Post by Catsmate on Oct 31, 2019 10:45:35 GMT
Some speculation.
At 9.40PM (local time) on 15 February 1898 the United States armoured cruiser1 USS Maine exploded while anchored in the harbour of Havana, Cuba. The mysterious detonation of the ship's forward magazine killed or fatally injured 261 sailors and marines, and causes a crisis in the already strained relations between the United States and Spain. At the time Spain was fighting an insurrection in Cuba against those seeking independence.
Hysterical, jingoistic and deliberately inflammatory stories in the 'yellow press' of Hearst and Pulitzer2 alleged that the explosion was caused by a mine intentionally used by Spain. This was despite the strong evidence against such an 'infernal device' being used3.
The US Navy's Board of Enquiry found that the cruiser was sunk deliberately by a mine3.
The Spanish-American War began on 21 April 1898 and would end three months later (13 August 1898) with Spain losing most of her overseas colonies; Cuba to independence, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico to America, while Germany purchased the scattered Caroline and Northern Mariana Islands.
The fighting caused a few hundred American deaths, far more died from disease, heatstroke (in heavy wool winter uniforms) and poor food.
The political effects were immense; despite internal pressures the USA was set on an expansionist course and became recognised as a Great Power. Spain suffered immense shock from the defeat, being left only with holdings in North Africa and Guinea; this led to a "stab in the back"5 myth amongst the military, who blamed the defeat and loss of empire on civilian politicians. This would create a mindset amongst the increasingly isolated and self-segregated Spanish army that led to the coup of 1936 against the Second Republic, the three year civil war and the decade long Franco dictatorship with it's 'White Terror'6.
So, what if the explosion doesn't happen?
1. For how long is US emergence as a World Power delayed? Probably a few years, Roosevelt's diplomacy in the Russo-Japanese war was arguable more significant. Though of course Theodore's profile was elevated by his actions in Cuba.
2. Might the lack of war have altered the course of Spain's political system? Probably not, the country was unstable, with anarchism on the rise as a response to the deep political corruption, economic disparity and landownership system. Though before the 'Disaster of '98' the officer corps was one of the more liberal elements of Spain, perhaps their interventions in Spanish politics would not have happened?
3. Franco's career would have changed; he came from a naval dynasty and joined the infantry, and the Army of Africa, due to the effects the loss of empire had on the Spanish Navy. His future (he entered the Infantry Academy because enrollment the Naval Academy had bee stopped in 1907) would have been very different and his leadership role in the coup probably wouldn't have happened.
4. Would Cuba and the Philippines have become independent? Quite possibly, the long term insurrections were unpopular and expensive.
So, let's assume a best-case scenario. The SAW doesn't happen, Spain liberalises slowly, but faster than historically and without the meddling of the military in politics. The boom and bust of neutrality in the Great War (pretty much unchanged) happens but there is no disaster at Annual in Morocco (Spain is less interested in North Africa)/ No Primo de Rivera dictatorship in the twenties, instead the incompetent Alphonso XIII if forced out a decade early (say 1921) and 'La Niña Bonita', the Second Republic arrives early and before the Depression; opposition is still intense (landowners, the church, the monarchists et cetera) but the military supports democracy and the situation stabilises. Spanish gold isn't shipped to the USSR, no testing ground for modern war from 1936 to 39. No International Brigades. The three-quarters of a million who died in the war and the purges survive
After the Second World War federalised Spain becomes part of modern Europe, integrated into NATO and the EEC earlier.
Now your players have to go and fix history, by blowing up the Maine.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
1. Not, as is frequently stated, a battleship.
2. Neither of who actually believed this nonsense of course.
3. There was no column of explosively displaced water, no fish floating concusses in the harbour, no signs of cables to fire an electrically detonated charge and such a device was unlikely to cause sympathetic detonation of an internal magazine.
4. The enquiry seems to have bee set up to come to this conclusion; exculpatory technical evidence was ignored.
A later investigation, in 1974, discounted this possibility of a mine and stated the the explosion was purely internal caused by something, perhaps a coal bunker fire, igniting powder charges for the ship's main guns.
5. The parallels to Germany after the Great War are striking and would have similar long term consequences.
6. There are still more mass graves in Spain than anywhere outside Cambodia. The 'pact of forgetting' that came with the end of the dictatorship in 1975 is only now crumbling.
At 9.40PM (local time) on 15 February 1898 the United States armoured cruiser1 USS Maine exploded while anchored in the harbour of Havana, Cuba. The mysterious detonation of the ship's forward magazine killed or fatally injured 261 sailors and marines, and causes a crisis in the already strained relations between the United States and Spain. At the time Spain was fighting an insurrection in Cuba against those seeking independence.
Hysterical, jingoistic and deliberately inflammatory stories in the 'yellow press' of Hearst and Pulitzer2 alleged that the explosion was caused by a mine intentionally used by Spain. This was despite the strong evidence against such an 'infernal device' being used3.
The US Navy's Board of Enquiry found that the cruiser was sunk deliberately by a mine3.
The Spanish-American War began on 21 April 1898 and would end three months later (13 August 1898) with Spain losing most of her overseas colonies; Cuba to independence, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico to America, while Germany purchased the scattered Caroline and Northern Mariana Islands.
The fighting caused a few hundred American deaths, far more died from disease, heatstroke (in heavy wool winter uniforms) and poor food.
The political effects were immense; despite internal pressures the USA was set on an expansionist course and became recognised as a Great Power. Spain suffered immense shock from the defeat, being left only with holdings in North Africa and Guinea; this led to a "stab in the back"5 myth amongst the military, who blamed the defeat and loss of empire on civilian politicians. This would create a mindset amongst the increasingly isolated and self-segregated Spanish army that led to the coup of 1936 against the Second Republic, the three year civil war and the decade long Franco dictatorship with it's 'White Terror'6.
So, what if the explosion doesn't happen?
1. For how long is US emergence as a World Power delayed? Probably a few years, Roosevelt's diplomacy in the Russo-Japanese war was arguable more significant. Though of course Theodore's profile was elevated by his actions in Cuba.
2. Might the lack of war have altered the course of Spain's political system? Probably not, the country was unstable, with anarchism on the rise as a response to the deep political corruption, economic disparity and landownership system. Though before the 'Disaster of '98' the officer corps was one of the more liberal elements of Spain, perhaps their interventions in Spanish politics would not have happened?
3. Franco's career would have changed; he came from a naval dynasty and joined the infantry, and the Army of Africa, due to the effects the loss of empire had on the Spanish Navy. His future (he entered the Infantry Academy because enrollment the Naval Academy had bee stopped in 1907) would have been very different and his leadership role in the coup probably wouldn't have happened.
4. Would Cuba and the Philippines have become independent? Quite possibly, the long term insurrections were unpopular and expensive.
So, let's assume a best-case scenario. The SAW doesn't happen, Spain liberalises slowly, but faster than historically and without the meddling of the military in politics. The boom and bust of neutrality in the Great War (pretty much unchanged) happens but there is no disaster at Annual in Morocco (Spain is less interested in North Africa)/ No Primo de Rivera dictatorship in the twenties, instead the incompetent Alphonso XIII if forced out a decade early (say 1921) and 'La Niña Bonita', the Second Republic arrives early and before the Depression; opposition is still intense (landowners, the church, the monarchists et cetera) but the military supports democracy and the situation stabilises. Spanish gold isn't shipped to the USSR, no testing ground for modern war from 1936 to 39. No International Brigades. The three-quarters of a million who died in the war and the purges survive
After the Second World War federalised Spain becomes part of modern Europe, integrated into NATO and the EEC earlier.
Now your players have to go and fix history, by blowing up the Maine.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
1. Not, as is frequently stated, a battleship.
2. Neither of who actually believed this nonsense of course.
3. There was no column of explosively displaced water, no fish floating concusses in the harbour, no signs of cables to fire an electrically detonated charge and such a device was unlikely to cause sympathetic detonation of an internal magazine.
4. The enquiry seems to have bee set up to come to this conclusion; exculpatory technical evidence was ignored.
A later investigation, in 1974, discounted this possibility of a mine and stated the the explosion was purely internal caused by something, perhaps a coal bunker fire, igniting powder charges for the ship's main guns.
5. The parallels to Germany after the Great War are striking and would have similar long term consequences.
6. There are still more mass graves in Spain than anywhere outside Cambodia. The 'pact of forgetting' that came with the end of the dictatorship in 1975 is only now crumbling.
