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. 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 a dozen faction themes, but I prefer the historically inspired ones. The Banner Lord's 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 Witcharm. It ends August 28th, so don't wait around. There's also a new Bazaar, where you can load up on high-value items with gold bars you win in the Tag Arena. And they've just extended the daily Lugin rewards to 270 days, with free champions available just for Lugin. It's been a crazy month for updates, so there's never been a better time to start. New players will get 100,000 silver plus one free champion, Acolyte. All this treasure will be waiting for you here in your inbox, but only for the next 30 days, so act now. Clicking the link in the description really helps out our channel, so head over to Raid Shadow Legends to tell them thanks for supporting history content. Even before the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, foreign powers were watching the secession crisis in the United States very closely. The US in 1861 wasn't the global superpower it is today, but it was integral to the increasingly interconnected economies of the world. In addition, America represented the still uncertain experiment of democracy in the eyes of Europe. If the United States fell apart, it would make a strong case for the instability and danger of democratic reforms. With that being said, direct involvement in the faraway 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 were 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 Pondiff'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 Justus 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 citizenship. Lincoln gratefully replied, accepting the offer and establishing the first diplomatic relations between the US 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 exposés, 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 I of Mexico. US 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 the meat 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 masterstroke 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 prisoners' release and a full apology was immediately sent to Washington, D.C. 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.