North American Alt. History ca.1875

[Gryphon]

California was actually close to secession.


I will concede to this point in part. The massive influx of Americans would have been stilted by a continued war effort. Britain did own much of the land at points, though yes, it was joint occupation at the time. As for the take over, it would have been mostly politically fueled. No one would want to continue fighting after that, especially to regain what was at the point largely a Territory. Granted Oregon was a state at the time. As for the name, no, it probably would not have been changed, though the name does exist and was used for the Cascade Rapids.

Secession to the Confederacy perhaps, but not to become their own country- especially when the war to settle that issue just ended five minutes earlier in a Union victory. That massive army that was formed to end the Confederacy just gets turned around and pointed in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean for either Californian separation or British takeover.

The massive influx was there before the War- and even with the War, population in these regions doubled between the 1860 and 1870 censuses (censii?). Washington and Oregon between them had 50,000 inhabitants in 1860; BC had 11,000 (and a large number of these were expat Americans looking for gold). The United States isn't going to sit aside and let the British walk all over them when just five years earlier the British knew that the Americans would have gone to war in Canada over the Trent Affair, and would have fought that war with the leftovers from the fight in the South. If Britain goes in to the Northwest at this point, Canada burns.

(And the name wouldn't be Cascadia not because the name didn't exist, but because no one ever called the greater Northwest 'Cascadia' until well into the 20th century. Oregon Country, the Columbia District, New Albion if you look really far back, but 'Cascadia' is a modern phenomenon.)

 

[Thakowsaizmu]

design drawings which are stolen by a Confederate spy, who somehow knew to watch von Zeppelin and somehow knew that what he was working would be of great use to the Confederate cause?

There are always spies in wars, and there are always conspirators. I never said they knew to look for him. Why would they? Who would he have been to them? But someone in the right place at the right time could very well have obtained said schematics and delivered them into Confederate hands.

It would be decades in OTL between the time von Zeppelin first began contemplating his airships the time of the first successful airship flights, yet, in TTL the CSA is able to study von Zeppelin's rudimentary scribblings and then research, develop and build workable airships less then a year after stealing them and uses them to turn the tide of war, secure a grand Confederate victory, one in which the USA loses not only the south but the west coast as well?

Yes, I understand that for us it was a long time afterwards. The building of said ship would not have been overly hard, there were already balloons used for delivery beforehand, again, this did not come out of a vacuum, but was built on what came before. And at no point did I say there was a Grand Confederate Victory. It was an armistice. The two belligerents came to an end, neither side the clear victor, neither side the clear loser.

 

[Thakowsaizmu]

Secession to the Confederacy perhaps, but not to become their own country- especially when the war to settle that issue just ended five minutes earlier in a Union victory. That massive army that was formed to end the Confederacy just gets turned around and pointed in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean for either Californian separation or British takeover.

The massive influx was there before the War- and even with the War, population in these regions doubled between the 1860 and 1870 censuses (censii?). Washington and Oregon between them had 50,000 inhabitants in 1860; BC had 11,000 (and a large number of these were expat Americans looking for gold). The United States isn't going to sit aside and let the British walk all over them when just five years earlier the British knew that the Americans would have gone to war in Canada over the Trent Affair, and would have fought that war with the leftovers from the fight in the South. If Britain goes in to the Northwest at this point, Canada burns.

(And the name wouldn't be Cascadia not because the name didn't exist, but because no one ever called the greater Northwest 'Cascadia' until well into the 20th century. Oregon Country, the Columbia District, New Albion if you look really far back, but 'Cascadia' is a modern phenomenon.)

Getting ahead of the current time line, no, I don't think that the U.S. would allow it to just be taken. But also, no one wants to enter a war after just finishing one. It is not going to be without tribulations, though, and surely the area will not be settled and remain British for long. (And again, I did concede to the name, so there really was no point in defending why it would not named as such again.)

As for preventing California from secession, your argument is dependent on a Union victory, which, in this History, does not happen as such.

 

[Gryphon]

Getting ahead of the current time line, no, I don't think that the U.S. would allow it to just be taken. But also, no one wants to enter a war after just finishing one. It is not going to be without tribulations, though, and surely the area will not be settled and remain British for long. (And again, I did concede to the name, so there really was no point in defending why it would not named as such again.)

As for preventing California from secession, your argument is dependent on a Union victory, which, in this History, does not happen as such.

Except the British still don't have a reason to antagonise the Americans in a way that they are sure to respond to- there's no way, just having got out of a war or no, that the Americans aren't going to go after the British invasion force with more than enough to counter it- the Brits might, might manage to get the San Juan Islands issue settled their way, but even by 1840, the British basically knew they wouldn't get anything south of the Columbia, so why would they waste the men required to take it, and why would the mericans not even bother to spare the division or two needed to defend it? (And that's without looking at operational considerations- attacking the Oregon Territory is not as easy as it looks when you account for all the factors at play.)

(I admit, I misread your post a bit regarding the name; I apologise.)

And the Union will surely spare the forces to quell a California rebellion, if the Californians don't do it themselves. The Californians still have no real reason to secede beyond 'Well, if the South did it...'

And you still have not accounted for the fact that building airships would take away important Southern manufacturing capacity for little gain. How do the airships help? What could they possibly do, in 1864, that manages to prolong the war that long and lead to what is, for all intents and purposes, a Confederate victory (the CSA existing is, almost by definition, a Confederate victory, armistice or no- the CSA's strategy ater the initial battles was always to fight until the Union quit, which is basically what you describe- but you have yet to justify how, exactly, airships make the Union quit.)

 

[Lord Grattan]

There are always spies in wars, and there are always conspirators. I never said they knew to look for him. Why would they? Who would he have been to them? But someone in the right place at the right time could very well have obtained said schematics and delivered them into Confederate hands.


Yes, I understand that for us it was a long time afterwards. The building of said ship would not have been overly hard, there were already balloons used for delivery beforehand, again, this did not come out of a vacuum, but was built on what came before. And at no point did I say there was a Grand Confederate Victory. It was an armistice. The two belligerents came to an end, neither side the clear victor, neither side the clear loser.

OK; but none the less, without much handwavuim and many miracles what you're suggesting is simply not going to happen.

 

[Solarius]

This is fairly implausible. Even though the South's loss was inevitable in 1864, they continued fighting because they were entrenched.

(Oh, and hi Thakow.)

 

[Sean Mulligan]

I would think that a Confederate victory would make the Union more not less eager to fight to retain California and Washington Territory. They would want to make up for losing the South.

 

[Enigmajones]

Look, its not gonna work as a real TL, but it sounds like a fun ASB TL, try posting it over in the ASB section, then you can have all the British Southern California's, Cascadia's and Confederacy's you like.

 

[Kevin in Indy]

Thakowsaizmu - welcome! (well, maybe "belated welcome!" if you've been lurking for five years)

One might summarize the critiques so far as follows: in our time line (OTL), by the time 1863 rolls around, nothing von Zeppelin does with airship design is going to change the course of the American Civil War very much. So, your point of departure (PoD, the event which changes our time line into an alternate time line or ATL) is probably not going to work with the history buffs reading here. They're not going to be able to immerse themselves into the story because they cannot buy the premise.

What to do? One might look to see if there is an earlier PoD which could help - I don't know much about von Zeppelin but perhaps he or somebody with his interests could start earlier on airship design. You might also need to find a way to incorporate some weapons innovations if you expect to use an airship fleet to keep the Union armies at bay.

If that doesn't work, then try bringing it to the same audience in a different way. The ASB Forum is more the realm of pure fiction - heck, we even bring guys back from the dead over there!

Don't take the feedback as disparagement - we're all here for fun!

 

[SPJ]

Instead of having the design come from Zeppelin why not have it come from someone else. There were at least two individuals living in America during that time who were already experimenting with airships. One was Solomon Andrews who during the war in 1863 built and flew an 80 ft long airship named the Areon. He later offered it to Lincoln for use in the war but sadly he got a refusal letter about a year later.

The second was Frederick Marriot who experimented with the concept of airships in the 1840s while living in England. He then moved to California during the 1849 gold rush. Then in 1869 he did THIS!

Maybe you could have the Confederates gain the plans for Solomon's Areon and then find a way to have them employ Marroit to help build and modify the craft.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Andrews_(inventor)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Marriott

 

[King Midas]

To me, the problem with airships isn't the timeline - that's easy enough to POD (somebody came up with something sooner than in OTL), it's that airships are so damn fragile. Check the history of the things. Almost every one of them crashed with all hands long before their expected expiration date. You can use hot air -or have helium more available- instead of hydrogen, and that will cut the numbers down some, but the Confederate Air Service is probably going to have the same reputation as the Confederate Submarine Flotilla.

Leaving that aside, people are asking "what does an airship accomplish?" OK, two similar ideas. One is old fashioned interdiction: Hovering fifty feet over a critical section of railroad and rolling mortar rounds out the cargo hatch works pretty well. The second is more romantic. Build a *real* Air Cavalry. Get together about fifty of the meanest, roughest collection of Ranger/SAS/Stormtroopers, then send them off to make dawn commando attacks on supply depots fifty miles behind enemy lines.

 

[Fiver]

t the Confederate Air Service is probably going to have the same reputation as the Confederate Submarine Flotilla.

Exactly. The CSS Hunley produced a lot more dead Confederates than dead Union men.

Zeppelins aren't practical until after the development of the Hall–Héroult process for aluminum, which was first used commercially in 1888 in OTL. Before then, you're trying to build your airship's frame out of something more expensive than gold. Even with the process, you need large amounts of electricity. This normally required building a hydroelectric dam, which was first used commercially in 1881 in OTL

California was not pro-secession. Less Californians fought for the Confederacy than teenage cadets from the Virginia Military Institute fought for the Confederacy. A lot less.

 

[mrmandias]

Leaving that aside, people are asking "what does an airship accomplish?" OK, two similar ideas. One is old fashioned interdiction: Hovering fifty feet over a critical section of railroad and rolling mortar rounds out the cargo hatch works pretty well. The second is more romantic. Build a *real* Air Cavalry. Get together about fifty of the meanest, roughest collection of Ranger/SAS/Stormtroopers, then send them off to make dawn commando attacks on supply depots fifty miles behind enemy lines.

These might be useful, but they aren't game-changers, even if they could be done at a much more reasonable cost than experiemental airships will be. And they both sound pretty vulnerable to counter-measures, or even just plain to guys with rifles shooting back.

 

[DaleCoz]

Zeppelins aren't practical until after the development of the Hall–Héroult process for aluminum, which was first used commercially in 1888 in OTL. Before then, you're trying to build your airship's frame out of something more expensive than gold. Even with the process, you need large amounts of electricity. This normally required building a hydroelectric dam, which was first used commercially in 1881 in OTL

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You would need a lot of material-handling advances to make a Zeppelin practical, and probably not just the frame. Could they make steam engines small enough and powerful enough and cool enough? What would they use to power the engine? Hint: Coal isn't going to have the energy density to do it. I'm trying to remember when liquid fuels became common. I think kerosene was starting to get used by that time, but I doubt that the south would have a lot, or the ability to make a lot. What about the skin? Control surfaces?

The idea of a Zeppelin-type craft in the civil war is cool enough that I would love to see a way for it to be feasible. Is there any way around all of that? Tropical woods like balsa wood for the frame maybe? How would the Confederates get their hands on enough of it though?

What about something more primitive? A Zeppelin would have some value for reconnaissance and maybe landing commandos behind enemy lines. They wouldn't be worth the effort for bombing given the primitive sights they would have. Is there any way to replicate the reconnaissance and commando-landing value with something lower tech but still doable? To be honest, I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Steerable man-sized kites? Probably less survivable than being a kamikaze. A hot air balloon with some kind of propulsion system? Solid fuel rockets? Good luck not blowing yourself up. I've got nothing.

Cool idea if you could make it work, but probably not a war winner.