What role did Great Britain play in the Civil War?

Question

A) Davis threatened to declare war if England delivered two ironclad rams built for the Union.
B) England needed northern wheat more than southern cotton.
C) Strong public support in England for the North made no difference in British policies.
D) Great Britain strongly supported the Union in every way possible throughout the war.

Answer 1

B. Britain had suffered through many bad harvests and desperately needed the wheat. They got cotton from Egypt and India. Britain mostly tried to remain neutral, but ended up giving a lot of support to the Confederacy.

Answer 2

By July 1862 the supply of raw cotton to Britain had dwindled to one third of its pre-war level. Three quarters of the cotton mill workers were unemployed or on short time, and charity and the dole could not ward off hardship and restiveness in many Lancashire working class districts. The Chancellor of the Exchequor, Willian E Gladstone, feared there would be an outbreak of rioting unless something was done to relieve the distress. Gladstone favoured a British intevention to stop the war, thus improving the flow of cotton across the Atlantic.

Despite the hardships however, rather surprisingly, the attitute of British textile workers was not in general opposed to the conflict. An American Minister, Charles Adams, writing in December 1862, commented that whilst "the great body of the aristocracy and commercial classes are anxious to see the United States go to pieces", there was still a lot of sympathy among the middle and lower classes towards the struggle against slavery. There were, it must be admitted, a few demonstrations by the working classes but these seem to be aimed more at the British Government for the poverty and unemployment being suffered rather then against the Americans themselves. Support for the Union came also from leading radicals like Karl Marx and John Bright who saw the conflict as a Class struggle, and from Liberal interlectuals who saw the Southern states as a "power of evil" and an "enemy of progress".

Nor did the loss of cotton imports have a deferential effect on the British ecomomy. Workers in wool, flax, armaments, shipping and other industries actually benefited from the increased wartime trade.

The Confederacy rather shot itself in the foot at the beginning of the war by placing an embargo on the sale of raw cotton to England and France. Unfortunately the South had over-exported in 1860 resulting in English warehouses still being heavily stocked with cotton awaiting processing. By the time they changed their mind in 1862 and recommenced exports, the British had already obtained alternative supplies from Egypt and India. From then on the Union blockade would make it increasingly difficult for vessels to make the voyage.

Also, successive crop failures in Europe, at that time, made the importing of Grain more important for a while than the importation of cotton-The supply of American grain coming mainly from the Northern States of the Union.

Napoleon III of France toyed briefly the notion of recognising the Confederate States but would not commit to such an action unless the British did so also. This, of course, by the Confederates' idiotic attempt at Economic blackmail, had been made an impossible and unpopular concept to the English.

Answer 3

Hello,

Britain continually did trade with the South (for cotton) and gave their ships shelter and sanctuary in ports around her empire. The Tallahassee in Halifax, Nova Scotia is a classic example.

http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/MaraudersCivilWar/CSSTallahassee.html

They also built the Alabama disguised as a merchant ship on paper but really as a warship and blockade runner; hence the Alabama claims during and after the civil war.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cw/17610.htm

Cheers,

Michael

Answer 4

B. England found better sources of cotton in Egypt and India.

Answer 5

Which civil war - there has been hundreds

Answer 6

A