If Britain had fought the US during the Venezuela Crisis in 1895 would they have won Watch

hsv
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If Britain had fought the US during the Venezuela Crisis in 1895 would they have won? Or by this point was the US too strong since they were in the middle of the gilded age despite Im guessing the Royal Navy still being bigger?
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paddey7
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(Original post by hsv)
If Britain had fought the US during the Venezuela Crisis in 1895 would they have won? Or by this point was the US too strong since they were in the middle of the gilded age despite Im guessing the Royal Navy still being bigger?
My personal opinion is that the British would have won, they has the resources to do so and a vastly superior navy, not to under rate the Americans considering their success in the war with Spain (can't think of it name,) that was during that period I believe That's my view anyways
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hsv
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(Original post by paddey7)
My personal opinion is that the British would have won, they has the resources to do so and a vastly superior navy, not to under rate the Americans considering their success in the war with Spain (can't think of it name,) that was during that period I believe That's my view anyways
Spanish American War of 1898 I believe is the name that escaped you. Thank you for your answer.
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paddey7
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(Original post by hsv)
Spanish American War of 1898 I believe is the name that escaped you. Thank you for your answer.
Yes that's it . Any time

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gladders
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One of the What If? books touches on this actually. It's been a while since I read it but it was quite interesting. It postulated that the Royal Navy would have shelled New York and destroyed the Statue of Liberty, and the US Army would have invaded Canada. A peace treaty would have followed in which Britain got the borders it wanted in Venezuela while the US absorbed Quebec as the 46th State.

If that had happened then the UK would in a way have 'won' the war - it got what it wanted in Venezuela and cocked a snook at the Monroe Doctrine. Meanwhile the US is lumbered with several million troublesome Quebecois Nationalists who would campaign to leave the Union in the 1980s and 1990s, possibly earlier!
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Oldcon1953
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(Original post by gladders)
One of the What If? books touches on this actually. It's been a while since I read it but it was quite interesting. It postulated that the Royal Navy would have shelled New York and destroyed the Statue of Liberty, and the US Army would have invaded Canada. A peace treaty would have followed in which Britain got the borders it wanted in Venezuela while the US absorbed Quebec as the 46th State.

If that had happened then the UK would in a way have 'won' the war - it got what it wanted in Venezuela and cocked a snook at the Monroe Doctrine. Meanwhile the US is lumbered with several million troublesome Quebecois Nationalists who would campaign to leave the Union in the 1980s and 1990s, possibly earlier!
Shelled the Statue of Liberty????????? WTF!! Cross the Atlantic to shell the Statue of Liberty. What a brilliant strategy! Than we could have sent over a few Commanches in canoes to attack Big Ben in retaliation. War is hell. I doubt British supply lines could have been kept open for a real threat to have developed against our East Coast but Teddy Roosevelt would have loved it.
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I'd agree, though the US Army was larger than the British Army and could have invaded Ontario, Quebec, etc. before the British were able to reinforce it.

The US may have also sought to invade the Bahamas, Bermuda or Jamaica as they were UK colonies then. I'd think the UK would have had more to lose, because I doubt they could have fought toe to toe with the US on land, even then the US had a larger population and a larger army with more experience in big scale wars, like their Civil War, wars against the native Americans. the major British wars in the 19th century were small (bar Napoleon and the Crimea), like the Zulu, Opium, Ashanti wars.
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gladders
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(Original post by Oldcon1953)
Shelled the Statue of Liberty????????? WTF!! Cross the Atlantic to shell the Statue of Liberty. What a brilliant strategy! Than we could have sent over a few Commanches in canoes to attack Big Ben in retaliation. War is hell. I doubt British supply lines could have been kept open for a real threat to have developed against our East Coast but Teddy Roosevelt would have loved it.
It's not that difficult to believe, seeing as the Royal Navy had a global reach back then. It wouldn't even have to be from Britain; the West Indies Station was pretty formidable back then and was only a few thousand miles from New York (or any other major US city, for that matter).

Britain wouldn't have needed to land troops there - it would require a huge army commitment which it simply did not have (and wouldn't have until 1916!), and it had Canada anyway.

And if memory serves, the US Army back then was barely any larger than the British Army.
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lifeisgood.
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This thread is now discussing a new question:

If the US and Britain declared war on each other right now who would win?
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carlisomes
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the US. In terms of numbers alone, because navies, armies, air forces are equally equipped. But then they have stealth bombers, we don't, so they could bomb London, Brum, Glasgow without our radars detecting them.

They have a larger population and a bigger economy so can produce arms and conscript personnel at a bigger rate than we could.
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Rakas21
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(Original post by hsv)
If Britain had fought the US during the Venezuela Crisis in 1895 would they have won? Or by this point was the US too strong since they were in the middle of the gilded age despite Im guessing the Royal Navy still being bigger?
I'm not too sure about Venezuela however historians have analysed the various plans Britain and the US came up with for war with each other even into the 30's and the conclusion basically was that whilst the US could have taken Canada or Mexico, the Royal Navy was a vastly superior force that in an all out war would have sunk the US fleet and decimated the east coast. They believed that this would have been enough to force a peace treaty between the two.

Working from that and assuming the US would not have invaded central America to get there they'd have had to win the battle at sea.. and the evidence suggests that they could not do so.

(Original post by lifeisgood.)
This thread is now discussing a new question:

If the US and Britain declared war on each other right now who would win?
Right now the US would win hands down. The British armed forces may stand a chance against the likes of Russia but the US, China, India and Euro-zone as a whole (assuming it gets its armed forces) are enough.

I would note that this is due to quantity, not quality. If we had 20 type 45 destroyers we'd probably be able to sink the Russian fleet alone. The F-35 is also top of the line in quality as is the Astute Class sub.
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Llamageddon
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The strength of the respective nation is just one factor in who wins a war. Admittedly it is an important factor. Who else would be drawn into the conflict? Would the entirety of Latin America be drawn into it? Where else were our forces needed? How easy would it have been to engage them in such a territory? What would the political and economic cost of conflict be?
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Llamageddon
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(Original post by Rakas21)
I'm not too sure about Venezuela however historians have analysed the various plans Britain and the US came up with for war with each other even into the 30's and the conclusion basically was that whilst the US could have taken Canada or Mexico, the Royal Navy was a vastly superior force that in an all out war would have sunk the US fleet and decimated the east coast. They believed that this would have been enough to force a peace treaty between the two.

Working from that and assuming the US would not have invaded central America to get there they'd have had to win the battle at sea.. and the evidence suggests that they could not do so.



Right now the US would win hands down. The British armed forces may stand a chance against the likes of Russia but the US, China, India and Euro-zone as a whole (assuming it gets its armed forces) are enough.

I would note that this is due to quantity, not quality. If we had 20 type 45 destroyers we'd probably be able to sink the Russian fleet alone. The F-35 is also top of the line in quality as is the Astute Class sub.
With this question you'd need to know what the war entailed and who joined in on what side. An invasion of the UK would have astronomic costs for the US and probably draw just about everybody into the conflict against them, but I imagine they could do the old fashioned gunboat diplomacy pretty easily. I don't think anybody in their right mind would get into a full armed conflict with the US though.
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Rakas21
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(Original post by Llamageddon)
With this question you'd need to know what the war entailed and who joined in on what side. An invasion of the UK would have astronomic costs for the US and probably draw just about everybody into the conflict against them, but I imagine they could do the old fashioned gunboat diplomacy pretty easily. I don't think anybody in their right mind would get into a full armed conflict with the US though.
Well history at the time suggested a real possibility of war given that relations for ~150 years had been pretty poor with sporadic battles along the Canadian border and indeed it's quite rare for the baton to be passed in such a friendly way as it was in WW2, one suspects that if Britain had never gone to war with Germany the Cold War may have had 3 players. Well everybody back then was the might of the British Empire, when you can conscript as many Indians as you like your never going to lose.
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Observatory
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The Royal Navy was much bigger, but Britain would not have been able to defend or retake Canada. The US was a considerably superior power on paper, but ships take too long to build for them to construct a navy that could defeat Britain during the war itself. Ultimately Britain agreed to arbitration because the object of the dispute was of little importance to Britain compared to the very high cost of conflict.
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Oldcon1953
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(Original post by gladders)
It's not that difficult to believe, seeing as the Royal Navy had a global reach back then. It wouldn't even have to be from Britain; the West Indies Station was pretty formidable back then and was only a few thousand miles from New York (or any other major US city, for that matter).

Britain wouldn't have needed to land troops there - it would require a huge army commitment which it simply did not have (and wouldn't have until 1916!), and it had Canada anyway.

And if memory serves, the US Army back then was barely any larger than the British Army.
Fair enough but your not considering two very important factors; 1. The U.S. was very much on a war footing in that year and prepared for it thanks to Teddy Roosevelts running the Dept. of the Navy. He loved war and in my opinion would not have even considered anything but total war especially after the shelling of New York. 2. America is big and the East Coast population could have withdrawn into the interior and keep in mind the pop. was armed. This would have made an invasion necessary since a peace agreement would have been unthinkable after the shelling of N.Y..

Also, the East coast of the U.S. is very long and even with the capability of the British navy at the time there is no way they could have threatened our entire coast line.

Keep in mind also that during our Civil War, just 35 yrs. prior, England denied the Souths request to bust a Union blockade that was denying the South much needed war supplies and from exporting cotton to England for cash to carry on the war. The request was denied aftyer the Souths loss at Antetum so the decision could have been made for political reasons since that battle marked the beginning of the end for the South and the Brits didn't want to come in on the losing side but the fact that they did hesitate to take on our Navy even though the cotton from the South was necessary for their textile industry makes me yhink they were weighing the losses from such a confrontation.

I was having a bit of fun with the topic in my first response but it is an interesting question. In the end though I think those two beautiful oceans and our production capabilities would have saved us.
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nulli tertius
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(Original post by Oldcon1953)

I was having a bit of fun with the topic in my first response but it is an interesting question. In the end though I think those two beautiful oceans and our production capabilities would have saved us.
I think you are neglecting the lessons that the British had learned from the Crimean War which in turn was the result of the French experience in the advance on Moscow; that the USA would have been too physically big to invade.

Effectively war with Britain would have prevented the USA from becoming a global power. Britain would have snuffed out its international pretentions by economic warfare and diplomacy. It would have then destabilised the US regime internally. Look what happen to the Boer Republics.
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carlisomes
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(Original post by Oldcon1953)
Fair enough but your not considering two very important factors; 1. The U.S. was very much on a war footing in that year and prepared for it thanks to Teddy Roosevelts running the Dept. of the Navy. He loved war and in my opinion would not have even considered anything but total war especially after the shelling of New York. 2. America is big and the East Coast population could have withdrawn into the interior and keep in mind the pop. was armed. This would have made an invasion necessary since a peace agreement would have been unthinkable after the shelling of N.Y..

Also, the East coast of the U.S. is very long and even with the capability of the British navy at the time there is no way they could have threatened our entire coast line.

Keep in mind also that during our Civil War, just 35 yrs. prior, England denied the Souths request to bust a Union blockade that was denying the South much needed war supplies and from exporting cotton to England for cash to carry on the war. The request was denied aftyer the Souths loss at Antetum so the decision could have been made for political reasons since that battle marked the beginning of the end for the South and the Brits didn't want to come in on the losing side but the fact that they did hesitate to take on our Navy even though the cotton from the South was necessary for their textile industry makes me yhink they were weighing the losses from such a confrontation.

I was having a bit of fun with the topic in my first response but it is an interesting question. In the end though I think those two beautiful oceans and our production capabilities would have saved us.
England and the UK aren't the same entities...if you post on a student forum you should really know that.....

And the turning point of your war is still moot after 150 years or so of research.....It could have been Bullrun, Gettysburg, even the Fort Sumter battle....
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(Original post by Oldcon1953)
but the fact that they did hesitate to take on our Navy even though the cotton from the South was necessary for their textile industry makes me yhink they were weighing the losses from such a confrontation.
The problem with the South's plan is that this cotton wasn't necessary for the British industry. Import substitution from Egypt and India was much cheaper than fighting the USA. I think what really ended the possibility of intervention was the USA's successful framing of the war as a battle against slavery - as the leading anti-slaver power of the time there was no chance Britain would fight for the slaver cause.
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Oldcon1953
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(Original post by nulli tertius)
I think you are neglecting the lessons that the British had learned from the Crimean War which in turn was the result of the French experience in the advance on Moscow; that the USA would have been too physically big to invade.

Effectively war with Britain would have prevented the USA from becoming a global power. Britain would have snuffed out its international pretentions by economic warfare and diplomacy. It would have then destabilised the US regime internally. Look what happen to the Boer Republics.
Tbh, I'm not too familiar with the wars you mentioned however, in 1898 the U.S. was well into industrialisation with railroads connecting both coasts with many railroads running north, south. Resupply would have been far easier for us than the Brits. Not ure wat ou mean by,"...preventing the U.S. from becoming a global power." Are you suggesting Britain could have actually caused the U.S. to concede to British demands under threat of invasion and occupation? The East Coast was a fully modern nation in 1898.

"...snuffed out it's international pretentions by economic warfare and diplomacy."?????

"...destabilised the US regime from within."???? Not buying that one.

It all makes for great chatter but but I don't think any of these scenarios would have had a snowballs chance in hell of suceeding.
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