What really is the future of the CSA?

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Assuming the CSA survives into the 20th century, is something remotely resembling Apartheid South Africa possible? A state that becomes a social / economic pariah propped up by a fragile white domination of a society propped up by impoverished, uneducated blacks?

Apartheid South Africa would inevitably collapse since the black population outnumbered the whites, in the CS the majority of the population is white which means that segregation wouldn't be a problem to put in place, I don't know about the US segregation a lot but it would probably be a similar thing.

Nationalism was inflamed by the war, and people aren't going to forget all that bloodshed easily. Look at how much the French hated the Germans for some 40-odd years for a 6-month war with far fewer casualties and atrocities than the US ACW.

That is different, France got humiliated and was fueled by revanchism and the Germans didn't hate the French; people will probably blame Lincoln for everything and go back home as nobody would see a point in going for round two.

Also, while the Confederacy with a core of hardened veterans postwar could easily roll over the Central American nations, the filibusters did technically lose most of the time, and both Cuba and Mexico are demonstrations of what sustained, local resistance (plus some foreign aid) can result in.

Mexico is kind of easy to integrate as the Second Mexican Empire would survive with help from the Confederacy and be a puppet and integrating the Cuban elites into the Golden Circle won't be very difficult

 

[West]

I think the future of the confederacy would be one of suffering.

At the end of the day, slavery is a really inefficient way of doing economics, it gives you a large group of people with absolutely no buy in for your society and culture who make for a natural 5th colum for anyone who promises freedom. That means you have a built in spy network for all of your enemies built in, that means you have an instant army to aid any invaders, because at the end of the day.

Slavery is pretty much the absolute bottom and supporting the invader in hopes of getting freedom is just a logical choice. People want to talk industry, slaves would purposefully break equipment all of the time on plantations. Because they don't benifit if the business does better in fact that just makes more work if the machine breaks though everyone gets to rest until its fixed.

And using violence to make sure it stays fixed is not a very good incentive, because lets face it more slaves then slave owners and enforcers. You cant keep weapons out of prisons and your not going to keep slaves from breaking equipment. Then theres keeping them in place because once again escape means your life gets much better. You have to hire people to do that, and you cant invest in roads and infostructure that makes for good transportation because that just makes it easier to escape.

All of this costs money lots of money which gets drained out of taxpayers to pay to keep the slaves down.


So take all of these numerous built in issues and remember that the north is going to be looking for round two, and their going to do this because the north is going to want unobstructive travel through the missippi river to the atlantic ocean. Having an enemy nation in control of that....is not something the yankees are going to tolerate and their a naval power because they don't have slaves their capital money is freed up to do things like have a good navy, and good industry and going down south and conquring to make sure you control the whole river thats vital to your economy? Thats big.

An like I said the north has a huge army of spys, sabotores, informants, support agents and new recruits they can use on the confederates to make sure they win. The odds of them having a good time are pretty slim.

 

[Hydra1234]

That is different, France got humiliated and was fueled by revanchism and the Germans didn't hate the French; people will probably blame Lincoln for everything and go back home as nobody would see a point in going for round two.

And the Union won't be humiliated by losing half its territory?

The Germans hating the French is irrelevant, and if anything, bilateral animosity would inflame rather than reduce tensions.

Scapegoating and ousting Napoleon III despite all his accomplishments 20 years prior didn't do anything to abate French revanchism, so it follows that scapegoating Lincoln won't do much to abate American revanchism.

Mexico is kind of easy to integrate as the Second Mexican Empire would survive with help from the Confederacy and be a puppet and integrating the Cuban elites into the Golden Circle won't be very difficult

You mean the Cuban elites that freed their slaves as one of the first actions of the Ten Years War and believed that race was a social construct designed to divide the independence movement? The mostly creole elites that would be relegated to second-class citizens and subject to segregation under the Confederate racial hierarchy?

France only ever controlled a fraction of Mexico even with Napoleon III funneling tens of thousands of far better trained and equipped soldiers than the Confederacy. Plus, the 2nd Mexican Empire was already affiliated with France, who abolished slavery decades ago.

Even if the Confederacy conquered Mexico, the Mexican Revolution shows that the Mexicans don't have much tolerance for elitist authoritarians. Porfirio Diaz's regime would be practically a utopia compared to Confederate rule, which means a revolution far earlier.

 

[West]

A thing a lot of people don't really consider when talking about conquering mexico?

Geography, you have serra madre oriental, oxidental and de sur mountain ranges, you have massive desserts to the north, you have tropical jungle to the south, unlike the us theres a derth of natural ports outside of Veracruz. This makes it hard for mexico's central government to keep power but actually trying to hold the country if your an outside power is honestly kind of a nightmare.

Conquering mexico and holding it are two very different things.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

And the Union won't be humiliated by losing half its territory?

The Germans hating the French is irrelevant, and if anything, bilateral animosity would inflame rather than reduce tensions.

Scapegoating and ousting Napoleon III despite all his accomplishments 20 years prior didn't do anything to abate French revanchism, so it follows that scapegoating Lincoln won't do much to abate American revanchism.

The French were humiliated and faced diplomatic isolation, the why would the US citizens want to die for a territory that clearly doesn't want to be a part of them.

France only ever controlled a fraction of Mexico even with Napoleon III funneling tens of thousands of far better trained and equipped soldiers than the Confederacy. Plus, the 2nd Mexican Empire was already affiliated with France, who abolished slavery decades ago.

Even if the Confederacy conquered Mexico, the Mexican Revolution shows that the Mexicans don't have much tolerance for elitist authoritarians. Porfirio Diaz's regime would be practically a utopia compared to Confederate rule, which means a revolution far earlier.

The fact that France abolished slavery doesn't mean it doesn't see a point in doing business, just like the UK they didn't have any problem with buying cotton from the Confederacy knowing how it was produced.
The Second Mexican Empire managed to control the central part of Mexico, the Confederacy could certainly do something about the sparsely populated Northern territories and the rebels aren't helped by the US. I'm not saying the SME would certainly survive but I don't consider it unlikely they do.

 

[Whiteshore]

I suppose in the face of industry rendering traditional agrarian society redundant, slavery becomes less practical since unlike the fields you can't practically police slaves in a factory setting the same way you can on cotton fields.

The Nazis and Imperial Japan would like a word with you on that, especially as the Nazis made heavy use of what amounted to industrial slavery of “undesirables” while the Japanese in Manchukuo essentially turned Chinese peasants into industrial slaves when they industrialized the region.

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Mexico is kind of easy to integrate as the Second Mexican Empire would survive with help from the Confederacy and be a puppet and integrating the Cuban elites into the Golden Circle won't be very difficult

Mexico is not going to give up any territory regardless without a fight. Granted, it happens a lot, EG: Texas and the Mexican cessation. But the Mexican Empire or whichever Republican government is not going to give up any territory because it would immediately mean collapse of the government. Making Mexico a puppet state is unlikely in any circumstance.
Plus, the anti-slavery and very catholic Mexicans are not going to just surrender and succumb to anti-catholic and pro-slavery Confederates.

Now, Cuba.
Spain refused to sell Cuba so many times. There were several filibustering attempts, they all failed.
During the 10 years War, 1868-1878, Spain managed to send somewhere around 200000 soldiers into Cuba and still fought and died for it.
Spain, In the midst of their own civil war, bloody fighting in their own country, , in Europe, still sent 200000 soldiers into Cuba.

That alone proves that they are willing to fight hard to keep Cuba.

That alone proves that the Confederacy is going to fight tooth and nail, and bleed badly for Cuba.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Spain still has a better army and navy than the Confederacy. Closer to the turn of the century, the Confederacy has a better chance, I think, of beating Spain, but 10-15 years after successfully seceding and establishing a nation. I doubt it.
Even with British and French backing, you can't guarantee that they will support such an expansion of a slave power when they themselves are vociferously anti-slavery by this time.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Mexico is not going to give up any territory regardless without a fight. Granted, it happens a lot, EG: Texas and the Mexican cessation. But the Mexican Empire or whichever Republican government is not going to give up any territory because it would immediately mean collapse of the government. Making Mexico a puppet state is unlikely in any circumstance.

The SME was a puppet, a French one, here it is also aligned with CS interests who would have an even bigger influence once Nap III loses his crown.

Now, Cuba.
Spain refused to sell Cuba so many times. There were several filibustering attempts, they all failed.
During the 10 years War, 1868-1878, Spain managed to send somewhere around 200000 soldiers into Cuba and still fought and died for it.
Spain, In the midst of their own civil war, bloody fighting in their own country, , in Europe, still sent 200000 soldiers into Cuba.

That alone proves that they are willing to fight hard to keep Cuba.

That alone proves that the Confederacy is going to fight tooth and nail, and bleed badly for Cuba.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Spain still has a better army and navy than the Confederacy. Closer to the turn of the century, the Confederacy has a better chance, I think, of beating Spain, but 10-15 years after successfully seceding and establishing a nation. I doubt it.
Even with British and French backing, you can't guarantee that they will support such an expansion of a slave power when they themselves are vociferously anti-slavery by this time.

While I agree that Spain isn't going to give up on Cuba, in the long run the CS will certainly be able to surpass the dying Spanish Empire in naval and military means.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

The Nazis and Imperial Japan would like a word with you on that, especially as the Nazis made heavy use of what amounted to industrial slavery of “undesirables” while the Japanese in Manchukuo essentially turned Chinese peasants into industrial slaves when they industrialized the region.

They did, indeed. Correct me if I'm wrong, for this isn't an area of history I can claim great familiarity with; but I'd heard that the industrial goods produced by slave labour in Nazi Germany's factories was generally of low quality and rife with sabotage (as the enslaved non-German workers were less than motivated to give the Nazis stuff that worked well, for obvious reasons) -- not the sort of thing you'd want to build the backbone of your society on!

 

[Worffan101]

When there is a scenario about the Confederacy winning the American Civil War there often is the thread that the CS and US inevitably hate each other,(sometimes the CS does the Golden Circle thing,) the US inevitably joins the CP, the CS always joins the Entente, the CS is always weaker than its Northern counterpart and WW1 is won by the CP. (and sometimes Fascist takeover of the CS.)

However I consider that this thread is not the most likely scenario in a CS victory because:
Most of the industries in the Union were textile based which means that cotton from the South costs more.
Why would the CS and US inevitably hate each other? Can't they peacefully co-exist(although with some tensions between the two)?
The CS would understand that it needs to industrialize and since plantation based economy was on the decline it would be forced to even if the elites wanted to.
If the CS forms the Golden Circle (which is kind of easy at the time since a filibuster can take a Central American nation why wouldn't someone funded by a state be able to?) they would be able to give land to immigrants who would prefer this over having to work into factories, meaning the South would start to surpass the North in white population.
The CS could become quite militarized if there was a fear that the North might invade to conquer the South.

So what really is the most likely future of the CSA? Is the path described above really the most likely or is it the most common because people love this outcome?

I've answered this before, but basically:

1. A CSA win is basically impossible without a Trent war scenario, and if they DO somehow manage to survive without the British, you're dealing with famine, economic collapse, and a very large slave population that got a taste of freedom and will want it back.
2. The CSA's government was set up to prioritize the maintenance of an economic system that was already massively out of date. It was an authoritarian regime without any real democratic outlet, at best you'd have stage-managed "elections" but more likely regional kingpins would become the movers and shakers and you'd be looking at something like modern Iraq but with a massive rebellious slave population. So you're looking at widespread civil discontent, low loyalty to the state, and permanent economic decline. There would NOT be a decline of the plantation economy, the entire POINT of the CSA was the maintenance and EXPANSION of the plantation economy.
3. The people in charge of the CSA were some of the most brain-dead stupid incompetent racists in a time when stupid incompetent racist was the norm for governmental leadership. The governing structure of the CSA was, again, deliberately set up to ossify the grip of the most brain-dead stupid incompetent racists and their inbred heirs on political power. This is not a recipe for long-term stability, and these people were NOT open to industrialization--they viewed it as a miserable necessity at best that ought to be engaged in as little as possible while still ensuring the survival of the state against the US advance.
4. Even in the best-case scenario (Trent war, Britain demands CS independence, US concedes), you're looking at a very angry militarized USA full of nationalistic resentment against a Britain whose advantages are faltering by the day and a CS that can barely hold itself together. Please note that the boll weevil historically arrived in the US by 1892. With CS attempts to set up a Golden Circle, however haphazard and unlikely to succeed for more than ~a decade, I'll charitably give the CS until 1910 before its sole cash crop starts suffering catastrophic failures.
5. There's no real reason for immigrants to pick the South, where most of the land is already owned by big magnates who don't want to sell and political power is tied to being a rich asshole, over the North, where you can literally step off the boat and get a paying job, grimy as it may be. A lot of immigrants during the postbellum period were also peasantry looking to get AWAY from rich landlords. Combined with the CS being basically guaranteed to go into a prolonged economic decline, and there's no reason to go there.
6. So in basically any case the CS will be a desperately poor unstable authoritarian regime, most likely run by jockeying cabals of regional strongmen, sitting on a large and restive slave population, trying to expand its widely loathed system in a region where the US has every incentive and ability to counter CS attempts through proxy conflict, facing off against a massively superior rival with tech, industrial, economic, and population advantages on a broad scale.
7. Even if the CS manages to survive Round 2 in the 1880s (extremely likely given the incentives for the US to interfere with CS colonial projects and the long term importance of controlling the Mississippi), there's another threat to consider:

I give it like 10 minutes after the first vaguely left-wing US president gets into power for the OSS to find a free black man, say, "hey bro, do you want to serve FREEDOM?", and send him South with a wagon full of pamphlets proclaiming the glory of Saint Abe, who wields the sickle in one hand and Old Glory in the other, fighting alongside John Henry the freedman, who wields the hammer and the red banner of labor.

The CSA simply faces too many challenges--self-inflicted and otherwise--to last.

 

[Worffan101]

Apartheid South Africa would inevitably collapse since the black population outnumbered the whites, in the CS the majority of the population is white which means that segregation wouldn't be a problem to put in place, I don't know about the US segregation a lot but it would probably be a similar thing.

US segregation relied on a combination of Northern apathy, normalization of racism among the Northern populace, political deadlock by a united bloc of Southern white supremacist politicians, and herculean amounts of state maintenance of segregation. Like, it genuinely took massive amounts of work to maintain white social buy-in to the norms that allowed the white supremacist structure to be maintained, and to maintain the structures themselves. Even then, there were continual efforts, even if halfhearted, to implement civil rights guarantees throughout the post-Reconstruction period; the Lodge bill of 1890, for example, would have effectively ended segregation, but was traded away by Northern business interests and Western farm interests for their pet projects (and then caused a rift between President and Vice-President that definitely didn't help in the 1892 elections).

That is different, France got humiliated and was fueled by revanchism and the Germans didn't hate the French; people will probably blame Lincoln for everything and go back home as nobody would see a point in going for round two.

And the US wasn't humiliated in this context? Keep in mind that >100,000 Southerners fought for the Union, complete with two separatist movements in CS states (one successful), and a significant rebellion in Mississippi following the loss of CS control over the Mississippi river. Support for the war was pretty solid from the Republican majority in the North throughout the war. More likely, the secessionist traitors would become the focus of American national hatred.

Mexico is kind of easy to integrate as the Second Mexican Empire would survive with help from the Confederacy and be a puppet and integrating the Cuban elites into the Golden Circle won't be very difficult

...No.

Just...no.

The Second Mexican Empire was an unstable joke that imploded almost immediately after French support was withdrawn. Integrating it would be very difficult (the elites were already unhappy with Max, who was too liberal for their taste, the common folk would never accept a foreign backed king, and as others have noted Mexico is EXTREMELY difficult to control due to its large central mountain belt and dearth of easily accessible ports), cession of territory would require military conquest and significant investment in pacifying a fanatically hostile population accustomed to guerilla warfare, and a recovering CS would be in no position to seriously attempt that.

The French were humiliated and faced diplomatic isolation, the why would the US citizens want to die for a territory that clearly doesn't want to be a part of them.

Over two million men were willing to die for a territory that had seceded. Look at their surviving letters, those might shed some light on why they chose to sign up to fight for Lincoln and Liberty.

While I agree that Spain isn't going to give up on Cuba, in the long run the CS will certainly be able to surpass the dying Spanish Empire in naval and military means.

With what industry? With what allies? With what ability to counter US power projection? The CS could barely slap iron cladding on hulks, the leadership was ideologically opposed to industry, they would not have the capability to take and hold Cuba.

 

[Gar48]

So you have a nation that:

1. Cannot produce enough food for its own people. IRL the owners of the plantations refused to cultivate croops to feed the confederate soldiers, focusing instead on producing more cotton
2. Utterly lacks industries. Again the plantations' influence means that production of cotton will remain the CSA's main export.
3. Isn't that much united internally. Besides the slaves, pro-Union rebels and starving peasants, you also have local governors who hate each other's guts. During the OTL Civil War said governors almost declared war at each other because they refused to share their resources.

The CSA would be a barely functional hellhole, constantly plagued by internal unrest. Also any attempt to expand would be blocked by either the lack of basic resources or London-Paris threatening to embargo the CSA

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

And the US wasn't humiliated in this context? Keep in mind that >100,000 Southerners fought for the Union, complete with two separatist movements in CS states (one successful), and a significant rebellion in Mississippi following the loss of CS control over the Mississippi river. Support for the war was pretty solid from the Republican majority in the North throughout the war. More likely, the secessionist traitors would become the focus of American national hatred.

Depends on how exactly the Confederate victory is achieved, and I honestly don't have any idea on a realistic scenario where this happens.

Over two million men were willing to die for a territory that had seceded. Look at their surviving letters, those might shed some light on why they chose to sign up to fight for Lincoln and Liberty.

That was during the ACW, once the territory has seceded re-integrating it into the Union isn't realistic and why would you die when there is nothing to gain from the war.

With what industry? With what allies? With what ability to counter US power projection? The CS could barely slap iron cladding on hulks, the leadership was ideologically opposed to industry, they would not have the capability to take and hold Cuba.

You think the Confederacy wouldn't change over time? Plantation based economy is on the decline and if the US hates you, you sort of have to do something to not get destroyed

 

[Worffan101]

Depends on how exactly the Confederate victory is achieved, and I honestly don't have any idea on a realistic scenario where this happens.

There is no realistic scenario for confederate victory that doesn't result in Union bitterness.

That was during the ACW, once the territory has seceded re-integrating it into the Union isn't realistic and why would you die when there is nothing to gain from the war.

Why is reintegration unrealistic? Since when has revanchism been coldly rational? Plenty of people have volunteered to die for far worse reasons.

You think the Confederacy wouldn't change over time? Plantation based economy is on the decline and if the US hates you, you sort of have to do something to not get destroyed

Yes, I do think it wouldn't change over time in this specific way. Again, the people in charge of the CS, who DELIBERATELY set up every bit of its governmental structure and economic system to ossify their hold on power and the maintenance of the plantation economy, were EXTREMELY dedicated to the plantation economy, the cotton cash crop, the institution of slavery, and never changing anything in a way that might weaken their hold on power.

These people were very ignorant, not very smart, and passionately ideologically devoted to a dying system. They would not modernize until the US was literally occupying Vicksburg and Richmond and Atlanta and setting South Carolina on fire.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

There is no realistic scenario for confederate victory that doesn't result in Union bitterness.
Why is reintegration unrealistic? Since when has revanchism been coldly rational? Plenty of people have volunteered to die for far worse reasons

There is a difference between not liking the Confederacy and deliberately trying to re-launch a conflict that has taken the lives of 600 000 persons.

Yes, I do think it wouldn't change over time in this specific way. Again, the people in charge of the CS, who DELIBERATELY set up every bit of its governmental structure and economic system to ossify their hold on power and the maintenance of the plantation economy, were EXTREMELY dedicated to the plantation economy, the cotton cash crop, the institution of slavery, and never changing anything in a way that might weaken their hold on power.

These people were very ignorant, not very smart, and passionately ideologically devoted to a dying system. They would not modernize until the US was literally occupying Vicksburg and Richmond and Atlanta and setting South Carolina on fire.

It's not with that kind of government that you create a Central American Empire

 

[JohnBull]

The SME was a puppet, a French one, here it is also aligned with CS interests who would have an even bigger influence once Nap III loses his crown.

While I agree that Spain isn't going to give up on Cuba, in the long run the CS will certainly be able to surpass the dying Spanish Empire in naval and military means.

Why do you think CSA would surpass Spain and conquer Cuba?

That’s the biggest cliche around it. It comes from a place that the US is so powerful and special that even if it’s divided in several pieces, those individual pieces would be superpowers on their own.

Mexico or Brazil wouldn’t manage to invade Cuba, so the CSA.

 

[Worffan101]

There is a difference between not liking the Confederacy and deliberately trying to re-launch a conflict that has taken the lives of 600 000 persons.

Plenty of Germans were happy to sign up for Round 2 of a conflict that killed millions the first time. There are plenty of rival nations that have fought stupid bloody wars over the same bit of useless land 8 million times.

It's not with that kind of government that you create a Central American Empire

Glad we're agreed that the CS would never create a central american empire, then.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

But most immigrants didn't have the option, they went into factories because that was the only option they were offering them, here there are two "American Dreams" and people will go to the state that is able to offer them the most, between going to work in a factory around the Great Lakes and getting a piece of land in the Caribbean what would you choose?

Problem is that for that to work you’d need to change the nature of the CSA. The US cast a pretty wide net when it came to immigration: Southern leaders OTOH wanted to narrow it to the ‘right kind’ of whites, so no Catholics etc. So immigration isn’t going to help redress the population balance.

Also, bold of you to assume that new land gets given out to smallholders. Far more likely it gets made up into new plantations for the plantocracy, especially in the Caribbean.

 

[Whiteshore]

Why do you think CSA would surpass Spain and conquer Cuba?

TBF, Spain did not have a really good 19th Century, with the loss of their colonies, the Carlist Wars, and the 1867 Revolution and the political strife that followed.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Why do you think CSA would surpass Spain and conquer Cuba?

That’s the biggest cliche around it. It comes from a place that the US is so powerful and special that even if it’s divided in several pieces, those individual pieces would be superpowers on their own.

Mexico or Brazil wouldn’t manage to invade Cuba, so the CSA.

If the CS started to seriously try to become a naval and military power, they could certainly surpass Spain; if the CS politicians want to do so or not is another matter