In the previous chapter we established that in Dr. Pershing’s World the first subtle historical differences compared to ours began in the early 1890s in Central Russia. It is interesting to note however that the first great historical change in the other timeline occurred off the coast of Cuba, in the western hemisphere. The USS Maine of the United States Navy never became famous in our sister timeline, the few paper reports and photos our commission could find show that it was sent to Havana in 1898 to protect American interests in Cuba during the War of 1895. The battleship had its intended effect on preventing atrocities against American citizens in Havana and sending a firm message to the Spanish government in Madrid, but there would be no explosion or loss of the life of those in the ship as in our timeline. In late February the American President McKinley continued his aggressive posturing by ordering the North Atlantic Squadron to the Gulf of Mexico and other ships to just off the coast of Lisbon and Hong Kong. Fearing war with the United States of America, the Cuban colonial government took two steps that had been demanded by President William McKinley: it ended forced relocation from homes and offered negotiations with the independence fighters. The truce was rejected by the rebels and the war continued. The American press joined American businesses in support for the revolutionaries’ cause, but no conflict would emerge. Meanwhile the rebels were becoming quickly exhausted of funds, weapons, and men. In August 1899 the independence movement’s leaders accepted the offer to negotiate with several specific conditions. That the USA would mediate a peace treaty was one of them. President McKinley gladly accepted the role as peacemaker and negotiated the Treaty of Washington in the year 1900 which ceded to Cuba and Puerto Rico complete self-autonomy. Outside of a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Spanish jurisdiction over defense and foreign relations and nominal membership of the Spanish Empire, the Cubans and Puerto Ricans are granted the right to control their own domestic affairs.
Though affairs in the Caribbean basin pacified and normalcy returned to the region, the absence of a Spanish-American War in the history of Dr. Pershing’s World would shift the course of history for many nations. Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain and the United States of America quickly diverged from their historical tracks in our own timeline. The Cuban independence movement would resurge in the decade of the Great War and eventually the island would acquire full independence, but would do it without the assistance of a foreign power. After the end of the War of 1895, the Spanish government quickly shifted its military forces and funds towards the Philippines in hopes that it could directly manage at least its Pacific colonies. Filipino revolutionaries would submit to a Cuban-style peace treaty in 1904 which established Filipino jurisdiction over their domestic affairs and nothing else. Spain avoided losing its colonies and maintained its importance as an imperial power, but at an enormous cost which left the country bankrupt. In the United States, although it was not completely or directly responsible, it is possible that the lack of an African-American military performance at this crucial period of American history put the African-American civil rights movement years behind compared to our own timeline. The nonexistence of black participation in a military adventure with their white countrymen could have nudged the other United States of America in the direction of the future failures in race relations that awaited it.