In February 1872, as the 3rd Mexican-American War got underway, the United States of Central America (USCA) dishonored their alliance. Which was really too bad, because I had reserved a plan in the back of my mind that maybe it would be helpful to have part of the USCA as a puppet. It’s partly why I didn’t pursue the USCA (or Mexico) to include in my Sphere after the British started bidding for them a couple decades back.
What’s more, almost immediately Honduras declared independence from the USCA, which presented yet more possibilities, and yet ones which were not really practical to pursue in the current situation.
I’d previously mentioned that the French entered the war against Germany on the side of the Dutch… That’ll help us to hold our 4th Great Power slot against the NGF.
Gen. Brown drew first blood at Nogales, giving Gen. Porfirio Gomez a severe pasting despite Gomez’ superior defensive skills. Brown himself has offensive skills to balance out (+2 on both sides). Now, you may remember that our famous General Brown died in the last update. So this – following in Paradox tradition of repeating the same names over and over in random combinations – is Michael Brown, rather than the late Mark Brown. <sighs>
We had similar results in a battle at Monclova, nearby. This was starting out to look pretty good for the USA. Now, the challenge was to get enough American troops south far enough to prevent the conscription armies from appearing.
Sadly, that seemed a tall order, considering that so many Mexican Armies were stacked up against the border – we were going to be occupied long enough that I don’t think we’d be able to move south and accomplish our goal!
Gen. Brown’s quick victory at Nogales gained us +2.9 warscore. And we had actually built up 12 warscore by the 2nd month of the war simply from blockades! But the state of Morelia, which we had set as our purpose for war currently sat at 86 warscore value. That would go down as we captured those provinces, but for now it was a tall order. I felt a little confused that it was requiring so much warscore to take a single state. Anyway…
United States troops were landed in Veracruz and Villhermosa, near the Yucatan.
But Gen. Ulysses Seward, at Monclova, having won his first battle there, was now locked in a losing battle with a fresh Mexican army under Gen. Zaragoza. Seward found himself completely outmatched
On Mar 31 Gen. Brown retreated from Hermosillo – the second sign of changed fortunes.
On April 2nd, Zaragoza’s troops captured the American command tent and Gen. Seward died of his injuries shortly after. The remnants of his command fought on for another week, but then retreated. They took away the knowledge of having cost the enemy more casualties, but it was small comfort. To add to the bad news a small skirmish at Monterrey the next day resulted in the loss of an entire brigade.
In mid-April Mexico’s troop strength was about half that of the US. Two side notes – the US had 294 ships vs. the Royal British Navy’s 367, and a goodly number of the American ships were ironclads, most of the rest being commerce raiders. There were still definitely some sail-driven ships, but they were being slowly decommissioned. The British definitely had ironclads of their own by this point – I saw one right around this time. The other thing to note is the relative strengths of the German armies versus Dutch and French. I feel like the Germans are in check.
In Mid-May the Battle of Reynosa was won by Mexico’s Gen. Zaragoza against Gen. Abercrombie. Around the same time Gen. Ford was hard pressed at Veracruz. The bad news and the relative troop strengths after the Mexican mobilization forced America’s hand. A full mobilization of the United States’ citizenry was ordered, with 54 new brigades coming into service soon after.
In the closing days of May the battle of Veracruz was lost. And Gen. Abercrombie was losing the Battle of Morelos until reinforcements showed up, whereupon he pulled off by the skin of his teeth a significant victory (+1.4).
I actually believe, in retrospect, that the Empire of Mexico must have achieved a Tactics technology at around this time that made their troops equal to my own. I believe this because we went from winning handily to having a lot of trouble, and then later in the war when the USA achieved a tech advancing our Tactics once more, we began to win again.
In June the United States started to get its act together. The name of the game was – always is – destroying the enemy in battle, not just winning battlefield victories. Heretofore it hadn’t been entirely possible – there were too many Mexican armies, and too few United States armies in-theatre.
At the end of May Gen. Valentin Cervantes had won the Battle of Veracruz, and had made a strategic withdrawal with nearly 30,000 soldiers toward Oaxaca. The US Army determined to meet him in battle there, surround him, and trap him there where he could not escape.
A holding force met Cervantes in the mountains, eliminating his natural advantages in combat by forcing him to attack an entrenched force in difficult terrain. Then Gen. Ford followed with reinforcements and began the process of bleeding Cervantes dry. It was an inelegant battle – the United States had the edge primarily because it could continue throwing fresh troops into the battle while the Mexicans were stuck. All the considerations that could be controlled favored the US Army, but reducing 30,000 enemy troops of basically equal training and skill was a dangerous, nasty endeavor.
Meanwhile the Battle of Delicias demonstrates the decisiveness of American artillery, when we were able to get it into action.
Frustratingly, by the end of June 1872 – five months in – the United States still held no occupied territory through the whole of Mexico! Everyplace where we had landed was contested, and our armies were forced to scramble too much to actually take and hold enemy land. Soon, we hoped, our advancing technology, artillery, the destruction of enemy armies, and the arrival of fresh conscripts from the States would turn things around.
