Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: miko2d on November 28, 2001, 11:33:00 AM
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This curious "what if..." question surfaced in my mind in the course of the "I am more patriot then you are" discussion on AGW board.
What would have happened if americans in 1776 did not raise/succeeded in bloody rebellion and won freedom for themselves from british rule?
1. Right now we would be living in a free democratic society in an independent country - just like Great Britain, Australia and Canada and a few other former colonies. Our money would have sported a different pucture but I can see no reason that our economy would not have been the same.
2. US would have been spared the bloody and divisive Civil War.
3. US would have abandoned slavery a few decades earlier then it did - when the brits did it - instead of running trans-atlantic slave trade through brits' anti-slavery patrols. That would have been another reason for Civil War not to happen - as the South would not have been able to develop a slave-labor based economy to such extent. Let alone it would have spared us the racial troubles we have now that Britain, Canada and Australia do not.
3a. Many more native americans would have survived.
4. WWI could have beeen averted because US would have been on the good side from the very beginning and the bad guys would have known it.
5. Russia would not have fallen to communism/bolshevism as a result of it WWI.
6. Germany would not have fallen to nazism as a result of it WWI.
7. If Hitler or anyone else still appeared, WWII could have been averted because US would have been on the good side from the very beginning and the bad guys would have known it. Also russians would not have allowed "Hitler" to do what they allowed and helped him to do.
8. Of course no need for nuclear weapons or at least not in thousands of them or arm race.
On the negative side, knowing Brits, we would have probably been involved in an odd war or two with french, but that couldn't have been that bad. Those guys are pretty soft and civilised and fighting them is fun. Besides, we still had to do it when they supported germans in WWII and it wasn't that bad.
Also a few states may have not been a part of USA - though I am pretty sure they still would. In the worst case, other then necessity to exchange money when traveling on vacation to mexican Texas, russian Alaska or Hawaii how would we care?
Don't get me wrong - if I could change history right now I would not ever do it. Interference with any of those events could have caused a different spermatozoid to penetrate the egg cell during my conception (provided it ever occured or my parents even met or were born) and someone else could have been born instead of me.
That is why I am very happy how things turned out to be and far from holding gruge against anyone for things done in the past to my or anyone's ancestors. The past is objective, immutable, makes an entertaining reading and I am content about that fact.
But as for using history to try charting the future and the effect our current actions will have on it, why not let our imagination run wild?
Come on, what are your thoughts?
miko
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
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How can you discuss/argue this set of completely hypothetical facts you've presented. Its pure speculation and assumption and is only subject to a "I write better than you" comparison.
You might as well be arguing philosophy.
AKDejaVu
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Society develops according to the set of natural laws that are as valid as the laws of physics.
By building mental models based on those laws and running them back and forth we can compare results with actual similar events that happened outside our model. This way we can see if our understanding of the laws of history is correct and/or complete.
A discrepancy could make us to look for some better understanding of the laws of nature - much like discrepancy in planetary orbits caused humanity to discard Ptolemy system in favor of Copernikus.
Alternatively, a discrepancy could make us search for some overlooked fact in history - much like supposed discrepancy in planetary orbits cause closer examination and discovery of new plnets by the effects they have on known planets' orbits according to the known valid laws.
More immediately, such discussions can help shut up some ignorants who are quick to point out how we all obliged to them becasue their ancestors fought for liberty and freedom. It may be that they fought for their liberty and freedom and if they didn't, we (or people living now) would still have freedom according to the inevitable laws of society development.
Freedom is not a deal done by someone's ancestors - it's something every generation gains, upholds or squanders.
Same with the supposed "compensations" for things done in the deep past.
If slavery was not present, people living now would not have been born to enjoy it's abcence.
If Jefferson did not sleep with his black slave, their grand-grand-children would not have been here to accuse him and barge into other families' lives by demanding admission to family reunion they were not invited to.
If romans did not scatter jews and the rest of the nations not prosecuted them for millenia, there might not have been any jews now, let alone the same people.
You have problem with my suggested "I write better than you" comparison? Fine, participation is not mandatory. Go back and watch your reality shows and documentaries - everything else is full of "speculation and assumption". If you change your mind, you are welcome to submit an essay here.
miko
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
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Just read a "what-if" book about Katherine II "helping" Britain in the war with USA, and sending Pugachyov's cossaks to America, to solve a rebellion problem and try to establish a pro-Russian state in America. They help the American army and sign the Declaration of Independance together. The funniest thing is Salavat Yulayev with his Bashkir and Kalmyk nomads coming to America through Alaska.
http://www.ozon.ru/detail.cfm/ent=2&id=50872 (http://www.ozon.ru/detail.cfm/ent=2&id=50872)
It's interesting, why are such books very popular now. 3/4 of them are very unrealistic, like Henry Turtledove's "Worldwar"... From the "good" 1/4 I can name Holm van Zaitchik's books about Orduss, the strange Russian-Tatar-Chineese Eurasian state that appeared after Alexander Nevskiy established peace with Tatars... www.orduss.ru (http://www.orduss.ru)
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Only decent "what-if" book I've ever read is "Marching Through Georgia"...the Loyalists from the American Revolution establish a colony in South Africa. Over the next 100 odd years they conquer the continent of Africa and serve as the ruling class, with all the conquered peoples as workers or slaves. When Hitler attacks Russia, they lie in wait for the war to grind to a stalemate...then they attack and defeat both sides. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671720694/qid=1006973736/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_10_3/102-9770948-7358524 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671720694/qid=1006973736/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_10_3/102-9770948-7358524)
It's the first book in a series, and it's an interesting work of fiction.
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I've always found alternative history pretty fascinating (for military history buffs I'd particularly recommend "What If?", edited by Robert Cowley; it features alternative examinations of various events by heavyweights like John Keegan). A couple random thoughts about the potential implications of the alternative proposed by Miko:
1. Emulation: without a successful American Revolution, how long would the French Revolution or the liberation of South America from Spanish colonial rule been delayed? A delayed French Revolution would have meant no Napoleon, with all of his impact on European nationalism.
2. Immigration: if the British had ruled the colonies until well into the 19th century, would most of the immigration that created the U.S. as we know it have gone elsewhere, like Argentina (which was considered a serious rival to the U.S. for leadership in the Western Hemisphere at the time).
3. Technology: would a delay in the "democratic revolution" (started in the U.S. and continued, somewhat messily, by the French and then the rest of Europe in 1848)
have also delayed the onset of the industrial revolution?
Ahh, well, good speculation for long winter evenings. It is well that, as some foreign observer (I think it might have been Bismarck) noted, God appears to take special care of drunks, orphans, and the United States of America.
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The Draka -- men and women both -- are trained from birth to be outstanding fighters, both individually and collectively.
Funny :) "Draka" in Russian means "fight", like "fist fight" or "street fight".
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i think you are trying to comb neatly thru another chaotic system miko2d.
i dont doubt these things follow a natural law but if we knew what that law was we could play the stock market and predict weather more than 5 days out couldn't we ;)
you presume history would stay the same in every other respect but all it would take was a small change to give us another history altogether.
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WWI could have beeen averted because US would have been on the good side from the very beginning and the bad guys would have known it.
Hmmm, I didn't think "good" and "bad" was so clearly defined from a U.S. perspective where WWI was concerned (unlike WW2). It was just the last of those inbred monarchy wars that Europe had endured for so long, and we eventually got suckered in. Some interesting speculation though.
I prefer more traditional "future" science fiction myself. Some of the many conclusions authors like Turtledove make are are bound to be a bit of a stretch and once you identify a few (at least some that disagree with your personal processing of potential outcomes) it's harder to stay involved. Also, as Mrfish noted, there are too many variables to draw conclusions that go much beyond raw speculation.
Charon
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If my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle.
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Um. If George Washington's second cousin decided to take a dump on the south side of the road instead of the north on July 8, 1772, the world would have been changed completely.
The past is necessary, folks.
Miko, your arguments do not conclude that we should engage in hypothetical discussions concerning the past. The fact is that we as humans and as members of a social order are constantly redefining ourselves. Our history is part of that definition, and guess what? we are constantly rewriting it.
History is not the "trail of facts" of the past, but rather the past as we choose to remember it. So, "what if the American Revolution never happened?" is not nearly as interesting a question as "why do we remember the American Revolution the way we do?"
I actually agree with DejaVu on this one. It's a philosophical question. History has nothing to do with speculation on contrary-to-fact situations. The moment you change an event, you change the causality leading up to it, as well as that descending from it. In the end, the results are worthless.
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The problem with an exercise like this is that it's a lot easier to envision how things could have changed for the "better," but it's nearly impossible to see how they could have been worse.
For instance, how do we know that if Hitler hadn't come along, someone ten times worse would have? You just can't predict things like that given what we know. We can predict how he might not have come along, but beyond that, it's pure unadulterated fiction. Who's to say that despite all of the things you've mentioned, the world could be a horribly worse place today than it is currently is?
-- Todd/Leviathn
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Originally posted by Dead Man Flying:
For instance, how do we know that if Hitler hadn't come along, someone ten times worse would have? You just can't predict things like that given what we know
The virtue of "exercise like this" is that it allows me to subject some ignorant people to a bit of knowlege, provided they are interested in aquiring any.
Also a chance for me to exercise my English (which is not my native language) and get exposed to views of people I would not have chance to meet.
You think the fact that the country was devastated by years of a war foreign to the interests of population, people angry, demoralised and distrustfull of the government had nothing to do with appearance of the autoritarian leaders?
That nationalistic Hitler, communist Lenin, muslim fundamentalist Taliban, anti-civilization Pol Pot, xenocidal Miloshevich, murderous Hutu rebels had the same chance to come to power in prosperous and free USofA in roaring 1990s or in Britain or in Canada as they had in their respective countries?
And you are a graduate student interested in political science? Did you by any chance confuse political science with probability theory? Whatever you've paid for your diploma, you've been swindled.
There are plenty of Hitlers and Lenins in any country. More in US then anywhere else. It's the people who make them rulers that make the difference. And those things do not happen by chance.
miko
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
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Originally posted by Bluefish:
3. Technology: would a delay in the "democratic revolution" (started in the U.S. and continued, somewhat messily, by the French and then the rest of Europe in 1848)
have also delayed the onset of the industrial revolution?
Would have society had time to develop to more enlightened level based on already spreading literacy (books were invented already) wnd not throwh out of kilter and forced to accomodate all those constant technology changes accelerated by wars?
Greeks did not need nuclear or steam technology to have representative democracy, advanced culture and philosophy. Neither did romans, novgorodians, etc.
May be we would have learned about germs and vaccination before we came into contact with native populations of other continents? Probably would have been too late for that.
Facinating food for thought.
miko
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Greeks did not need nuclear or steam technology to have representative democracy, advanced culture and philosophy. Neither did romans, novgorodians, etc.
I find the popular modern mythos of greek and roman culture and its democratic govermnet kinda funny. It seems like the mental picture folks haul up of greek democracy invokes some sparkling vision of a scolarly dude in a robe pontificating wisdom before enraptured citizens..
..when in fact 'greek democracy' entailed appeasing a batch of bloodthirsty ignorant dirt poor pesants with the blood of their neighbors by their politicans and generals.. 'make war or die poor'. And woe betide the politican or general who having been elected by acclimation by that same bloodthirsty mob wasted not a second killing them at the first sign of recession or defeat.
Greek democracy ain't anything to write Homer about. ( ;))
And neither are any of the other popular examples of anchient democracys.
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what if the romans had not fallen to the visigoths?
Oooh.. me like toga!
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Greek democracy ain't anything to write Homer about. ( )
And neither are any of the other popular examples of anchient democracys
No, but they were generally kinky, perverted societies, and that's gotta count for something.
[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Raubvogel ]
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I think some of the original premises put forth in the first post of this thread are somewhat off although very interesting to contemplate. For example, the idea that we would have had no civil war here and that slavery would have died out on its own much earlier. What makes you think that the South would have accepted the British law forbidding slavery any more than they accepted the US attempts to do away with same. There could easily have been a very bloody civil war at a similar time, except instead of blue and gray it could have been red and gray. (I also reject the notion that we are the only one of the former British colonies that have racial problems by the way. Australia has had plenty of racism problems as well) Also, what makes you think that more native americans would have survived? Plenty of native americans were killed before the US became independent and likely many more would have died fighting settlers and civilization no matter whether it was a British government or a US government in charge. The really big notion that I dispute is that WW1 could have been avoided if the US had been part of the Commonwealth at that time. I dont think that would have made the slightest difference. The arms race and crazy alliances that helped spawn that war would have hardly been changed at all even if the US had been firmly in the Allied camp from the beginning. The same is true of WW2. Hitler seemed to feel no hesitation about attacking the USSR, which at the outset of the war was far more powerful than the US military at least in terms of numbers. Not to mention the fact that the USSR was right there bordering Germany. Hitler was rather irrational to say the least, and I dont think that declaring his desire to build the 3rd Reich into an empire would have been any different if the British empire would have been stronger. Basically my point is that everything wouldnt have been all peaches and cream just because there was no American revolution. I personally think things would be worse now if there had never been an independent United States although, since I am an American you would expect me to think that I suppose.
I agree with the people that say that there is no way to know what would have happened but it is still harmless fun to speculate about the possiilities if things had turned out a little differently. Growing up in Louisiana we used to talk about what it would be like if the South had won the Southern war for independence (American Civil War to you yankees!) This is a similar type question.
I think on the whole, things have turned out quite well really the way things actually happened though. Slavery is gone in the civilized world, the fascist countries defeated and the mighty forces of Hitler reduced to virtual squadrons in an online flight simulator, Communism is dying a slow death in the few countries where it still exists at all. The United States, while far from perfect, remains a shining light to the rest of the world.
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lolol what raub and hang said hehe :D
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Errr...
A. Technological Progress does not entail Social Progress. We all should be okay with that. Having better toys doesn't make you a better person.
B. Athenian "Democracy" was representation by free males. Something like 90 percent of the male population was not free.
C. The coolest philosophers of ancient Greece held democracy to be the worst form of Government; and they tried to put their money where the mouth was (Plato had an embarassing little experiment; Harry Stotle played nanny to a macedonian hick named Alex).
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The athenian model of government was about as pure as it gets... the mob, and i do mean MOB installed politicans that would do its bidding. And if the politican balked, they just killed him outright, and voted in another one. They even voted in their generals.. the poor saps, they fared even poorer than the politicans. After all, if the general failed, then the politicans could thow HIM to the mob..
Still, the Athenians kicked bellybutton and pretty much controlled the known world till they started in on the Spartans, whose kings promptly did a deal with the Persians and sacked athens... after which Democracy went into a much deserved hiatus.
The DEMOS[/i] of athens ruled with a cruel and firm hand... A far cry from the watered down and insular democracy we 'enjoy' today.
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What if Washington was impeached for squashing the Whiskey Rebellion? Jefferson might have had his Libertarian way and we would all be armed and using civil courts to settle all forms of redress......even murder!
And what if our universe was all just part of a molecule in someones thumb? DUDE!?
Fun question Miko.<S>
;) ;) ;)
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Originally posted by miko2d:
<snip>
On the negative side, knowing Brits, we would have probably been involved in an odd war or two with french, but that couldn't have been that bad. Those guys are pretty soft and civilised and fighting them is fun. Besides, we still had to do it when they supported germans in WWII and it wasn't that bad.
<snip>
one word :
ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG !
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Oh look.. :) Our French Contingent just checked in :)
Originally posted by straffo:
one word :
ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG !
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should be titled
"Question for History Butchers"
If you had limited yourself to one small side effect and established a plausible csse for that it might be interesting.As it is its just babble.
The relations of Britian with every other colony were hugley impacted by the American Revolution. The Brits did not seem to be in the giving away colonies mood till one was wrenched from them with blood and iron.
So to say that the US might have gained independence any way is silly. You can not know what would have happend to the US or the other colonies in the absence of the revolution.
The rest of your sillyness flows from that monumental leap against logic.
Your altered time line seems to be among the less reasonable and less likely ones that could be imagined.
The most likey scenario to me of no revolution in 1776 is a revolution in 1786 or 96. You think that the US wouldnt have taken the opertunity to revolt while Napoleon had isolated Britian from the continent?
Such a war might just as well have resutlted in absolute US control of the North american continent as anything else. Most of the negative sideffects you attribute to the revolution would have necessarily been increased by that. Increased isolationism, Increased animosity to Britian.
Basically you are saying that Hitler was possible because of the American Revolution...
think about it.
Where you watching old reruns of Connections while you where on acid or something?
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Originally posted by Ping:
Oh look.. :) Our French Contingent just checked in :)
ROTFL :)
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There's a book called "historical fallacies" where an angry logicians tries to enumerate all the questions history should not be made to answer. This is a normative case.
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Originally posted by Hangtime:
It seems like the mental picture folks haul up of greek democracy invokes some sparkling vision of a scolarly ...
..when in fact 'greek democracy' entailed appeasing a batch of bloodthirsty ignorant dirt poor pesants with the blood of their...
I never said they were enlightened (whatever that means). Just that they had the real working representative one man-one vote democracy.
Because many people somehow believe that democracy is a recent invention.
They (and others - like germans in 1934) freely voted their destiny and screwed themselves up.
I believe that is a feature of any democracy. Basically any unstable system with positive feedback is destined to fail sooner or later. Reasons why democracies only work temporarily were analyzed and explained many times.
miko
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Originally posted by Durr:
What makes you think that the South would have accepted the British law forbidding slavery any more than they accepted the US attempts to do away with same.
1. Slavery was not the only or even the trigger issue of the war - some northern states still had it while Lincoln declared slaves free in the rebel states. Growth of the northern influence due to industrialisation was a good reason.
2. Many more slaves came to the South from the moment brits outlawed trans-atlantic slave trade to the moment Civil War broke out. Without independence, southern states would not have had economy based on slave labor to the same degree.
I also reject the notion that we are the only one of the former British colonies that have racial problems by the way. Australia has had plenty of racism problems as well
I am talking about the degree here.
Also, what makes you think that more native americans would have survived?
I have plenty of reasons to believe so. England was much more restrained and experienced in dealing with native people then americans. Their government always took much closer part in dealing with natives then US govt ever did. They controlled 600 mil. people and did not seem to exterminate much.
I am not claiming that brits would have saved all the natives. I am sure that many died in Canada. Were there any famous indian massacres/starvations in Canada? I am out of my depth here.
The really big notion that I dispute is that WW1 could have been avoided if the US had been part of the Commonwealth at that time... The arms race and crazy alliances that helped spawn that war would have hardly been changed at all even if the US had been firmly in the Allied camp from the beginning.
So extra hundred million people and a huge chunk of industry invulnerably located would not have made any difference on the attacker's part? Why make alliances then if number of countries and people and economy doesn't matter?
Hitler seemed to feel no hesitation about attacking the USSR, which at the outset of the war was far more powerful than the US military at least in terms of numbers.
It was a preventive stroke - an act of desperation. He would have been worse off if that whole mass hit him in a couple of weeks.
Hitler was rather irrational to say the least, and I dont think that declaring his desire to build the 3rd Reich into an empire would have been any different if the British empire would have been stronger.
You probably have not read him. He was utterly rational and he fully intended to keep out of the way of Britain even if it ment abandoning profitable areas.
His real idea of building the 3rd Reich is very different from the common knowlege one.
He did not intend to mix germans with other people and did not intend to grab land on the west.
He clearly explained reasons why land had to be grabbed on the East in 1924 - like that Russia was weak and in complete disarray. Those reasons were completely overturned by 1941 when russia was strond and well-organised. Historians prefer to ignore it and just quote his 1924 words out of context. Besides, his plan was for the centuries, not next 20 years.
I think on the whole, things have turned out quite well really the way things actually happened though. Slavery is gone in the civilized world, the fascist countries defeated...
Amen, brother!
miko
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
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Originally posted by straffo:
Those guys are pretty soft and civilised and fighting them is fun.
one word : ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGG!
Forgot to add that french are famous for their sense of humor! :)
Seriously, about french treating germans well and helping them fight brits in North Africa - I got it first from Erich von Manstein's "Lost Victories".
But what does reknown british strategist/historian Sir Liddel Hart say about that: "...the Allied landings were to have taken place only on the atlantic coast of Morocco. That would have meant a purely frontal advance, giving the French forces the fullest chance of effective resistance. The advance would have started 1,200 miles distant brom Bizerta, the key to the North African theater of war, so that Germans would have had time and opportunity to stiffen the French resistance to the Allied invasion."
"Strategy" p.268
Oh-la-la!
miko
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Originally posted by Pongo:
should be titled
"Question for History Butchers"?
I am not proposing to change or even rewrite history. In fact I am trying to get a better view of it from contributions of valuable insights like yours: "The relations of Britian with every other colony were hugley impacted by the American Revolution. ..."
If you had limited yourself to one small side effect and established a plausible csse for that it might be interesting.As it is its just babble
I guess you are not in a habit of visiting bookstores? Otherwise you would have seen that many people are making millions by writing much sillier alternative histories. :)
So to say that the US might have gained independence any way is silly. You can not know what would have happend to the US or the other colonies in the absence of the revolution.
So we would have still been citizens of democratic Great Britain - kind of like big Unites States but with more states and capital in London. Not the worst that could have happened (besides me not being born of course).
You think that the US wouldnt have taken the opertunity to revolt while Napoleon had isolated Britian from the continent?
Or common struggle would have united them forever...
Basically you are saying that Hitler was possible because of the American Revolution...
I am saying that Hitler was in the same history as American Revolution, along with the birth of all present company. I bet Washington did not think much about Hitler.
I see where you are trying to goad me and grant you an opening. Even if I said something much less stuid then that - like US was responcible for raise of Taliban? So what? Only Pope is infallible - the rest of us, including countries, make mistakes. Would you love you country any less if you were persuaded it made one too?
Where you watching old reruns of Connections while you where on acid or something
If you are so touchy as to get personal, you should probably stay away from the internet.
miko
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Originally posted by Tah Gut:
And what if our universe was all just part of a molecule in someones thumb? DUDE!?
;)
What if it's a simulation running on some computer? :)
miko
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Quite an interesting question. methinks that jumping from revolution to civil war, let alone to WW1, is a bit to far as the events that really "made" America were before the civil war.
The Louisiana purchase (to help Nappy finance his war in Europe) effectively doubled the size of the U.S. in 1803. The Russians still owned Alaska and had settlement's as far south as FT Ross CA. Mexico, Spain, France, whomever was in control today, claimed most of the southwest and CA up to San Francisco up until 1853 when the Texas revolution, Gadsden purchase, and Mexican cession, 1845 to 1853 added another million sq. miles to the U.S. territory.
It seems to me that France would not have "sold" the French American territory to the British let alone that they would buy it to help finance a war against themselves. ;)
Now without most of the northwest, and everything west of the Mississippi, even had the Texas revolution been successful (no U.S. help). Would Britain have declared war on Mexico and had them cede Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, California (south of San Francisco) and parts of Utah and Nevada? And we still have not resolved the Spanish claim in the southeast (Florida et el)
I think before we even get to the civil war we would have to speculate on what "north america" would have looked like without the American Revolution.
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Originally posted by miko2d:
Forgot to add that french are famous for their sense of humor! :)
Seriously, about french treating germans well and helping them fight brits in North Africa - I got it first from Erich von Manstein's "Lost Victories".
But what does reknown british strategist/historian Sir Liddel Hart say about that: "...the Allied landings were to have taken place only on the atlantic coast of Morocco. That would have meant a purely frontal advance, giving the French forces the fullest chance of effective resistance. The advance would have started 1,200 miles distant brom Bizerta, the key to the North African theater of war, so that Germans would have had time and opportunity to stiffen the French resistance to the Allied invasion."
"Strategy" p.268
Oh-la-la!
miko
It's a particuliar case :)
French Navy (and in a lesser degree the Army) have some ... "hate" for the British (because of Trafalgar among other reasons I won't go further it's history...)
But the resistance of french was (I could be wrong) because :
- Mers el Kebir (IMO the number one reason)
- It was Vichy France not Free French
- There was not official cassus belly nor agreement between allied and France at this time. So the regular army HAS to resist (there is not other choice except surrender ... but they were not willing to do so ... obviouly).
Even if I don't agree with the decision of the Army chief in 1942(1943 ?) in North Africa the "legal" governement of French was the governement of Pétain not the Governement of a general in London quite unknown (and rebel).
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Originally posted by MrBill:
Quite an interesting question. methinks that jumping from revolution to civil war, let alone to WW1, is a bit to far as the events that really "made" America were before the civil war.
The Louisiana purchase (to help Nappy finance his war in Europe) effectively doubled the size of the U.S. in 1803. The Russians still owned Alaska and had settlement's as far south as FT Ross CA. Mexico, Spain, France, whomever was in control today, claimed most of the southwest and CA up to San Francisco up until 1853 when the Texas revolution, Gadsden purchase, and Mexican cession, 1845 to 1853 added another million sq. miles to the U.S. territory.
It seems to me that France would not have "sold" the French American territory to the British let alone that they would buy it to help finance a war against themselves. ;)
Now without most of the northwest, and everything west of the Mississippi, even had the Texas revolution been successful (no U.S. help). Would Britain have declared war on Mexico and had them cede Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, California (south of San Francisco) and parts of Utah and Nevada? And we still have not resolved the Spanish claim in the southeast (Florida et el)
I think before we even get to the civil war we would have to speculate on what "north america" would have looked like without the American Revolution.
We have some plan to invade USA but currently it's secret so I won't say more :D