There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” [Luke 10: 25-29]
The subject of this essay The Good Neighbor, appears only once in the scriptures – the Gospel according to Luke. As a story about the quality of mercy unconstrained by religious sensibilities or tribal affiliation, it is, perhaps, one of the best-known stories about showing mercy to the stranger. As for the stranger, he was not a stranger at the Samaritan’s gate; the stranger, it would seem, was, in colloquial usage, beaten “in the middle of nowhere”. The road upon which this happened was likely not near a town, inn, or any freestanding structure or building. Yet the Samaritan came to aid this victim of violence by rendering several works of mercy – giving drink to the thirsty, bandaging his wounds, applying precious oils as salves, finding shelter for him at an inn, comforting him in his affliction. These details of the story are well-known, as one of the greatest stories in world literature. Still, we do not know whether the victim was Jewish, Samaritan, Greek, or Roman; nor do we know if the victim was taken care of at the inn; nor whether the good Samaritan ever visited the inn on his return journey.
NATION AS GOOD SAMARITAN
This essay takes a biblical approach to applying lessons from this New Testament parable to the affairs of nations. Nations, like individuals, have been victimized by violence, from invasion and war, to indifference and exploitation. But nations, unlike individuals, undermine other nations, in order to benefit from and capitalize upon a nation’s misfortune to be riven by internal dissension and the violence of civil war.
But before I delve into matters of good neighborliness practiced by states in the global village, I quote the rest of the parable, as a basis for discussing qualities and characteristics possessed by states acting as good neighbors.
Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”[Luke 10: 30-37]
In the affairs of state, there are neither permanent friends nor steadfast enemies. In a world of international diplomacy, about the only thing that is permanent is national interest or self-interest. And that is to be expected, as nations continually jockey for position and advantage in a competitive world of scarce resources. President Washington’s Farewell Address to the country he served in war and peace, advised his countrymen to have neither permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, nor passionate attachments for others. In the affairs of nations, when a nation is in great peril of internal division threatening to undo its national existence, that is the time when a bleeding nation needs a good Samaritan neighbor to save it from destruction.
WHEN THE EDIFICE IS ON FIRE
In the history of the United States, the time of its greatest peril was the American civil war. It is, according to the judgment of British historian Paul Johnson, “the central event in American history.” In light of the good Samaritan helping a “neighbor” bleeding and left for dead, I thought it apropos to discover for myself, when America was in bloodletting carnage from the civil war, what were America’s neighbors doing while the edifice was on fire. The neighbors I refer to were the three major powers of Europe, who would be in a position to save or break up the United States: Great Britain, France, and Russia. Who turned out to be the good neighbor to help save the union? Which one was fomenting dissension, through offering the confederacy additional firepower and warships to support the insurrection? Of the three nations, which one engaged in subverting a peaceful neighbor of the United States, in an attempt to build an overseas empire in America’s backyard?
GOOD NEIGHBOR – GENERAL PRACTICES
A test for being a good neighbor is to see if you can count on their help in times of trouble. Better yet, a good neighbor will not meddle and interfere with a neighboring house riven with division, unless asked for by the master of the household. A good neighbor will encourage master and household to settle their differences, promising not to interfere, unless asked to do so. A good neighbor may offer tangible assistance with consent of the household, without overstepping the tangible offer. And he may offer to safeguard property in the midst of overwhelming distractible turmoil.
On the matter of being a good neighbor versus an indifferent neighbor, there is not much to say. Perhaps the priest and Levite in the story had urgent matters to attend to – of a life-or-death matter. We don’t know if they were fearful to get involved (a trap in waiting), or smug indifference. The whole parable is about love, mercy, and kindness, done, perhaps, at great risk to one’s own safety, but nevertheless, answering that inner calling to stop and comfort the afflicted stranger.
NEIGHBORLINESS IN THE AFFAIRS OF STATE
Good neighborliness does not have a long track record in the history of either English common law or international law. In early common law, what constituted an unneighborly act did not get much beyond an effort to prevent violence, and very naturally made a wrongful taking, a trespass, part of its definition of the crime. As common law developed, judges enlarged the definition by holding that, if the wrong-doer gets possession by a trick or device, the crime is committed. This gave up the requirement of trespass, as it was no longer a necessary element of the crime. Thus, “unfriendly” neighbors are those that employ the dark devices of trickery to unlawfully convert another’s property to one’s own.
THE LAW OF NATIONS
Evidence of International law can be traced back thousands of years. Early examples going back to the cradles of civilization in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Fertile Cresent of the Near-East consisted of setting boundaries, formalized by treaties. Treaties later served to facilitate commerce, as agreements between governments and sovereign kingdoms are intended to be binding. Movement of goods – and later of ideas – facilitated cultural exchange and exposure to new ways and means of practicing neighborliness.
Basic concepts of international law such as treaties had not much changed until fourteenth century Renaissance Europe. Theocratic kingdoms and the confessional state were becoming nation-states headed by monarchs who alone claimed the divine right to rule. The Protestant Reformation was a mere acceleration of a trend – that a state stands as the formal representation and protectorate of a people, or nation, regardless of religious affiliation. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) simply formalized a development long trending since the investiture controversies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
While the Reformation was spreading like wildfire across Europe, a new rationalist perspective was developing to build a new foundation underlying laws of state and of international relations. Instead of divine sanction through scripture and/or tradition, the rationalist perspective posited several rational principles underlying law. Law was not imposed from above, but rather derived from principles. Foundation principles included the axioms that promises must be kept, and that harming another requires restitution, which have served as the basis for much of subsequent international law. Still, the concept of international law had not developed much beyond the making of treaties, limited primarily to cessation of hostilities between belligerents. International cooperation on matters related to general development that are global in nature would have to wait until the twentieth century – after the bloodletting of the American Civil War and two world wars resulting in millions of lives lost.
NINETEENTH CENTURY REALPOLITIK
In a world of many states, the jockeying for prestige, power, and political maneuvering will, like the poor, be always with us. World organizations like the United Nations, with its various international courts and conventions, are attempts to constrain the wills of powerful nations, without much success. This is a form of power politics based on practical objectives of national self-interest, rather than on ideals. It is known as Realpolitik.
In the “real” world, nations take reality for what it is, and not what reality ought to be. Realpolitik, hence, is a politics of adaptation to international realities as they are. Realpolitik thus suggests a pragmatic, no-nonsense view – and often a disregard for ethical considerations. In diplomacy, it is a relentless, but realistic, pursuit of the national interest, backed up by the use of air, land, and sea power.
POWER
The simultaneous pursuit of many national interests by the powerful nations keeps them on a war footing in the form of maintaining large standing armies in peace time. Through diplomacy and war (“diplomacy carried out by other means”), nations attempt to influence, interfere, or impact on the life and actions of others, in their own and in other societies. Legitimate State power encompasses authority over its own nation, its people. But power can be exercised illegitimately – the use of coercion and active subversion to create a desired outcome in another country. Against this background is an underlying Social Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality, that is to say, those most ‘fit’ to rule are those who wield power.
NEIGHBORLY QUALITIES: PERSONALITY, STATECRAFT, MASTER
All neighborhoods have different personalities; but all (should) practice neighborliness internally (to keep the peace, maintain order, and administer good government); and externally (to maintain respect for borders; abide by international treaties and conventions of expected behavior; and respecting the independence and sovereignty of other nations).
Neighborliness among states is the essential goal of international law and diplomacy. This is statecraft, which entails the drafting of treaties, policy positions, and working cooperatively with other nations.
A good neighbor encourages his neighbor to take steps necessary to hold its household together, to compose their differences, to harmonize the family – but letting the neighbor solve its own problems, so the neighbor may continue to be the master of its own house.
As a nation created out of revolutionary fervor, the United States has a distinct personality. Although largely perceived as ‘isolationist’, the new nation, in fact, demonstrated time and time again, its mastery of statecraft. The original settlers, disunited by distance into interstitial communities, did not initially ‘have what it takes’ to become a nation. The various colonies were seen as an exiguous outcropping of many peoples thrown together, holding onto a thin sliver of North American soil. On going from colonial settlements to one nation, these colonials mastered the art of diplomacy, winning its independence from Great Britain in the hour of her triumph. Continuing triumphs, through adept diplomacy and judicious use of armed power, expanded the nation from a sliver in the East to the coast of California. America was never isolationist.
When civil war came, could America remain master of its own house? To answer this question, at least in part, I shall devise precepts from the conflict as a short list of normative behavior of States as good neighbors. Applying these precepts to the conflict, did any of the three great powers of Europe – Great Britain, France, and Russia – act like a good neighbor to America during the bloodletting of the Civil War? What did they do – or fail to do? Each will be discussed in turn, highlighting key events in relation to their dealings and diplomacy with the United States. And then I shall ask you, the reader, to ponder the central question of this post: Which of the three countries mentioned above – Great Britain, France, or Russia – in your opinion, acted as a good neighbor to America during its civil war?
GOOD NEIGHBOR PRECEPTS
- A good neighbor does not meddle in the affairs of another household.
- A good neighbor shows respect by being mindful of a people’s desire to be left alone and free to deal with their own problems based in their own traditions, without meddling or interfering.
- A good neighbor looks out for the welfare of his neighbor in feeling secure and being master of his own house. He will watch, monitor, and support him with encouragement, and with material assistance.
- A good neighbor possesses and manifests qualities of “character” – moral support, non-interference in a neighbor’s internal affairs, refusal to participate in separation talks that would bring destruction to a nation’s very existence.
- A good neighbor expresses willingness to offer assistance, with the neighbor’s consent, to protect its property, commerce, and coastal cities with its own engines of war.
- A good neighbor lends another neighbor the means necessary to defend itself and its undefended property.
- A good neighbor does not exploit internal dissension in another household, by running blockades, funneling supplies, arming insurgents, and building engines of war, i.e., ironclad ships for rebel use.
- A good neighbor does not support separatists in rebellion by smuggling luxuries and weapons in exchange for raw materials.
- A good neighbor will refuse to process any item of value from rebels.
- A good neighbor will make restitution if he has caused harm to his neighbor.
- A good neighbor stays clear of internecine conflict in a neighbor’s house. If a neighbor state is not inclined to help or offer support, the neighbor state should maintain neutrality – neither helping nor undermining.
- A good neighbor does not extend credit to subversive rebels undermining a neighbor’s house.
- A good neighbor does not disrupt, subverting the ‘home’ government of a peaceful neighbor (Mexico), as a “blockbusting” attempt to build an empire upon the ruins of the entire neighborhood of the Americas.
- A good neighbor does not bust up neighborhoods through a colonial policy that establishes colonies and bases of operation to encircle a house distracted by insurrection.
- A good neighbor does not trounce upon a neighbor’s principles and values.
- A good neighbor does not ‘stir up the neighborhood’ by invading and overthrowing the government of a peaceful neighbor right next door.
- A good neighbor offers encouragement to resolve disputes in the internal affairs of its neighbor, using gentle persuasion, then encouragement, and finally tools (weapons of war) to help defend a neighbor that can’t be everywhere to defend its extensive ‘property.’
GREAT BRITAIN
Great Britain was the world’s greatest power. Its empire encompassed one-fifth of the world’s land mass and population. As the world’s leading commercial and industrial power, with an international blue water navy to protect national interests all over the globe, Great Britain had much to gain and much to potentially lose in actively contesting the American position in its civil war. Great Britain had a presence in Canada; and held numerous bases and colonies in the Caribbean Sea. Britain legally recognized the belligerent status of the Confederate States of America (CSA) – as did France – but neither ever recognized it as a nation. In a divided and therefore weakened America, Britain would feel greater security in their western hemisphere possessions against future American encroachment – although there was no evidence that America had designs on these territories.
Without European military intervention, the odds of a southern victory were long. Lack of industry, less manpower, and without populous cities closely connected by rail, practically fated the south for certain defeat. The confederacy plan was to engage Britain and France to secure diplomatic recognition. In late 1861, two Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, were taken off the British ship Trent by the U.S. Navy as they were on their way to London and Paris to seek European intervention. War hysteria gripped Britain, and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston ordered troop deployment to Canada in anticipation of conflict. In any case, the British strategy hinged on their overwhelming naval force. Provoking the secession of Maine was also discussed, as well as plans to bombard and burn Boston and New York. The latter was considered by the Admiralty “the true heart of U.S. commerce . . . to strike her would be to paralyze all the limbs.” In addition, the British put an embargo on the export of saltpeter which the U.S. needed to make gunpowder. Approximately 90% of the world’s natural reserves of saltpeter were in British territory and the United States had a purchasing commission in London buying up every ounce it could get. Tensions were eased, but not eliminated, when Mason and Slidell were released.
By the summer of 1862, top British officials debated offering to mediate, which the Confederacy wanted, but the United States strongly rejected.
British companies were the primary suppliers of arms and military supplies, and often extended credit to the Confederacy to make such purchases, greatly helping the Confederate war effort. Private British blockade runners sent munitions and luxuries to Confederate ports in return for cotton and tobacco. Sixty percent of the cotton produced in the Confederate south during the war went to Britain.
Despite two crushing Southern defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863, another crisis was afoot. Two powerful ironclads called the Laird rams, intended for the Confederacy and capable of breaking the Union blockade of the Southern ports, were under construction in Britain. U.S. ambassador Charles Francis Adams warned British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell that if the warships were ever delivered to the rebels, “It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.”
Northerners had long been outraged at British tolerance of non-neutral acts, especially the building of warships. After the war, the United States demanded vast reparations for the damages caused by British-built commerce raiders, especially the CSS Alabama. In 1872, an international arbitration board awarded $15,500,000 to the United States, in what came to be known as the “Alabama claims”. The British apologized for the destruction caused by the British-built Confederate ships, but admitted no guilt.
FRANCE
Ever since the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763 which ended a worldwide war fought on five continents, France had been defeated and reduced to secondary status in the race for empire. France lost Canada and all its North American possessions. France lost the contest for the Indian subcontinent. British naval power turned the Caribbean Sea into a British lake. Although France recaptured some of its former glory in siding with revolutionary America against Great Britain, France itself became engulfed in revolution, which brought about the rise of two Napoleonic emperors: Napolean Bonaparte, and later Louis Napolean, Emperor of France (1852-1870). Both had a taste for empire. Louis Napolean’s taste for empire went far beyond Europe, disrupting peaceful neighborliness throughout the world, including the Western Hemisphere. He had designs on adding Mexico to his world chessboard. In doing this, was Louis Napolean acting as a good neighbor to the United States?
In 1861, Mexico was concluding its own civil war (1858-1861). The liberal government of Mexican President Benito Juarez had defeated an insurgency led by defeated conservatives, generals loyal to the old regime, supporters favoring restoration of church properties appropriated by an anti-clerical establishment. President Juarez did not help matters when, in July 1861, he suspended payment on foreign debts incurred under the previous conservative government. This action left a pretext for European powers to intervene militarily in Mexico.
Fighting an insurrection and serving debt overwhelmed Mexican resources to meet its international obligations, causing suspension of debt payments. However, these actions did not isolate Mexico as a pariah and squelcher on the international scene. Despite fighting its own civil war, [or perhaps in recognition or sympathy for a nation bled and divided from its own civil war], the U.S. government strongly backed the liberal government of President Suarez, as the legitimate government on Mexican soil. Though limited to diplomacy rather than concrete aid, the U.S. continued to defend the existing government. While America was at war, the U.S. government could not enforce the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted U.S. pre-eminence in the hemisphere, and excluded foreign intervention.
The suspension of making debt payments to foreign creditors gave Louis-Napoleon an opportunity to establish a French client state which could also serve as a buffer to the expansionist aims of the United States – for territory and trade agreements. France’s policy was to attain a foothold in the Americas as a basis for trade, and to promote a Kingdom of the Andes, as a client state for French trade, shutting out the United States. Louis-Napoleon’s objective was to “open new ways to commerce and new outlets to European products overseas”. He was bent on furthering commercial interests and establishing bases in the western hemisphere.
In 1861, by proposing to make the Austrian archduke Maximilian emperor of Mexico and by negotiating with the president of Ecuador about a projected “Kingdom of the Andes,” he had begun his Latin-American venture. He hoped that the planned kingdom would check the growing influence of the United States in Latin America.
Meanwhile, the union and confederate armies were locked in stalemate as 1862 arrived. As spring led into summer, news of General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia attained international acclaim, defeating a much larger and well-equipped Union Army of the Potomac commanded by George McClellen. By the summer of 1862, Great Britain and France proposed mediation, calling for a cessation of hostilities. Against this background, France with 40,000 troops embarked on an invasion of Mexico. France began military operations in April 1862. Louis-Napoleon sent troops to Mexico to establish an allied monarchy in the Americas, with Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria enthroned as Emperor of the “Second Mexican Empire” in 1864. After victory in the American Civil War in 1865, the United States could materially assist the legitimate government of Mexico. The U.S. saw the French invasion as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but the U.S. was unable to intervene politically due to the Civil War. With the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States began providing substantial material aid to Juárez’s republican forces. The U.S. sent 50,000 troops under General Philip H. Sheridan to the Mexican-U.S. border and helped resupply President Juárez. The United States continued to recognize Benito Juárez as legal head of state, not Emperor Maximilian.
In the face of a renewed U.S. interest in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, Louis-Napoleon, recognizing that France was fighting a war that it could not win, began withdrawing, in 1866, the French armies that had propped up Maximilian’s regime.
Louis-Napoleon withdrew his troops from Mexico in 1866. Maximilian, shorn of support, was overthrown, put on trial for treason, and was executed in 1867.
RUSSIA
In the Gospel of John, Nathanael could not accept the testimony of Philip that anything good could come from that small byway of a place called Nazareth. The same could be said about Russia: Can anything good come from Russia?
As I am writing this post against the background of present hostilities with its neighbor Ukraine, can anything be said about Russia being a good neighbor? As a nation that has a continuous history since the founding of Rus’ in 862 CE, only England and France have a continuous history of a thousand or more years. The Russian ‘neighborhood’ has been in turmoil more often than not. Constant threat of and actual invasions from the north, south, east, and west, have been as regular as winter snows. To survive, Russia has paid tribute, been enslaved, and learned to live under multiple regimes. This required some mastering of the arts of diplomacy, or statecraft. As the nation grew in size and strength under centralized rule, Russia began to look beyond its immediate borders to note developments in the global neighborhood. By the time of the American Civil War, Russia had spread eastward, crossed the Bering strait, and occupied Alaska almost down to the 49th parallel – the present border between Washington State and British Columbia. Like Great Britain, Russia had an almost adjacent border to America’s Pacific Northwest. Despite its close proximity, Russia took a hands-off approach, refusing to intervene, unfearful of potential American designs on its Alaskan territory, while expressing support for the maintenance of the American union. Emancipation, diplomacy, and weapons of war all played a part to explain Russia’s position, which I will show below.
Recent history had not gone well for Russia. In the century prior to the American Civil War, Russia was advancing in a gradual, relentless movement ever southward to its centuries-long ambition of a warm-water port for an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea or Indian Ocean. Under Tsarina Catherine the Great (1762-1796), Russia was in almost constant conflict with the Ottoman Empire to its south. Always troublesome in making constant raids into the Russian Empire for slaves and plunder, the Ottoman Empire, by the time of the Tsarina’s death, had been reduced to becoming a weakened, ‘sick’ power that could be vulnerable to Russia’s drive southward to establish warm-water ports. Finally, in 1853, Russia entered into war with the Ottoman Turks to seize Sevastopol, a strategic port on the Black Sea, which would give Russian ships access to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. This state of affairs would not be allowed to stand. Great Britain and France, in alliance with the Ottoman Empire, declared war on Russia. Known as the Crimean War (as most of the conflict was fought on the Crimean Peninsula), finally, in 1856, after an eleven-month siege of Sevastopol, Russia sued for peace. The ensuing treaty forced Russia to surrender Sevastopol, and Russia was forbidden to station naval ships on the Black Sea. The Crimean War was a watershed event in Russian history. It had undermined its influence in Europe, and awakened Russia’s rulers and ruled to a time of soul-searching to understand this national humiliation. Finally, the ruling elites identified two fundamental problems in particular. First, the absence of a prosperous peasantry; and second, the need for labor to freely move to areas of labor shortages. The latter brought about the abolition of serfdom, when the Russian Emperor Alexander II passed its own Emancipation Act on March 3, 1861. The act freed all peasants, or serfs, from chattel dependence on their landlords, to enable them to participate in economic activities as free citizens. This is the historical background, in which the U.S. and Russia found themselves in the spring of 1861 – in a rather peculiar, though similar set of circumstances. How they conducted relations as neighborly friend or unfriendly foe is discussed below.
Russian-American relations were not always so bitter and tense as now. During the American Civil War, Russia supported the Union primarily because its main geopolitical enemy at that time was Great Britain, which was sympathetic to the Confederacy. In addition, the U.S. and Russia had enjoyed good relations in the first half of the nineteenth century even though they had very different political systems. From the start of the war Russia expressed total support for Abraham Lincoln’s government, claiming that it was the only legitimate authority on U.S. soil.
Russia, ab initio, took a hands-off approach, encouraging America to take steps necessary to preserve the union, compose their differences between north and south, so that the Lincoln administration would continue to be the master of its own house.
“Russia desires, above all, the maintenance of the American Union as one indivisible nation,” Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov wrote in 1862 to Bayard Taylor, secretary of the U.S. embassy in St. Petersburg.
Among other European countries, only Switzerland backed the Union so strongly. As for the two leading powers in Europe – Great Britain and France – their leaders were discussing the possibility of intervention on the side of the Confederacy; but they later abandoned this idea and remained neutral. In the above-mentioned letter to Taylor, Gorchakov alluded that his country had received an offer to join a coalition that would probably support the Confederacy, but had rejected it strongly.
Both nations were expansionist: Russia eastward into North America; and American Manifest Destiny to overspread the North American continent. At this geographic juncture lay the possibility of three ‘imperial nations’ fighting amongst themselves in a future war on the North American continent. Fortunately, diplomacy had the day. The U.S. and Britain agreed on the 49th parallel being the international boundary between the U.S. and Canada. Russia’s hold on Alaska had always been tenuous; it scarcely had the resources and logistics to effectively control such a distant territory. After the war, Russia, in 1867, would make an agreement with the United States to sell the whole territory of Alaska to the U.S. for $7,200,000 – about ten cents an acre.
The Civil War was undoubtedly a watershed in American history. Russia was going through a similar soul-searching time to understand its defeat in the Crimean War a decade earlier. Russia’s leaders, despite the risk of being dragged into a war in which it had little to gain and much to lose, did an extraordinary act that proved crucial to the northern victory.
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
Russia’s role in the Civil War was more palpable than just expressing diplomatic support. For the duration of the civil war, the east and west coasts of America were virtually denuded of any coast guard protection, as most of the union’s naval vessels and merchant ships had been assigned to enforce the union blockade of the entire thousand-mile confederate coastline. In September 1863, American and Russian diplomats made arrangements for a Russian fleet of six warships to sail to the East coast of North America and winter there. They ‘made call’ in the port of New York, staying there for seven months. Both citizens and the government of the Union gave a warm welcome to the Russian Navy, and witnesses described that the Americans were eager to see Russian sailors and officers, and to invite them to banquets and celebrations.
While based in New York, the warships patrolled the surrounding area. A similar arrangement was made for the docking of six Russian warships on the West coast in San Francisco. This helped to prevent sudden attacks of Southern raiders on these crucial Union port cities. The Russians showed themselves willing to defend American cities. When the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah prepared to attack San Francisco, the Russian admiral gave orders to defend the city in the absence of Union warships.
That Tsar Alexander II would expose his fleets to potential destruction from the British Navy, there may have been other reasons for this action. Some historians have suggested that he sympathized with President Lincoln’s emancipation of the slaves, as Alexander had done with his emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Others point to an uprising in 1863 in Poland for its independence, in which both Britain and France were considering possible intervention on the Polish side. This may explain why moving part of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet to America would have been helpful in its Polish policy: If based in neutral ports, Russian warships could more easily attack British and French ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific.
That Russia sent its fleets to America for its own national interests, still, this does not refute the fact that this cooperation was crucial to the Union cause. The Union could therefore rest easy that its coastal waters were safe, which helped the North to prevail in the Civil War. It’s easily imaginable that without the Russian Navy, both the strategic ports of New York and San Francisco could have been attacked and severely damaged, which in turn would be a major blow to the Union war effort and morale.
The real reason Russia sent her fleet to the U.S. might be self-serving: She didn’t want it bottled up in case the threatened war with Britain over Poland erupted. But its presence was nonetheless salvation for the Union in its hour of desperation.
Nevertheless, the British realized that with Russia on the U.S. side, the cost of military intervention would be too high. Fortunately, Britain and France backed down before the Russian presence. The mighty Russian presence deterred the English and French from considering attacks upon American ships and soil, and thus the Union was saved.
FINAL WORD
Which of the three countries mentioned above – Great Britain, France, or Russia – in your opinion, acted as a good neighbor to America during its civil war?
