1862

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1862 (Robert Conway)

The Trent Affair rears it’s ugly head again.

One of the great ‘what-ifs’ of the American Civil War is the Trent Affair, the moment when it looked as if Great Britain would go to war with the United States, on the side of the Confederacy. It has also achieved a kind of notoriety within the Alternate History Community…as the POD used by Harry Harrison’s loathed and detested Stars and Stripes trilogy. Harrison ignored all the principles of good AH, did almost no research whatsoever, and created a disaster.

And now Robert Conway (known for the very good and original 1901) has produced a book on the same POD.

It’s better than Harrison’s work, but not by much.

The basic plot is essentially the same. The Trent Affair takes place as in OTL, but in this case Britain seems determined to take advantage of the affair to clip the wings of the United States, sending an army to Canada and help to the CSA. The war then roars backwards and forwards until most of Canada is taken by the USA and Britain breaks with the CSA after discovering that the CSA intends to default on a promise to scrap slavery, post-war. There are a handful of interesting, if slightly improbable, characters, including a slave who leads a revolt against the CSA, only to end up dead.

But the devil, as always, is in the details…and it is there that Conway’s work falls down. I noticed several dozen inaccurate statements, some of which have a very definite bearing on the course of the war, and even a handful of blatant hand-waving incidents. Most importantly, these revolve around the vastly greater number of British soldiers (counting militia) that would have been available, Britain’s position as the largest manufacturing nation on the planet at the time, and the use of saltpetre to make gunpowder. The only moment of large-scale realism in the book comes from the US invasion of Canada, which might well succeed…but would cost the US dearly and they would probably have to return it at the peace conference. The Irish, fresh from a ludicrous position in Harrison’s novel, return now in a slightly less silly position, but only slightly. At least the cliché of Noble Americans Freeing The Irish Serfs And Liberating Ireland is avoided.

And the characters! Lord Palmerston – depicted here as a warmongering fool – was in reality determined to avoid a war with the United States. It would have been pretty unpopular in Britain unless the Trent Affair was much, much, worse. Note, here, that Lincoln goes out of his way to appease Britain. Patrick Cleburne was an unknown at the time of the book and hardly a significant figure. Winfield Scott was old and tired. Lee (perhaps the most important CSA character in OTL) is barely mentioned. Lord Cardigan was unlikely to be trusted with a significant command.

Fundamentally, the United States was NOT winning the Civil War in 1862. McClellan was too timid to launch a major offensive and public confidence in actual victory was falling rapidly. The idea that ‘good old American know-how’ could change the fundamental issues is a little far-fetched when one considers that the British not only had their ironclads already, but superior ones to the Yankee Monitor. The CSA ironclad is apparently butterflied out of existence – WTF? The British waste time and effort sinking ships they could have captured with ease; its as if they came up with a brilliant tactic without having anything, but a vague idea of what they actually wanted to do with it. This…mediocre British performance continues; not only do they not think about possible ways to end the war on their terms, but they don’t seem to consider anything apart from picking on the Yanks. In contrast, the Americans are so confident of ultimate victory that they casually antagonise France – over Mexico – as well. There is no way that the US could pull off an overwhelming victory within a year against the CSA on its own, let alone Britain and perhaps France as well.

Overall, I can only rate this novel as possessing two stars at most. There are some amusing moments, including a gratuitous lesbian love scene and Pinkerton being treated as a peeping tom (the former would probably not have happened in OTL), but mostly Nathan Hunter – the American hero – spends his time associating with the most significant figures in the war…in-between trying to seduce the heroine. These little moments of character development actually detract from the plot, and the failure to treat anyone not from the USA as an intelligent person makes it worse. Even the Japanese of 1945 had their sane people in positions of power. You can get away with bad AH if you write a compelling story, but this story is neither compelling nor convincing. It wouldn’t have been like that.

A critical analysis of the novel is at: http://www.geocities.com/littlegreenmen.geo/RC1862.htm

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