"President Mahan" Topic

"On August 2nd, 1881 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Republic of France officially entered the conflict on the side of the Confederacy. The decision to do so was highly contentious in both countries. There were strong financial interests pushing the two nations towards war. Both nations would be major beneficiaries of the sale of Chihuahua and Sonora, as they were Mexico's largest debt holders. Britain and France also were the largest investors in the Confederacy. British and French capital had paid for the Confederacy's rapid industrialization. If the U.S. could compel the Confederacy to halt its purchase both economies would suffer. If the U.S. succeeded in conquering and re absorbing the southern states, both economies would be ruined.

British Prime Minister Gladstone was especially reluctant to enter the conflict. Gladstone had initially supported recognizing the Confederacy during the War of Secession. After the end of the war Britain and France had guaranteed Confederate independence and there was a strong element of the foreign office, along with those with financial interests, led by Lord Salisbury who supported intervention. A powerful and vengeful newly re-United States would seriously destabilize the international system. However the South's continued maintenance of the slave system made Gladstone's support for war morally impossible. Longstreet solved this issue by putting forth an amendment to end slavery to Congress and personally offering to manumit his slave at the end of the conflict. Longstreet played to Gladstone's vanity by suggesting it was his influence which made Longstreet abandon slavery. A lifelong abolitionist Gladstone asked Parliament for a declaration of war on August 2nd.

The Confederate-French alliance was a legacy of Napoleon II and therefore not popular with many of the Republicans now in power. Napoleon II was the driving force behind England and France's entrance into the War of Secession. After the war the it was France that was the more important European ally as the C.S.A. and French Empire worked closely in imperial interventions throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. This abruptly ended with the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. As France recovered from the war, it had little appetite for renewed adventure in Latin America. By the late 1880s this had changed and France was eager to renew its confidence with overseas expansion and cultivation of new allies to array against Germany…"

Main page

link

Armand

Part of a very very long thread

But an interesting one… (smile)

Armand