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What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

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Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#101

Post by qiskit »

cperciva wrote: post #3

Not mentioned: Towards the end of the Civil War, British officers became very concerned that the large and now experienced army might turn its attention North, as they had some 50 years prior. The Civil War was thus a direct catalyst for Canadian confederation.

The US took the oregon territories from the british empire in the 1840s. Even before the civil war, the british empire was in no position to challenge the US in north america. America was focused on western expansion to the pacific before and after the civil war, not to worthless canadian tundra and the frigid arctic.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#102

Post by missedthecue »

Animats wrote: post #15

Not enough, actually. The American Civil War was the first big war where railroads and telegraph lines allowed coordinated operations over a large area, and machine guns and repeating rifles allowed killing large numbers of advancing troops. Grant got this; he wrote "War is Progressive", meaning that there was progress through technology. This was a radical idea in military thinking at the time. Most European militar…

In which American Civil War battles did machine guns play a meaningful role?

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#103

Post by miller_joe »

Hayvok wrote: post #37

The Civil War in America absolutely dominated the British national conversation, especially in the early years of the war. Politicians followed the conflict closely, and there were even several debates in Parliament over British policy toward the conflict. Frequently discussed was a line that a lot of Americans would recognize today, of "when should Britain get involved??" because of the destructiveness of the confli…

I learned more from this comment than the article, and I thank you

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#104

Post by SemanticStrengh »

KerrAvon wrote: post #99
berdario wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war... I'm not sure about the events that you're referring to. The Treaty of Riga was in 1921, the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was signed in 1921 as well, the USSR was only declared in 1922, and the UK recognized it in 1924, the same year in which Lenin died. In fact, related to the Trade Agreement he complained: > The British government has handed us…

No, we don't forget about revisionist history. We view it with an appropriately skeptical eye. The Telegraph article has a quote from a historian: > "There was no mention of this in any of the three contemporaneous diaries, two British and one French - including that of Drax," he said. "I don't myself believe the Russians were serious." You also seem unfamiliar with the purpose of NATO. Wikipedia: > NATO is a system…

> "I don't myself believe the Russians were serious."

Oh so it was a prank? - - What a weak thesis...

> You also seem unfamiliar with the purpose of NATO. Wikipedia

You seem unfamiliar with the fact the USSR asked to join NATO it seems

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#105

Post by throwaway290 »

berdario wrote: post #83
edgyquant wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America and Russia had a great relationship until the end of WWI. The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war when the entente (specifically Britain) opened dialogue towards a trade deal. Lenin used them as the great other, despite knowing they wanted normalized relations, and then the USSR taking Eastern Europe sealed the deal. Self determination was US policy at that time (and kind of ever si…

> The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war... I'm not sure about the events that you're referring to. The Treaty of Riga was in 1921, the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was signed in 1921 as well, the USSR was only declared in 1922, and the UK recognized it in 1924, the same year in which Lenin died. In fact, related to the Trade Agreement he complained: > The British government has handed us…

There were valid reasons to not be friendly to USSR. Does this justify USSR entering friendship pact with Germany, thus enabling it to start the war?

I also want to know more conditions under which Stalin (who really handled foreign policy then?) offered to send troops to Europe, considering USSR was sort of fighting Japan at the same time. I'm sure UK and France could corroborate and provide more details, if this offer was real.

For the record, the position* of Sotskov (the only source mentioned in the article you linked) is also that occupying Baltic states and dividing Europe between USSR and Germany was not in fact a land grab by USSR but rather a necessary measure to be able to resist Germany.

Never mind that this protection buffer would not have been needed if Germany did not expand its invasion... which it did thanks to USSR siding with it. Dubious twist of logic.

It seems obvious that leaving Germany to take more of Europe in the beginning of WWII would have drastically reduced the ability of USSR to withstand a subsequent attack by Germany, so the argument seems to be "our geniuses could foresee this, so they invaded Europe in order to save the world from fascists". This argument is canceled out, however, by considering that at the end of the day not entering a pact with the UK does not imply USSR needed to side with Germany, the act that enabled Germany to start the war (which presumably USSR was aware of) in the first place.

I'm not sure to which degree this treatment of WWII is truth vs. revisionism.

* Which also seems to be the official position of the Kremlin: http://www.svr.gov.ru/material/sbornik-dokumentov/otzyvy-na-...

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#106

Post by scheme271 »

edgyquant wrote: post #65
spywaregorilla wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how difficult it is nowadays to field a million man army

Because Vietnam showed that conscripting armies of that size was not an efficient way to fight a modern war. You want people, volunteers, who want to be in the army. Also technology. We’re close to that point in, like in Roman history, where the income of entire villages was only enough to field one Calvary soldier (knight.) Not that we’re going towards feudalism but history has a cycle of armies going from a small f…

During the early republic, only the richest could equipment themselves but my understanding is that the Marian reforms changed this by professionalizing the army and having the general of a legion supply the soldiers with their weapons.

Also, the thing about a village supporting one cavalry soldier seems off. The roman army focused on infantry with cavalry being supplied by allied forces.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#107

Post by SemanticStrengh »

watwut wrote: post #81
SemanticStrengh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American russophobia is a sad state of affair considering history, they also gave Alaska for a negligible price. > When the Civil War broke out, both England and France considered hostile intervention on behalf of the South and they tried to convince the Tsar to join them. Alexander II’s refusal was critically important because the British and French then decided to abort their plans. It's crazy to think Russia deter…

Right now, Russophobia is kind of healthy thinking. Their current mix of tsarism and return to kinda communist thinking except the communist ideology is sucky and dangerous.

[flagged]

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#108

Post by skibble »

qiskit wrote: post #100
gen220 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be understood that the british empire was at the peak of economic dependence on the raw material coming from the "new world" at the onset of the civil war; in particular, cotton exports for consumption by british textile mills [1]. > By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the 1…

[flagged]

I’m sorry but this is profoundly and aggressively incorrect. The civil war was not reframed after the fact to be about slavery, quite the opposite in fact. The ‘reframing’ is in fact what you’ve tried to assert, in that it was supposedly a matter of economics rather than slavery (though of course other factors were certainly at play). It’s part of the ‘lost cause’ narrative furthered by the southern states after the civil war.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederac...

https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2015/03/02/debunking-the-ci...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/the-lost-c...

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#109

Post by dayofthedaleks »

qiskit wrote: post #100
gen220 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be understood that the british empire was at the peak of economic dependence on the raw material coming from the "new world" at the onset of the civil war; in particular, cotton exports for consumption by british textile mills [1]. > By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the 1…

[flagged]

There’s really not a lot of of discussion of foreign trade in the documents the states ratified to enact secession. [0] They sure do talk about slavery quite explicitly though.

[0] - https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#110

Post by LAC-Tech »

KerrAvon wrote: post #99
berdario wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war... I'm not sure about the events that you're referring to. The Treaty of Riga was in 1921, the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was signed in 1921 as well, the USSR was only declared in 1922, and the UK recognized it in 1924, the same year in which Lenin died. In fact, related to the Trade Agreement he complained: > The British government has handed us…

No, we don't forget about revisionist history. We view it with an appropriately skeptical eye. The Telegraph article has a quote from a historian: > "There was no mention of this in any of the three contemporaneous diaries, two British and one French - including that of Drax," he said. "I don't myself believe the Russians were serious." You also seem unfamiliar with the purpose of NATO. Wikipedia: > NATO is a system…

You also seem unfamiliar with the purpose of NATO. Wikipedia:

> NATO is a system of collective security: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. It was established during the Cold War in response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union.

That is the stated purpose of NATO. The details of its real life military actions do not square with what you quoted at all - unless you can tell me which NATO member state Libya attacked.

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