Why no Spain-wank?

[counterblitzkrieg]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

A Renaissance military force defeating a bronze/stone age empire? I find it plausible.

Well to be fair to strangeland, Pizzaro's and Cortes' force was outnumbered about 100:1 excluding the native support/recruit. A squad of US Marines couldn't defeat a legion of Roman soldiers no matter how advanced the Marines' weapons are.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by counterblitzkrieg

Well to be fair to strangeland, Pizzaro's and Cortes' force was outnumbered about 100:1 excluding the native support/recruit. A squad of US Marines couldn't defeat a legion of Roman soldiers no matter how advanced the Marines' weapons are.

Depends on their equipment. A tank could probably do it, so long as it had ammo/fuel.

[Faralis]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Depends on their equipment. A tank could probably do it, so long as it had ammo/fuel.

There is an interesting Japanese film of the sixties with an entire JSDF armored brigade ( with support choppers ) that ends ISOTed to the warring period ( XV - XVI century ) and I don´t want to spoil the end but ... blooody

I think they made a sequel ( I haven't seen this one )

[maverick]

Well, there was my Timeline Sol de Austria, but I haven't updated that one in a while...it had everything from a unified Iberia to a Successful Armada to Habsburg Netherlands...

[Onkel Willie]

I'm currently writing a TL concerning the 1848 revolutions which is also a moderate Spain wank as a German ends up on the Spanish throne in the 1870s. With support from Germany and a more industrialized and stronger Italy, Spain acquires a colonial empire in Africa (albeit at the expense of the French). Spain also modernizes to western standards IMTL.

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by counterblitzkrieg

Well to be fair to strangeland, Pizzaro's and Cortes' force was outnumbered about 100:1 excluding the native support/recruit. A squad of US Marines couldn't defeat a legion of Roman soldiers no matter how advanced the Marines' weapons are.

It doesn't help that Cortes deliberately cut his own resupply ability by burning his ships on the beach in an effort to discourage his men from retreating to Cuba.

Spain's best chance at maintaining its empire lies in (as another poster put it) not getting tied down in the Austrian Habsburgs' wars of reputacion. They were a horrendous waste of money for Spain. Olivares did a good job otherwise but got Spain tied down in the Netherlands and Italy in the Habsburg name. Essentially, if Spain in the 16th-17th centuries develops an identity as a nation separate from and above that of its identity as a Habsburg possession, it might spare itself a lot of grief.

Stronger leadership wouldn't hurt. The Bourbons with their greater emphasis on trade and the reforms of the mid-18th century managed to give Spain another 100 years in the sun. Someone other than Charles IV on the throne (and Manuel de Godoy as his minister) might have been able to stand up more credibly to Napoleon.

A TL with no French Revolution (or no Napoleon) might also result in Spain remaining stronger to the present day. If Portugal could hang onto its colonial empire for nearly 500 years, there's no reason why Spain with the right leadership and different external pressures couldn't do so.

[Tobit]

I would like to see a TL where Spain turns into and industrial and democratic power in the 19th century. Or at least not descend into multiple civil wars.

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by Faralis

There is an interesting Japanese film of the sixties with an entire JSDF armored brigade ( with support choppers ) that ends ISOTed to the warring period ( XV - XVI century ) and I don´t want to spoil the end but ... blooody

I think they made a sequel ( I haven't seen this one )

Sengoku jietai (a/k/a Time Slip and G.I. Samurai), starring Sonny Chiba. Actually the unit was closer to platoon-sized, and amounted to a small patrol (which makes the imbalance even worse).

There's more about it here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083050/ (and a very amusing review--with a short clip--here: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/gisamurai/)

It was remade in 2005. I don't know how well the remake was received.

[Faeelin]

I don't know why everyone thinks Spain's last, best hope lies in the 16th century.

Under the Bourbons, Spain bounced back pretty well.

This is a general beef of mine: people around here see empires as rising and falling, not taking into account that the relative power of states varies over time.

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I don't know why everyone thinks Spain's last, best hope lies in the 16th century.

Under the Bourbons, Spain bounced back pretty well.

This is a general beef of mine: people around here see empires as rising and falling, not taking into account that the relative power of states varies over time.

Spain would have continued to have done well were it not for that Corsican fellow next door hustling the guy on the throne at the time (here's another POD: Napoleon as a Spanish leader). The Bourbons up to Charles IV did a good job reforming the Empire.

[RGB]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Under the Bourbons, Spain bounced back pretty well.

Staying out of Coalition wars as much as possible would have helped, yes. That was closer to the final straw than the 17th c.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Originally Posted by Goldstein

To me, it means the Murcian people share a nation. The Spanish nation, to be more exact. For understanding Spain as a multiethnical nation is our only way of understanding ourselves. Reduce Spain to teh ev0l Castilians playing dominatrix on the Poor Others, and my land (one of the Poor Ohers, actually) would be deprived of any point of reference, and served to romantic-mithology engineers that would fill us with hatred and lies that we don't really need.

Ah, but that since Castilla is a dominatrix, then the others are actually enjoying it. Which would explain many behaviours of our nationalists.

I enjoy balkanizations (Oh, and please: if you are going to balkanize Spain, do it well. If the otherwise great contributors who have perpetrated the DoD-like Zombie Aragon witnessed its colossosal and magnificent level of absurdity, they would feel like waking up from a dream), much more than wanks, actually... but it would be nice if people don't reduce Spain so simply through the lens of the cheapest romantic nationalism. Thank you.

Indeed, Zombie Aragon was a huge screwup in an otherwise stainless timeline... and the worst thing is that it started a trend.

Originally Posted by Goldstein

There's always the No Spanish Civil War TL, by Dr. Strangelove. Go and read it, you will thank me for that.

Yes, maybe some day I will get to post the update about the alternate UN with Spain sort-of having a seat in the sort-of security council.

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I don't know why everyone thinks Spain's last, best hope lies in the 16th century.

Under the Bourbons, Spain bounced back pretty well.

In the 2nd half of the 18th century, the Spanish Empire was much more prosperous and powerful than it had been under Felipe II. Without Napoleon and that retard Fernando VII, the Empire could have survived the 19th century, perhaps not united, but maybe in a Commonwealth-like status.

[pompejus]

A Spain that would be able to keep its American colonies (in the form of some sort of Spanish Dominions for example) and than manage to grab some good parts of Africa certainly seems possible with a POD in the 18th century. They might even beat France to Algeria and much of Northern Africa (I wonder if the Spanish would try to convert north Africa to catholicism and how succesful they would be).

[MNP]

Originally Posted by Snarf

(here's another POD: Napoleon as a Spanish leader).

Whoa, I really like that one. There'd be no huge conquest spree since Spain didn't have the manpower to handle it like France. Napoleón as a loyal general? He was better at fighting than ruling so....

[Philip]

Has anyone mentioned Tocomochos's A Prussian on the Spanish Throne? Spain does rather well in it, even if the timeline doesn't start until the 19th Century.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Dr. Strangelove

In the 2nd half of the 18th century, the Spanish Empire was much more prosperous and powerful than it had been under Felipe II. Without Napoleon and that retard Fernando VII, the Empire could have survived the 19th century, perhaps not united, but maybe in a Commonwealth-like status.

I'm actually really curious how Latin America would develop without the cataclysmic collapse of government that it went through OTL.

On the other hand, America managed to build a viable government despite goign through a revolution.

[MerryPrankster]

Askelion's "Espadas and Mariposas" involves a federated Spanish Empire slapping the young United States around (with the help of the Royal Navy).

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I'm actually really curious how Latin America would develop without the cataclysmic collapse of government that it went through OTL.

On the other hand, America managed to build a viable government despite goign through a revolution.

The difference lies in the types of colonies that were founded. The heart of the American Revolution was in the mercantile New England and Middle Colonies, founded by yeoman farmers and the merchants who came to make money off them (and with them, by bringing the farmers' products to market). Jefferson's picture of democracy was a picture of the British colonies as they actually were without the crown interfering.

Most of the colonies founded in Latin America were founded by the nobility who were interested in making a fortune at the expense of the locals (ironically, Cortes was actually one of the more enlightened members of this group, taking an Indian bride and insisting that his mestizo heirs be given equal treatment). The haciendado system in Mexico was basically feudalism under a different name. Between the aristocratically-oriented foundation of the Spanish colonies and the influence of the Catholic Church the Enlightenment never really took off in Latin America to the same degree that it did farther north.

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by MNPundit

Whoa, I really like that one. There'd be no huge conquest spree since Spain didn't have the manpower to handle it like France. Napoleón as a loyal general? He was better at fighting than ruling so....

Napoleón as Viceroy of New Spain would have a lot to work with, and may actually give the infant United States a run for its money.

[democracy101]

Originally Posted by counterblitzkrieg

AH.com is rife full of wanked country in the many timelines. There are Britwank, Ameriwank, Chinawank, Romanwank, Russiawank and whatever. There's even a timeline on Korea-wank!

But I can't seem to find a 'Spain-wank' timeline. Last time I check, the Spanish managed to create a large empire in the Americas. What I noticed is that none of the timelines I've seen let the Spanish keep their American possessions, it's always broken up and/or taken by foreign powers. In some cases, Spain itself was broken up!

Is Spain destined to be AH.com's butt monkey?

Haha well I notice that you were referring to my timeline when you mentioned "Korea-wank." The only reason that I created it was because I was frustrated of Korea being in a Catch-22 situation in all of the other timelines involving Korea. Of course, everyone's still saying that it completely ignores a lot of butterflies, but that's another story.

Anyway, I think that people aren't that interested in making a 'Spain-wank' is because almost everyone seems to think that Spain really couldn't have been more powerful than the one that we know of as the "Spanish Empire" in OTL. Ironically, this is almost the same reason why that you'll probably see only one serious timeline concerning a "Korea-wank" on this entire website, because a lot of people have the notion that Korea really couldn't have been more powerful than the one that we know in OTL.

The reason that I think that the Spanish Empire wouldn't have managed to last until the present-day is because it overexpanded itself too early in its empire-building endeavors. Spain had only declared itself completely independent from the Moors in 1492 when the king and queen commissioned Columbus to 'find spices in the Indies,' although we all now know that he really landed in the Caribbean, and technically "discovered" a New World. No matter how hard one tries to look at things, the Spanish was basically bound to crumble by the 1800's, because the natives in the Americas were bound to revolt, or at the very least, cause chaos enough for the Spaniards to withdraw completely from the Americas, with the exception of Cuba, which was also bound to become independent eventually.

So unless one gets rid of Napoleon altogether, make sure that the Bourbon dynasty never comes to power in Spain or at least make sure that the royal family doesn't intermarry within each other, and add a few other assumptions, it's really hard to create a reasonable 'Spain-wank' that consists of a Spanish Empire that lasts until 2000.