It acts like the British were innocent in the civil war. They weren't. They were actively arming and financing the south because they stood to benefit from internal strife in the US, even using their scottish rite southern jurisdiction freemasonic web to help support the KKK (bet you didn't know that one). Palmerston actively engaged in oligarchical subterfuge against the US, and besides the US angle was one of the primary actors behind the 1850 onwards expansion of the British empire worldwide (which they later, for pr purposes, changed in name only to the commonwealth). As part of this was consolidation and removal of what Palmerston called the "arbitrary powers", such as Austria and Russia into that empire, largely through false "national liberation" policy (sound familiar?).
To act as if it was simply the Trent affair that was a main potential instigator of war between the US and Britain is to be extremely myopic about the bigger picture at play. A key forgotten piece of history in this saga is that the Russian tsar was also under threat by the British because they came to him to join them against the US and he refused and then sent two fleets of ships, one to NY and one to SF with sealed orders to attack anyone who attacked the US (in 1863), because the British were prepping for the post civil war collapse invasion, and they even had proxy-troops amassed on the Mexican/Canadian borders! For do not forget under Palmerston, England supports all revolutions, except her own. I also theorize this is why they financed the bolsheviks and post-Bakunin anarchists and assassinated the Tsars sons family later, in revenge for foiling their plans, besides the added step of consolidation/removal of another rival monarchy, as they were doing across Europe.
There is also evidence the the assassination of Lincoln wasn't just a lone nut, but had British backing. (Funnily enough, many US presidential assassinations match this pattern).
The death throes of these losses by the British are the setup for the following world wars, which were engineered largely by Edward the 7th.
If the British had attacked the US during this time using the Trent affair as the excuse, they likely would have created a US-Russia-Prussia coalition that probably would have won, essentially having WW1 in the 1860s instead.
This style of British subterfuge continues to this day.
The UK was not a producer of cotton. They were a consumer. Of course the UK tacitly supported the South during the war, and it is no secret that had the right opportunity arisen, they would have openly supported them.
The South had been the UK's biggest cotton supplier prior to the war. If you think that UK textiles manufacturers were ecstatic that hey, now they might get more cotton from Egypt or wherever, you're not right. And those manufacturers employed many, many people in the UK.
The history books I read as a child always said that the British government supported the south, but the British public as a whole supported the North, about 2 or 3 years into the war this was translated into official British government switching to support the North (when it was clear what the outcome would be)
So that the UK could eventually conquer the United States and seize all cotton production as per the original British conquest and institution of the colonies.
The rest of what the above poster speaks is true. If you are unsure, you need to examine history more carefully before you think yourself a fit judge of "nut jobs".
I need to resubscribe to this magazine; when I was a kid, I got it for Christmas from one of my uncles, and whenever it would come in, I'd read the thing cover to cover. Somewhere I've still got that stack of WWII and Civil War magazines, I hope - they tended towards in-depth treatments of individual engagements or units, monographs and first-hand accounts that are hard to turn up elsewhere.
I doubt either side would have been stupid enough to let it escalate because it was clear to everyone that the North was going to win from day 1 (including General Lee himself) and the Union knew that a war with THE naval superpower of the day wasn't a good idea.
When this event occurred in late 1861 it was not at all clear that the North would prevail. The South won an initial encounter with the Union army at Bull Run near Washington DC in July 1861 that illustrated the poor organization of both sides and also made it clear the war would not be won swiftly by either.
It was really only after Grant's victory at Vicksburg in 1863 that it became apparent to informed observers that the Union would prevail. Even so a substantial fraction of the North was in favor of a negotiated peace. George McClellan ran against Lincoln in 1864 on a peace platform. Bloody slaughters like the Union defeat at Cold Harbor in June 1864 made his platform very strong. McClellan lost but by most accounts Lincoln's campaign was saved by late victories in Georgia.
The south didn't have to "win" they just had to not lose before the Union got tired of the war.
If you want to send an army into another country without local support you need a massive manpower and material advantage. After you account for that the two sides look more equal.
If Gettysburg had been a southern victory things could have turned out very differently.
> If you want to send an army into another country without local support you need a massive manpower and material advantage. After you account for that the two sides look more equal.
Or you simply need to be willing to sack and burn the opponent until they starve.
In addition, the slaves, who outnumbered free southerners by quite a bit, were not necessarily unwilling to cooperate with the Union soldiers. That's very different from trying to pacify an area that will fight to last man.
> because it was clear to everyone that the North was going to win from day 1
I don't know that this is true. I think that the Lost Cause movement has perpetuated this based on pure numbers while ignoring all the other factors that could have impacted the outcome of the conflict. The North did have an overpowering industrial advantage, but that doesn't mean they had the desire to commit to a conflict. In fact, they spent the first 3 or 4 years of the war not committing fully.
If the Revolutionary War had failed, I think we would say the same thing about that, but a war is a complicated thing and I would never say an outcome is "clear to everyone". Clearly France saw some advantage in undermining an enemy, despite Britain's advantage over the colonies.
To act as if it was simply the Trent affair that was a main potential instigator of war between the US and Britain is to be extremely myopic about the bigger picture at play. A key forgotten piece of history in this saga is that the Russian tsar was also under threat by the British because they came to him to join them against the US and he refused and then sent two fleets of ships, one to NY and one to SF with sealed orders to attack anyone who attacked the US (in 1863), because the British were prepping for the post civil war collapse invasion, and they even had proxy-troops amassed on the Mexican/Canadian borders! For do not forget under Palmerston, England supports all revolutions, except her own. I also theorize this is why they financed the bolsheviks and post-Bakunin anarchists and assassinated the Tsars sons family later, in revenge for foiling their plans, besides the added step of consolidation/removal of another rival monarchy, as they were doing across Europe.
There is also evidence the the assassination of Lincoln wasn't just a lone nut, but had British backing. (Funnily enough, many US presidential assassinations match this pattern).
The death throes of these losses by the British are the setup for the following world wars, which were engineered largely by Edward the 7th.
If the British had attacked the US during this time using the Trent affair as the excuse, they likely would have created a US-Russia-Prussia coalition that probably would have won, essentially having WW1 in the 1860s instead.
This style of British subterfuge continues to this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_iRIcxsz0