Recently, I did publish an article about what I called "the Cuban missile crisis of the Victorian era" otherwise known as the Trent Affair. In a nutshell, in 1861 the United States and Great Britain nearly went to war right in the middle of the American Civil War. I explored more of the details of that potential conflict there, but I have one little detail I would like to explore more in depth here. And that is the naval war.
With the war ostensibly starting over a ship seized at sea, it seems only logical to examine how the war might be fought on that front. I won't be going too deep into the ideas of battles between ships, fleet strengths, and other issues, which I touched upon briefly in my last article. And I've done some musing on what battles might look like and who would win, but that is a far more detailed analysis than I aim to provide here. Instead I want to examine what the United States had felt would be its most effective weapon, commerce raiding.
History buffs who know about either the War of 1812 or have read about German naval activity in WWI and WWII are no doubt familiar with those campaigns, but for anyone curious, in a nutshell here's why these tactics are adopted. A naval power with a battlefleet inferior to its opponent, like the US in 1812 or the Germans in either world war, will often decide to strike at their opponents commerce in order to take ships out of the line of battle that would otherwise be used against their own navy. This is not a war winning strategy, but it can have very powerful effects economically. Insurance for British shipping rose precipitously in each of these wars, and it caused millions lost in both money and supplies, with raiders making some areas incredibly unsafe for any neutral ships.
In a world where steam powered warships will be chasing sail powered merchant vessels, this will undoubtedly be even more disastrous!
We don't need to look to far to come across an apt historical comparison for how this campaign might look, the American Civil War had its own commerce raiders from the Confederate side. The most famous was the CSS Alabama whose global cruises captured 66 ships, sunk a Union warship, and caused over 6 million in damages. And that was merely one raider, which means we could expect the Union to do even more damage British commerce than the Alabama did to Union commerce right?
Surprisingly, probably not.
To be clear, I'm not making an argument that the US navy could not hurt British commerce, far from it, but merely that there would be large impediments to their ability to do so.
For starters, in no scenario in the hypothetical war does the United States Navy have freedom of action. Its vessels will, within a few weeks, be largely bottle up in harbor by a Royal Navy blockade. This happened in the War of 1812, and would happen here by and large. Like the Confederates proved, many would be able to run the blockade, but the American squadrons would, in few cases, want to seek action with their British counterparts. That means that it would be individual raiders running the blockade to attack British commerce.
Secondly, allow me to illustrate something. Here is a map of the routes taken by Alabama and some ports of call she utilized to keep her world cruise going:
Sharp eyed geographers will note that almost all the ports of call utilized by the raider are British ports of call, which would make them inaccessible to Union warships. This means they will have to take on supplies in neutral ports which are few and far between.
Thirdly, the reason for that, is that the Royal Navy had peacetime stations all around the world to protect its empire and its maritime trade routes. Every major crossing from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn could see a British warship patrolling it. These stations were given modest reinforcements during the crisis historically (but by no means major ones) and would possibly have received more as the war went on.
To illustrate why this is a problem, allow me to quote Rafael Semmes in his cruise from the Alabama on why he was successful for so long:
The time had now arrived for me to stretch over to the Cape of Good Hope. I had been three months near the equator, and on the coast of Brazil, and it was about time that some of Mr. Welles’ ships of war, in pursuance of the tactics of that slow old gentleman, should be making their appearance on the coast in pursuit of me. I was more than ever astonished at the culpable neglect or want of sagacity of the head of the Federal Navy Department, when I arrived on the coast of Brazil, and found no Federal ship of war there. Ever since I had left the island of Jamaica, early in January, I had been working my way, gradually, to my present cruising ground. My ship had been constantly reported, and any one of his clerks could have plotted my track, from these reports, so as to show him, past all peradventure, where I was bound…the old gentleman does not seem once to have thought of so simple a policy as stationing a ship anywhere. The reader who has followed the Alabama in her career thus far, has seen how many vital points he left unguarded. His plan seemed to be, first to wait until he heard of the Alabama being somewhere, and then to send off a number of cruisers, post-haste, in pursuit of her, as though he expected her to stand still, and wait for her pursuers! This method of his left the game entirely in my own hands
Essentially, because the Union had pulled back its smaller peacetime presence to blockade the Confederacy it did not have enough ships to hand to station them at any point where they might block a Confederate raider. The Royal Navy by contrast has, and will continue to have, these peace time stations all over the world. This combination of port facilities in British hands and a larger global naval presence means that any Union commerce raiders would face daunting odds at making their presence felt. There is no doubt they would cause problems, but these would not be ones which are insurmountable.
Though I can already hear the question, why would the United States not just swamp the British with hordes of privateers? To answer that question one must, ironically, be familiar with the end of the Crimean War and the Declaration of Paris.
In an oddity, the negotiations there set down the decree that European nations would no longer be willing to indulge private navy's or the commissioning of commerce raiders. The United States, being aware of its smaller navy and the potential for action against Britain, declined to sign. Enter the Civil War, and the United States realizes that by not being a signer of the Declaration, the European powers would have no reason to respect their wishes and a fleet of Confederate privateers might pummel their global shipping. Quickly, they declared they would abide by the Declaration and so the ports of Europe closed themselves to prizes from Confederate raiders, which resulted in the Confederacy being unable to profit from their raids, and so had to burn them.
If the United States found itself at war with Britain, they would face a similar problem. Privateers would find themselves shut out of European ports, or prize vessels simply seized and returned to their owners (as happened to the CSS Tuscaloosa). This would dent and deny the US any monetary prize for their work. No private raiders, but plenty of commissioned warships with commissioned crews converted from merchant steamers.
Finally, the British have a system that they would turn to in 1812 and both world wars, convoys. This is a slower system to be sure, but in 1812 it meant that ships in convoy were rarely lost, it denied the American raiders any easy prey, and it would get supplies to the war front in a reliable manner. Such a system would assuredly be turned to in any American war. I certainly imagine that the British Admiralty may hesitate to do so for a while, believing steam merchantmen can outrun their pursuers, but pressure will eventually make this a necessity.
The American merchant fleet, on the other hand, will have no such luck. Much like historically, where it re-flagged en masse to escape Confederate predations, it would find itself either captured, re-flagged, or simply swept from the seas.
Much like the Confederates in the historical civil war, the Germans in the world wars, or even the Americans in 1812, this would not be a war winning strategy in any hypothetical Trent War. Much worse for the US than 1812 is that the Royal Navy would not be distracted by a conflict with France, and so be able to devote its attentions to the US. The war at sea would be hard fought, and cost many lives and ships, but the commerce war would be lost on the first day.
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