How wrong is she?

This.

no shitposting or trolls thnks

Yes, the CSA fought a defensive war and those can always get ugly, even if you are outright superior when it comes to numbers, ressources and technology. Think Vietnam, but not as extreme.

Probably mainly that Abe Lincoln wasn't so far away from losing the election in 1864 and was mainly saved by some lucky decisive victories in the war. Had he lost the election the democrats would have immediately ended the war by negotiating a "fair" peace, e.g. the CSA can keep their slaves.

In all fairness it's a female "historian" so the chances that he, an undergrad, is smarter than her is pretty high.

That was the thing though, they had to get a quick victory. By halfway through the war the Confederate economy was already in shambles. It's like the Romans, the Union could've just kept throwing people into the meat grinder and the South would never be able to outmatch them in resources.

Shes right, all wars are fated to end the way they do

in a way she is right, in that lincoln could have lost the election or the confederates could have taken Washington or public support for the war could have fallen through or Mexico or briton could have gotten involved on the CSA's side

but, and though i will openly admit you professor certainly knows more about the whole thing than me, from my knowledge of the affair it was basically a waiting game, all the north had to do was not give up and not lose too much and they would eventually win, while the confederates had a serious uphill battle ahead of them to force the union to come to the table

Union was getting shit on until vickburg or gettysburg. One of those. All the superior generals went to the south and the union was left with a drunk loser, Grant. The rebels were savages that intimmidated with a roaring yell and fought for a revolution, while the union soldiers were drafted to fight "the rich mans war" since only those who couldnt pay their way out of the draft had to fight the bloodiest war in history

I wouldnt have used that word but I think the meaning of her usage of the term does not mean that southern victory was not within the realm of statistical possibility. But is a 90% chance of victory anything but inevitable?

When the Boers went into conflict with the Brits, that conflict was inevitable in the final victor. But it was within possibility that a victory could have been achieved.

When Germany declared war on Russia and America, the end result was inevitable.

I am more of the mind that the final outcome is basically as good as the Confederates could get within the realm of possibility. Britain was not going to intervene, especially not over a topic such as slaves and a cotton surplus.

We might as well talk about what if a small asteroid wiped out the northern states. Or a pregnant Anne Frank teleported to the past and gave General Lee a working AK 47 and plans on how to build more.

the south was indeed winning at first pushing out the north europe actually sided with the south but refused to help the south unless the south took territory which was never the south's goal it wanted independence not conquest if the south had taken northern territory USA would look very different today

there's an old incident where lincoln had 300+ indians massacred one of the only good things he ever did for their pillaging and raping of dakota settlers but he did this without trial and it was covered up as it would of given more cause for europe to send support to the confederates

How prestigious? I know a lot of dumbfuck hicks think places like U of dumbfuckistan are prestigious.

I'd say she's right. We know now that the war was never really any contest, but we have perfect information. We know the strengths of both sides, and we know how it all turned out. A person alive at the time did not have that information.

It certainly was nowhere near as obvious as Japan vs US in WW2.

I bet you could find a history professor with a masters degree in Civil war history who says it was inevitable for the Union to win.

I don't think she's correct but obviously Union can ,,,,,,,lose,,,,,,, by just giving up, so maybe she's right on some level?

Ah yes such a noble cause

Like when the Confederate army was in Pennsylvania and engaged in slave hunts.

All wars are easy to call in hindsight.

Japan thought it could achieve some measure of victory against the USA as well.

It is even "possible". But not realistically.

Of course the Japs just as the Confederates couldnt have the 20/20 vision we had so to them it was not inevitable.

>(I mention this only to establish that the lecturer I will talk about is not some nobody)
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One advantage the CSA had over the USA was they had a choice to attack or defend and the USA had to attack. The USA denied the existence of the CSA and so had to take action. The CSA did not deny the existence of the USA, only their part in it, and so could simply defend, if they wanted.

If you are truly interested in the war give A Savage War a read. Its a good read about how the military campaigns were fought. It also goes into detail about how both sides lacked good generals that showed initiative and willingness to fight. This hurt the Union more in the beginning and the Rebs toward the end. Battles like Chickamauga, where the casualties were high on both sides, had more of an impact on the CSA since they lacked the manpower that the Union had.

the usa succeeded britain over taxation and the south succeeded usa over the exact same thing

muh states right, muh freedom

Iraq had a chance to win Gulf War if the US just gave up without fighting. Not sure if that means anything.

neither of which exist in usa today

That's not a real choice. You can't reasonably defend when your opponent has so much more industry than you. You need to attack and win a decisive victory before your opponent can bring his greater production to bear.

But your opponent cannot be sure. But you know he has to attack, not defend.

The one thing the Union could, and did, do was put pressure along the entirety of the CSA. The Rebs couldn't be sure where you would attack. Even Hookers campaign caught Lee off-guard. Imo the Rebs lost the capacity to fight when Lee wouldn't listen to Longstreet at Gettysburg.

Not all wars are total wars, user.

The Civil War was though.

Haha, Hooker, haha

Not really, no. Certainly not in a modern sense of the word. You didn't have the complete divergence of the national economy on the Union's side going to the war effort. You had very real peace feelers being sent out in 1864, well short of total victory.

You didn't have complete divergence of any economy in any total war, so I don't know what your point is.
If you want to say that a nation's economic investment in war has to pass a certain level for it to be total war, that's one thing, but you are suggesting that total war means 100% of a nation's economic output has to be war-oriented, which never happened and never can happen.

McClellan had a good chance of winning the 1864 election, which would have been effective defeat. So yes, in a real sense the North could have lost by political exhaustion even if military victory was inevitable.

>which would have been effective defeat.
Or, it wouldn't have. I don't know what makes you think you have perfect knowledge of alternative history, but I can say with 100% certainty that you are wrong to be so confident.

Nigga, OP asked if victory was inevitable. Even if President McClellan *might* have prosecuted the war to its conclusion, the fact that he was nearly elected on a peace platform allows me to say with 100% confidence it was not inevitable.

This conclusion is 100% opinion, and you can't assume someone's opinion is better than yours, If you thought their opinion was better than yours you would logically adopt it.

>Unironically being such a cuck you adopt someone else's opinion without them supporting that opinion in any way
Guess what retard, there are probably many professors of equal or higher standing on the subject who disagree with her, because it's a fucking opinion.

Name three.

How would I? I doubt I could even find Op's professor, so as far we as we know she doesn't exist either.

I'm almost certain that the japanese high command realized how fucking retarded it was bringing the US into the war, they just ignored it (like the french high command did in the first weeks of ww1 with the cult of the attack, even though the generals at the front realized it was retarded)

the second the border states joined the union the confederacy lost.

Japan thought that Germany was going to win in Europe, simple as that. They knew their chances weren't great, but it was still their best window of opportunity as far as they could see.

On paper, Union victory was assured so long as foreign powers remained neutral.

In reality, there are key moments where the Confederacy could have, in theory, ended the war. Marching on Washington immediately after Bull Run, for example, would've probably resulted in the seizure of the capitol and an end to the war. There are good reasons for why they didn't do it, preparedness & logistics, but those haven't always stopped a fevered winner from pushing forward.

The biggest threat to Union victory, besides massive military blunders, would be the politics. The Midwestern copperheads were not fixated on slavery like the New Englanders were, and therefor were less willing to go and die over the issue.