Counterattack

The Britain's previous series of victories did not actually change their strategic predicament. Because of the constraints imposed by France, they were unable to send large-scale reinforcements from the mainland, thus they could not break through the blockade of the United States fleet, and consequently, the most important military supplies could not be delivered to Canada.

Canada's industrial capacity is quite limited, and it is unable to produce many crucial military supplies. The Britain have some stockpiles in Canada, but the quantity is not very large. It is certainly enough to deal with routine border skirmishes, but it is far from sufficient to cope with a large-scale war.

After United States independence, the Britain concluded that colonies should not have strong and relatively complete industrial and agricultural sectors. The more incomplete their industrial chains were, the stronger their dependence on the mother country, and the less likely they were to seek independence.

This idea certainly has merit, but no political measure can have only positive effects without side effects. For example, the Britain approach has very obvious side effects: once the sea routes between the homeland and the colonies are temporarily cut off, the colonies' ability to sustain an independent war is very weak. So even though the Canada army performed exceptionally well, these tactical successes did not change their strategic predicament.

"Unless we receive more supplies, we will soon have to withdraw from Cleveland," General Isaac Block wrote in a letter to the Governor General of Canada.

Conversely, although the United States suffered considerable losses, the truly wealthiest region of the United States, the American South, was not significantly damaged. Therefore, the United States still had money to buy weapons and ammunition from those damned France, even though those France were no less greedy than the Jews.

For example, regarding the cruiser lease, the Saint-Domingue Republic leased two France cruisers for a symbolic price of only two francs—yes, just two francs—and gained the right to lease these two cruisers for a full year. Furthermore, to demonstrate the unbreakable friendship between France and the Saint-Domingue Republic, even the soldiers' salaries on these two warships, as well as a portion of the maintenance and supply costs, were still provided by the France government.

The lifelong governor of Saint-Domingue didn't even have a chance to see the two warships before he leased them to the United States. Of course, the lease fee wasn't just two francs, but 800,000 francs per ship! Moreover, the United States covered all the crew's pay, maintenance, and supply costs. Clearly, this portion of the money, along with the previous price difference, was all pocketed by certain middlemen.

Besides cruisers, even other weapons, damn it, inexplicably saw the emergence of middlemen profiting from the price difference. This was because the France insisted they must retain a portion of their weapons to ensure the needs of France citizens in Louisiana. Especially during this period, with the United States and Britain so fiercely fighting, and many undefined borders between Louisiana and the United States and Canada, who knew when the war might suddenly spill over into Louisiana? Therefore, the France had to prioritize meeting the needs of France citizens for weapons and self-defense. This applied even to German-speaking France citizens. In fact, in Louisiana, German-speaking France citizens were almost more patriotic than French-speaking France citizens.

This is perfectly normal, because these German-speaking France people, in order to gain a foothold in places like Louisiana and avoid being bullied by United States, Britain, or even Native Americans, had to rely on France. And France, at least in North America, genuinely treated them as one of their own. Given this, how could they not be patriotic?

This reduces the number of weapons available to sell to the United States. However, this isn't a problem, as long as the United States are willing to pay, they can still extract some weapons from another major customer: the Mexico. The Mexico recently achieved a decisive victory, seizing the crucial Shaoxito Silver Mine, which significantly boosted their purchasing power.

So, not long ago, they had just paid the France a large sum of money for a huge order of weapons—enough to retake Mexico City in one fell swoop. These weapons were already on their way and were expected to arrive in New Orleans in three to five days. The France, knowing the United States desperately needed these weapons, kindly acted as intermediaries. After the United States offered a sufficiently high price, the Mexico agreed to deliver this batch of weapons to the United States first, while they could wait for the next shipment. In any case, the Spain couldn't commit any more forces to Mexico in the short term, so waiting a little longer wasn't a big problem.

Of course, the France certainly made a profit in this deal.

But for United States today, time is the most precious thing. The France government cannot continue its military exercises indefinitely; every day of the exercises costs money.

Once the military exercises conclude, the France will no longer maintain a large military presence in Calais, which would also be very costly. The assembled troops will then return to their respective bases, and the assembled warships will return to their home ports for maintenance. After such a large-scale exercise, the France military will certainly not engage in any major operations for some time.

Therefore, as soon as the France disperse these troops, the Britain will immediately send reinforcements to North America. The United States must regain the upper hand before that happens.

So, in just a few days, the United States rearmed themselves, and this time, they not only had guns and cannons, but also landmines and barbed wire. Of course, more importantly, their Southern soldiers, after their previous lesson, had finally become much more obedient.

The United States quickly reorganized an army of over 40,000 men in the south and began to assemble near Cleveland. If they couldn't recapture Cleveland, United States wouldn't be able to disrupt Britain control of shipping on the Great Lakes, which would have many adverse effects on future operations. Therefore, for the United States, recapture of Cleveland became the top priority in the next phase of the operation.

Meanwhile, in New England, 10,000 New York State soldiers urgently recruited by the state arrived near Cleveland.