If I recall correctly, the defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were the final nails in the coffin with regard to the British decision whether or not to step in on the side of the Confederacy.  I do know there were other countries, including Prussia, looking at providing some sort of support for the Confederacy before Gettysburg.

Really?  Who?

 

Really? The French sided with the South ?

 







 

I think we all know that Porfirio Diaz was the best leader Mexico ever had.  I'd support a zombie-Diaz for El Presidente right now.

Not sure if serious, but personally I am a monarchist when it comes to Mexican politics.  I'd support a Habsburg restoration in Mexico City.

Almost.

 




















 

 

 

 

And the Netherlands, as well as the Poles that volunteered.

Both sides BOUGHT a shit-ton of small arms in Europe.

 

Until his decision to take on the USS Kersage outside Cherbourg with an unseaworthy, beat-to-hell CSS Alabama - where he was out-gunned and out-fought.

 




 

I would say the primary reason England and/or France did not support the Confederacy was over the paculiar institution of slavery.  I believe they didn't support the Union because they heavily relied on the South for goods such as cotton.  They did not know how it would end, but probably favored the South due to economic reasons.

Good point, England and France may possibly have both joined the South, they would both like to have seen the US loose. But the slavery thing in the South could not be supported. Kind of hypocritical when it was European ships and US ships that brought all the slaves here. Not Confederate ships. And of course, during the war the Union still had slavery in some states.

Prussia was keeping continental Europe busy.

I was able to read and understand the thread title.
I was using the Revolutionary War, and the foreign aid as an example of what was given, but under what circumstances.

Think about it on a larger scale what if the Nazis/hitler had never killed anyone and there want a ww2

 

Trivia bit there. The 700 foot long solid iron Great Eastern was almost contracted to carry the South's entire yearly cotton crop to England in a single shipment. Nothing could have stopped her.

The owners, absolute fools, were convinced she could pay in the passenger service, which  she never did.

But for a group of stupid board members, the South could have had a LOT more funds.

The North is pretty lucky England didn't come to the aid of the South (their primary trading partner). The North would have likely faced a two front war, and would have definitely lost supremacy at sea.

 Agreed, after  being at sea for 2 years without ever stopping at a home port the Alabama was in desperate need of repairs and fresh powder and fuses. They had US warships looking for them all over the world. They had left a 75,000 mile trail of bad news for US shipping. They had to go to France for the repairs.  The USS Kearsarge found them, and they had chain armor. Can't say Semmes was outgunned when it is documented that a hit from Alabama  to the sternpost of Kearsrage did not explode because of the wet fuse. The two ships fired hundreds of rounds at each other.

As for the CSS Shenandoah, They were still burning whalers after the war was over, never really got word to stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Claims

Alabama Claims:  

"The Alabama Claims were a series of claims for damages by the U.S. government against the government of the United Kingdom for the assistance given to the Confederate cause during the American Civil War. After international arbitration endorsed the American position in 1872, Britain settled the matter by paying the United States $15.5 million for damages done by several warships built in Britain and sold to the Confederacy, thus ending the dispute and ensuring friendly relations."

"During the American Civil War, several warships that became Confederate commerce raiders (the most famous being the CSS Alabama) were built in the United Kingdom and did significant damage to the American merchant marine."

 

I actually wrote a paper on this topic in college.  The biggest factor was the Emancipation Proclamation.  Britain had abolished slavery several decades before and the British public considered slavery to be one of the greatest evils in the world.  Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation there were several incidents which where smoothed over by Lincoln's diplomacy, and during those incidents the British public and press often clamored for war.  After the Emancipation Proclamation, the was was seen as a crusade against slavery and the British public and press turned 100% against the war, making intervention impossible for Parliament.  

Damn, that's a beauty.

 

Should look up the Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove. The south wins the civil war and there is like 12 books covering from 1860s-1945.

Depends on how fast she is on the screw only.  Those paddle wheels and sails are going to get shot to hell running a blockade.  



 

Maybe England didn't really understand exactly what Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did. Like freeing the slaves of the Confederacy and allowing the Union states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and New Jersey to  keep their slaves.

Actually many Americans don't know that all these Union states still had slavery after slavery was over in the Confederate states. But it makes Lincoln look better if this is not really known.  

It wasn't about slavery!  States rights damnit, states right!  Haven't you been reducated by the neo Rebs here?

England's lucky England didn't come to the aid of the South

I might not know history as well as you but I can read well enough to know he asked about the Civil War.

no chemical weapons were used.

There it is, in a nutshell.  Parliament would never have supported any direct military assistance.



 

Nobody else got involved because it was not Syria.

FBHO

From what I've seen, Rhett Butler was to busy having his way with Scatlett O'Hara to do decent job of running the Union blockades.  Otherwise, there would have been way moar foreign invlvlement in terms of materiel.  I think that by the end of the War he had figured out the sex wasn't worth it (at least he said he dion't give a damn).  He should have read his Homer.  The Greeks figured that out from their experience with the whole Helen/Trojan War thing.

No, Scarlett's constant sexual advances towards poor Ashley Wilkes distracted him from doing his job as a commander.  That's why the South lost.



 

 

Foreign fighters and suppliers say that many countries did get involved, much in the way that other countries were involved in the Spanish Civil War or in the way that other countries and foreign fighters are involved today in conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. They had private foreign fighters and companies that got involved, while governments talked, but generally did very little.

Note: most of what I know on the subject is in relation to the South. I consider my knowledge of foreign support for the United States Government to be very limited.

Germanic foreign fighters were a major part of pro-Government forces and were involved in some of the early war/pre-war (POV) atrocities/scandals, such as the Camp Jackson Affair and the St. Louis Massacre. 216,000 pro-Government troops were born in what is now Germany or in Austria. For the South, German foreign fighters also served in smaller numbers. The most famous among them was Heros von Borcke, who infiltrated the South in a blockade runner and fought with JEB Stuart. The double action Tranter Revolver he gave to Stuart is in a museum in Richmond, I think. Borcke's Damascus Steel saber, which is often described as practically a broadsword is there too. The Lorenz Rifle from Austria was extensively used by both sides and is the third most common rifle of the war. Over 300,000 were imported by both sides during the war.

The British Empire didn't just have companies that built ships and weapons for the Confederates (and the Government). British sailors served on raiders like the Alabama. English foreign fighters joined Confederate armies and the Confederate brown water navy. When the H.L. Hunley was recovered, the remains of the crew were autopsied. Only two of the crew were Southern at all. Two others were from non-Confederate states, and the remaining four (half the crew) were European - probably English. During the Trent Affair, 14,000 British troops were deployed to Canada and Canada planned to raise 40,000 militia in the event of a war with the United States. Canada (British North America) also refused to return at least 15,000 draft dodgers and deserters. It is estimated that 33,000-55,000 Canadians fought as foreign fighters for the Government and several hundred fought for the Confederacy. 29 Canadians were awarded the Medal of Honor and the guy who wrote "O Canada" was a pro-Government Lt.

There were thousands of blockade runners during the war. The number destroyed or captured actually is nearly on par with the total number of days between Sumter and Appomattox so imagine how many there were in total, including those that weren't captured or destroyed. English/British owners and sailors were involved in much of this trade. Additionally, while gun powder, ammunition, percussian caps, Enfield Rifles and musketoons, Whitworth Rifles, Whitworth Rifled Cannons, LeMat, Tranter, Beaumont–Adams, and Kerr revolvers, swords,  etc. were imported from the British Empire, blockade runners also brought in medicine, such as Morphine and the antimalarial drug Quinine, which were hidden in hollowed out dolls. They also imported food, since years of blockade and Government policies of burning farms and looting or burning supplies from Southern civilians were creating famine conditions in parts of the South. They delivered mail, lithographers, coal, copper wires and batteries for torpedoes, etc.

French foreign fighters also came to the South, famously including Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac, who rose to the rank of Major General before the end of the War. The French also built the USS Alligator, a pro-Government submarine that was accidentally lost at sea before seeing combat. The LeMat Revolver was a initially produced in France for Confederate use, though most were eventually made in England. The Lefaucheux M1858, a pinfire revolver, was also produced in France and exported in large numbers to both sides. Stonewall Jackson supposedly was armed with one and I think it is also in a museum. The most common artillery piece of the war was the Canon obusier de douze. (In the English speaking world it's called the 12 pounder Napoleon Model 1857.) While almost 2,000 were produced by Northern and Southern factories during the war, many more were imported by both sides. France also built the CSS Stonewall, which was a powerful ironclad ram. By the time she arrived, though, Lee had surrendered so she never saw action. She was sold to the Tokugawa shogunate and fought in the Battle of Hakodate Bay, in the Boshin War.

A Swede designed the USS Monitor prototype ironclad. In fairness, he was probably considered a citizen of New York, not Sweden, by the time of the war. Traditionally, citizenship in America was a state issue and he had lived in New York for decades.

Italian foreign fighters from Italian states, like the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, that had been conquered during the Wars of Italian Unification fought for the South. There is a fortress museum in Civitella del Tronto, Italy, that details Italian support for the Confederacy. And on two occasions, the Italian military leader of the Unification Movement, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, was offered military command by the Lincoln Administration. Each time he refused because Lincoln refused to make emancipation a war aim. Four pro-Government generals were from Italian countries.

Russian Ivan Vasilyevich Turchaninov, alias John Basil Turchin, was a pro-Government brigadier General and instigated the Rape of Athens. Two Russian fleets also were based in American ports for part of the war, to avoid becoming trapped if A British and/or French intervention occurred. The Russian government was the only major power to openly support the pro-Government side, though strictly because they served as a counter to British influence.

There is a rumor that the King of Siam offered war elephants to Lincoln, but this was actually a letter sent to Buchanan and was an offer for elephants in peace time. (Mail was a tad slow back then and the presidency had changed by the time it was delivered.) This was part of an effort to create good trade relations with other nations.

The rebel faction in the Taiping Civil War, known as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, apparently recognized the Confederacy. However, nothing ever came of that.

Spanish Carlists, many of whom had been refugees in France, fought for the South.

The Vatican's Pope Pius IX never officially recognized the South, but did offer de facto recognition though diplomatic correspondence. Like the Taiping rebels, nothing of note came from this.

During the Tangiers Incident, a crowd of hundreds protested American forces abducting Confederate diplomats, holding them hostage in the American consulate, and using armed Marines and sailors to forcibly extract them. While this protest was about America violating Moroccan sovereignty and using a diplomatic mission as a base for abductions off the streets of Tangiers, not about taking sides in the American Civil War, it is still noteworthy.

Mexico, both prior to and during the French Intervention, openly served as a trading partner with the Confederacy and many Hispanics (Mexicans among them) fought for the South. Cuba was another Hispanic country (colony of Spain at the time) that provided many recruits, including Colonel Ambrosio José Gonzales and the famous female fighter and spy, Loreta Janeta Velazquez (allegedly fought at Manassas, Leesburg, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh).

The Irish Republican Movement's Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) sent Irish Foreign Fighters to both sides in the War. The intention was to gather military experience and make military connections that would help them start a revolt back home. The failed Fenian Rising, the Fenian Dynamite Campaign, and the Canadian Fenian Raids were the poor performing results of these efforts. While tens of thousands of Irish fighters were recruited for these efforts after the American Civil War, aggressive action by British, Canadian, and to a lesser degree American forces prevented any serious threat to British rule. Six Confederate generals, including Patrick Cleburne, were from Ireland. Several units on both sides were primarily or exclusively Irish.

Most people don't consider the tribal nations as foreign nations, but if you do recognize them in that way, I can name at least a dozen tribal nations that formally sided with the Confederacy. That does not include those Indians who fought for the South without formal tribal military treaties. While I'm on the subject, if anyone can point me towards documentation (primary, secondary, or tertiary) regarding Comanche Indians fighting with Confederate forces in the Battle of Prairie Grove, I would be very grateful. I've seen the claim, but no details or evidence. Naturally, also, there were tribal nations that fought on the government side. It was also often the case that tribes split into pro-Government, pro-Confederate, and neutral bands.

There were a few primarily Polish units in the Confederacy as well. I don't know much about Polish service with pro-Government forces, but would assume that more Poles were in the North than in the South.

Uh, Antietam?  

Are you sure you don't mean Gettysburg?

Yep- also called the Timeline 191 Series.

Great book series...but I am thankful that the events portrayed in that series never had a chance to take place.  It would've been worse than ugly.  

Would anyone step in today?

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was in 1862. Citadel is right that the Battle of Antietam led to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Yeah, I stand corrected.

I guess I mixed it up with it being alluded to in the Gettysburg Address that it was, actually, as a result of the Battle of Gettysburg rather than Antietam.

Nope; it'd just mean more carriers for the Spanish Influenza outbreak a little ways down the road.  We'd still be at more or less the same population number we are today, I'd wager.

A lot of people don't know that it was Antietam not Gettysburg.

John Slidell was the Confederacy's ambassador to France. France showed interest in supporting the CSA, mainly because blockades of Southern ports had cut off the supply of cotton to Europe.

Ultimately France would not enter the war without England, and England opposed slavery.

Reminds me of Drew Faust, Dean of Harvard Univ., who opinioned that the North won because their women supported the war effort  more than the Southern women.  Typical feminist drivel.

Does it not count that Csar Alexander II sent his navies to New York and San Francisco as a warning to Europe not to get involved?

No, he means Sharpsburg (Antietam).  Because McCellan didn't get whipped (he just butchered the Army of the Potomac fruitlessly all day, then Lee departed back into Virginia at his own pace, with no pursuit), Lincoln issued the Eancipation Proclamation.