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The Second French Empire had officially stayed neutral so far during the American Civil War and was reluctant to answer previous Confederate calls for direct military aid. With the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, the situation had become dire on July 4th, 1863, Pierre-Paul Pecquet du Bellet, the unofficial diplomat from France to the Confederate States received the dire message by President Jefferson Davis calling for French military aid. Pierre contacts to the French Emperor, Napoleon the Third. Napoleon agrees to the Confederate plea, with an aim to solidify French control in Mexico without the threat of the Union and continue the cotton trade without interruption from the Union blockade. France declares war on the United States on July 20th.
The French navy begins to depart from ports to set sail to the United States. Napoleon the Third must now decide what actions France must take now. If the French military focuses on the naval front, that would break the Union blockade of the CSA, but give the Union time to take pre-emptive actions on land, possibly on the French puppet state in Mexico. And so the second option is to attack the Union underbelly in the Southwest, causing a diversion for Confederate forces to exploit. The third and final option is to attack the Union pocket in New Orleans, which had been captured a year earlier, and use the port city as a naval base.
Written by: Flabby Cheeks For Life
What will the emperor decide?