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Scrambled
Eggs Are Different From Fried Eggs:
An Alternate American Revolution
© Final Sword Productions 2002
Scott Palter
agingcow2345@hotmail.com
In OTL the first battles of the American Revolution took place in
1775. The year's campaign ended with Arnold being narrowly repulsed
before Quebec. The British sent major forces to put down the
Rebellion. They garrisoned Canada and the frontier, while also
taking NY and most of NJ in 1776. In 1777 they took Philadelphia,
but a second invasion was defeated at Saratoga, prompting France to
enter the war against her ancient enemy. The French entry began the
process of turning the war from a colonial campaign into a world war
involving the major powers. The principal theater ceased to be the
13 colonies. Instead the West Indies, India and English Channel
became the main arenas of struggle. Spain entered a few years
later. Holland joined the alliance shortly thereafter. The bulk of
the rest of the continent formed a League of Armed Neutrality. The
combined pressure caused Britain to allow American independence.
The cost of the war ultimately was a major factor in bringing down
the French Monarchy. This in turn ushered in 22 years of world
struggle.
Now sometimes in history A follows B for a reason. Thus the
Secession Crisis in 1860 was brought on by the election of Lincoln.
Lincoln's election must happen before the Secession Crisis can
begin. Sometimes things run separately and it is purely a matter of
chance what happens when. I propose to take the events of OTL and
scramble their order. This is the major change. It will be aided
by some changes of secondary factors. Just as scrambled eggs are
different than fried eggs although both are cooked in a pan with
eggs and butter.
Our changes will start in the autumn of 1775. First we will arrange
the enlistments of the army invading Quebec such that the bulk of
them do not expire at year's end. It was very hard to get American
troops to enlist for more than a year. It would not have been
impossible to recruit these men in August – September of 1775 for
twelve months.
Second, the logic of when the French first began to see the American
rebels as a useful tool in their perpetual struggle with Perfidious
Albion does not require waiting until 1777. That is in fact when it
happened in OTL. However, Britain's problems in Boston were hardly
a secret in Paris. Let the French Court allow Lafayette to raise a
legion to aid the brave rebels right after Lexington and Concord.
Let this aid include reflagging some French ships (of war and
transports) with colonial colors and captains (think the Alabama,
Florida and Shenandoah in the USCW). This force will sail from
Brest supposedly to join Washington before Boston. Instead it sails
to the Maine coast, where it picks up Arnold's troops. By going to
an unexpected place it avoids the RN. Instead of Arnold's men
suffering ungodly hardships slogging through the wet and wooded
wilderness, they are conveyed by water to Quebec. With a French
force (Lafayette's Legion under the colonial flag but obviously
French) as part of the invasion, the Quebec Catholics rise to
support it (in OTL they stayed with the British). The tiny British
garrison is overwhelmed. Arnold takes Quebec. As in OTL Montgomery
takes Montreal. With the heartland of Quebec ours, the frontier
forts quickly fall, the British garrisons being accorded the honors
of war pending exchange.
Now this minor set of changes in a secondary theater will have major
consequences. First, the British are out of the Old Northwest by
mid 1776 and thus unable to wage Indian war on the frontier. (In
OTL this change took until 1815). This will cause changes to be
felt a few years later. For now there will not be a frontier war to
drain off colonial military attention during the Revolution.
Second, faced with a clear colonial victory, France will formally
enter the war in early 1776. French entry triggers a change in
British policy. Only here that change happens before the British
commit major forces to North America. What would have been the
armies and naval squadrons sent to Canada and New York go
elsewhere. New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia never fall. Valley
Forge, Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga, the long siege of New York all
never happen. The 15 colonies (Quebec and Nova Scotia are now
members of the Continental Congress) will still declare independence
on July 3rd, 1776 (announced on July 4th).
Instead of Howe and Cornwallis going to NYC, they head south. Howe,
with his brother the admiral, takes Santo Domingo. Cornwallis takes
New Orleans. Lafayette and Greene spend the year getting Quebec
organized and garrisoning the frontier. Washington will send a
force under Rodgers and Morgan to secure Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Congress' favorite general, Gates will organize a loose
observation force in the vicinity of Halifax (the logistics make a
siege a joke – Gates would be lucky to supply a few thousand men
just making a presence in the province).
Having taken New Orleans, the few French in the large interior of
the province will need to draw what little supply they can through
Canada. Lafayette's Legion will send a detachment to show French
reinforcement, this time proudly under their own French flags. They
will bring Quebec militia and Indian auxiliaries. The combined
force will be under 2,000 men but it will preserve everything north
of Baton Rouge for France.
Instead of pursuing inland, the British will make their southern
campaign ahead of schedule. Without the burden of protecting their
port enclaves as OTL and with no Canada to defend (they keep
Louisburg, Halifax, Labrador, Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay), they
can easily abandon any thought of retaking all the colonies. The
West Indies are far more valuable. Georgia was the most loyal of
the colonies. They already held the Floridas. So Cornwallis will
take Savannah in 1777 and Charleston in 1778. He and Washington
will duel across the Carolinas and Virginia until the entry of other
powers, and thus the needs of other fronts, will compel British
pullback.
Peace will find a very different configuration than our 1783. We
will hold Canada (less the pieces noted above excepting Halifax that
the British will evacuate). The French will sell us the rump of
Louisiana (financed by a loan in Amsterdam). They are even more
broke than in OTL and see little use in an undefined inland area
with no visible resources (as the boundaries are undefined we will
wind up claiming it includes everything west of Buffalo that does
not have someone else's fort with a major settlement – it is the
opening wedge on everything from Oregon to the Hudson's Bay interior
to Utah). Britain will keep what is now the state of Louisiana,
Georgia, Charleston and coastal South Carolina. The area southwards
towards the Gulf from Tennessee will be a no man's land left for the
future to settle.
Many of the pro-British Indians will have migrated into Georgia and
this southwestern area. Whole tribes and pieces of tribes will move
to where their protector's forts were. Thus the Indian warfare of
1775-1815 will take place on a line from Myrtle Beach through
Augusta across to Memphis and then west of the Mississippi into
Arkansas instead of around the Great Lakes. Pontiac and Tecumseh
will lead the nations, but in a different region. The Middle West
and Ontario will be settled more quickly, the South less so.
Next, the 7 years of war across the heart of Dixie's plantation zone
will be the death of chattel slavery in the America. As a wartime
measure the British army freed slaves (and often then press ganged
them). The bulk of the freedmen will follow the British south. They
will leave behind a South as badly in ruins as Sherman left in OTL.
Seven years of brutal manuver and partisan warfer. There will be no
Dixie frontier after the Revolution for slavery to expand into as
long as the British remain in their new Dixie dominion (named the
Dominion of Georgia in honor of the King). So the wave of abolition
that swept the US after the Revolution will encompass the South.
The Carolinas will be the last to emancipate, but they will.
The Tory exodus will contain fewer upper class city dwellers and
more southern highlanders. Instead of going to Canada, it will go
mostly to New Orleans and Texas. The British will at the peace
finish their Caribbean sweep. They will have taken every island,
the Atlantic coast of Central America from Costa Rica northwards
through Guatemala, and Texas. So the million or so Tories, freedmen
and civilized Indians will wind up everywhere from Aruba to San
Antonio. The poor Cajuns are again displaced, this time northwards
into Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee.
Unlike in OTL, France will be decisively defeated. In OTL, the
American theater was a ball and chain on the British war effort.
The British Ministry would not easily abandon what it already held.
Here, there was nothing held beyond impregnable Halifax. Field
forces in the Carolinas are less of a strain than a giant garrison
in a besieged NYC (which was the bulk of the war in OTL).
For France, the losses will be a blessing. Fated in the longrun to
lose in India and the Americas, an earlier more decisive defeat now
will simply make it easier for France to concentrate on the
continent in the war to come. There will be no wasted expeditions
to the West Indies during the 22 years war. Bourbon Spain will have
lost more to England. Faced with an aggressive Georgia across the
Caribbean, it will remain more loyal to Napoleon, possibly leading
to the Spanish ulcer never occurring.
In terms of US politics, the rump of Dixie is much weaker. The mid-
Atlantic states are spared years of war damage and are much
stronger. However, as there is no need for an Erie Canal, NYC will
develop more slowly and Canada more quickly. However, without the
need to placate the South at the constitutional convention it will
become and remain the national capital.
Quebec's being part of the US will have a major change
constitutionally. The First Amendment will be stated more clearly.
While the national government cannot have an established church, a
state may. The establishment of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec
will be the price of their staying in the nation.
The US will fight Britain a second time. I think we would not have
done as bad a job as we did 1812-14. This time Britain would hold
soil we would regard as ours, stimulating more nationalism than the
blatant land grab in OTL. Also the logistics are easier than what
for us was a war on a far frontier in OTL. New England might also
have been a tad less unruly. Quebec and the Francophones would have
wished to liberate Lousiana. So, in a marginally better war, we
invest Charleston without taking it, grab some land in north Georgia
above where Atlanta is now and chase the Indians southwards in the
disputed zone. The big battles would be in Louisiana. I see no
chance of the US running a British Army out of New Orleans.
However, Jackson was a good fighter. Let us give him Baton Rouge, a
hunk of northwest Louisiana and what is now Oklahoma.
However, the Dominion of Georgia survives. The British give up
coastal South Carolina at the peace and accept the frontier
rectifications noted above. The boundaries between Canada and
Hudson's Bay will also be demarcated, largely to the benefit of the
US. In return the US formally acknowledges the permanent separation
of the remaining parts of British North America.
So we still have two English speaking nations on the continent.
However, the USCW will never happen. Jackson will become President
but as a westerner, not a southerner. He will lack the power to
disband the Bank of the US. Instead he will settle for its being
brought under firmer national control. The first US RR will be as a
portage on the St. Lawrence rapids.
Georgia will be a more active player in Latin American politics than
a more disinterested UK ever was. It will slowly absorb the
Caribbean islands as it will get responsible government in the
1840's.
The Mexican War will still happen as the southern border of Texas
will be just as debatable. However, this time an Imperial Army will
march to Mexico City, and, unlike the US Army under Scott, it will
stay. The US will instead declare war concurrently to settle its
border between Louisiana and Mexico. It will grab California,
Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora and Baja. Britain will abandon its
residual claims in the Oregon country in return for the US not
marching further south. With Canada an American state, the bulk of
the population of the region will be American. Britain will make
the decision that holding an isolated port at Vancouver or Victoria
simply isn't worth the expense.
With the border settled, the US-British rapprochement of 1895 in OTL
will happen in 1850, before the Irish can assimilate sufficiently to
become a major power in American politics. Britain will sell us
Hudson's Bay and Labrador in return for a firm border treaty with
newly expanded Georgia and an alliance.
All this from a few changes in 1775, making a most unusual breakfast
of our scrambled eggs.
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