Would the CSA ever manage to conquer Cuba?

There seems to be a ton of Confederate victory maps that feature Cuba as a member of the CSA after the war. I don't know much about the Confederacy, but I have read quite a few times that it had next to no real naval power.

So in the event of a CSA victory (wether it only keeps the eleven seceding states or gets more CONUS realestate doesn't really matter), how can it ever manage to take Cuba away from Spain, a state that would almost certainly have the upper hand in naval power?
 
There seems to be a ton of Confederate victory maps that feature Cuba as a member of the CSA after the war. I don't know much about the Confederacy, but I have read quite a few times that it had next to no real naval power.

So in the event of a CSA victory (wether it only keeps the eleven seceding states or gets more CONUS realestate doesn't really matter), how can it ever manage to take Cuba away from Spain, a state that would almost certainly have the upper hand in naval power?

To be honest, the early demise of the CSA means that this call is not entirely determinable, but something is certain. The Confederacy has no real need to expand; the desire to expand the cotton-farming business westward won't happen for another 100 years. Actually, a North-South split might butterfly this away (due to the lack of a creation of a "Sun Belt" by Northerners, leaving the region to Southerners alone or perhaps immigrants). However, cotton is doomed to be phased-out in an ever-industrializing world. This was evident even in the Civil War: Britain's demand for Confederate cotton was very low, which pretty much destroyed the Confederates' "Cotton is King" idea. Eventually, I can see Texas' oil becoming the CSA's staple export (even more so if in this ATL the CSA snatched Oklahoma/Indian Territory from the USA).

In short, why does the CSA need Cuba?

But if the CSA is going to get Cuba, it shall be later than 1865 or probably even later than OTL's Spanish-American War, giving the CSA time to catch up on power.
 
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I had the Confederacy become a de facto military dictatorship with a Prussian-style army, and gave Spain a civil war, in my TL in order to reach this goal. Would that work?
 
I had the Confederacy become a de facto military dictatorship with a Prussian-style army, and gave Spain a civil war, in my TL in order to reach this goal. Would that work?

Seems plausible, although I'd think that, under the right circumstances, anyway, the Spaniards might just *sell* it to the Confederacy.....
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
In short, why does the CSA need Cuba?

It doesn't need Cuba, but it would want Cuba. Call it ideological momentum. A generation of Southern politicians had been calling for the annexation of Cuba before the war; they're not just going to drop their dream because the initial rationale of increasing congressional seats vis-à-vis the North no longer applies.

Besides, in the mid-19th Century imperialism is catching on in Europe. The Europeans didn't need colonial empires; they wanted them for reasons of prestige. The Confederates, so touchy on matters of honor, will not want to be looked upon as a second-rate power and might want Cuba just to look like one of the big boys.

But the Confederacy won't be in any position to go after Cuba for some time (two decades, at least) after winning its independence. Debt, a ransacked infrastructure, and a people sick of war will see to that.
 
Nope. Seriously, there is no way the Confederacy has the ability to build up a fleet that can defeat Spain. And if the Confederacy can't establish naval superiority they can't invade Cuba. Not to mention the quality of the respective ground troops, where I see no obvious reason for the Confederates to be better than the Spanish.
 
It might also be worth mentioning that, in my TL, the Confederacy didn't actually set out to conquer Cuba. They intended to hold the island hostage to force Spain to open up Cuba for trade, but the Spanish ended up just selling it to them, since they needed the money and couldn't really hold on to Cuba any more (because of the rebellions).

So, while I think it's perfectly possible for the Confederates to conquer Cuba with the right POD, it's going to be a lot harder for them to control it.
 
Hmmm. I suppose its 'when' and 'under what circumstances.'

Between 1865 and 1890, no chance to speak of. The Confederacy has no blue water navy, probably can't land and support enough troops to be taken seriously.

Possibly, after 1890 to 1930, the Confederacy might have a credible naval threat. But an expansive slave-ocracy? I don't think that would go over well with Cubans. The Cuban constituencies most are reversed. The most sympathetic to slavery or slave-ocracy are the most conservative elements in Cuban society. They'll pick spain over the confederacy every time. The most rebellious elements are opposed to everything the Confederacy stands for. Odds are that the Confederates land, the Cubans and Spaniards close ranks.

There's also the question of whether the United States, Britain, France, etc. would tolerate an attempted invasion.

Colour me skeptical. It could be done. You can do anything in alt history if you work hard enough. But it's heavy lifting.
 
I see the easiest way for confederate Cuba is for USA to acquire it before the civil war and it secede along with victorious CSA. They did offer to buy it iirc. have the offer accepted. still this does not have them conquering it
 

bguy

Donor
It doesn't need Cuba, but it would want Cuba. Call it ideological momentum. A generation of Southern politicians had been calling for the annexation of Cuba before the war; they're not just going to drop their dream because the initial rationale of increasing congressional seats vis-à-vis the North no longer applies.

Why would the Confederates want Cuba though once the need for additional slave states to balance out the free states no longer applies? The Confederates aren't going to want to pay the taxes necessary to build the military that could seize Cuba. They aren't going to want to give significant political power to large numbers of Catholic Spainards (which would be necessary if Cuba is to ever be pacified). They aren't going to want to antagonize the British (who aren't likely to react well to a slave power miltiarily expanding). They aren't going to want to leave themselves exposed to being attacked by a revanchist US while their army is off fighting in Cuba. They aren't going to want to risk empowering a slave revolt in Cuba by weakening Spanish control. And Spanish controlled Cuba is actually very useful to the Confederates as long as the Spanish maintain slavery there because it makes the CSA less of a diplomatic pariah by having at least one western European nation that still practices slavery.

Besides, in the mid-19th Century imperialism is catching on in Europe. The Europeans didn't need colonial empires; they wanted them for reasons of prestige. The Confederates, so touchy on matters of honor, will not want to be looked upon as a second-rate power and might want Cuba just to look like one of the big boys.

Perhaps, but isn't Confederate imperialism more likely to target Northern Mexico? It's sparsely populated, has some potential good cotton land, and will probably be much easier to seize than Cuba.
 
Why would the Confederates want Cuba though once the need for additional slave states to balance out the free states no longer applies? The Confederates aren't going to want to pay the taxes necessary to build the military that could seize Cuba. They aren't going to want to give significant political power to large numbers of Catholic Spainards (which would be necessary if Cuba is to ever be pacified). They aren't going to want to antagonize the British (who aren't likely to react well to a slave power miltiarily expanding). They aren't going to want to leave themselves exposed to being attacked by a revanchist US while their army is off fighting in Cuba. They aren't going to want to risk empowering a slave revolt in Cuba by weakening Spanish control. And Spanish controlled Cuba is actually very useful to the Confederates as long as the Spanish maintain slavery there because it makes the CSA less of a diplomatic pariah by having at least one western European nation that still practices slavery.



Perhaps, but isn't Confederate imperialism more likely to target Northern Mexico? It's sparsely populated, has some potential good cotton land, and will probably be much easier to seize than Cuba.

It's all Saber Tooth appetites on hamster teeth jaws. The Confederacy would, most likely be massively limited in its ability to rape its neighbors, near and far. The Confederacy for the most part is unlikely to afford a powerful navy, it's unlikely to afford or be willing to allow a powerful standing army, unless its perpetually facing a northern threat. If it is facing such a threat, it's going to be unlikely to hie off on military adventures elsewhere which would leave it vulnerable and potentially short of troops on the northern front. Without a northern threat, there's going to be insufficient motivation to invest in a powerful military, and there's going to be nonexistent ability or willingness to pursue the logistical wherewithal to be able to project such an army any distance for any length of time.

So the Rape of Cuba will not happen. The Sodomy of Santo Domingo, nadda. The purloining of Puerto Rico. The gutting of Guatemala. The nicking of Nicaragua. The Kidnapping of Costa Rica. The further despoiling and violation of Mexico. All these glorious acts in furtherance of the constitutional right to enslave black people, or at least to hang them like Christmas ornaments from trees, to steal, to rape, to rob, to bend those not white enough under the chains and jackboots of those sufficiently white, to cultivate the cult of subhumanity.... nope, not likely to happen.

Instead, the Confederacy, like any good junky, will dream glorious dreams, but ease back into genteel but ever more obvious shabby impoverishment, blissfully mainlining the blood and pain of black people into its veins to maintain it's high, and blaming everyone else in the world for its failures and problems.

That's whats likely to happen.

But hey, this is alt history, and people can write any confederacy at all, including one that successfully invades mexico and the caribbean multiple times, and gives all the former slaves ponies. If one works hard enoough, one can even make it plausible. Or at least entertaining. That's the beauty of it.
 
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Obviously, the solution is for The United States to seize Cuba. Mwahahaha.

If the Confederates made a move, the Union might well make its own move. I could see an active American presence in the Caribbean keeping out the Confederates. For that matter, I could see the British, French, and even the Dutch being pretty hostile.
 
It might also be worth mentioning that, in my TL, the Confederacy didn't actually set out to conquer Cuba. They intended to hold the island hostage to force Spain to open up Cuba for trade, but the Spanish ended up just selling it to them, since they needed the money and couldn't really hold on to Cuba any more (because of the rebellions).

So, while I think it's perfectly possible for the Confederates to conquer Cuba with the right POD, it's going to be a lot harder for them to control it.

There's the issue here that you don't quite get the Spansh perspective. Cuba was Spanish, not a colony, in the minds of the Spaniards and especially the politicians, just as Spanish as the Canary Islands, only further away. So, the idea of selling them was at best stupid, at worst and with a bad harvest year, a good reason for a pronunciaminento or a revolution.

Also, until the 1870s-1880s OTL Spain had a decent navy, it was only the mismanagement and the chaos of the early Restauración (and critical financial situation) that led to a situation where the navy became very outdated to meet the enemy in 1898.
 
Nope. Seriously, there is no way the Confederacy has the ability to build up a fleet that can defeat Spain. And if the Confederacy can't establish naval superiority they can't invade Cuba. Not to mention the quality of the respective ground troops, where I see no obvious reason for the Confederates to be better than the Spanish.

Pretty sure that the Confederacy was more industrialized then Spain was in the 1860s. If the South separates from the North peacefully I don't see why it couldn't build a navy capable of taking Cuba in that decade.

If it has to fight a costly war with the north, then you'd have to give it a generation to recover.
 
Not sure how you can manage a peacefully separated South, and if it's the same states that seceded before Fort Sumter they're gonna lack any real industry.
 
The South's leadership wasn't exactly even-keeled and cunning enough to peacefully stonewall political negotiations with Washington for years until they cave, not to mention the complications of doing so. Nor is Washington going to be filled with drooling idiots or the completely spineless...
 
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