French Interest in the American Civil War

[Pemberton1]

It surprises me and interests me that French folks seem so interested in the American Civil War. I am curious about the name used for the War in French. Is the Civil War commonly called "The War of Secession" in French? That name amazes me, as it is quite against the trend of interpretation of the War here in America. However, that name does seem to say more about the meaning of the War than the American title of "Civil War," or even "War Between the States." Also, help on the web site here is offered in French by AGEOD officers in France. Is this kind of historical fantasy popular in France? I would love to hear from a Frenchman on the subject, and find out why this peculiar American history is interesting or important to him.

[Vegetius]

Yes, frenchies use to call it "la guerre de secession" because the south states would like to create their own federation.
I do not know for the others but the civil war interested me as far as i can remember (my best friend too and we were 6 years old !) : first for the uniforms and the great formations of men moving on the battle field, later for the politics and strategics ways (the first modern war in big scale).

Regards.

[Brochgale]

It does not surprise me that the Frenchies would have a passing interest in ACW - Remember that Liosiana was once part of France. Also the Cajun popualtion were as far as I have been informed originally from from French Canada and had been deported there by the Brits to make way for those that they wanted shot of in Britland. So in one way or another a lot of men of French ancestry would have fought in the ACW.

[Drakken]

In French, both in France and in Quebec, we either use "Guerre de sécession" or "Guerre civile américaine".

And the CSA had Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac as fighting General.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Armand_Jules_Marie%2C_Prince_de_Polignac

Also, I'd dare to say that all Generals that came from Louisiana and who had Creole origins went to French schools first before learning English. P.G.T. Beauregard, for instance, learned English only at age 12.

[Korrigan]

Les Tuniques bleues, a very popular quality comic book also did a lot, IMHO, to shape the interest of young French history lovers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Tuniques_Bleues

Les Tuniques blues were the inspiration for the Infogramme game in the late 90's "North & South".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_%26_South_%28computer_game%29

Cheers,

Korrigan

[tyrex]

Well I've no real explanation for such an interest.
May be the historical relationship between France and USA can be an explanation?
We use to have large landscape known as Louisiane (which go as far as the Ohio in fact and cover roughly the entire Mississipi river) and Nouvelle Orleans is at first a french town.
We also help the 13 colonies to acquire their freedom against the arch-rival of the period.
So we have many historical bounds with american history.

Perhaps the romantic shadow that appears at the start of the war appeals us. The characters of Lee, Jackson or Stuart (which reminds us of Murat for example) speak to us. McClellan and Beauregard made many references to Napoleon (a still glorious figure in our country depiste some polemics appearing now). The most popular artillery gun was nicknammed Napoleon (the third one and not the first as too many times think in France). All of this, well, pleased our national pride.

But do be too optimistic. Many peoples in France have no interest at all in Civil War. Most of us never heard of that war.

But, for amateurs of military history, Civil War is a major conflict. It's the first prelude to the butcheries of WW1. As so it bears a remarquable interest for us. Many "improvements" was first time used there. Breachind loading guns and rifle, repeaters, machine gun, ironclad, mine, submarine, trench, strategic role of railways, telegraph and redefinition of the role of cavalry in battle appears there.
Add to this the false opinion that this war was waged against slavery (a very sensitive subject in France) and you'll find why is Civil War so popular here (at least in part of the population).

[PhilThib]

May be too many Frenchies read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "Gone with the Wind"...

[Hok]

John Jakes books have made some fan too imo.

There was TV movies based on his books.

[Pocus]

This is the first modern conflict fought at continental scale. It is very appealing for me as a wargamer so...

But Tyrex post is a really good summary of the attract this war has for Frenchies.

[Adlertag]

One of the first mediatic war (just after Crimea) where men discovered true face of death with the photography...

[Pemberton1]

I am very happy to see so many responses. Vive la France!

Do any of you French know the story of the CSS Alabama at Cherbourg? I've read that the people of the city came out to the beach with rebel flags to cheer for the Alabama as she left the harbor to meet her doom. She was sunk just outside of Cherbourg, and I understand her ship's bell is on display at a museum in the city. I must make a pilgramage there someday.

I am pleased that so many mentioned a link between Louisiana and France. Louisiana is my native state, and I am of Cajun heritage. We are still proud of our French connections in Louisiana, and in New Orleans, one sees the French flag and the fleur di lis just as often as the American flag. There are still Cajuns in Louisiana that speak French at home, but the language seems to be dying out, which is sad. I'm afriad you French would be upset about how my countrymen speak your language, though. It is rather a dialect all its own.

It is also interesting to me that Tyrex mentions special affinity between the French and the Southerners. Both Britian and France had great symphathies for the Confederacy during the War. Perhaps Britain came closest to recognizing the independence of the Confederate States. "The Glittering Illusion" by Vanauken is a good source on this. However, Napoleon III also led France to intervene in the War, offering to negotiate peace between the North and South. It was a noble move, and I'm sure everyone would agree that any curbing of bloodshed would have been welcome. The Confederates were eager for negotiation, so long as their independence could be secured, and Napoleon III's offer was very welcome. Lincoln demanded submission and a forced union, however, and refused to negotiate.

Though it seems plain to me why Southerners would have a love for the French, their both being agricultural peoples, trading partners, and lovers of ceremony and manners. Yet, I wonder how the French view Southerners as a people. Not so much now as in the 1860's, I suppose. Tyrex mentioned the characters of Stuart, Jackson, and Lee. What has inspired you French about these men?

[Pemberton1]

I must admit that most Americans are not interested in the War either, and know nothing about it. Folks who are interested, like myself, face hostility from our own countrymen about our interest in the War. We are told "the North won. Get over it." Yet, it was a major turning point in our history, and many of the issues then have relevance now. It is the American Iliad. When we have stopped talking about it, we can be sure our culture is near death.

What thrills me is to encounter foreigners who take such an interest in such a pivotal time in my country. When I think of the historic prestige of France, the idea of Frenchmen taking such an interest in my own country's history is quite amazing and pleasing to me. Very seldom do Americans look beyond their own borders and their own history. It is hard enough to get them to look at their own history. The French interest I see here is impressive to me for that reason. Groups of Americans that make the French Revolution their hobby are exceedingly rare: more rare, it seems, than French that enjoy historic fanatasies about this second American Revolution.

[SojaRouge]

I had never heard in France the American Civil War called american civil war (la guerre civile américaine). Neither in my studies or in any book (not that I have read much about it). It has always been the secession war.
If you call it the Civil War, it's probably because you had only one in your history, so you can use caps and tell it's "the"
But for a French, civil war is a generic term, as we had some and there was a lot around too (old continent thing), not talking about what happens and used to happen in Africa (talking about it, France has responsibility in quite a number of them).

When I think about the ACW, and why I know about it and knows it (except from the game ), I recall several things.
Jules Vernes, and the Mystery Island (dunno the exact title in english, and too lazy to search on google), where the characters escape a town with a baloon and end up in this mysterious island. They fled during a siege of a city, and it was during the ACW.
All characters were gentlemen, and one of them was a black man (the less gentleman, because he had not much education). That was my first contact (I was around 8 ) with slavery of black men. And my first thought that America was a great nation, when I learnt that they abolished slavery.
Later on, I learnt that abolition was more a good excuse to kick the secessionists than a real requirement of the population (and a good idea that the abolitionist lobbies had to give it as an opportunity to be defended).

It has also been quoted by one of my history teacher as the only military defeat that USA suffered on their own territory, even if it was a civil war (in fact the words were more : USA has never been defeated, and the secession war does not count, because it's a civil war).
I find strange to hear that you don't see it as a secession war. After all, the south didn't want to conquer the north and force them to see as they were, they just wanted independance no ? And it's the North who attacked until the south surrendered and accepted to obey at the northern commands (no ?). One more conflict about independance, as there are so many around in the world.

For what I have learnt since I started the game, some I have read on the forum, and some my PBEM parner taught me. Like calling me a drunkard because I was playing Grant (thing that I didn't know about him before, and that as I saw here, was not really proved).

[Pemberton1]

SojaRouge,

On the contrary, I myself do see it as a War of Secession. The South sought no conquest, but insisted on independence. The North sought conquest of a society that wished to govern themselves. It is only very unpopular to refer to the War as "The War of Secession" or "The War Between the States" in America. In most of our history books, the Confederates are portrayed poorly, and the War is said to be a primarily a crusade against slavery. However, the War seems to be to be primarily a question of forced union or independence. Even as late as 1864, at a peace negotiation in Virginia, Lincoln offered the Confederate States a deal in which the federal government would guarantee slavery if the Southerners would rejoin the Union. The Southerners insisted on independence, and so declined the offer. They most certainly were fighting for independence, and not slavery.

Wonderful to hear your perspective!

[boboneilltexas]

In a popular american TV show, "Designing Women", it was refered to as "the War of Northern Agression" and when I was a kid in the South we used to (and often still do) refer to it as "The War between the States."

[SojaRouge]

Talking about it with my wife after I posted, she remembered me of an other "source" about this war, the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".
Even if the ACW is just the background of the movie and not the main story, and despite the fact the I don't know if everything was really fitting history, I remember three things in this movie about the war which shocked me :
- The very bad conditions in the northern prisoners camp (not Sentenza torturing prisoners, but more the people with no shoes, parked like animals, with rotten food...)
- Near the end of the movie, the battle for the bridge, where both sides had decided that this place was at the moment the most strategical place and that it had to be taken at all cost. I dunno if it really happened for this exact place, but I'm quite sure it happened at some other place(s). I guess they were seeing troops as pawns and casualties as numbers, just like we do when we play.
- The third thing is the cemetery, at the end, I have visited one in Normandy, of the US soldiers who died there, and all theses crosses, it was just so impressive.
I guess there was so many also in the ACW.

[Adlertag]

Do any of you French know the story of the CSS Alabama at Cherbourg? I've read that the people of the city came out to the beach with rebel flags to cheer for the Alabama as she left the harbor to meet her doom. She was sunk just outside of Cherbourg, and I understand her ship's bell is on display at a museum in the city. I must make a pilgramage there someday.

It's maybe not well known but in France we have a comics about the duel between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama.

"Les tuniques bleues" : n° 37 "Duel dans la manche".
http://www.sceneario.com/bd_7247_tuniques_bleues_(les)_tome_37.html#

[SojaRouge]

There is also another comic book about the ACW : Blueberry.

Probably more accurate than Les tuniques bleues

[tyrex]

Do any of you French know the story of the CSS Alabama at Cherbourg? I've read that the people of the city came out to the beach with rebel flags to cheer for the Alabama as she left the harbor to meet her doom. She was sunk just outside of Cherbourg, and I understand her ship's bell is on display at a museum in the city. I must make a pilgramage there someday.

Apart from specialists nobody ever heard of this story. There was a few years ago some people who dived to search and found the wreck. They did so but nobody much speak of it

There are still Cajuns in Louisiana that speak French at home, but the language seems to be dying out, which is sad. I'm afriad you French would be upset about how my countrymen speak your language, though. It is rather a dialect all its own.

Well we, french, thought to much that our french is THE pure one. Cajuns and Quebecois speak indeed an much more pure french than we are in fact. But nearly nobody in France will accept this truth too proud we are about our language . But French as a language is prone to many dialects. We, after all, have a language which is a mix of latin, celtic and germanics branchs. At a time there were Langue d'Oil and Langue d'Oc which co exist in our country. And the French speaks at the time of Napoleon is not really the same we speak now. In fact we should speak of french language but of french languageS.

It is also interesting to me that Tyrex mentions special affinity between the French and the Southerners. Both Britian and France had great symphathies for the Confederacy during the War. Perhaps Britain came closest to recognizing the independence of the Confederate States. "The Glittering Illusion" by Vanauken is a good source on this. However, Napoleon III also led France to intervene in the War, offering to negotiate peace between the North and South. It was a noble move, and I'm sure everyone would agree that any curbing of bloodshed would have been welcome. The Confederates were eager for negotiation, so long as their independence could be secured, and Napoleon III's offer was very welcome. Lincoln demanded submission and a forced union, however, and refused to negotiate.

It wasn't symphaties in fact. It was just interests. Keeping the Confederacy alive was the best way to diminish the raising of the commercial power of the USA. Both France and England had not interest to see another concurrent to raise in South America for example.
So long for the similituds of Way of Life.

Though it seems plain to me why Southerners would have a love for the French, their both being agricultural peoples, trading partners, and lovers of ceremony and manners. Yet, I wonder how the French view Southerners as a people. Not so much now as in the 1860's, I suppose. Tyrex mentioned the characters of Stuart, Jackson, and Lee. What has inspired you French about these men?

Well the Napoleon III 's France was not really a true agricultural peoples. France was starting becoming an industrial country. Napoleon III started a great economical program to give France a railroad network, to raise the mining capability and, in fact, to industrialize France the faster he can.
Trading partners...well not really. France barely depend on Southern Cotton. Wool was most used at that time.
As for the lovers of ceremony it's quite true. But, I repeat, the interests of France for the Confederacy was a pure political interest. By damping the power of US, CS bring down a rival in the world struggle for colonies. The predominancy in Central and South America was at stake in this game.

We, French, only really know about Lee. For us it's a romantic figure of the magnificient loser. It a symbol of a lost cause. And we're very attracted to lost cause in our country. So, for us, Lee became THE symbol of the southern way of life forever gone after Civil War and replaced by the industrial way of life.
For Jackson or Stuart, we're only know by peoples who knows a bit about Civil War. For the others they are quite unknown peoples. We barely remember our greats military leaders. How can we know about foreigner?

[tyrex]

Talking about it with my wife after I posted, she remembered me of an other "source" about this war, the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".
Even if the ACW is just the background of the movie and not the main story, and despite the fact the I don't know if everything was really fitting history, I remember three things in this movie about the war which shocked me :
- The very bad conditions in the northern prisoners camp (not Sentenza torturing prisoners, but more the people with no shoes, parked like animals, with rotten food...)
- Near the end of the movie, the battle for the bridge, where both sides had decided that this place was at the moment the most strategical place and that it had to be taken at all cost. I dunno if it really happened for this exact place, but I'm quite sure it happened at some other place(s). I guess they were seeing troops as pawns and casualties as numbers, just like we do when we play.
- The third thing is the cemetery, at the end, I have visited one in Normandy, of the US soldiers who died there, and all theses crosses, it was just so impressive.
I guess there was so many also in the ACW.

Sentenza is unknow to our anglosaxons friend. The name of the character in the english version is rather Angel Eyes. So much for the french translation. Only Tuco is a real good. Blondin is a imperfect translation of Blondie.

[tyrex]

It has also been quoted by one of my history teacher as the only military defeat that USA suffered on their own territory, even if it was a civil war (in fact the words were more : USA has never been defeated, and the secession war does not count, because it's a civil war).

That's not really true. Many battles in the Independance War were defeat for americans. Little Big Horn was, too, a defeat. And what about Pearl Harbour or Kiska and Attu?

But it's also true that USA never loose a war ON his territory. We must paid attention also to the fact that very few wars really occured ON their own territory.

As never being defeated, well, there's also is not true. At least in all the wars waged by USA outside his territory. They lose the 1812 War (the goal was to conquer Quebec...which not occured). They lose Vietnam War. They had a draw at Korean War. The Second Irak War still occuring cannot said to be a victory nor the Afghan war too.

[SojaRouge]

That's not really true. Many battles in the Independance War were defeat for americans. Little Big Horn was, too, a defeat. And what about Pearl Harbour or Kiska and Attu?

But it's also true that USA never loose a war ON his territory. We must paid attention also to the fact that very few wars really occured ON their own territory.

As never being defeated, well, there's also is not true. At least in all the wars waged by USA outside his territory. They lose the 1812 War (the goal was to conquer Quebec...which not occured). They lose Vietnam War. They had a draw at Korean War. The Second Irak War still occuring cannot said to be a victory nor the Afghan war too.

True, my mistake, I should have precise : never lost a war on their own territory, never invaded in fact. And almost never attacked on their own territory.
Only other culture which was in the same situation was Japan, until WW2.

For the Independance war, it is another matter, since it was not really the same country as now, and overall they won the war (even if they lost some battles).

[tyrex]

That's quite funny SojaSun. We're both french and we write each other in english

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[tyrex]

It's not a distortion in fact. It's only the way we perceived this war in France that's all.
This war is rather (not to say at all) unknown to us. We focus more on another conflict in 1812 in Europe

[eclectriceel]

"You can't understand the United States without understanding the Civil War." -Shelby Foote, Civil War Historian

Pemberton,

The North did embark on a war of conquest, but they really had no choice by 1860.

How many French know of the Monroe Doctrine and the concept of Manifest Destiny? By the time of the Civil War the United States had laid claim in one way or another to all the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific (Manifest Destiny), and had a firm policy that the entire Western hemisphere was in the sphere of influence of the United States with no outside (European) meddling allowed (the Monroe Doctrine). These trends had their origins in the original Articles of Confederation. Many states at that time (particularly Virginia and Pennsylvania) claimed that their territory extended all the way to the Pacific in lines drawn west from their northern and southern borders. The smaller northern states would have been out of luck in that scenario! Had the North allowed secession at any time, they would have been putting their claims to the West at risk as well as their assertions of hegemony over the rest of the hemisphere. It would not have taken the CSA long to make their own claims to Arizona and California, leading to direct conflict with the US. It was clearly in the interests of all the European powers to see the growing dominance of the United States over the rest of the Western Hemisphere curtailed. There had been several attempts by the North to enact national trade policies that were favorable to the North at the expense of the South and Europe (specifically Britain, the North's main rival in finished cotton goods).

It is ironic that slavery prevented British involvement in the Civil War, since it was clearly in their interests to see the CSA succeed. Slavery was originally introduced by the Crown to the colonies as an economic expedient to allow the production of sugar and cotton. After losing the colonies, the British had little economic incentive for slavery anymore, and it was abolished as soon as they were able to turn their attention away from the wars with France. But since they HAD been able to rid themselves of slavery relatively early, it was impossible to then justify intervention in favor of slavery to their people, no matter how much their national interests were served.

(opening can of worms...)

With the political ascendance of the South over the last 30 years, it has become much more fashionable in the US to say that the war wasn't really about slavery but about state's rights. This is as manichean a view as the previous version of the war being only about ending slavery. The actual situation was much more nuanced than either of these positions.

The sectional conflicts that led inevitably to the Civil War were already apparent at the time of the framing of the Constitution (3/5ths compromise, the need for a bi-cameral legislature, etc. were the direct result of the South's already weak economic relationship to the rapidly industrializing north). Later, the method for admitting new states to the Union, and the question of whether these would be slave states or not (the Missouri Compromise) almost led to secession several times during the 1820s and 1830s.

The South was trapped by slavery from the very founding of the United States. They couldn't give it up (what do you do with all the slaves? who works the fields?) but free state's economies had proven much more robust without slavery weighing them down. The balance of political power between the two factions was preserved by bringing in a slave state for every free state, but the economic balance was shifting to the North while the economies of the South were stagnating in their slavery driven agrarian economic model. (Of course, the North would not have been able to feed all those factories without the cheap cotton from the South, which is why they had compromised so many times with the South on the slavery issue.)

But by 1850 this tenuous balance had shifted irreversibly to the North. The north's industries were by then focused as much on steel and machinery production as textiles, and so it no longer had the economic need to keep the South happy. The majority of the population and the money was in the north, and anti-slavery sentiment was wide-spread (and economically possible) enough that new states entering the union did not necessarily want to be slave states. Cotton was no longer King, and the South was being relegated to an economic backwater at the mercy of their richer northern cousins. The South saw slavery as the only thing that could keep new states aligned with their faction and prevent complete Northern dominance of the Union. Once new states could opt out of slavery (thus opting out of the Southern faction) there was no way that the South could remain in the Union.

The war in North America that was fought PURELY for slavery was the Texas Revolution, which is ironic since it is usually thought of as a rebellion by freedom loving Texans against the oppressive Mexican Empire. In fact, it was started by wealthy Mexican landowners who wanted to institute slavery so they could produce cotton. Strict mercantilist policies prevented trade with anyone but Mexico proper, and cotton production required slavery; thus, secession! Talk about history being written by the winners. Not only did the European settlers not start the war, most of the fighting and dying was done by Mexicans, not by white Texans. But after the Mexican Army massacred most of the Mexicans, the "freedom loving" Texans were the only ones left to finish it off.

BTW, San Jacinto was IMHO the most astonishing military victory in US history. (At that point the war was mainly being carried out by Americans and since entering into the Union was clearly the goal, most people count it in the win column for the US).

[TheDoctorKing]

While living in France I found that this was the one event in American history that people knew about. I had a conversation in the square in Marseilles across from the American consulate with a student. I pointed out that this was the first American consulate anywhere in the world, established by Benjamin Franklin, and he confused Franklin and Lincoln. Lincoln, Lee, Grant, he'd heard of. Washington was a city and the other "founding fathers" were completely unknown. My landlord was the same way -- an educated man, with a degree from one of the big Paris "hautes ecoles", not terribly interested in history, and the Civil War was what he knew about (he _had_ heard of Washington and Jefferson). I think at least in the case of M. Durand the feeling that the Civil War was a war for freedom and liberal values, related to their own revolutions of 1789 and 1848, might have something to do with it. The French today are very republican (with a small "r") and I think they see our Civil War as a war for a republic in America.

They might well have sympathized with the CSA in 1863 (at least Napoleon III did) but today I'd imagine the north appear to be the good guys.

[Mickey3D]

It's maybe not well known but in France we have a comics about the duel between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama.

"Les tuniques bleues" : n° 37 "Duel dans la manche".
http://www.sceneario.com/bd_7247_tuniques_bleues_(les)_tome_37.html#

There is several paintings about this event, in particular from Manet and Durand-Brager.

[tagwyn]

This was was fought to free the slaves. It could not have been sustained otherwise into the meatgrinder of Va. in 1864-65. This is true. My family was there; we don't forget . .. we don't ever forget. t

[TheDoctorKing]

This was was fought to free the slaves. It could not have been sustained otherwise into the meatgrinder of Va. in 1864-65. This is true. My family was there; we don't forget . .. we don't ever forget. t

A lot of the motivation on the part of Union soldiers was about slavery, but not so much a benevolent desire to free the slaves as a fear that they were going to be put out of work by slave labor. The Dred Scott decision in 1856 implied that no state could prevent people from bringing in their slaves. After all, if you own a tractor in Alabama, and you ship it up to Massachusetts, it's still your tractor. If slaves are not people but "chattel", simple movable property, the law should treat them the same. The Northern states' laws forbidding slavery were probably unconstitutional, suggested a majority of the Supreme Court (most of whom were slave owners). Northerners were already offended at the great power the southern states had over the federal government (most presidents and Supreme Court justices were from the South before the Civil War), and now they thought the economy was going to be taken over by the "Slave Power" too. So they fought for their jobs and their social order.

There were enthusiastic abolitionists in the Union army. About one-fourth of the US army by the end of the war were blacks. A lot of troops from the northeast and Kansas were motivated by abolitionist ideals. But the US public would not have sustained the war effort so heroically were it not for this pervasive fear and resentment of the "slave power."

I know that the standard neo-Confederate line is that the war was about "taxation" or "states' rights" or what have you, but you have to ask "taxation of what?" and "states' rights to do what?"