Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History Read online

  BRITANNIA’S FIST

  OTHER BOOKS BY PETER G. TSOURAS

  Alexander the Great: Invincible King of Macedonia

  The Anvil of War: German Generalship in the Defense on the Eastern Front (editor)

  Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s Alternate Strategies (editor/contributor)

  The Book of Military Quotations (editor)

  Changing Orders: The Evolution of the World’s Armies, 1945 to Present

  Cold War Hot: Alternate Histories of the Cold War (editor/contributor)

  The Daily Telegraph Book of Military Quotations (editor)

  Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944

  Dixie Victorious: An Alternate History of the Civil War (editor/contributor)

  Encyclopedia of the U.S. Army (co-editor with Bruce W. Watson)

  Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front (editor)

  Gettysburg: An Alternate History

  The Great Patriotic War

  The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations (editor)

  Hitler Triumphant: Alternate Strategies of World War II (editor/contributor)

  Military Lessons of the Gulf War (co-editor with Bruce W. Watson/contributor)

  Military Quotations from the Civil War: In the Words of the Commanders (editor)

  Montezuma: Warlord of the Aztecs

  Operation Just Cause: The Invasion of Panama (co-editor with Bruce W. Watson)

  Panzer Operations on the Eastern Front: General Erhard Raus and his Panzer Divisions in Russia (editor/contributor)

  Rising Sun Victorious: How Japan Won the Pacific War (editor/contributor)

  Third Reich Victorious: How Germany Won the War (editor/contributor)

  Warlords of the Ancient Americas: Mesoamerica

  Warriors’ Words: A Quotation Book (editor)

  BRITANNIA’S FIST

  From Civil War to World War

  AN ALTERNATE HISTORY

  PETER G. TSOURAS

  THE BRITANNIA’S FIST TRILOGY

  VOLUME 1

  Copyright © 2008 Peter G. Tsouras.

  Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tsouras, Peter.

  Britannia’s fist: from Civil War to World War—an alternate history / by Peter G. Tsouras. — 1st ed.

  v. cm. — (The Britannia’s fist trilogy; v. 1)

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-57488-823-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)

  1. United States — History — Civil War, 1861–1865. 2. United States — History — 1865–1921. 3. United States — Foreign relations — Great Britain. 4. Great Britain — Foreign relations — United States. 5. Imaginary histories. I. Title. II. Title: From Civil War to World War — an alternate history.

  E661.T83 2008

  973.7—dc22

  2008021576

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

  Potomac Books, Inc.

  22841 Quicksilver Drive

  Dulles, Virginia 20166

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  To the honored memory of Maj. Gen. George H. Sharpe,

  the Civil War founder of

  American All-Source Intelligence

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Maps

  Dramatis Personae

  CHAPTERS

  1. Cossacks, Copperheads, and Corsairs

  2. Russell and the Rams

  3. George the Contraband and One-Eyed Garnet

  4. Gallantry on Crutches

  5. Sergeant Cline Gets a New Job

  6. “Roll, Alabama, Roll!”

  7. French Lick to Halifax

  8. Battle at Moelfre Bay

  9. Pursuit Into the Upper Bay

  10. A Rain of Blows

  11. Treason, Frogs, and Ironclads

  12. Cold Spring and Crossing the Bar

  Appendix A: Order of Battle of the Armies at the First Battle of Portland

  Appendix B: Order of Battle of the Fleets at the Third Battle of Charleston

  Notes

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  The Anglo-American War of 1863 that ignited the Great War, which, in turn, dragged in all the great powers and nearly ruined Western civilization is a tale never before told—for the simple fact that it never happened. The Four Horsemen paused at that crossroads, and War leaned forward over his black charger and looked longingly in that direction. But history pulled the dreaded four in another direction, and this path not taken still shimmers like a mirage of what might have been.

  ALTERNATE HISTORY

  For many historians, their field of study moves under the pressure of great causes and betrays the taint of too close an affection for the idiocies of Karl Marx and his disciples. History all too often pivots on great or petty men, mixed signals, lost letters, spite, nobility, greed, and sacrifice, as much as it does on the great transformations produced by sharp bronze, the industrial age, democracy, and the sublime message of a Galilean rabbi. Two centuries ago, Samuel Johnson had already put his finger on it.

  It seems to be almost the universal error of historians to suppose it politically, as it is physically true, that every effort has proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws. The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculations. It is not always that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place alternately to each other, and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the changes are made.1

  The British Empire and the United States were not fated to go to war. Almost no one in positions of responsibility on both sides of the ocean wanted war, and if you had polled each country, the vote against a third cousin’s war would have been overwhelming, but “the caprices of voluntary agents” came very close to making just that happen. This then is an alternate history of just such a cataclysmic war.

  BACKGROUND

  Before going down this tale of a path not taken, it is important to review the path that history actually took. Great Britain and the United States came alarmingly close to war twice during the American Civil War. In both cases, war with the British Empire, like the Angel of Death, passed the embattled Union by. In each case, the French jackal, Napoleon III, was eager to follow the British lion into war. The first case, the Trent Affair, set the stage for the second pass at war—the Laird rams. In both cases, cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the crises were resolved. However, the margin was paper-thin.

  On November 8, 1861, Capt. Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto stopped the British mail steamer, RMS Trent, which had just departed Havana. Wilkes seized two Confederate diplomats, John Slidell, minister to Great Britain, and James Mason, minister to France, over the protest of the Trent’s captain. The British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, stated upon hearing the news, “I don’t know whether you are going to stand this, but I’ll be damned if I do.” The cabinet was fully prepared to go to war over this affront to British honor and what they saw as a clear violat
ion of international law. The Royal Navy and British Army quickly developed war plans that as a member of the cabinet stated would iron the smile off the American face. The object was to inflict enough damage on the United States to serve as a salutary lesson. That such a lesson would also ensure the independence of the Southern Confederacy was something that the British government, “society,” and business circles looked forward to with undisguised glee. The American experiment in participatory democracy and the American character, especially that of the Northern people, were equally detested. The aristocratic society of the South was far more congenial and sympathetic to the British establishment. That establishment found itself, on this issue, on the horns of a dilemma. All of British society was united in its distaste for slavery. A crippling blow against the North would perpetuate that institution in the South. The cabinet attempted to finesse the problem by splitting the issues. While going to war with the United States, it would not cooperate with the Confederacy in that war. It was a fine point that did not impress the rest of British society, the lower and middle classes, whose opposition to slavery and support for increased democracy at home saw the Union not as an enemy but as an example. Over time, the success of the American Union was seen as a mighty impetus to domestic British reforms to increase the franchise. Nevertheless, the Trent Affair blew so hot that these considerations had no time to become politically important.

  The war plan called for the Royal Navy’s North American and West Indies Station to be heavily reinforced. Its commander, Adm. Alexander Milne, proposed to break the blockade at Charleston, decisively engage the U.S. Navy, blockade the North, dominate the Chesapeake Bay, and strike at Washington by coming up the Potomac River.

  The Army’s plan concentrated on the defense of British North America, which at that time consisted of the Maritime Provinces, Lower Canada (Quebec), and Upper Canada (Ontario). A spoiling attack down the Hudson Valley was developed to protect Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec from an American attack along this traditional invasion route. A more aggressive element was the seizure of the state of Maine. Geographically, Maine juts between the Maritimes and Quebec. Because of that, rail communications between the Maritimes and the Canadas ran from Hailfax in Nova Scotia through New Brunswick to Portland, Maine, and then up to Sherbrooke in Quebec and beyond. This Grand Trunk Railway was the first international rail system, and the control of it was vital to the survival of British North America. Without it, reinforcements and supplies could not reach the Canadas. In addition, some genius at the British War Office concluded that the people of Maine, to whom making money was the primary consideration, were so disillusioned with the war that they would gladly leave the Union and just as gladly join the British Empire. To implement these plans, more than ten thousand reinforcements were immediately dispatched with several times that number planned to follow. Among the arrivals was Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley, who would eventually become Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, the most celebrated of all British generals of the Victorian Age.

  With all this in mind Palmerston wrote a blistering ultimatum. Fortunately, the prince consort, Alfred Albert, toned it down. At the same time, despite the immensely popularity of Wilkes’s deed in the North, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward knew they had to give in. A major financial crisis had struck the Northern states. At this point, the imperial Russian government stepped in to offer invaluable diplomatic advice. It clearly stated that Wilkes’s action had, indeed, been a violation of international law. Lincoln and Seward fully appreciated the Russians’ goodwill and diplomatic experience. The United States and the Russian Empire had been on the friendliest terms since the American Revolution when Catherine the Great refused the British request to hire mercenaries by saying, “My subjects are not for sale.” She then formed the League of Armed Neutrality to defy British attempts to close down American trade with the rest of the world. Since then Russia and America had had no strategic conflicts and found much in common in the development and peopling of vast open continents. The Russians had a deeper motive, however, in supporting the United States. They had been so badly drubbed in the Crimean War by British strategic reach and power that they had come to fear British world hegemony. They saw the survival of the American Union as the only real counter to that eventuality.

  Lincoln swallowed his pride and gave in to the British ultimatum to release the diplomats but ignored the other demand to offer an apology. He had no other choice but to back down. The North was in the throes of a painful mobilization and was suffering repeated reverses at Southern hands. If it could not subdue the South with less than one-third of its population and barely 10 percent of the country’s industrial base, it was a reasonable question to ask how it could hope to prevail against the immense power of the British Empire, which had so frightened the Russian bear.

  Twenty-one months were to pass until war nearly boiled over again in September 1863. The casus belli for the Union was the construction and delivery of one commerce raider after another to the Confederacy from British shipyards. These ships were lethal to the American merchant marine. American-owned and operated merchant shipping was competing with the British everywhere around the world for the vast market of the international carrying trade. The Confederate commerce raiders destroyed more than six hundred ships and drove far more to take foreign flags or to be sold outright to foreign, usually British, interests. The level of anger in the North over these depredations stoked white hot at the British, whose Foreign Enlistment Act seemed useless in enforcing the Queen’s neutrality. Worse than the abundant loopholes in the act was the outright connivance of British officials and courts in giving it the most liberal interpretation that always seemed to be in the interests of the Confederacy.

  In 1862 the issue was already serious enough for the U.S. government through its able ambassador, Charles Francis Adams, to put enough pressure on the British government to stop the construction of the commerce raider Number 292 being built by the Laird Brothers in Birkenhead across the Mersey River from Liverpool. But a Confederate sympathizer in the Foreign Office warned the Confederate agent in Britain, James Bulloch. Recent speculation as to the source of this warning has centered on Austin David Layard, member of Parliament and undersecretary to Lord John Russell at the Foreign Office.2 As a result, Number 292 was taken out of port on a trial run for which it did not need the permission of the customs officer of the port. Number 292 just kept on going. It was renamed the CSS Alabama and married up in the Azores with its guns, stores, and crew, most of whom were former Royal Navy seamen. The names CSS Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah struck terror to any ship that carried the merchant ensign of the United States.

  Twinned with what the Northern people saw as British collusion to attack American shipping, British free trade policies encouraged British shippers to make immense profits running war supplies and luxuries to the Confederacy through the Union blockade of Southern ports. Despite an increasingly effective blockade, huge amounts of British-made war materials continued to reach Confederate armies. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was particularly incensed. He noted in his memoirs that the Confederate Army that surrendered at Vicksburg was uniformly armed with superior British Enfield rifles compared to the antiquated firearms his own men were using. During the siege of Petersburg in late 1864, he forwarded to the War Department shells bearing the stamps of royal arsenals. It was natural, then, for Northern public opinion to see a malevolent hand in British actions.

  What neither public opinion, Ambassador Adams, nor Secretary of State Seward realized was that the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell, was the major advocate in the cabinet for military intervention in the American Civil War to force an armistice. Such an armistice would result in de facto Southern independence. The Americans were convinced that Lord Palmerston was the one beating the drum for war, but, in fact, he was the calming hand on Russell. Russia also consistently opposed efforts by Palmerston to enlist it and other European powers in imposing mediation by force.3r />
  All through the winter, spring, and summer of 1863 American interest focused on the two new hulls, Number 294 and Number 295, being built for the Confederacy by the Laird Brothers. They were double-turreted armored iron ships, the first such built in British yards. Heretofore, all British armored ships had been broadside ironclads. What made these hulls even more unique was that they were fitted with rams, much like ancient triremes, to smash a hole in another warship. The ships’ overall powers were advertised as being able to outfight anything in the U.S. Navy and being capable of raiding at will Northern ports. That threat was taken with the greatest seriousness, and the tension rose month by month in Washington as the U.S. consul in Liverpool, Thomas Haines Dudley, reported the progress of their building. That tension became even more excruciating as Lord Russell turned down every representation of overwhelming evidence as being insufficient proof necessary to halt the delivery of the ships. Secretary of State Seward recommended that a warship be dispatched to British waters to intercept the rams once they left port. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles turned him down, stating that every ship was needed to maintain the blockade.

  Ever since the Trent Affair, Lincoln had strictly followed a policy of “one war at a time,” in full knowledge that the Union had its hands full with the Confederacy.4 That is why it could do no more than offer moral support to the deposed government of Mexico in the face of a blatant French conquest. But even this policy had to be set aside as the losses to American commerce on the high seas became intolerable as did the threat of the Laird rams.

  Finally, Lincoln instructed Adams to draw a red line for the British beyond which was war. On September 5, a desperate Adams penned one last remonstration to Russell and ended it with the statement that if the rams escaped, “it would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.” It is arguably the most famous line in the history of American diplomacy.5 Adams was unaware that Lord Russell had finally come around to the danger of taking no action and had informed Palmerston of his decision to detain the rams on September 4. The weight of evidence had finally brought Russell around. However, Adams was not informed of this decision until September 8, due in part to the Layard’s inexplicable delays in the notification of critical parties. Layard did act with considerable dispatch, though only after the receipt of Adams’s last notes, by notifying the British embassy in Washington that instructions had been given to detain the rams.6