soleil, one of the reasons the Confederacy lost the Civil War was the lack of an industrial base. The Union had the industrial northeast to crank out the weapons and munitions aplenty, keeping their troops well supplied, while the Confederate troops had to scramble to stay equipped. Had the Confederacy somehow won, they still would have lacked an established industrial base, and by 1939 still would have been a primarily agrarian society (the South gained industry after the Civil War thanks to Reconstruction and still remained mostly agrarian until post-WWII), and therefore unable to respond to German tanks. Meanwhile, the Union would have had tanks, battleships, aircraft carriers, etc., and undoubtedly Hawaii would still have been a Union controlled territory, and so on December 8, 1941 a smaller United States would still have entered the war against the Axis. The Confederate States may have declared war on Germany after France was invaded, but they would not have been able to launch an overseas offensive the way the U.S. could and did. And the Union would still have won the race to the atomic bomb. And landed on the moon first. We may never have had a President Johnson, Carter, or Clinton in the White House, but neither would we have had George W. Bush (although ironically, since his father never relinquished his New England roots, he likely still would have been the 41st president). It's fun to imagine alternate history.
Actually the day commomerates the loss of an egg based product that was coming from France to Mexico, but the ship was attacked by British Privateers and was lost. That is why we celebrate the Sinko De Mayo
and even today, the concept of racial integration is not terribly well-executed. Look for news stories with the word 'banlieu' -- racial harmony is NOT something that the French have mastered, any more than anyone else.
Sorry, Varnes, but that "the French treated everyone like brothers" stuff is horse-puckey. They had slaves working their sugar plantations in the Caribbean - slaves that rose up in bloody rebellion against the cruelty of their white, FRENCH, masters in 1791.
If the French had won the French and Indian War, there
would never have been slavery in the United States. The French treated all people as brothers. That seems to be considered a weakness nowadays.
It's a shame, really.
Exactly, gkmcc -- they would have continued to control Mexico, and so would have had all the resources to draw from there...plus the Confederate States (assuming success) would immediately have leapt to the France's aide when the tanks began to roll to the west from Germany...would France's more noteworthy position in the middle of the 20th century have made them a more attractive target, or would they have been strong enough to have forced the invading forces to think twice about how easy France could be taken?
The what-ifs make your mind spin...all for naught, of course, but interesting to think about.
(wow. Nobody thought that there could be a discussion about late 19th century military history on a webpage for comics!)
Soleil -
The French goal - reputed goal, I should say - in North America at that time was to aid the American Confederacy and so split up the United States of America into two, weaker, !$%*!$%*! neither of which would pose a threat to France's position on the international stage -- not to conquer/occupy territory in North America, which would have almost certainly engendered a strong international reaction.
