American Civil War from The European Perspective | Animated History

it is a cold morning in the winter of 1861 and a northern lawyer is enjoying breakfast by the fireplace he reaches for the morning issue of the new york times hoping for news on the conflict with the rebels all the papers have been fixated on the diplomatic incident last month with the united kingdom a ship smuggling rebel ambassadors had been intercepted by the union but surely the situation can't be as serious as the paper suggests the affair will probably be resolved in the coming days but as the lawyer begins reading the paper he is shocked the front page story is much different today french troops have apparently crossed the border from mexico into texas in support of the confederacy the war has escalated [Music] hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian what you just saw is of course not what really happened the british and french did not intervene in the american civil war and in this video we're going to explain why additionally we'll explore how other european powers responded and ultimately why the conflict did not cross the atlantic before we look at the european perspective let's take a moment to thank our sponsor unless you've been living under a king cotton embargo you've heard of raid shadow legends but what you might not have heard is that it's the most continuously gratifying mobile game around with 500 champions to collect each with their own unique skill trees and millions of artifacts to earn equip and upgrade there are more than 8 000 faction themes but i prefer the historically inspired ones the bannerlords lugin the steadfast reminds me of a stoic feudal lord and errol of the sacred order looks like he stepped right out of the battle of grunwald and within the last couple weeks they've added a load of new updates first they've just added champion fragments which are pieces you can earn to summon specific champions right now you can also get the amazing krila witch arm it ends august 28th so don't wait around there's also a new bazaar 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apart it would make a strong case for the instability and danger of democratic reforms with that being said direct involvement in the far away american war was not viable for most states in europe sending men and materiel across the atlantic was simply impractical for all but the largest empires and europe had no shortage of conflicts of its own to deal with that being said many countries did get involved indirectly so let's run through some of them now before we take a deep dive into the two nations who are closest to intervening first we have the shrinking papal state ruled by pope pius ix in 1862 a confederate ambassador met with the pope to convince him of the righteousness of the southern cause the ambassador came away from the meeting utterly convinced he had won pius over despite having to admit neither he nor confederate president jefferson davis was catholic and outright refusing the pontiff's suggestion that the confederacy consent to gradual emancipation of its slaves the pope later wrote a letter to davis which was enthusiastically mistranslated as a formal recognition of the confederate states of america as an independent nation which was soon turned into wartime propaganda the next nation on our list is the kingdom of prussia several prussians were sent to fight in or observe the war on both sides and throughout the civil war these prussian officers were consistently impressed with themselves by comparison to what they saw as disorganized and poorly trained american armies in particular captain justice scheiber scoffed at how little formal training both sides had given their officers before the war scheiber and other prussians did take note of the advances in engineering and defensive tactics made during the war but attributed most of their success to the vastly different terrain and other circumstances unique to north america while many prussian-born officers did observe or command in the conflict the kingdom as a whole was most concerned with unifying germany and was not significantly influenced by the civil war coming away from their observations more certain than ever of their own superiority further west the dwindling spanish empire took the civil war as an opportunity to reclaim some of its lost american colonies and occupied the dominican republic in 1861 the spanish faced resistance almost immediately and in 1863 full-scale rebellion began soon spain had lost control of all but the capital of santo domingo and they unsuccessfully fought the rebellion for two more years before withdrawing completely others sided more firmly with the union on the italian peninsula the leaders of the mighty empire of san marino wrote to president lincoln to show support of his cause and to offer lincoln's citizenship lincoln gratefully replied accepting the offer and establishing the first diplomatic relations between the u.s and san marino as for the kingdom of italy they were far more concerned with consolidating their new territory finally to the east the russian empire which saw a strong united states as an important counterweight to the british empire vocally supported the union but it never extended an offer of military aid like the rest of europe's leaders the russians were unwilling to entangle themselves in a bloody faraway conflict on another continent the only two nations that came anywhere close to getting involved were the british and french empires in both nations public opinion was largely divided along class lines the land owners tended to support the wannabe aristocrats of the south while the middle and working classes tended to support the union this is a bit of an oversimplification but while the public discourse surrounding the conflict was nuanced and varied it also was almost entirely irrelevant people hotly debated and the newspapers printed countless think pieces and exposes and yet the decisions about whether europe would intervene in the american civil war were made by a mere handful of powerful figures in france emperor napoleon iii the nephew of the far more successful napoleon bonaparte sought to expand the territory and influence of the french empire around the world this initially led him to see the american civil war as an opportunity ever since 1823 the american monroe doctrine had prevented the european powers from extending their influence into the western hemisphere but with the house now divided against itself the americans were once again vulnerable to european exploitation a mere eight months after the civil war broke out napoleon invaded the republic of mexico his army swiftly toppled the government and installed an austrian noble as emperor maximilian the first of mexico u.s officials were outraged about this but there was nothing they could do as long as the confederates controlled the mexican border eager to protect his new puppet napoleon wanted to recognize the independence of the confederacy but union diplomats made it very clear that recognition of the rebels would lead to all-out war and france was unwilling to take the risk without allies and with the growing kingdom of prussia waiting to strike in europe napoleon decided not to go to war without the support of britain unfortunately for napoleon that support was unlikely as the leaders of britain had few reasons to get involved while prime minister lord palmerston and other ministers were sympathetic to the confederacy the cabinet recognized that it was not economical for them to go to war british financial institutions were heavily invested in railways and other projects with union territory and northern states of the us were some of the chief importers of british and french luxury and manufactured goods furthermore by 1861 40 of great britain's wheat imports came from the union france was similarly reliant on union food imports and napoleon iii was no doubt wary of having to tell a hungry french populace let them eat cotton both nations did have economic ties to the south with southern cotton fueling much of the british and french textile industries unlike northern grain and trade markets however southern cotton could be replaced both countries had built up sizable stockpiles by 1861 and when the surplus ran out subsequent cotton shortages were offset by imports from the british territories of egypt and india besides economics diplomacy also played a major role in keeping europe out of the civil war confederate diplomats were inexperienced and clumsy chosen by president davis for personal and political reasons rather than for diplomatic skill davis was convinced that all he had to do was dangle the south's great king cotton before the european powers who would then eagerly offer their support the union meanwhile engaged in more skillful and subtle diplomacy which culminated in the diplomatic master stroke that was lincoln's emancipation proclamation by announcing to the world that the union was fighting to end the institution of slavery he effectively made the civil war a moral conflict by making this narrative clear lincoln ensured that politicians in europe could not express their support for the confederacy without being seen as pro-slavery as a result of these economic and diplomatic factors there was never a serious push within the british government to get the empire involved with the civil war the closest the empire ever came to intervening was the trent affair when two confederate diplomats attempting to travel to europe aboard a british ship were intercepted and seized by the union navy the boarding of a british vessel and the abduction of its passengers infuriated the british public parliament and cabinet and a demand for the prisoner's release and a full apology was immediately sent to washington dc meanwhile thousands of additional troops were dispatched to canada and the royal navy was placed on high alert president lincoln recognized the danger and promptly complied with the british demand releasing the diplomats and issuing a vague faux apology to satisfy the british aside from the close call of the trent affair no european nation ever came close to intervening in the american civil war even if the combined might of britain and france could have changed the course of the war they were both ultimately deterred from involvement by the skillful diplomacy of the union and of course economic concerns although there were factions in europe that supported the confederacy in a rare moment practical considerations outweighed ideology in the end the nations of europe chose to leave the american civil war to the americans thanks again to raid shadow legends for making this video possible click their link in the description to help out our channel [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 1,163,581

Rating: 4.9090152 out of 5

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Id: EoQzjkEnTmI

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020