There were mixed ideas in Europe about what to do during the ACW (American Civil War). In Britain, the elites tended to sympathize with the Confederacy because the planter aristocracy way of life coincided with the British aristocracy. The commoners, however, supported the Union. France also had pro Confederate sympathies. Russia actually had began to make closer ties to the US since they still held Alaska. A Russo-American alliance was planned in the event that Britain or France joined in with the CSA. Smaller countries usually did not care. There is a story about how Siam pledged to send a group of war elephants to the Union to which Lincoln politely declined