One Front, Two Front, Red Front, Blue Front

TFSmith is fond of stating, in both marginalia and timeline, that a two front war is bad news for the participants of such, and that the Trent war is a two-front war for one of the participants.

Unfortunately, and bizarrely, it is not the Union who suffer this penalty.




The below are all the times a two front war (or three front war) is mentioned in Burnished Rows of Steel.

Marginalia

The historical record of European powers in conflict with Western Hemisphere powers in the Nineteenth Century is pretty clear.

Likewise, two front wars are generally pretty tough strategic situations for any combatant, even for militarily dominant continental powers; the record is pretty clear there, as well.

And the other issue is given the two front war in the north (Lower Canada and Maine/New Brunswick)

the British are fighting a two front war, one in Maine-New Brunswick and the other in Lower Canada

Timeline (chapter 9 part 3)

The men – from Britain and Ireland, the Canadas and the Maritimes - who filled the ranks of Williams’ four divisions of infantry and one of cavalry had been assembled at great expense in the wide valley of the Saint Lawrence; the assembly would have been faster, except the British found themselves in what amounted to a two-front war, creating and sustaining both Williams’ force and Pennefather’s Army of New Brunswick, itself operating in Maine with three infantry divisions and a brigade each of cavalry and Marines.

Marginalia:

which is what I have used here, split between Lower Canada and New Brunswick/Maine, which mirrors the British plans for a two front war.

In that case, all bets would be off, but that's still going to require a change in the strategic situation, which, given the realities the British were going to try and wage a two front war against the US, I really don't see happening.

The British, with the equivalent of seven divisions of infantry (basically, every regular and organized militia battalion in Canada, all but three regular battalions from Britain and Ireland, and two brigades worth of infantry from the Mediterreanean garrisons, based on the official HMSO Army Lists of 1861-62) were planning on waging a two front war in US territory, with fronts that were 800 miles apart and 3,000 miles across the Atlantic from the UK - and in the middle of winter.

Timeline (chapter 9 part 7)

“Better a Corunna than a Kars, general,” Wolseley said forcefully. “This army is the only force we have in Canada, and General Pennefather’s troops are far too deep into Maine to be withdrawn, even if they could … fighting a two-front war with barely enough troops for one was not my decision, but it was made and cannot be undone, not at the moment…”

Marginalia

and the realities of the weaknesses of the British plan for a two-front war against the U.S. in 1862 with an army that was in apple of waging such a conflict against the Russians in 1854-56.

Yep; the two front war meme comes into play here

the British, indeed, planned to try and fight a two-front land war against the US

there's also the minor matter the British strategy in the event of war in 1861-62 was to fight on two fronts (southwestern Upper Canada AND Maine) and yet they were stalemated on one front in the Crimea for a year...

The British expeditionary forces sketched out in BROS are more than twice the size of the order of battle of what the British sent to the Black Sea, but they are - both of necessity and because the British planned a two front offensive war - split between two fronts. Shockingly, my take on that is given the U.S. historically had a half million men under arms in the winter of 1861-62, 60,000 British troops split between two fronts some 700+ miles apart would not end in immediate victory for the British.

(and of course, we know from Bourne that a two front war was what the British planned, ambitiously enough)

the British certainly didn't intend to; they were going to fight a two front war.

The above realities, and the British strategy of waging a two front war (Lower Canada and New Brunswick-Maine) in the event of conflict are what the British order of battle in BROS has been based upon;

so it hardly seems to be unlikely the U.S. could frustrate the British strategy for a two front war in 1862-63.

Actually, what the British planned to do in the event of war with the US in 1861-62 was a two front war (Lower Canada and New Brunswick) with immediate offensives into upstate New York and southern Maine - which is what they attempt in BROS.

Both sides start with what they had, and planned, historically; the British (as they planned) mount invasions of upstate New York and Maine, the Americans are fighting a two-front war with a "Britain First" strategy, and various baloons go up in March-April, 1862.

Notable as it is a rare example of an acknowledgement that the "Americans" are fighting a two-front war - though with all the claims the British are fighting a two-front war then logically the Union should be fighting a three-front war


Timeline (chapter 15 part 1)

The British strategy to wage a two front war in North America had left them with two armies, neither strong enough for their tasks, and with their headquarters some 550 miles apart.

Marginalia

The casualties on the British side would probably be roughly double of what they suffered in the Russian war, since they expected to fight a two front conflict on land with expeditionary forces in Lower Canada and in Maine

The piecemeal commitment is a reality, given the dispersion of British strength on M-Day, the need to mobilize, the realities of the British strategy to mount offensives from Canada into northern New York and from the sea against Maine; two front wars are never simple,

and which given the British strategy of a two front war separated by 550 miles of generally challenging topography, is how Williams and Pennefather (and then the brothers Paulet) ended up with their respective commands...

Basically, the British chose to wage a two front war, 550 miles apart (which was their historical strategy, according to Kenneth Bourne) and bet they could keep the Americans similarly divided.

TFSmith is repeatedly insistent on two things; firstly that the British planned a two front war, and secondly that they are fighting one. However, the Union is not mentioned more than once as fighting a two front war, and is never described as fighting a three front war; the ratio of mentions is that the Union is fighting a "two front war" once, and the British are fighting a "two front war" about twenty times over - along with one or two places stating that being in a two-front war is bad.

As we have seen, the British could fairly easily shake loose forty battalions for service in Canada (plus another twenty who would take longer to free up). It's also admitted by TFSmith that the Portland attack was considered something to be done only early in the crisis if there was sufficient force available early - this is because the actual objective was to secure a winter reinforcement route via rail - and yet the British go ahead with their plan of cramming half their available army into siege lines in Maine, starting in June and persisting for very close to a year.

There is no reason for the British to follow up on their Maine attack, as presented. TFSmith's source (Bourne) makes clear that the context of the Maine attack was to "cover the vulnerable roads through New Brunswick and in the Grand Trunk Railway provide a direct communication with Quebec and Montreal" and that it was a scheme for which few preparations were made, as well as that it would have to be at the outbreak of war to be decisive; instead of heeding this TFSmith removes the need for it (by delaying the war until April, when the need for the rail lines has vanished), delays it until June (two months after the outbreak of war and four to five after the time it would have been launched if attempted at all) and has the British cripple their defence of Canada (by sending all the troops who even in our timeline went to Canada itself to defend it). In the process of insisting on his reading of Bourne, it is clear that what he is doing is proof-texting - pointing to a single term out of context of even the wider paragraph.
For example, he has apparently missed:

Macdougall's paper of 3 December had suggested a large force of 50,000 so as to ensure speedy success, but of these two thirds could be volunteers from Canada together with 10,000 volunteers from England.

as it destroys his argument about Canadian weakness at a stroke; the reason the British planned on fighting on "two fronts" was that, much like the Union's move towards New Orleans, they felt it would draw off more Union forces than British ones.


If the British and the Union were both portrayed as suffering resource allocation problems in the light of this "two front war" problem, then that would merely be biased towards the Americans. Instead the Union is dealing effortlessly with the complications, managing to react on a timescale of a single day to British landings in Maine and to avoid uncovering anywhere - important or unimportant - to serious attack, and even deploying ahistorical quantities of rifled artillery, submarines, torpedoes and machine guns - actually seeming to find it easier to deal with Britain and the Confederacy than the Confederacy alone - while the British are stubbornly following up on an obsolete pre-war plan over a year after it has lost any relevance it once had, unable to mobilize even their first callout of militia in Canada, and appear to have misplaced a large fraction of their army and navy.






The only thing that fighting a "two front war" brings the Union is greater eagerness to accept early machine guns; there is no indication of any problems with resource allocation as a result of this. Meanwhile the British are fighting a two-front war and this is used as an excuse for all sorts of failings, even though for them it is a choice - one which they could easily have decided against.