<story><title>What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?</title><url>https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/war-words</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Hayvok</author><text>The Civil War in America absolutely &lt;i&gt;dominated&lt;/i&gt; the British national conversation, especially in the early years of the war. Politicians followed the conflict closely, and there were even several debates in Parliament over British policy toward the conflict.&lt;p&gt;Frequently discussed was a line that a lot of Americans would recognize today, of &amp;quot;when should Britain get involved??&amp;quot; because of the destructiveness of the conflict. Prime Minister Palmerston &amp;amp; Foreign Secretary Russell spent a lot of time maneuvering and deflecting calls for Britain to get involved or pick a side.&lt;p&gt;A few other bits I found surprising when studying this topic—&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  1. Some British MPs were very pro-Confederate, and pushed for recognition of the Confederacy as a real country in Parliament.
  2. British war correspondents were on the ground with both Union and Confederate armies, and sent regular dispatches to British newspapers.
  3. British (and other European) officers regularly volunteered on *both* sides.
  4. It was fashionable for a time in Britain to be pro-Confederate. Confederate propagandist networks *in* Britain brilliantly played down slavery and played up &amp;quot;self-determination&amp;quot;.
  5. Britain nearly declared war on the Union (Trent affair), to the point that Royal Navy was just waiting for the go-signal to commence hostilities &amp;amp; Britain sent thousands of additional troops to Canada.
  6. There were *tons* of ironclads already in European fleets, there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle &amp;amp; adapted their fleets &amp;amp; battle doctrines accordingly.
  7. The British cabinet had a very serious, &amp;quot;can we even win a war against the U.S. anymore?&amp;quot; conversation at the end of the conflict, after witnessing the million-man army of the Union, the Richmond campaign, and growing effectiveness of the U.S. Navy.
  8. Americans credit Seward as a brilliant Secretary of State during the conflict, but in Britain and France he was considered foolish, dangerous, and unpredictable—a lot of the tension between the Union and Europe can be laid at his feet.
  9. Prussian military observers watched how the Union used railroads to move massive numbers of troops &amp;amp; supplies around, and adopted a lot of the Union tactics to absolutely crush the French just a few years later. (Franco-Prussian war of 1870.) Seriously - there were European observers *all over the place*.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Strongly recommend &lt;i&gt;A World on Fire: Britain&amp;#x27;s Crucial Role in the American Civil War&lt;/i&gt; by Amanda Foreman. Brilliant book, and a page-turner.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gen220</author><text>It should be understood that the british empire was at the peak of economic dependence on the raw material coming from the &amp;quot;new world&amp;quot; at the onset of the civil war; in particular, cotton exports for consumption by british textile mills [1].&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the 192 million pounds used in France, 60 percent of the 115 million pounds spun in the Zollverein, and 92 percent of the 102 million pounds manufactured in Russia.&lt;p&gt;One reason that there was support for the confederacy was the fear that the outcome of the war would lead to the end of access to abundant and cheap cotton (due to export duties, end of slavery, etc.).&lt;p&gt;One of the outcomes of the US Civil War was that the British Empire realized a need to &amp;quot;diversify&amp;quot; their sources, resulting in increasingly imperialistic behavior in India and Egypt, among others.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;empire-of-cotton&amp;#x2F;383660&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;empire-...&lt;/a&gt; the whole book is a fantastic peek behind the curtains of the history of global capital markets</text></comment>
<story><title>What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?</title><url>https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/war-words</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Hayvok</author><text>The Civil War in America absolutely &lt;i&gt;dominated&lt;/i&gt; the British national conversation, especially in the early years of the war. Politicians followed the conflict closely, and there were even several debates in Parliament over British policy toward the conflict.&lt;p&gt;Frequently discussed was a line that a lot of Americans would recognize today, of &amp;quot;when should Britain get involved??&amp;quot; because of the destructiveness of the conflict. Prime Minister Palmerston &amp;amp; Foreign Secretary Russell spent a lot of time maneuvering and deflecting calls for Britain to get involved or pick a side.&lt;p&gt;A few other bits I found surprising when studying this topic—&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  1. Some British MPs were very pro-Confederate, and pushed for recognition of the Confederacy as a real country in Parliament.
  2. British war correspondents were on the ground with both Union and Confederate armies, and sent regular dispatches to British newspapers.
  3. British (and other European) officers regularly volunteered on *both* sides.
  4. It was fashionable for a time in Britain to be pro-Confederate. Confederate propagandist networks *in* Britain brilliantly played down slavery and played up &amp;quot;self-determination&amp;quot;.
  5. Britain nearly declared war on the Union (Trent affair), to the point that Royal Navy was just waiting for the go-signal to commence hostilities &amp;amp; Britain sent thousands of additional troops to Canada.
  6. There were *tons* of ironclads already in European fleets, there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle &amp;amp; adapted their fleets &amp;amp; battle doctrines accordingly.
  7. The British cabinet had a very serious, &amp;quot;can we even win a war against the U.S. anymore?&amp;quot; conversation at the end of the conflict, after witnessing the million-man army of the Union, the Richmond campaign, and growing effectiveness of the U.S. Navy.
  8. Americans credit Seward as a brilliant Secretary of State during the conflict, but in Britain and France he was considered foolish, dangerous, and unpredictable—a lot of the tension between the Union and Europe can be laid at his feet.
  9. Prussian military observers watched how the Union used railroads to move massive numbers of troops &amp;amp; supplies around, and adopted a lot of the Union tactics to absolutely crush the French just a few years later. (Franco-Prussian war of 1870.) Seriously - there were European observers *all over the place*.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Strongly recommend &lt;i&gt;A World on Fire: Britain&amp;#x27;s Crucial Role in the American Civil War&lt;/i&gt; by Amanda Foreman. Brilliant book, and a page-turner.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robonerd</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;6. There were tons of ironclads already in European fleets, there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle &amp;amp; adapted their fleets &amp;amp; battle doctrines accordingly.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;These were very different sorts of ironclads.  The British and French ironclads mostly resembled traditional ships, at least at first glance.  They had steam engines but also retained their masts, and had broadside guns rather than turrets (except for the ill-fated HMS Captain..)&lt;p&gt;The American ironclads were more bizarre, superficially resembling submarines, and weren&amp;#x27;t particularly seaworthy (unlike the European ironclads.)   The USS Monitor in particular was a novel design; mastless and steam powered with an armored turret, a shallow draft and low freeboard (similar to earlier ironclad floating batteries, but a lot lower).  European navies subsequently started building their own &amp;#x27;monitors&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;The monitor class of ships were eventually pushed to the side by pre-dreadnought battleships that derived more from the traditional and seaworthy European ironclads than from monitors, with some lessons learned from monitors.  See the HMS Devastation particularly; mastless and steam powered with armored turrets, but with a hull that was actually seaworthy unlike monitors.</text></comment>