly dedicated the new nation to the preservation of slavery. Despite the vast power gap between Britain and the CSA, many Confederates were confident in their ultimate victory, out of a mix of reasons. These included a high opinion of their own martial prowess, the successful example of their Northern cousins two generations ago, the pro-revolution zeitgeist of the time, lingering instability in Britain and ongoing rebellion in Ireland, and hope in American help. Drawing on the precedent of the USA, the Southerners expected they would be able to defeat the British on the battlefield, and then resume profitable trade relations with Britain as an independent nation in relatively short order. Although feelings between antislavery USA and pro-slavery CSA were ambivalent at best, the Confederates also assumed that if things turned too difficult for them, the USA would come to their rescue out of continental and republican solidarity and dislike for British imperialism.
Early in the conflict, the British were stunned by the vast support the slavers’ uprising got and the ease with which the rebels overtook the garrisons in continental British Southern America, Cuba, and Hispaniola. Although naval power allowed the British to keep control of the Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles without excessive difficulty, in the rest of BSA the British regulars had to evacuate by sea or retreat in the hinterland where they joined forces with Loyalist militias. This led the British to adopt a blockade strategy to subjugate the rebel colonies.
However, this plan was quickly shown to have several flaws, the most important being US unwillingness to stop trade and close their border with British Southern America. The British Parliament made the critical mistake of approving an embargo against America in retaliation for the border remaining open to trade. This pushed the neutral USA to throw away antislavery principle and side outright with the Confederacy. The embargo caused US elites and public opinion to set aside their dislike of slavery and focus on loathing for British imperial power in their continent. It lingered since the War of 1812 and was on a rise again because of the new conflict. The USA and the CSA negotiated an alliance in exchange for the Americans getting territorial compensations in the Western territories, full free trade rights on the Mississippi River, and special economic concessions in the CSA. America declared war to Britain and joined the conflict.
The US army helped the Confederate regulars wipe out the British regular forces and Loyalist militias that remained in the continental mainland, and its support was decisive to frustrate all British attempts to land. On the seas, the pattern of the War of 1812 repeated in a manner more favorable for the North American allies. Although the Royal Navy dominated the high seas and severely reduced (but not entirely eliminated) enemy trade with Europe, American and Confederate raiding inflicted serious damage to British shipping, which the RN was unable to prevent. The combination of US and Confederate naval power was also good enough to contest regional control in the North American theater to a good degree. This allowed the allies to supply their forces in the Greater Antilles, gradually eliminate British and Loyalist forces in Cuba and Hispaniola, and ensure intermittent control of the Bahamas. It also allowed the survival of a decent degree of coastal shipping. This, combined with the high degree of infrastructure development in the USA, significantly lessened economic damage to the allied nations from British blockade. As a rule, the US forces purposefully shunned doing anything in their intervention that would put them in the role of directly supporting slavery. They refused to return fugitive slaves that joined their encampments or fight bands of runaway Blacks unless they attacked first or threatened civilians. However, they gladly cooperated about fighting hostile Indian tribes that took the side of the British or tried to exploit the situation to resist White colonization.
Soon enough, the British came to face the same frustrating stalemate they had suffered in the War of 1812, only worse. The rebellion of Southern America got them ousted from the North American continent, with little realistic hope of a rollback. Although their naval power could wound their enemies’ economy greatly, it could not win the land war for them or bring the North Americans to their knees. Ongoing rebellion in Ireland was a pressing concern closer to home, and there was a creeping fear of renewed political instability in Britain, a worsening of the Irish uprising, or trouble in India from excessive strategic focus on, or repeated defeats in, Southern America. Cumulative war weariness from the recent European war and the ongoing conflicts in North America and Ireland chipped away at British will to fight. In the end, a peace faction prevailed in the British Parliament that assumed North America was a lost cause for British imperialism and their realistic best hope in that area was to resume normal trade relations with the USA and the CSA.
Peace negotiations started and ensued in a treaty that recognized the CSA’s independence and sovereignty over all of British Southern America. At the Americans’ insistence, the British also reluctantly ceded Newfoundland to the USA. The USA got several important concessions from the CSA as a compensation for its aid; the most important one was the cession of the Southwestern territories, including Southern California, Baja California, the southern portions of Arizona and New Mexico, Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, and the Trans-Pecos area of Texas. The Confederates regretted losing access to the Pacific Coast and the mineral resources of the Southwest. However, the loss was bearable for them, since these territories looked scarcely suitable to plantation economy, and they kept the valuable areas of Texas, Rio Grande (Coahuila, Neuvo Leon, and Tamaulipas), San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas. The USA also got very favorable terms for their trade on the Mississippi River, and in turn granted the CSA free access to the Pacific Coast. The USA and the CSA agreed to share free access to, and optimally control on, any trans-oceanic canal they might build in North America. The issue of the fugitive slaves and free Blacks that had joined Loyalist forces or sought shelter with US troops proved complex. In the end, however, the three powers agreed to re-settle them in West Africa.
As many expected, the slavery issue quickly proved to be an impassable obstacle that dashed any hope of unification between the USA and the CSA. However, thanks to their wartime alliance, the two nations developed friendly relations, and in fairly short time the CSA turned into a client state of the more powerful and developed USA. The relationship was especially close in the economic field; much less so in domestic matters, since the slavery issue often drove both nations to keep each other at arm’s length. The two states also frequently cooperated in military matters, such as repression of hostile Indian tribes. Defeat of Britain and Russia’s own war debt made the Tsar willing to listen to America's proffered wishes to acquire Alaska. The Americans wanted to consolidate their exclusive strategic control over northern and western North America and the Russians were not willing to antagonize them on this issue. Russia agreed to sell Alaska to the USA.
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