Why Did The South Lose The Civil War?

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by Ziggy100

That's what I was wondering.
Virginia and North Carolina seceded because they were ordered to attack their southern neighbors. Why couldn't they just pull a Kentucky (or Missouri, but that didn't last long). That would have left an entire neutral buffer zone between the North and South.

Missouri never seceded. And as I point out below neutrality definitely favored the Union. Virginians would not have been eager participants and we would have kept valuable assets out of play.

Originally Posted by Grandstander

The Kentucky style neutrality didn't really work. There was never a chance that the two sides would slug it out while tip toeing around Kentucky and treating it as a third nation with its borders sacrosanct. Neither side ever officially acknowledged that Kentucky was neutral, but they behaved as though they did because both sides wanted the other to be the first to violate the claim.

You're probably right. But with Virginia keeping the ironworks and Hampton Bays out of play could have given the Union some real advantages.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by Ziggy100

I still wouldn't go telling Japanese that it was in their best interest.
Keep in mind that Japan was unique in they took orders from their own heiarchy very seriously. These are people who would do a bonzai charge when they run out of ammo to avoid being captured. One thing that helped greatly with Japan was leaving the emperor in charge. Hirohito was highly revered and leaving him alone saved us a lot of grief. Having the Emperor to tell them to stop fighting is why they stopped, not because we broke the will of the people.

Perhaps we didn't break the will of the people, but we certainly broke the will of the Emperor.

https://www.pomona.edu/news/2016/02/...g-world-war-ii

Even the most devoted Japanese had to know that they had been manipulated and lied to once their cities became the targets of massive air raids.

<<Throughout the following years from 1943 to 1945, the sequence of drawn and then decisively lost naval and land engagements was reported to the public as a series of great victories. Only gradually did it become apparent to the Japanese people that the situation was very grim due to growing shortages of food, medicine, and fuel as U.S submarines began wiping out Japanese shipping. Starting in mid 1944, U.S. air raids on the cities of Japan made a mockery of the unending tales of victory. Later that year, with the downfall of Hideki Tōjō's government, two other prime ministers were appointed to continue the war effort, Kuniaki Koiso and Kantarō Suzuki—each with the formal approval of the Emperor. Both were unsuccessful and Japan was nearing defeat....

On August 9, 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war, Emperor Hirohito told Kōichi Kido: "the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us."[34] On August 10, the cabinet drafted an "Imperial Rescript ending the War" following the Emperor's indications that the declaration did not compromise any demand which prejudiced the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito

Hirohito had to recognize if the U.S., and especially the Soviet Union, actually engaged in a bloody invasion of Japan, his prospects were dim, especially as the Soviet Union was unlikely to relinquish captured territory.

Before Hirohito had decided to surrender, the Soviets had captured southern Sakhalin island, and captured the Kurile islands after the Japanese surrender, and threatened an imminent invasion of even Hokkaido. Only the opposition of President Truman prevented the Soviets from occupying Hokkaido.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan