On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:42:45 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
<le@top.put.com> wrote:

>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>> On Tue, 19 Oct 2021 06:16:51 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Do you even assume that everyone had to be trained in the UK proper?
>
>Would the USMA become a BNA institution or would the promising
>or best-connected military men be sent to the UK to train at
>Woolwich or Sandhurst?

I would suspect the latter BUT it is quite possible there be satellite
schools as exists in Canada though in Canada the second school exists
mostly to provide French language service skills. There USED to be a
third school in Victoria, BC primarily as a naval college (not
surprising since the Royal Military College of Canada is in Kingston,
ON which is a long way from any naval port!) but that's been turned
into a non-military institution specializing in business courses.
>> One wonders if that would be true in this TL. One of the lesser
>> grievances of the colonies was that George Washington had not been
>> given General ranking due to his efforts 1756-63. That he was
>> considered a militia colonel not a regular and that only regulars
>> could attain general rank.
>>
>> In this scenario I'm doubtful this could have been maintained. This
>> would presumably mean you could get someone like Andrew Jackson in the
>> Crimea - and it is scary to think of him commanding the Light Brigade
>> (and even scarier someone like Winfield Scott who was certainly no
>> Raglan)
>
>For Andrew Jackson to be sent to the Crimea he would have to reach
>age 86 (in OTL he died years earlier,in 1845).Even in the 1834 war
>he'd be a bit past active service.
>
>>>I'd think you'd sooner look at the list of Mexican-American War generals
>>>from points north of Virginia--you're more likely to see the big
>>>British-born names of the period still stationed in Asia, I'd think.
>>>
>>>Plus potentially Winfield Scott even though he *was* Virginian--if he
>>>sides with his colony instead, he's the rebels' supreme commander.

No question of that.

>>>I'm not sure if "we were independent once before DURING MY CAREER even"
>>>would be enough to shift his loyalties, since IOTL he would eventually
>>>go Union during the ACW.
>>
>> I can't imagine Britain treating the Confederate leaders in this *ACW
>> kindly at all. I would expect to see a tamer version of the reprisals
>> of 1857 in India - while I can't see the alt-Confederates doing the
>> atrocities that the Indians did particularly against women, I would
>> expect the *ACW to be shorter and much nastier than ours. I'm thinking
>> more of the sort of reprisals done in Ireland 1797-98 and Scotland
>> 1745 here. Remember I previously described the actual war as nasty,
>> brutish and short.
>
>So some grisly fate would await Calhoun?

I would not expect him to be fired out of a cannon (as happened in the
aftermath of 1857 in India) but in our world, the last execution by
hanging drawing and quartering in the British Empire was not in
England but Burlington, ON in the immediate aftermath of the War of
1812. (Wiki records an 1870 hanging with drawing and decapitation
taking place posthumously - the 4 executions in Burlington ON involved
4 Canadians who acted as guides to US forces on the way to burn York
(now known as Toronto)

Since my wife's home town is Burlington I shocked her when I shared
that factoid particularly as it happened in the old city square which
she knows very well as it still exists as something like a tourist
destination and contains artsy stores and a book store. (It's about 3
blocks from the new city square which is part of the city hall
complex)

I'm pretty sure there is no bronze plaque concerning the events of
1816 I just referred to! But in such a case of open rebellion I can
see the British commander executing the rebel commander in this way.

(My source on this incident is Pierre Burton's 2 volume war of 1812
series The Invasion of Canada and Flames Across the Border. My
apologies as I can't remember which of the two records the incident. I
think the former but am not sure.)

On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
<le@top.put.com> wrote:

>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>
>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>> Who owns the Louisiana territory in the proposed TL is anybody's
>> guess? Spain? France? Britain? And did ANY of these have effective
>> control? Yes I know the so called boundaries of Quebec under the
>> British 1770 Quebec Act as well as what France claimed pre-1763.
>> Certainly there is no connection between pre-1763 New France and the
>> Louisiana territory.
>
>There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>is Missouri Territory.

I agree - with a post 1804 POD there's no question who owns greater
Louisiana though I believe none of that territory had achieved
statehood other than Louisiana itself. In OTL that territory went
through all sorts of revision in terms of territorial status as
various parts got hived off either ot be their own separate colony or
reaching statehood. Then there was the agreement with Britain on the
49th parallel as the boundary west of Lake of the Woods to the west
coast which caused Britain and the US to swap claims to various
territories. Obviously in this TL none of that would happen.

The only thing for sure is that if the Louisiana territory was broken
up into lesser units (which I think is what would have happened) they
wouldn't be identical to OTL.

In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
construction began.
>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>
>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>> mainland North America in your scenario.

I do think this is an important point in your TL since it impacts the
entire ethnography of North America. How any of this impacts Spanish
control of "Mexico" (e.g. territories that were Mexican before the
1848 war but are now part of the United States) is beyond me. No
question the question of what happens to Texas is an important
unanswered question since that dictates what happens as far west as
California.

But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
(e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.

I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
the Napoleonic wars.

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>
>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>> Who owns the Louisiana territory in the proposed TL is anybody's
>>> guess? Spain? France? Britain? And did ANY of these have effective
>>> control? Yes I know the so called boundaries of Quebec under the
>>> British 1770 Quebec Act as well as what France claimed pre-1763.
>>> Certainly there is no connection between pre-1763 New France and the
>>> Louisiana territory.
>>
>>There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>is Missouri Territory.
>
> I agree - with a post 1804 POD there's no question who owns greater
> Louisiana though I believe none of that territory had achieved
> statehood other than Louisiana itself. In OTL that territory went
> through all sorts of revision in terms of territorial status as
> various parts got hived off either ot be their own separate colony or
> reaching statehood. Then there was the agreement with Britain on the
> 49th parallel as the boundary west of Lake of the Woods to the west
> coast which caused Britain and the US to swap claims to various
> territories. Obviously in this TL none of that would happen.
>
> The only thing for sure is that if the Louisiana territory was broken
> up into lesser units (which I think is what would have happened) they
> wouldn't be identical to OTL.
>
> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
> construction began.

OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
reorganized.

>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>
>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>
> I do think this is an important point in your TL since it impacts the
> entire ethnography of North America. How any of this impacts Spanish
> control of "Mexico" (e.g. territories that were Mexican before the
> 1848 war but are now part of the United States) is beyond me. No
> question the question of what happens to Texas is an important
> unanswered question since that dictates what happens as far west as
> California.
>
> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>
> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
> the Napoleonic wars.

Madison picked a fight with Britain,Jefferson had not done so.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
<le@top.put.com> wrote:

>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>
>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>is Missouri Territory.

Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)

(Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
Admiral))

>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>> construction began.
>
>OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>reorganized.

I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
status for quite a few places.
>>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>>
>>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>>
>> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
>> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
>> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
>> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>>
>> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
>> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
>> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
>> the Napoleonic wars.
>
>Madison picked a fight with Britain,Jefferson had not done so.

Yep - and one wonders whether the Napoleonic wars would have ended
earlier without the War of 1812.

My guess would be no as by 1812 (a) Britain DEFINITELY ruled the waves
after 1805 and the French Navy was a non-entity and (b) other than
carrying on in Spain did not really have the land strength to compete
with the sizes of armies that took the field in 1812-1814 elsewhere in
Europe.

(In fact the ONLY navy that challenged the Royal Navy even a bit in
that era was the USN which fought an effective frigate war but would
have quickly been smashed in a Trafalgar type battle as they didn't
have 74s nearly on the scale of the RN)

Britain DID take part in the battles of 1814 mostly in the south which
I know mostly because my mother's 5x great-grandfather was wounded at
Toulouse, 1814. (And after that while many of the men of her family
served it was in the navy not army)

On Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 4:26:27 PM UTC+1, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> <l...@top.put.com> wrote:
>
> >The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> >> <l...@top.put.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:
> >>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> >>>> <l...@top.put.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:
> >>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> >>>>>> <l...@top.put.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
> >>>expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
> >>>of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
> >>>is Missouri Territory.
> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>
> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
> Admiral))
>
https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/us_terr_1820.jpg may be of interest.

On 10/19/2021 8:17 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>
>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>> Who owns the Louisiana territory in the proposed TL is anybody's
>>> guess? Spain? France? Britain? And did ANY of these have effective
>>> control? Yes I know the so called boundaries of Quebec under the
>>> British 1770 Quebec Act as well as what France claimed pre-1763.
>>> Certainly there is no connection between pre-1763 New France and the
>>> Louisiana territory.
>>
>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>> is Missouri Territory.
>
> I agree - with a post 1804 POD there's no question who owns greater
> Louisiana though I believe none of that territory had achieved
> statehood other than Louisiana itself. In OTL that territory went
> through all sorts of revision in terms of territorial status as
> various parts got hived off either ot be their own separate colony or
> reaching statehood. Then there was the agreement with Britain on the
> 49th parallel as the boundary west of Lake of the Woods to the west
> coast which caused Britain and the US to swap claims to various
> territories. Obviously in this TL none of that would happen.
>
> The only thing for sure is that if the Louisiana territory was broken
> up into lesser units (which I think is what would have happened) they
> wouldn't be identical to OTL.
>
> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
> construction began.
>
>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>
>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>
> I do think this is an important point in your TL since it impacts the
> entire ethnography of North America. How any of this impacts Spanish
> control of "Mexico" (e.g. territories that were Mexican before the
> 1848 war but are now part of the United States) is beyond me. No
> question the question of what happens to Texas is an important
> unanswered question since that dictates what happens as far west as
> California.
>

I think that even if Texas never does "boo" there are upcoming boundary
issues. People overlook how bad a border the Arkansas River is, and
really none of the other "natural borders" in "Pikes Peak Country" are
overly useful either (there is a reason the Utes and even the Sioux
might be at risk to encounter each other when the latter were on
tipi-pole expeditions).

In addition, it's also one of the most mineral-resource-rich areas of
BNA (the Klondike is a WHOLE lot better off, but that's "Rupert's Land"
at this point, AND it took almost until C. XX to find it even IOTL).

I'm not sure if "allowing European settlement in and beyond the Great
American Desert" is a matter of "if" or "when", but the problem is,
sooner or later SOMEONE other than a Ute, an Arapaho, a Cheyenne, or a
Siouan is going to find gold in either the South Platte or the Arkansas
drainage. I'm not sure if that "someone" is any more likely to be
Mexican--IOTL, no Europeans other than the Bents ever even
semi-permanently settled in what became Colorado until after the
Mexican-American War, and there's not much evidence of anyone even
considering looking for valuable resources in the area--than a BNA subject.

If we get anything even resembling an Adams-Onis without Adams being
involved (or for that matter, if the Court of St. James still presses
him into service, which isn't beyond the realm of possiblity since JQA
was attempting to prevent the war and, pre-war, threatening to secede
New England rather than fight it), then I likely once again get
vindication on my "OTL is literally the ONLY way things could have
unfolded where Europeans reach OTL-Colorado and yet there's never any
full warfare between two groups of them" contention [why ONLY OTL?
Because it also requires preventing a Confederate victory at Glorieta,
and THAT relied entirely on the Rebs allowing their supply train to be
destroyed].

I think that the British Army is a terrible army at that point by
European standards, but that's IOTL, where there was less call for a
formidable army as long as the UK didn't try to get back into the
affairs of Mainland Europe. There are plenty of bloodthirsty Americans
in TTL who would make reasonably-successful officers, particularly if
the USMA was simply folded into the British system rather than closed. I
think that the Mexicans, especially if Santa Anna's rise hasn't been
prevented by knock-ons, are in trouble as soon as one side confronts the
other in the "Pike's Peak country", and that considering the UK
reintegrated the United States in living memory, and DOESN'T have to
worry about increasing slave-state power because almost all of Mexico is
below a geographic line permitting it, the UK may conquer all of it
(probably not the brightest idea, since then they'll have restive
Mexicans, but not beyond imagination).

Of course, that COULD still be prevented. If you don't have anything
like Adams-Onis, then the British may recognise the Spanish claim that
VERY little of what the US held to be Louisiana was (In particular, I
think there were contentions that any right-bank tributary of the
Missouri had always been Spanish and would have been cause for war even
if they'd encountered Frenchmen on it in 1755).

ALL RIGHT, so there's *one* other way to prevent war between two
organised European armies in what becomes OTL-Colorado. Point is still
that BNA isn't looking at any sort of peace even if the Texians never do
bupkiss or indeed even exist as a genuine ethnic group.

>
> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>
> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
> the Napoleonic wars.
>

--
Chrysi Cat
1/2 anthrocat, nearly 1/2 anthrofox, all magical
Transgoddess, quick to anger
Call me Chrysi or call me Kat, I'll respond to either!

On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:04:53 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 10/19/2021 8:17 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>> Who owns the Louisiana territory in the proposed TL is anybody's
>>>> guess? Spain? France? Britain? And did ANY of these have effective
>>>> control? Yes I know the so called boundaries of Quebec under the
>>>> British 1770 Quebec Act as well as what France claimed pre-1763.
>>>> Certainly there is no connection between pre-1763 New France and the
>>>> Louisiana territory.
>>>
>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>
>> I agree - with a post 1804 POD there's no question who owns greater
>> Louisiana though I believe none of that territory had achieved
>> statehood other than Louisiana itself. In OTL that territory went
>> through all sorts of revision in terms of territorial status as
>> various parts got hived off either ot be their own separate colony or
>> reaching statehood. Then there was the agreement with Britain on the
>> 49th parallel as the boundary west of Lake of the Woods to the west
>> coast which caused Britain and the US to swap claims to various
>> territories. Obviously in this TL none of that would happen.
>>
>> The only thing for sure is that if the Louisiana territory was broken
>> up into lesser units (which I think is what would have happened) they
>> wouldn't be identical to OTL.
>>
>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>> construction began.
>>
>>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>>
>>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>>
>> I do think this is an important point in your TL since it impacts the
>> entire ethnography of North America. How any of this impacts Spanish
>> control of "Mexico" (e.g. territories that were Mexican before the
>> 1848 war but are now part of the United States) is beyond me. No
>> question the question of what happens to Texas is an important
>> unanswered question since that dictates what happens as far west as
>> California.
>>
>
>I think that even if Texas never does "boo" there are upcoming boundary
>issues. People overlook how bad a border the Arkansas River is, and
>really none of the other "natural borders" in "Pikes Peak Country" are
>overly useful either (there is a reason the Utes and even the Sioux
>might be at risk to encounter each other when the latter were on
>tipi-pole expeditions).
>
>In addition, it's also one of the most mineral-resource-rich areas of
>BNA (the Klondike is a WHOLE lot better off, but that's "Rupert's Land"
>at this point, AND it took almost until C. XX to find it even IOTL).

Actually the Ruperts Land territory was basically all the territories
that were part of the Hudson's Bay watershed. Klondike is/was west of
the continental divide so no it was not part of the British Ruperts
Land claim.

British and Canadian explorers had reached the northern shore of
continental North America by the end of the 19th century though much
of the Arctic archipelago was unmapped at that point though the entire
archipelago had been mapped by the end of the 1920s.

I >believe< that the St Roch was the first ship to complete the
Northwest Passage though the doomed Franklin expedition came close
much earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Roch_(ship)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition
(I >really< like this page as it has lots of pictures and maps)

(Before I went to England in 2016 I thought Franklin was completely
forgotten though I found that untrue. There is a statue of him in the
lobby of the old Royal Navy chapel at Greenwich and another at
Waterloo place both of which I saw)

>I'm not sure if "allowing European settlement in and beyond the Great
>American Desert" is a matter of "if" or "when", but the problem is,
>sooner or later SOMEONE other than a Ute, an Arapaho, a Cheyenne, or a
>Siouan is going to find gold in either the South Platte or the Arkansas
>drainage. I'm not sure if that "someone" is any more likely to be
>Mexican--IOTL, no Europeans other than the Bents ever even
>semi-permanently settled in what became Colorado until after the
>Mexican-American War, and there's not much evidence of anyone even
>considering looking for valuable resources in the area--than a BNA subject.
>
>If we get anything even resembling an Adams-Onis without Adams being
>involved (or for that matter, if the Court of St. James still presses
>him into service, which isn't beyond the realm of possiblity since JQA
>was attempting to prevent the war and, pre-war, threatening to secede
>New England rather than fight it), then I likely once again get
>vindication on my "OTL is literally the ONLY way things could have
>unfolded where Europeans reach OTL-Colorado and yet there's never any
>full warfare between two groups of them" contention [why ONLY OTL?
>Because it also requires preventing a Confederate victory at Glorieta,
>and THAT relied entirely on the Rebs allowing their supply train to be
>destroyed].
>
>I think that the British Army is a terrible army at that point by
>European standards, but that's IOTL, where there was less call for a
>formidable army as long as the UK didn't try to get back into the
>affairs of Mainland Europe. There are plenty of bloodthirsty Americans
>in TTL who would make reasonably-successful officers, particularly if
>the USMA was simply folded into the British system rather than closed. I
>think that the Mexicans, especially if Santa Anna's rise hasn't been
>prevented by knock-ons, are in trouble as soon as one side confronts the
>other in the "Pike's Peak country", and that considering the UK
>reintegrated the United States in living memory, and DOESN'T have to
>worry about increasing slave-state power because almost all of Mexico is
>below a geographic line permitting it, the UK may conquer all of it
>(probably not the brightest idea, since then they'll have restive
>Mexicans, but not beyond imagination).

I don't think your description of the British Army at that point is at
all far - this is the same army that drove Napoleon out of Spain (yes
they had the help of Spanish irregulars) and beaten Napoleon at
Waterloo and had introduced rifled bullets before any other European
army.

Obviously none of this was unlikely to happen in your scenario but the
Red coats were well respected other than the fact they were relatively
few in number compared to the size of armies that fought at major
Napoleonic battlefields like Austerlitz, Borodino and Waterloo.

>Of course, that COULD still be prevented. If you don't have anything
>like Adams-Onis, then the British may recognise the Spanish claim that
>VERY little of what the US held to be Louisiana was (In particular, I
>think there were contentions that any right-bank tributary of the
>Missouri had always been Spanish and would have been cause for war even
>if they'd encountered Frenchmen on it in 1755).

No doubt a Britain that had decisively won the War of 1812 would have
made that interpretation.

>ALL RIGHT, so there's *one* other way to prevent war between two
>organised European armies in what becomes OTL-Colorado. Point is still
>that BNA isn't looking at any sort of peace even if the Texians never do
>bupkiss or indeed even exist as a genuine ethnic group.
>
>> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
>> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
>> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
>> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>>
>> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
>> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
>> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
>> the Napoleonic wars.
>>
Given what the British army was doing in 1807 (mostly in Britain) vs
1812 (mostly in Spain) I still think you need to have an earlier POD
to make your scenario work.

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>
>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>is Missouri Territory.
>
> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>
> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
> Admiral))
>
>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>> construction began.
>>
>>OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>reorganized.
>
> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
> status for quite a few places.

Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
Mexico.

>>>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>>>
>>> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
>>> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
>>> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
>>> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>>>
>>> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
>>> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
>>> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
>>> the Napoleonic wars.
>>
>>Madison picked a fight with Britain,Jefferson had not done so.
>
> Yep - and one wonders whether the Napoleonic wars would have ended
> earlier without the War of 1812.
>
> My guess would be no as by 1812 (a) Britain DEFINITELY ruled the waves
> after 1805 and the French Navy was a non-entity and (b) other than
> carrying on in Spain did not really have the land strength to compete
> with the sizes of armies that took the field in 1812-1814 elsewhere in
> Europe.
>
> (In fact the ONLY navy that challenged the Royal Navy even a bit in
> that era was the USN which fought an effective frigate war but would
> have quickly been smashed in a Trafalgar type battle as they didn't
> have 74s nearly on the scale of the RN)
>
> Britain DID take part in the battles of 1814 mostly in the south which
> I know mostly because my mother's 5x great-grandfather was wounded at
> Toulouse, 1814. (And after that while many of the men of her family
> served it was in the navy not army)

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>
>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>
>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>> Admiral))
>>
>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>> construction began.
>>>
>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>> reorganized.
>>
>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>> status for quite a few places.
>
> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
> Mexico.
>

This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
before.

Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an
erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.

There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.

If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
be a thought.

And THEORETICALLY, there's a bottom limit for time on water--EVEN ONCE
YOU HAVE STEAM AND POSSIBLY EVEN IF THE TURBINE COMES EARLY-- that isn't
less than 2 1/2 weeks between New York (Washington almost CERTAINLY
having been reduced to a near ghost-town) and Vancouver [WITH some sort
of crossing at Central America, rather than rounding the Horn!] and may
well be greater, though still much better than you'll get without rails
if you cross the land instead.

Basically, British North America with Louisiana and Oregon but without
the right-bank-of-the-Missouri basins is likely a backwater west of the
Minnesota River-Mississippi River confluence and east of Celilo Falls,
indefinitely. OTL-Missouri might be the exception.

It also has very few extra mineral-resource locations over what the
Empire had access to IOTL. There's a reasonable part of OTL-Montana and
the Iron Ranges of OTL-Minnesota, but otherwise, the
Kansas-Oklahoma-Arkansas-Missouri lead belt is in Mexico by this time
after having become Spanish after the reincorporation of the States, and
the Cascades and Oregon Coast Range are much more heavily hit for timber
than for ore.

The problem is, the British have no way of KNOWING that without the
entirety of what Washington claimed to be Louisiana, they're basically
buying a white elephant that will bleed lives--and not all of them clad
in red-- if settled and money if the First Nations are allowed to
continue to remain entirely nomadic. (Of course, if they DO claim the
entirety, we get back to how NIGHTMARISH the Adams-Onis southwestern
border was, and how no one will know it for decades because even the
first New Mexican settlers in OTL-Colorado were already US citizens as
the border had crossed THEM.)

Americans having an annoying knack for filibuster of the non-Senate
sort, they *may* sneak into Mexico and find out how much more
mineral-rich that country is. They obviously can't force a
Mexican-American war before the Second American Revolution, but perhaps
after it, if Westminster or the Palace think that they need the "Pike's
Peak" or California gold to recover?

>
>>>>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada and
>>>>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that almost
>>>>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>>>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>>>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day outcome
>>>>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>>>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they got and
>>>>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>>>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>>>>
>>>> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
>>>> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
>>>> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
>>>> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>>>>
>>>> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
>>>> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
>>>> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
>>>> the Napoleonic wars.
>>>
>>> Madison picked a fight with Britain,Jefferson had not done so.
>>
>> Yep - and one wonders whether the Napoleonic wars would have ended
>> earlier without the War of 1812.
>>
>> My guess would be no as by 1812 (a) Britain DEFINITELY ruled the waves
>> after 1805 and the French Navy was a non-entity and (b) other than
>> carrying on in Spain did not really have the land strength to compete
>> with the sizes of armies that took the field in 1812-1814 elsewhere in
>> Europe.
>>
>> (In fact the ONLY navy that challenged the Royal Navy even a bit in
>> that era was the USN which fought an effective frigate war but would
>> have quickly been smashed in a Trafalgar type battle as they didn't
>> have 74s nearly on the scale of the RN)
>>
>> Britain DID take part in the battles of 1814 mostly in the south which
>> I know mostly because my mother's 5x great-grandfather was wounded at
>> Toulouse, 1814. (And after that while many of the men of her family
>> served it was in the navy not army)
>
> -=-=-
> The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
> at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
>

On 10/24/2021 1:23 AM, Chrysi Cat wrote:
> On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis &
>>>>>> Clark
>>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the
>>>>>> Purchase
>>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>>
>>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>>> Admiral))
>>>
>>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>>> construction began.
>>>>
>>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>>> reorganized.
>>>
>>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>>> status for quite a few places.
>>
>> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
>> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
>> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
>> Mexico.
>>
>
> This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
> timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
> least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
> the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
> most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
> before.
>
> Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
> to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an
> erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
> there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
> of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
> and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
> route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
> Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
> South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.
>
> There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
> completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
> demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
> needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.
>
> If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
> the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
> and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
> Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
> is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
> across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
> great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
> You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
> WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
> Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
> exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
> may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
> shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
> be a thought.
>
>  And THEORETICALLY, there's a bottom limit for time on water--EVEN ONCE
> YOU HAVE STEAM AND POSSIBLY EVEN IF THE TURBINE COMES EARLY-- that isn't
> less than 2 1/2 weeks between New York (Washington almost CERTAINLY
> having been reduced to a near ghost-town) and Vancouver [WITH some sort
> of crossing at Central America, rather than rounding the Horn!] and may
> well be greater, though still much better than you'll get without rails
> if you cross the land instead.
>
> Basically, British North America with Louisiana and Oregon but without
> the right-bank-of-the-Missouri basins is likely a backwater west of the
> Minnesota River-Mississippi River confluence and east of Celilo Falls,
> indefinitely. OTL-Missouri might be the exception.
>
> It also has very few extra mineral-resource locations over what the
> Empire had access to IOTL. There's a reasonable part of OTL-Montana and
> the Iron Ranges of OTL-Minnesota, but otherwise, the
> Kansas-Oklahoma-Arkansas-Missouri lead belt is in Mexico by this time
> after having become Spanish after the reincorporation of the States, and
> the Cascades and Oregon Coast Range are much more heavily hit for timber
> than for ore.
>
> The problem is, the British have no way of KNOWING that without the
> entirety of what Washington claimed to be Louisiana, they're basically
> buying a white elephant that will bleed lives--and not all of them clad
> in red-- if settled and money if the First Nations are allowed to
> continue to remain entirely nomadic. (Of course, if they DO claim the
> entirety, we get back to how NIGHTMARISH the Adams-Onis southwestern
> border was, and how no one will know it for decades because even the
> first New Mexican settlers in OTL-Colorado were already US citizens as
> the border had crossed THEM.)
>
> Americans having an annoying knack for filibuster of the non-Senate
> sort, they *may* sneak into Mexico and find out how much more
> mineral-rich that country is. They obviously can't force a
> Mexican-American war before the Second American Revolution, but perhaps
> after it, if Westminster or the Palace think that they need the "Pike's
> Peak" or California gold to recover?
>
>
>
>

Ugh. "Mexican-British War", obviously, since there's no way the South is
"re"gaining its independence.

>
>
>>>>>>> One aspect to this scenario is that if what is essentially Canada
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> the United Stated merged as a result of the *War of 1812, that
>>>>>>> almost
>>>>>>> certainly changes the ethnic balance in Canada and equally certainly
>>>>>>> means an ethnic settlement along the lines of Lord Durham's report
>>>>>>> never happens. That leads to a radically different present day
>>>>>>> outcome
>>>>>>> for the present territory of Quebec than now exists.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I can't see either Britain or your version of America offering
>>>>>>> French-speaking Quebecers a deal remotely as good as what they
>>>>>>> got and
>>>>>>> I especilally see no way for a dominantly French-speaking state on
>>>>>>> mainland North America in your scenario.
>>>>>
>>>>> But yes I do think your POD of 1812 is dubious given the number of
>>>>> troops required and what in our TL those troops were then doing -
>>>>> though perhaps your scenario is plausible with a slightly earlier
>>>>> (e.g. 1807-08) POD when the British Army was less engaged vs Napoleon.
>>>>>
>>>>> I suggested 1807 because it was well after both Trafalgar and
>>>>> Austerlitz but before Britain was heavily engaged in the Iberian
>>>>> perninsula which was of course the major British land engagement of
>>>>> the Napoleonic wars.
>>>>
>>>> Madison picked a fight with Britain,Jefferson had not done so.
>>>
>>> Yep - and one wonders whether the Napoleonic wars would have ended
>>> earlier without the War of 1812.
>>>
>>> My guess would be no as by 1812 (a) Britain DEFINITELY ruled the waves
>>> after 1805 and the French Navy was a non-entity and (b) other than
>>> carrying on in Spain did not really have the land strength to compete
>>> with the sizes of armies that took the field in 1812-1814 elsewhere in
>>> Europe.
>>>
>>> (In fact the ONLY navy that challenged the Royal Navy even a bit in
>>> that era was the USN which fought an effective frigate war but would
>>> have quickly been smashed in a Trafalgar type battle as they didn't
>>> have 74s nearly on the scale of the RN)
>>>
>>> Britain DID take part in the battles of 1814 mostly in the south which
>>> I know mostly because my mother's 5x great-grandfather was wounded at
>>> Toulouse, 1814. (And after that while many of the men of her family
>>> served it was in the navy not army)
>>
>> -=-=-
>> The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
>> at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
>>
>
>

On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:23:04 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>>
>>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>>> Admiral))
>>>
>>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>>> construction began.
>>>>
>>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>>> reorganized.
>>>
>>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>>> status for quite a few places.
>>
>> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
>> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
>> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
>> Mexico.
>>
>
>This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
>timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
>least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
>the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
>most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
>before.
>
>Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
>to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an

Well actually I never envisioned Britain giving up ANY of the
Louisiana purchase territory - I was more discussing how that vast
territory would be eventually subdivided into smaller territories and
states (if that term in still used in TTL) Because in our timeline the
ONLY North American territory remotely the size of the Louisiana
territory has been the now subdivided (for reasons that have
everything to do with creating aboriginal homelands and nothing to do
with administration) Northwest Territories. And no question the lands
of the Louisiana purchase are considerably more productive than the
NWT.

>erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
>there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
>of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
>and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
>route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
>Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
>South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.

In 1834 the area that is now British Columbia had been explored in the
Georgia Straight area but not substantially north of Vancouver Island
and overland down the headwaters of the Fraser as far as Hope. (Fraser
turned back before getting to the mouth of the Fraser - not sure when
the section from Hope to the sea was first explored) There was no
exploration further north than where the Fraser first turns south then
west to the sea. (The Barkerville gold rush which is about 300 km
north of there) wasn't until about 20 years after that at which time
the upper Fraser was extensively explored.

>There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
>completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
>demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
>needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.

The CPR was completed in 1885. The Great Northern wasn't completed
1893.

>If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
>the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
>and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
>Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
>is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
>across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
>great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
>You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
>WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
>Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
>exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
>may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
>shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
>be a thought.

I'm afraid my specific knowledge of southern US routes comes from Rail
Baron :) (Though I did have a great-great-grandfather who worked on
the Northern Pacific for 40+ years)

> And THEORETICALLY, there's a bottom limit for time on water--EVEN ONCE
>YOU HAVE STEAM AND POSSIBLY EVEN IF THE TURBINE COMES EARLY-- that isn't
>less than 2 1/2 weeks between New York (Washington almost CERTAINLY
>having been reduced to a near ghost-town) and Vancouver [WITH some sort
>of crossing at Central America, rather than rounding the Horn!] and may
>well be greater, though still much better than you'll get without rails
>if you cross the land instead.

You're clearly suggesting the capital of British North America would
have been NYC?

While not related to your scenario, one interesting factoid is that
the last Russian governor of Alaska DIDN'T take up his post via
Siberia (no TransSiberian RR yet) but rather St Petersberg to London,
London to one of the east coast American ports, by train to San
Francisco and by steamer to Sitka (which was the Russian colonial
capital - bear in mind that there were never more than 10000 people in
colonial Alaska of which no more than 3000 were Russian, the rest
mostly Aleuts many of whom were employed by the Russians)

>Basically, British North America with Louisiana and Oregon but without
>the right-bank-of-the-Missouri basins is likely a backwater west of the
>Minnesota River-Mississippi River confluence and east of Celilo Falls,
>indefinitely. OTL-Missouri might be the exception.

In our TL Britain and America didn't settle the Oregon territory
dispute till the 1840s so in TTL anything goes.

>It also has very few extra mineral-resource locations over what the
>Empire had access to IOTL. There's a reasonable part of OTL-Montana and
>the Iron Ranges of OTL-Minnesota, but otherwise, the
>Kansas-Oklahoma-Arkansas-Missouri lead belt is in Mexico by this time
>after having become Spanish after the reincorporation of the States, and
>the Cascades and Oregon Coast Range are much more heavily hit for timber
>than for ore.

On 10/24/2021 9:48 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:23:04 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>>>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>>>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>>>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>>>
>>>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>>>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>>>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>>>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>>>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>>>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>>>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>>>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>>>> Admiral))
>>>>
>>>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>>>> construction began.
>>>>>
>>>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>>>> reorganized.
>>>>
>>>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>>>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>>>> status for quite a few places.
>>>
>>> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
>>> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
>>> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
>>> Mexico.
>>>
>>
>> This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
>> timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
>> least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
>> the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
>> most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
>> before.
>>
>> Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
>> to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an
>
> Well actually I never envisioned Britain giving up ANY of the
> Louisiana purchase territory - I was more discussing how that vast
> territory would be eventually subdivided into smaller territories and
> states (if that term in still used in TTL) Because in our timeline the
> ONLY North American territory remotely the size of the Louisiana
> territory has been the now subdivided (for reasons that have
> everything to do with creating aboriginal homelands and nothing to do
> with administration) Northwest Territories. And no question the lands
> of the Louisiana purchase are considerably more productive than the
> NWT.
>

Ahh. I misunderstood your response here from a different sub-thread:

>>>>>>>>>>>> Of course, that COULD still be prevented. If you don't have anything
>>>>>>>>>>>> like Adams-Onis, then the British may recognise the Spanish claim that
>>>>>>>>>>>> VERY little of what the US held to be Louisiana was (In particular, I
>>>>>>>>>>>> think there were contentions that any right-bank tributary of the
>>>>>>>>>>>> Missouri had always been Spanish and would have been cause for war even
>>>>>>>>>>>> if they'd encountered Frenchmen on it in 1755).
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> No doubt a Britain that had decisively won the War of 1812 would have
>>>>>>>>>>> made that interpretation.
>>>>>>>>>>>

"That interpretation", to me, was that Spain was claiming the right
borders, at the very least for when it gave Louisiana back to France,
and possibly even for its C. XVIII version.

>
>> erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
>> there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
>> of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
>> and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
>> route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
>> Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
>> South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.
>
> In 1834 the area that is now British Columbia had been explored in the
> Georgia Straight area but not substantially north of Vancouver Island
> and overland down the headwaters of the Fraser as far as Hope. (Fraser
> turned back before getting to the mouth of the Fraser - not sure when
> the section from Hope to the sea was first explored) There was no
> exploration further north than where the Fraser first turns south then
> west to the sea. (The Barkerville gold rush which is about 300 km
> north of there) wasn't until about 20 years after that at which time
> the upper Fraser was extensively explored.
>
>> There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
>> completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
>> demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
>> needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.
>
> The CPR was completed in 1885. The Great Northern wasn't completed
> 1893.
>

I'll admit, here I was getting my railroads confused. Somehow it didn't
dawn on me that the NoPac and the GN were two different roads under
competing ownership until well into the SECOND HALF of the C.XX. To the
best of my knowledge there was *one* company operating a direct Twin
Cities--Seattle line.

And yes, all three got finished a _bit_ (with the NoPac first) before
the C.XX. Still, 1885 qualifies as "close" to me; a child born that year
is barely out of grade school by 1900. And even the NoPac only gets you
to 1883.

>
>> If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
>> the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
>> and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
>> Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
>> is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
>> across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
>> great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
>> You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
>> WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
>> Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
>> exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
>> may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
>> shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
>> be a thought.
>
> I'm afraid my specific knowledge of southern US routes comes from Rail
> Baron :) (Though I did have a great-great-grandfather who worked on
> the Northern Pacific for 40+ years)
>

On 10/24/2021 9:48 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:23:04 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>>>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>>>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>>>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>>>
>>>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>>>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>>>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>>>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>>>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>>>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>>>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>>>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>>>> Admiral))
>>>>
>>>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>>>> construction began.
>>>>>
>>>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>>>> reorganized.
>>>>
>>>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>>>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>>>> status for quite a few places.
>>>
>>> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
>>> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
>>> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
>>> Mexico.
>>>
>>
>> This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
>> timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
>> least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
>> the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
>> most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
>> before.
>>
>> Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
>> to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an
>
> Well actually I never envisioned Britain giving up ANY of the
> Louisiana purchase territory - I was more discussing how that vast
> territory would be eventually subdivided into smaller territories and
> states (if that term in still used in TTL) Because in our timeline the
> ONLY North American territory remotely the size of the Louisiana
> territory has been the now subdivided (for reasons that have
> everything to do with creating aboriginal homelands and nothing to do
> with administration) Northwest Territories. And no question the lands
> of the Louisiana purchase are considerably more productive than the
> NWT.
>
>> erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
>> there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
>> of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
>> and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
>> route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
>> Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
>> South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.
>
> In 1834 the area that is now British Columbia had been explored in the
> Georgia Straight area but not substantially north of Vancouver Island
> and overland down the headwaters of the Fraser as far as Hope. (Fraser
> turned back before getting to the mouth of the Fraser - not sure when
> the section from Hope to the sea was first explored) There was no
> exploration further north than where the Fraser first turns south then
> west to the sea. (The Barkerville gold rush which is about 300 km
> north of there) wasn't until about 20 years after that at which time
> the upper Fraser was extensively explored.
>
>> There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
>> completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
>> demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
>> needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.
>
> The CPR was completed in 1885. The Great Northern wasn't completed
> 1893.
>
>> If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
>> the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
>> and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
>> Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
>> is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
>> across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
>> great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
>> You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
>> WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
>> Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
>> exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
>> may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
>> shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
>> be a thought.
>
> I'm afraid my specific knowledge of southern US routes comes from Rail
> Baron :) (Though I did have a great-great-grandfather who worked on
> the Northern Pacific for 40+ years)
>
>> And THEORETICALLY, there's a bottom limit for time on water--EVEN ONCE
>> YOU HAVE STEAM AND POSSIBLY EVEN IF THE TURBINE COMES EARLY-- that isn't
>> less than 2 1/2 weeks between New York (Washington almost CERTAINLY
>> having been reduced to a near ghost-town) and Vancouver [WITH some sort
>> of crossing at Central America, rather than rounding the Horn!] and may
>> well be greater, though still much better than you'll get without rails
>> if you cross the land instead.
>
> You're clearly suggesting the capital of British North America would
> have been NYC?
>

In hindsight, you're right; London (1) wanted it at London (2), and
that's where Epstein put it.

The problem, of course, is that *that* London is so far inland from the
oceans that it adds another week-plus of travel, even if you want to
give the Erie Canal credit for working for once. Once it's trying to run
a continent-wide set of colonies, that's not going to work.

I get that London (1) really doesn't want to feel like encouraging the
American independence movement, and NYC may have some identification
with being their capital (even if it was for a BRIEF time when everyone
knew it couldn't be permanent; remember, even the Continental Congress
never met there but Philly), but since the only part of North America
that's ready to railroad in a reasonable amount of time is well away and
it still makes sense to settle the PNW, that extra travel time is going
to be a big deal. But I also doubt that people along the Willamette and
the Salish Sea are going to want to be directly ruled from Westminster,
nor numerous enough for London to WANT them to have their own assembly
independent of the main one in eastern North America. Besides, after the
Second Revolution, NYC will have proved itself faithfully Loyalist.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 17:59:59 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I'll admit, here I was getting my railroads confused. Somehow it didn't
>dawn on me that the NoPac and the GN were two different roads under
>competing ownership until well into the SECOND HALF of the C.XX. To the
>best of my knowledge there was *one* company operating a direct Twin
>Cities--Seattle line.

If by Twin Cities you mean Minneapolis St Paul no both the GN and NP
were competing for the route to the west coast. However that's more
than 1/2 century after the *War of 1812.

A semi-serious comment: if you want to know in general terms where the
major US rail lines went spend a few hours playing "Rail Baron" -
while I don't think they've got their history completely right they're
pretty accurate on the geography of the game's routes.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 17:59:59 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Thankfully, in TTL, the Great Salt Desert shouldn't be populated by a
>hundred thousand Mormons when it's time to railroad. "Shouldn't",
>however, doesn't necessarily mean "won't". Joseph Smith was, after all,
>born well before even an 1807 PoD; it's just that I find it less likely
>the colonial administrators tolerate his heresies.
>

And of course it wouldn't take all that much of a POD to keep the
Mormons in Jackson County Missouri rather than having them trek off to
the Great Salt Lake. They left Missouri in 1838 so that would be after
our friend's 1834 war. (Of course from that point of view it's easier
to keep the early Mormons in NY)

On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 17:59:59 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Admittedly true, but the big issue is that neither Russia nor
>Spain>>Mexico were making any real claims too far into it. The /dispute/
>doesn't need to be settled, which means the *territory* is more likely
>to be settled ahead of schedule. The biggest risk is that the longer the
>RN needs massive amounts of masts, the more the whole area below 54-40
>is to get denuded--think of the way that New England was constantly
>being harvested for masts and spars before 1775. The biggest risk is
>probably yet ANOTHER boundary dispute with Mexico over where the Oregon
>Country ends and Alta California begins. At least there isn't as much
>risk of the problem being a mineral lode that begins in one country and
>ends in another as there is in OTL-Colorado with its international border?

Well yes and no. A >LOT< of territories both in the western US and
Canada started with a few trading posts here and tehre.

I'm from BC so the history is basically a Hudsons Bay Company trading
post in Victoria, BC followed by coal deposits (now worked out) being
discovered between Nanaimo and Ladysmith BC followed by a gold rush
far inland followed by a formal crown colony with roughly the
boundaries of today. (With the sole exception that the boundary
between American Alaska and British BC wasn't clearly arbitrated until
1903 with the arbitrator - mutually agreed by the US and Canada (with
a strong nudge from Britain) being none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II!)

Anyhow my point is that some of the earliest settlement in what are
now US states and Canadian provinces came from extremely limited
resources.

For what it's worth there is small amounts of flower gold pretty much
down the entire Fraser River system though only at Barkerville were
serious finds found. (We're talking about 'flower gold' being foudn by
gold panners rather than any large deposits - bear in mind that in the
1850-1900 era gold rushes were made on ore of a purity of 4-5 troy
ounces per ton - while 1 oz per ton is a commercially working gold
mine today if the ore body is big enough. There was renewed interest
in the 1970s (gold was worth about 4-5 US$ per troy ounce in 1849 -
it's worth rather more now!) by a group of prospectors to dredge the
1857 (Barkerville) and 1898 (Klondike) tailings points and gravel pits
around deposits trying to extract gold using the more advanced
technologies of the era (by then gold was worth $200-300 per troy
ounce)

On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 17:59:59 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
wrote:

>> All this was of course long before the discovery of oil in Texas (OTL
>> 1880s) and to a far lesser extent in California
>>
>
>I wouldn't say 'far lesser' for California. Bakersfield and L.A. are
>both built over massive oilfields.
>
>For "far lesser", you're probably talking Wyoming (Teapot Dome!) or
>various spots in Colorado again.

Again in a British led expansion into what we call "the old west" you
have that pesky problem of the British Royal Proclamation of 1763
which gave all sorts of rights to the aboriginal populations.

Since in this timeline it's Britain expanding across the continent one
of the scenario's difficult parts is determining how and to what
extent the Royal Proclamation was set aside in the scenario.

In OUR TL, the two major grievances of the American cause was (a)
taxes ("no taxation without represntation") and (b) the British not
all that effective ban on settlement west of the Appalachians. In OTL
the 13 colonies ditched the latter grievance by disavowing anything
mandated by the British Crown. In a world where Britain controls how
and on what terms settlers interact with native tribes. You also DON'T
get the US Indian wars which so reduced aboriginal populations.

Bottom line is that unless you have some maguffin to abrogate the 1763
proclamation, any British led expansion west of the Appalachians is
going to necessarily be much slower than in OTL.

On 10/25/2021 5:49 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 17:59:59 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> All this was of course long before the discovery of oil in Texas (OTL
>>> 1880s) and to a far lesser extent in California
>>>
>>
>> I wouldn't say 'far lesser' for California. Bakersfield and L.A. are
>> both built over massive oilfields.
>>
>> For "far lesser", you're probably talking Wyoming (Teapot Dome!) or
>> various spots in Colorado again.
>
> Again in a British led expansion into what we call "the old west" you
> have that pesky problem of the British Royal Proclamation of 1763
> which gave all sorts of rights to the aboriginal populations.
>
> Since in this timeline it's Britain expanding across the continent one
> of the scenario's difficult parts is determining how and to what
> extent the Royal Proclamation was set aside in the scenario.
>
> In OUR TL, the two major grievances of the American cause was (a)
> taxes ("no taxation without represntation") and (b) the British not
> all that effective ban on settlement west of the Appalachians. In OTL
> the 13 colonies ditched the latter grievance by disavowing anything
> mandated by the British Crown. In a world where Britain controls how
> and on what terms settlers interact with native tribes. You also DON'T
> get the US Indian wars which so reduced aboriginal populations.
>
> Bottom line is that unless you have some maguffin to abrogate the 1763
> proclamation, any British led expansion west of the Appalachians is
> going to necessarily be much slower than in OTL.
>
Spain was moving north from OTL Mexico. Maybe a Spanish find of gold
causes a conflict between Spain and the UK that causes the British to
believe in a more aggressive expansion west. (If nothing else a "Well
shit, maybe there's gold in those areas the Spanish haven't reached
yet!" Maybe something more like what they did in India, co-opting
various existing indigenous nations. Maybe not as many European
settlers as fast and fewer indigenous casualties but still an expansion
of BNA west. I have no idea where (or if) a stable BNA-Spanish border
would end up.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 20:43:25 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

>> Bottom line is that unless you have some maguffin to abrogate the 1763
>> proclamation, any British led expansion west of the Appalachians is
>> going to necessarily be much slower than in OTL.
>>
>Spain was moving north from OTL Mexico. Maybe a Spanish find of gold
>causes a conflict between Spain and the UK that causes the British to
>believe in a more aggressive expansion west. (If nothing else a "Well
>shit, maybe there's gold in those areas the Spanish haven't reached
>yet!" Maybe something more like what they did in India, co-opting
>various existing indigenous nations. Maybe not as many European
>settlers as fast and fewer indigenous casualties but still an expansion
>of BNA west. I have no idea where (or if) a stable BNA-Spanish border
>would end up.

My problem on this is that given the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which
applied to all British North American territories (which created a
problem for the American colonists wanting to expand westwards which
they solved by leaving Britain) western settlement is sharply
curtailed. Therefore to get anything like the degree of western
settlement you got in OTL a British owned North America has to modify
or repeal the proclamation.

That Royal Proclamation was so broad and so sweeping that I have said
Canadians have more reason to hate George III than Americans.

https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/royal_proclamation_1763/

Some have described it as a 'Magna Carta for North American aboriginal
peoples' and that's pretty close to the truth.

On 10/26/2021 9:21 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 20:43:25 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
> <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>>> Bottom line is that unless you have some maguffin to abrogate the 1763
>>> proclamation, any British led expansion west of the Appalachians is
>>> going to necessarily be much slower than in OTL.
>>>
>> Spain was moving north from OTL Mexico. Maybe a Spanish find of gold
>> causes a conflict between Spain and the UK that causes the British to
>> believe in a more aggressive expansion west. (If nothing else a "Well
>> shit, maybe there's gold in those areas the Spanish haven't reached
>> yet!" Maybe something more like what they did in India, co-opting
>> various existing indigenous nations. Maybe not as many European
>> settlers as fast and fewer indigenous casualties but still an expansion
>> of BNA west. I have no idea where (or if) a stable BNA-Spanish border
>> would end up.
>
> My problem on this is that given the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which
> applied to all British North American territories (which created a
> problem for the American colonists wanting to expand westwards which
> they solved by leaving Britain) western settlement is sharply
> curtailed. Therefore to get anything like the degree of western
> settlement you got in OTL a British owned North America has to modify
> or repeal the proclamation.
>
> That Royal Proclamation was so broad and so sweeping that I have said
> Canadians have more reason to hate George III than Americans.
>
> https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/royal_proclamation_1763/
>
> Some have described it as a 'Magna Carta for North American aboriginal
> peoples' and that's pretty close to the truth.
>
I'm expecting in the scenario I proposed that the Crown _does_ modify or
eliminate the 1763 decree. That was the point of it, to give the UK a
reason to rescind or modify it.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:23:04 -0600, Chrysi Cat <Chrysicat@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On 10/23/2021 10:02 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:53:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:50:26 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:13:38 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:15:53 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>>>>>>>>>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no POD before 1812 so the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark
>>>>>>> expedition happen as in OTL.Orleans Territory has become the state
>>>>>>> of Louisiana before it becomes a crown colony.The rest of the Purchase
>>>>>>> is Missouri Territory.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the clarification on the Louisiana Purchase territories - I
>>>> knew Louisiana had become a state by 1812 but was unclear whether the
>>>> remainder was still a single territory or had been chopped up further.
>>>> I was not at all in doubt who owned those lands in 1812 :)
>>>>
>>>> (Obviously in OTL it DID get chopped up between 1812 and 1860 but I
>>>> would have to refer to my books to get the details - I don't have
>>>> state dates of joining the Union committed to memory except for AZ, AK
>>>> and HI - the latter two being during my childhood and AZ as the answer
>>>> to who were the most recent presidential candidates not to be born in
>>>> a US state. The answers to that are Goldwater - born two years before
>>>> AZ statehood - and McCain - born on an overseas US naval base (which
>>>> ought not to be that big a surprise as his father was a serving
>>>> Admiral))
>>>>
>>>>>> In the context of 1812 I cannot imagine the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>>> territory all being ruled from New Orleans particularly once railway
>>>>>> construction began.
>>>>>
>>>>> OTL Missouri Territory as of 1812 included the Louisiana Purchase
>>>>> EXCEPT for the already-formed State of Louisiana,and was based in
>>>>> St. Louis...that's what would be inherited by the Empire.
>>>>> Between then and 1834 it might or might not be redivided or
>>>>> reorganized.
>>>>
>>>> I completely agree - I'm just saying once railway construction starts
>>>> that pretty much mandates either statehood or separate territory
>>>> status for quite a few places.
>>>
>>> Railroad construction is pretty limited by 1834.
>>> I suppose after the slavers are suppressed there might
>>> be plans for a transcontinental route that would not enter
>>> Mexico.
>>>
>>
>>This, however, is also a case of "being in the Empire might speed up the
>>timetable anyway"; UK rail technology ran ahead of US into the 1880s at
>>least IOTL. Think about what the UK had by the time of the driving of
>>the Silver Spike on the Kansas Pacific at Strasburg, in particular, but
>>most of that had already been completed before the Golden Spike a year
>>before.
>>
>>Well, assuming that Horny's wrong, and someone in London decides to try
>>to keep all of Louisiana. If they instead just let Spain, as an
>
> Well actually I never envisioned Britain giving up ANY of the
> Louisiana purchase territory - I was more discussing how that vast
> territory would be eventually subdivided into smaller territories and
> states (if that term in still used in TTL) Because in our timeline the
> ONLY North American territory remotely the size of the Louisiana
> territory has been the now subdivided (for reasons that have
> everything to do with creating aboriginal homelands and nothing to do
> with administration) Northwest Territories. And no question the lands
> of the Louisiana purchase are considerably more productive than the
> NWT.
>
>>erstwhile ally. have the Kaw, Platte and Yellowstone watersheds, then
>>there's really no great need for a railroad west from St. Louis to much
>>of anywhere. I suppose Council Bluffs is still a good place for a town,
>>and to run a railroad to, but I'm not sure anything *resembling* a great
>>route from there up the Missouri's left bank and then out to the Oregon
>>Country exists (and out to Vancouver or points north is WORSE). North of
>>South Pass, the Rockies are a BEAR to cross.
>
> In 1834 the area that is now British Columbia had been explored in the
> Georgia Straight area but not substantially north of Vancouver Island
> and overland down the headwaters of the Fraser as far as Hope. (Fraser
> turned back before getting to the mouth of the Fraser - not sure when
> the section from Hope to the sea was first explored) There was no
> exploration further north than where the Fraser first turns south then
> west to the sea. (The Barkerville gold rush which is about 300 km
> north of there) wasn't until about 20 years after that at which time
> the upper Fraser was extensively explored.
>
>>There is a REASON the Great Northern and Canada Pacific railways were
>>completed around the start of the C.XX, and it's not *just* that the
>>demand for them didn't exist until then. Even the tunnel-free routes
>>needed tech that 1860 wouldn't have IOTL, let alone the 30s.
>
> The CPR was completed in 1885. The Great Northern wasn't completed
> 1893.
>
>>If you don't have access to the Great Divide Basin (or South Pass, but
>>the rationale for letting Spain->->Mexico have the Great Divide Basin
>>and NOT South Pass is pretty limited) or to the path OTL's Southern
>>Pacific--ATSF combined line (which in Horny's version of this timeline
>>is VERY safely within Mexico except at its head, where you can see BNA
>>across the river from OTL-Atchison) traces, you really don't have a
>>great reason to want to railroad across the continent sooner than that.
>>You may WELL have a very good reason to want to increase the speed of
>>WATER transportation and in particular to build either the Nicaragua or
>>Panama canal, but of course those canals *also* require tech that can't
>>exist much before 1890. Though an overland ship-transportation railway
>>may be available sooner and even transshipping everything and having
>>shipping routes timed to intersect at ends of a "normal" railway might
>>be a thought.
>
> I'm afraid my specific knowledge of southern US routes comes from Rail
> Baron :) (Though I did have a great-great-grandfather who worked on
> the Northern Pacific for 40+ years)
>
>> And THEORETICALLY, there's a bottom limit for time on water--EVEN ONCE
>>YOU HAVE STEAM AND POSSIBLY EVEN IF THE TURBINE COMES EARLY-- that isn't
>>less than 2 1/2 weeks between New York (Washington almost CERTAINLY
>>having been reduced to a near ghost-town) and Vancouver [WITH some sort
>>of crossing at Central America, rather than rounding the Horn!] and may
>>well be greater, though still much better than you'll get without rails
>>if you cross the land instead.
>
> You're clearly suggesting the capital of British North America would
> have been NYC?

My scenario is that it's London,Ontario.
I readily expect that NYC would prosper but someplace
between the previous Canadian and USA centers would be
appropriate,and London was built with the intention of
its becoming Canadian capital,with the removal of a
Canada-USA border issue its proximity to the border would
no longer weigh against it.
> While not related to your scenario, one interesting factoid is that
> the last Russian governor of Alaska DIDN'T take up his post via
> Siberia (no TransSiberian RR yet) but rather St Petersberg to London,
> London to one of the east coast American ports, by train to San
> Francisco and by steamer to Sitka (which was the Russian colonial
> capital - bear in mind that there were never more than 10000 people in
> colonial Alaska of which no more than 3000 were Russian, the rest
> mostly Aleuts many of whom were employed by the Russians)
>
>>Basically, British North America with Louisiana and Oregon but without
>>the right-bank-of-the-Missouri basins is likely a backwater west of the
>>Minnesota River-Mississippi River confluence and east of Celilo Falls,
>>indefinitely. OTL-Missouri might be the exception.
>
> In our TL Britain and America didn't settle the Oregon territory
> dispute till the 1840s so in TTL anything goes.

On Tue, 26 Oct 2021 17:08:01 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

>> That Royal Proclamation was so broad and so sweeping that I have said
>> Canadians have more reason to hate George III than Americans.
>>
>> https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/royal_proclamation_1763/
>>
>> Some have described it as a 'Magna Carta for North American aboriginal
>> peoples' and that's pretty close to the truth.
>>
>I'm expecting in the scenario I proposed that the Crown _does_ modify or
>eliminate the 1763 decree. That was the point of it, to give the UK a
>reason to rescind or modify it.

OK - I missed where you said that previously. No question a fully in
force Royal Proclamation kills your scenario. There would certainly be
no post-1865 US Cavalry vs Indian wars in a scenario with this
proclamation in force.