The Borders of Inevitable

The reason for Bryan’s seeming reluctance to stop the arms race, that he had so bitterly opposed as a US congressman, could be something far less conspiratorial than deals with a European dictator. The entire reason simply could have been who was sitting in the Confederate Presidential Palace in Richmond. After years of agitating and pulling strings, Wade Hampton, minus one leg, was now the Confederate President. The Home Party was swept into office by a landslide in the 91 elections. Hampton was not just a saber rattler, he was all for using them, and made very little secret of it. The mood in the south, towards the arms race, was one of grave concern and having a military man as president made everyone feel a bit safer. Hampton was the first former General to hold the presidency since Longstreet.

This was not lost on the people that were north of the border. Hampton’s fire eating rhetoric were staples for the news papers of William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer. When added to the new leadership in Europe, mainly the unpredictable Boulanger and the tantrum prone Wilhelm II, the world was seemingly a much more dangerous place. Yet despite all of the anxiety that this should have caused, the late 19th century attitude was one of optimism. People were used to the sounds of rattling sabers but, they were only loud noises from boorish old bullies. Even in hot spots such as North America, war was beginning to be seem as the remotest of possibilities as long as a balance of power was maintained. 

As absurd as this might sound today there was much reason to believe this in the early 90’s. Trade and commerce were never better. Jobs were plentiful, standards of living were rising, creature comforts were common place, and travel for even the lowest of society was now both cheap and common. The world had never been a better place to live in. Peoples from different lands and even continents were intermingling and getting to really know each other. It looked as if the comfortable world that man had always sought had finally arrived and no one could even dream that someone would want to upset things.

If the rhetoric had only been confined to the rattling of sabers then this belief might have very well become true. Even the posturing of Boulanger, the illogical actions of Wilhelm, the fire eating sermons of Hampton, and the inconsistent and sometimes contradictory actions of Bryan would not have been enough to erupt into war. It would take something far more substantial to do that and, unfortunately for the world, there were more than a few substantial issues that would soon come to a head and light a spark to this powder keg.

It is another of the great ironies of this war that it was progress, of the kind that nobody disputed as being progress, that helped foster the conflict. Putting social development aside for a moment, the economic transformation of the world in the late 19th century was staggering. This was not just due to the industrialization of the west either. A great deal of it was due to the great improvements in transportation. This was mostly thanks to the railroad and the building of the great canals. In 1869, both the American coast to coast railroad and the Suez Canal opened within months of each other and suddenly it was possible to rapidly (in relative terms) circle the globe with goods and people. It is also true that those same arteries could be used to shift troops and weapons.

While the American railroad was a boost to business interests in Great Britain, the political climate of North America made access to it somewhat tenuous at best. The existence of it also meant that the US had the ability to move troops anywhere inside it’s borders with relative ease and would give them a decisive advantage over Britain, should war erupt. Prior to the Fenian incident, the defense of Canada was viewed in London as a secondary priority. Britain and the US had formally disposed of the border disputes earlier in the 19th century and war with America was seen as unlikely. The British military in Canada was little more than a constabulary and never intended as a serious impediment to invasion. The raids from inside the United States and the new political climate changed all of that.

The British began construction of their own trans-continental railway in 1879. There had been quite a bit of quibbling over it’s construction as many saw the spending as unnecessary and more than the empire could afford. It was the reports from General Wolseley, which were widely circulated through parliament, that eventually changed enough minds. 

Wolseley was avidly pro Confederate. During the American 61, he had personally met Confederate hero’s such as Robert E Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and none other than the future President of the Confederacy, James Longstreet. Over the years Wolseley developed a personal friendship with Longstreet and it only served to greatly reinforce his opinions about British Policy in North America.

By 1890 the railroad across Canada was mostly finished and openly competing with the American one. This not only changed the strategic situation between Britain and the United States but, as we shall later see, it forced another issue upon the already strained relations between Great Britain and Imperial Russia. This would come to a head by the mid 90’s with the discovery of gold on both the Russian and Canadian sides of the Alaskan border. That border, unlike the one with the United States, had never been formerly set in stone.

The other great improvement of the era, the Suez Canal came with it’s own set of problems and would resonate well beyond the Levant. Great Britain had solidified it’s rule of India over a century before and anyone with any knowledge understood that the colony WAS the British Empire. The Suez canal allowed speedy travel between Britain and her “crown jewel.” That might have all been fine and well had it not been for the fact that the French had actually built the canal and it was later seized by the British through their financing of a Bedouin workers revolt. By the 1880’s the British were firmly entrenched in Egypt and the French had felt robbed. This, along with a revolt in the Sudan, by Islamists with the unobtainable goal of conquering the world, would set the final stage for a showdown between France and Britain.

The effects of the Suez reached much further than just Egypt. Now that the idea of huge canals were no longer just the fanciful dreams of engineers, people began looking in earnest for other places where this technology could be applied. One of the most obvious choices was a, remote, sparsely populated, jungle ridden, and malaria infested strip of land in northern Columbia called the Isthmus of Panama. While the land was mostly worthless it was strategically located between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with barely 12 miles between the two great bodies of water. It was the perfect place to put a canal except that it was in a region that was already politically unstable long before it became an economic battleground between Britain and the United States.

James Monroe had been a US president earlier in the 19th century and had established the American doctrine that carried his name. In reality this doctrine was little more than an idle threat that the US was not capable of enforcing in even the best of times, however, Monroe was not just blowing hot air. The former Spanish colonies had revolted, following the American example but, they never came together as a single unified nation. They were mostly weak, with many internal divisions, and very few democracies took root. They were ripe for exploitation by the European powers that were replacing Spanish dominance in the world.

The Monroe Doctrine was mostly successful (except for Mexico which will be covered later) but, not due to American power or benevolence. It was mostly due to the Royal Navy of Great Britain who were the real enforcers of the policy. Britain saw the Monroe doctrine as a way to reap the benefits of complete domination of Latin American markets while not bearing any of the direct responsibilities and costs that go with it. The sudden political division in North America changed all of that. Great Britain and the United States were now squarely at odds with each other in the region.

The Confederacy saw Latin America as it’s own private responsibility (if not outright playground) and considered themselves the rightful inheritors of the Monroe Doctrine. They never really gave it another name nor did they seem to have any logical reason to think this except that they were geographically closer to Latin America than their northern neighbors. As Confederate reach began to expand, in direct proportion to size of their Navy, they became active players in the Latin American political landscape. Naturally, being such close allies with Great Britain, they began to enforce British policy in the region which was for the most part, the same as their own.

This was convenient for both the British and the Confederates. It helped to relieve the increased demands placed on the Royal Navy by the sudden change of political winds in South America. The Confederates got reciprocation in China where they were weak (having bases in a region was something that was crucial in an age of coal driven warships) but, saw a need to be. While all nations, except the Confederacy, saw the Stars and Bars as little more than a British Flag in disguise, it was a very real change to the balance of power on the high seas and in Latin America. This would add a new dimension to relations with the United States.

Most of what happened below Mexico remained out of view of the general public. A quick examination of the newspapers of the time show almost no articles covering a land that seemed to be mostly forgotten by the rest of the world. While this might have been the case with opinion polls it was not true of the leaderships of the time. What few standoffs occurred in Latin America had been conveniently swept under the rug and this remained so because all parties involved liked it that way. Latin America might have been important but it was not THAT important. The possibility of a canal in Columbia changed this.

Yet, it was not the isthmus itself where the situation came to a head. Initially, in 1887, it had been a French company, under the leadership of none other than Gustave Eiffel, that had tried to build a canal there. The project was horribly mismanaged and soon collapsed. As you might recall, the Bonchamps-Platt negotiations began less than a year later. There is very little doubt in anyone’s mind that the issue of another canal was firmly on Boulanger’s mind while his representatives spoke with the Americans. If the British could use their American patsy’s to shore up their South American policies then why not France?

The advantage of a Panama Canal was not lost in Washington either. With the naval build up well underway, and deepening involvement by the US in China and the Pacific, the strategic advantages to such a project were obvious to all. The only problem with it was the same handicap that the US was experiencing in all of it’s affairs in Latin America. It lacked any bases in the region where it’s warships could take on coal. As long as that was the case they would continue to be thwarted by the British and their Confederate allies.

This was not just an economic issue for the United States. The British were in the Sandwich Islands (now called Hawaii) and this was like a dagger pointed at the lightly defended west coast. Between their base at Pearl Harbor, one in Vancouver, and their dominance of the Hapsburg regime in Mexico they had the United States practically encircled. On the economic side it gave the Canadian rail line a competitive edge and served to strangle the US out of trade in China. These were not just idle threats but, they were active British policies of the time.

A canal would go greatly towards relieving this situation and each successive US administration maintained the policy of advancing the cause of being the one to build it. With French backing this seemed like a realistic goal. There were a few problems however.

The difference in dynamics between the two alliances was that while the Confederacy enjoyed substantial backing that was both open and formalized, the United States did not. The French simply did not have the resources nor the military power to throw it’s diplomatic weight behind the US. This was generally offset by the fact that the US was in less need of such backing. By the 1890’s it had a navy that was not only rivaling that of the French, but surpassing it in both numbers and technology. The informal agreements with France were generally enough except when it came to Latin America.

Due to British pressure, and internal politics in France, US warships were not allowed to coal at French bases in the Caribbean. The US tried to get around this by making it’s own allies in the region but this was thwarted at every turn by the British-Confederate alliance. This included acts that went all the way to military intervention such as the Columbian Incident in the late 80’s and the Brazilian Naval Revolt of the early 90‘s. The United States finally realized it would need it’s own possessions in the region and it was Spain that was offering the opportunity.

The Spanish empire had been crumbling for centuries but she still had some far flung possessions around the world. One of these was the island of Cuba that was sitting just a mere 90 miles off the Confederate coast line. It had long been a source of rebellion and a continuing drain on rapidly shrinking Spanish resources. If anything, the Spanish continued to hold on to it’s colonies for no reason beyond a simple matter of pride.

The Confederacy had entered into negotiations to buy Cuba, from the Spanish, as early as the Longstreet administration. More than once the negotiations broke down and, at one point, the Spanish were actually willing to sell until an assassins bullet changed the government once again and then the entire deal fell through. By this time the Confederacy was growing weary of negotiating their way into Cuba and had become aware that they were not the only ones looking to take possession. 

Not only had the United States thrown it’s hat into the ring but, a change in government in Germany meant that Kaiser Wilhelm was also interested. As the rules of supply and demand dictate, the price began to escalate and Spain saw it in their best interests to hang on to the province for as long as they could, so, they doubled their efforts to stamp out the on going rebellion there.

The Confederates could not afford the new price nor could they afford to see a stronger foreign power take possession of the island. It would go well beyond the ability to build a canal. Cuba was strategically located and would sit like a knife aimed right at the heart of the Confederacy. It’s position in the Caribbean would also allow a hostile foreign power to effectively bottle up the CS Navy in it’s main bases at Galveston and Mobile. This was a situation that the Confederates could not allow under any circumstances and, while they would not state as much, it was also a matter they were willing to go to war over.

Unfortunately, north of the border, the feelings were becoming mutual. This was not pitched on a geo-political level either. Newspapers, the famous yellow journalist of the time, began to routinely publish accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. The Confederate papers quickly followed suit. The rhetoric from both national capitals began to intensify. Wade Hampton even went so far as to state before the Confederate Congress, “I will not sleep as long as any other flag besides the Stars and Bars fly over Cuba.”

The final stage for the war was now being set and almost no one saw it coming.