The Civil War and the Threat of Foreign Intervention 

It's 6:30 fym sleep

​@@johnnyfields1392wait till you hear about time zones, they're gonna blow your mind

​@@andreyshpigelman5478 what do you expect For us not to succumb to ansomnea for the sake of objectify useless education

@@johnnyfields1392Bro thinks we all live in the same time…

@@johnnyfields1392actual moron

Wouldn't be a civil war if you all just did as you were told... Just saying. GB

There is a statue of Lincoln in Manchester (England), on the plaque it states Lincoln wrote an open letter to the city where he thanks the cotton mill workers of the city, as they were so in favour of the union and of the abolition of slavery, they refused to work with any southern cotton, despite this drastically impoverishing them and basically putting them out of work.

80 years later they finally get why FDR's joke about teaming up with Hitler was so hillarious 😂👏🏻🤣

​@user-vo9wd6tx6ci am assuming, but russia declaring for the US is still a huge impediment for UK and France to get entangled into a foreign war for what gain? As the video explains, the cash crops in the Confederate States were being replaced by other sources. Would you get involved as the UK or France if it meant going to war with all of Russia, Navy or not?

​@user-vo9wd6tx6cRussia can threat India if that happens...

I mean Russia was probably out for revenge after the Crimean War and the logic likely was that Britain, even with French Support, would not dare risk war with the US and Russia at the same time. But even if Britain did decide on war with her two great rivals there'd be doubt she would have the resources to effectively pursue the war and end up defeated .

@user-vo9wd6tx6c It would have been a matter related to control of the cotton trade. It was a very realistic threat before the perfection of the Northern blockade. After that, not so much.

​@user-vo9wd6tx6c Russia's Navy wasn't incompetent during the Crimean War - see, for instance, the Battle of Sinop against the Ottomans. The Russian Navy's problem was that it was outdated (the Russians had few steamships) and hopelessly outgunned in the face of the combined forces of the Number 1 and Number 2 naval powers of the time - Britain and France. Trying to contest the seas would have been a suicide mission, so the Russian Navy adopted the logical strategy of retreating behind a network of powerful coastal batteries and forts (which were under the Navy's command). This strategy generally worked quite well, as the British and French were not able to breach the successive belts of coastal forts in the Gulf of Finland to menace St Petersburg (which would have ended the war very quickly). The Black Sea Fleet couldn't prevent a landing in Crimea, but it did prevent the British and French fleets from sailing into Sevastopol Bay to bombard the city for the duration of the siege, prolonging it greatly. While ultimately the Russians lost the war, I would nonetheless argue that the Russian Navy leadership understood the situation they were facing and created and executed a realistic strategy in that context. But generally, you're right that the Russian Navy was in no fit state in 1862. For starters, the Black Sea fleet had been scuttled in 1855 with the loss of Sevastopol and the Black Sea was demilitarised as part of the 1856 Treaty of Paris. So Russia was down one whole fleet (of about two and a half fleets in 1853)! The 1860s and early 1870s were a period of massive reforms and social upheaval in Russia (1861 - abolition of serfdom), so in general the Russian Empire was not ready for war. The realisation that Russia could not realistically challenge British naval power was a major factor in the decision to sell Alaska in 1867 (since in the event of a war, the British would likely be able to seize it anyway). However, as other commenters have pointed out, diplomatic manoeuvring is often about posturing. Of course, no-one in Britain or France was worried about the Russian Navy as an existential threat. But it was a serious enough threat to require a significant investment of time and resources - and for what? For cotton imports? So in that respect, the prospect of Russian involvement was a weighty argument.

I second this suggestion. 👍

I third this suggestion. 👍

Hear Hear

Britain wouldn't have allowed it

The problem is that French Mexico would have hemmed them in from the south, and the Europeans (who the Confederates would be indebted to) would not have just allowed them to usurp Spain’s empire in the Caribbean. Maybe they get Cuba, and maybe France/Habsburg Mexico sells them the Rio Grande, but that’s about it.

Not necessarily. If Britain/ France sent troops then it would only be in small numbers. If the US invaded Canada then they'd risk full blown war. Which I highly doubt they would whilst fighting the CSA.

@@AFGuidesHD The US would have immediately invaded Canada the moment a British soldier landed in the Confederacy, if not before. Also, remember at that time, virtually all of Canada's population was located in the Windsor - Toronto - Quebec City axis (far moreso than now, when that still is pretty much the truth), so the US could occupy pretty much anything of significance in Canada quickly, unless the UK sent a lot more troops ahead of time than what they did historically.

@@thomasrinschler6783 The UK had soldiers already stationed in canada lmao, it would have been suicidal for the US to send any large contingent up north. They were barely holding the Maryland line. If ANY troops were vacated from that theater Lee's Gettysburg campaign would have been a triumph, and that spells doom for the US. Imagine being the doofus that declares war on Britain and sends 20K men to trudge through the canadian tundra only to hear that your country lost it's capital and all of your leaders have been captured. Remember that Baltimore was extremely pro-Confederate as well, so had Lee captured it they would have supplied them and joined the southern cause.

What spare army did the Union have to invade Canada with? The Royal Navy breaking the blockade and supplying the Confederacy with arms and materiel would have totally changed the calculus.

@@pgf289 Exactly, the US invading Canada would mean the Union have half as many troops at Gettysburg. The Union invading Canada would be Germany declaring war on America tier disastrous.

That's deluded entitled Brit logic for you. Imagine the US daring to intervene as an intermediary during the multiple wars that were constant with England in Europe, and how absurd that would have sounded.

Interesting good points.

@@frank-ko6de Actually America tried intervene in Fenian raid in Canada so that deluded entitlement seem to belong to America as well retard.

⁠@@frank-ko6deare you serious? The US does nothing but stick its nose into foreign affairs, the only thing stopping it in this period is that it wasn’t yet powerful enough.

While an inland invasion would've been unlikely, Britain and France could've crushed the blockade in a few days.

@@alioshax7797 unlikely. Ironclads were not very seaworthy and it would be very difficult to send them across the Atlantic in any substantial numbers. Would be very difficult for their wooden fleets to contest the Union ironclads in their home coasts.

It’s not wrong, it’s diplomatic history (‘what one clerk said to another’ as someone put it). Palmerston and Russell were the most important figures in foreign policy, it’s natural to focus on them in a short video like this. It could have gone more in depth sure, but I take issue with you declaring it ‘wrong’. You are massively overstating how important the northern cause was to the British electorate and the Liberal party. Pam is not getting turned out office if he recognises the South after a major Union defeat (the precondition he generally thought necessary) .

Racist.

@@jamesslater9098 Anything to contribute?

@@qr8440 Just pointing out that you're a massive racist who supports a state created for slavery.

@@jamesslater9098 Ok

Do you think the whopping great American flag might give it away?

@@rossjohnson9098 It's obviously about the yanks, but it is imprecise to call their civil war 'the civil war' especially in a title that mentions Blighty

The US civil war is one of the more hilarious names this conflict has lol

​@@katamattyonit says the american civil war

@@k00lkidz4 I said thumbnail for a reason

For the south it was always about slavery, but for the north it took a while for slavery to become the obvious (and most politically expedient) factor. Lincoln himself said if he could restore the union without freeing a single slave he would do it just as easily as if it required freeing every slave. It was a brutally slavery-loving south versus an apathetic north, and it took many black Americans joining the union ranks to help shift that opinion.

​@zoeygeorge2403 albeit it wasn't that Lincoln was pro slavery or anything. He genuinely hated it. He just thought it wasn't politically possible to abolish slavery (nor did he think it was the Presidents role to do so either interestingly enough)

Many such cases. It does make the whole "balance of power" doctrine look a farce. To allow America to aggressively expand across thousands of miles, wage war against Mexico, Spain and everyone else, but then bemoan about Russia taking Bessarabia.

How would the world be better from the UK and France attempting to cripple the US?

So... you like war?

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Not really relevant as to weather one likes war or not. Chamberlain didn't like war yet started the most destructive one in history.

Lol, The North dominated the South economically and demographically. Even if the South won its independence due to interference from the British and French, the North would be 75% as powerful, and would now be a seething anti-British and French nation. Canada, the South, Mexico, the Caribbean, and beyond would now be in the North's sights. Any enemy to the British would be entertained. WW1 goes much differently.

It's been senseless since precisely the Napoleonic era. The time of Spanish Succession was able to field and modern looking armies (replacing Knights on horseback with Gun brigades), but the quality of guns was not yet able to make fields of war completely efficient destroyers of life just yet; "Chess logic", almost, of a strategy to capture, not kill, particularly the flags-- was the old way. 1804 comes and it's the beginning of military cynicism that even the victories were never worth such high casualties in both % and sheer numbers. The US Civil War is.....totally unromanticizable except that sympathy for the lowest ranked infantry on both sides is already at World War One levels. The North cause was more just, but it still wasn't worth that much death.

​@@darthparallax5207preserving the union wasn't worth it???🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

@@AltbinariesPPKMaybe not? Why is "preserving the Union" such a sacred and essential duty that it is worth any amount of blood sacrifice?

@@CantusTropus absolutely

@@secretname4190 because you can't betray your nation because you want to keep using people like livestock

This is true, but the western theater did not really solidify under Union control until a bit later in the war. Antietam was the beginning of that.

@@SteezyRider …. The Union plan to win. The “Anaconda Plan”. Was in the West. Along with a Union blockade of Confederate trade. Richmond and Washington were so close to one another there were going to be major battles over them. The Army of the Potomac under McClellan’s leadership would never be destroyed. But McClellan on the aggressive was uninspired. He lacked a killer instinct. Robert E Lee was blessed with a succession of mediocre Union commanders. Till meeting Generals Meade at Gettysburg, and later Meade under Grant.

How much did the Western theatre really matter?

@@CantusTropuslet’s see, cutting the confederacy in two, capturing the confederates largest port in New Orleans, capturing its vital trade route of the Mississippi, I would say it was strategically significant

@@CantusTropus … until after Gettysburg the Eastern theater on land was a stalemate. As Grant went East and took command, Sherman had already captured Atlanta and was taking his forces to the sea. The Union kept destroying the ability of the South to wage war. The Civil War in the East was a bloody affair. But until late in the war it accomplished nothing in and of itself

It was referred to a civil war even before the civil war had begun "In your hands, is the momentous issue of civil war. There can not be a civil war without you being the aggressors" Lincolns speech before ft. Sumter. As to when it became widespread? Around the 1910s.

At the very latest, it's verbatim called a civil war in the Gettysburg Address.

I guess the second part of the question is when the term "war of northern aggression" started being used. Was it war time southern propaganda or did this phrase emerge post war? Genuinely curious.

@@shaunwu3910 Made up by racists during the Civil Rights movement.

Some in the north always called it that. Some called it the "War for the Union." Civil War is inaccurate imo, that word implies two sides, each wanting full control of a landmass. It was really a failed revolution. "War of Secession" or "War Between the States" is more accurate to me

It would have turned a civil war into a continental one

@@secretname4190exactly, and the Union would have had a war on two fronts.

This is very generous to the Union lmao, bordering on fanfiction

@@secretname4190 Peak strength of the Union Army was 700,000. Over 2 million men served in the Union Army during the US Civil War. 400,000+ Union military died. Confederate Army peak strength was over 400,000. Over 1 million served during the war. Over 200,000 died during the war. At the time, the Union army was the most modern in the world.

@@willw8011 Funny The unionist white volunters from the Confederacy was 100 000 and the colored unionist soldiers were 300 000. They were almost so many as the all Confederacy Army.

That was only after Antietam, really that was the South’s one chance to win.

Sounds good!

sounds like Chinese dominance in manufacturing

That's British hypocrisy for you. They certainly weren't averse to slavery. It was just no longer convenient to import slaves, when they literally colonized whole nations that did their bidding. But, keep drinking the kool aide.

I was looking for this comment. PITT THE ELDER!

Yeah, also sucks how American position in WW2 can be summed up as how do we weaken the British Empire versus defeating Nazism. That's just how governments work though.

​@@AFGuidesHDAmerica did both at the same time

​@@AFGuidesHDBe glad we Americans allowed you British at the victory table, for it was American and Soviet power the won the war losing your empire was merciful compared to liberating all of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales from English control.

@@AFGuidesHD You have a good point but it’s still fxcked up though. I But it’s Britains fault why its empire collapsed. The British should’ve done everything in its power to keep the 13 Colonies in the first British empire.

@@demarcomixon I agree it is entirely Britain's fault.

The USA would still have been stronger

This seems a rather uncharitable comment. British statesmen did indeed consider themselves at war with slavers, and this was the main reason many in cabinet were pro northern. Gladstone and Russell thought southern independence would end the institution quicker, and Palmerston stated it was the main factor standing in the way of intervention. If money was always the most important thing why did Britain actively pay other nations to end the trade? Finally, just because Britain was at war with slavers does not mean it always had to override geopolitical concerns.

Are you forgetting India and South Africa? She was a saint, to be sure.

@@purplesprigs how saintly the British behavior was in the Raj, certainly. Tell me, what was that thing Victoria’s government invented to corral the Boers? The concentration camp?

Thank you for your kind comments. I'll freely admit I'm no expert on the military history of the Civil War. The Pope comments are a bit of a hold over from the first draft of the script where I was going to posit (what seems like) one of the great what if's of the war. Namely, where Lee almost surrounded Pope's army just above the Rapidan on August 19, mentioned in Osprey's Second Manassas p. 27. Obviously, Pope then escaped, and looking back I'd have probably just been better removing all references to him.

I think it was what America could become that scared them.

This is far in the future and not particularly relevant to 1862 in my opinion. The Alabama claims are interesting though, and I discuss them in my other great game series

@@OldBritannia yes in the future for the reparations but during the course of the war the actions that lead to the demands were happening. Possibly not 1862 but not many years after. It is one aspect of the war that not many cover

Yeah that's like the USN being "deterred" by the current Russian navy lol.

It wasn't that reason, the Crimean war had just ended and the Russians feared that Britain might want to bottle up the Russian navy in the Baltic and Black seas in case of a new conflict so in American ports the Russian fleet had freedom of movement in case of conflict.

Oh no, not Russia's shitty fleet.

At that time Britain was stronger as an industrial nation than the USA, I think it would have turned the tide. The Confederate States would have promised to end slavery in return for British and French aid I think.

@@WFHermans Britain being stronger, not without the southern cotton. And no, the Confederates would have promised no such thing.

The abolitionist movement in Britain was very strong and politically influential. There were several riots over the issue of slavery, and many politicians were made or broken by the anti-slavery voters. Britain even remotely supporting the CSA in any way would've been a political nightmare, in my opinion.

it would've helped keep the British Empire's hegemony going longer. the Rise the USA was part of what brought the slow downfall of the British Empire

They would have to. Even if the South succeeded in driving back the Union, they would've still had to end slavery as a business because the prices of keeping & maintaining entire families of slaves would've gotten too high.@@RealArcalian

We may have "abolished slavery first" but were still paying compensation to the descendants of slave-owners all the way up to 2015. "British historians talk as if the Empire took part in the slave trade purely for the satisfaction of abolishing it".

​@@zoeygeorge2403slavery was still a thing in the empire indian workers were moved work in plantations in Caribbean......Indian workers were once again used to build railway tracks in africa where in countless died There decendents continue to live there

@@zoeygeorge2403 Britain didn't abolish slavery first, and I dont think anyone even says that

@@zoeygeorge2403 We spent a fortune and live in opposing slavery through the West African Squadron and later on in East Africa. It wasn't entirely purely done for the sake of African lives (it was sometimes used as an excuse to take territory), but no other nation/country/civilisation has done more to oppose the subjection of another people than Britain (not even close).

​@memofromessex That's completely false paying slave owners compensation for their crimes is not a good thing😂, American got rid of slavers the proper way, the John Brown way, don't act moral bribing slave owners to free their slave in name only as an excuse to colonize.