I have seen two references lately about a German plan in 1899 to invade and occupy the U.S east coast. As the articles explain, the U.S. military at that time was in a sorry state, and the Germans could have easily moved 100,000 troops across the Atlantic.  They had proved they could move large amounts of men during the Boxer situation.  After the turn of the century, the Kaiser gave up the idea.
John

You would think the US civil war, with the large armies involved, and the huge gains in US industrial output would squelch plans like that.

It could have just been a pipe dream of the Kaiser.  He and his Russian cousin hatched a plan to dump existing alliances and to become close allies in the 1900 - 1910 period.  The plan was met with horror in both capitals and quickly squelched.  I wonder how WW1 would have changed if that happened.....  

The Union winning the civil war caused the Frogs to pull out of Mexico.

I read somewhere that steel production was the real measure of a nation's industrial and warmaking potential in those days.  If that was true, the USA would not be a pushover.

The Germans seem uniquely prone to ideas like that. In the 1930's there were plans to colonize Antartica, and many Antartic place names came from that 1930's exploration effort.

Well, in spite of our victory against Spain in 1898, our military was in tough shape, while Germany had a very powerful military, including a high seas fleet. Their military leadership was for it, but the German Kaiser got cold feet.
When you consider that many US troops fought against Spain with single shot black powder rifles, I can envision a foreign power taking us on in 1899.
John

Apparently someone else already read their newest edition of "MilitaryHistory" magazine [;)]
Most of that was based on the fact that we short on several critical military items at the time. The great white fleet had yet to be built, and our military was woefully short of artillery and other heavy weapons. We had a large cadre of relatively untrained prospective militia, and a tiny standing army that was mostly stuck in the Phillipines. That said, the German plans were pretty limited-taking Long Island for example.

Poodleshooter, I also read of it in a book titled, "Operation Drumbeat," by Michael gannon.
This is about the the U-Boat campaign in 1942 against the US East coast.
John

I doubt the UK would have allowed that to happen.

It sounds like WW1 wouldn't have started, at least not the way it did.

Remember: Serbs kill Archduke, Austrians punish Serbs, Russia goes to war with Austria, Germany goes to war with Russia, France goes to war with Germany . . .

As far as German plans in 1899 . . . every country has contingency plans. You shouldn't read too much into them. When the US went to war in 1898, we had a 27,000 man standing army. In months, we had over 100,000 men deployed, thanks to our militia system. The chance of Germany projecting significant force to our shores was basically nil. We did have problems with the Germans at that time period over minor posessions in the South Pacific. These problems were made worse during the Spanish American War, due to a local German military leader, but it seems he was put in his place by people higher in the command structure . . .