PC: Secretary of Navy stays at work Friday afternoon 1898-no US Philippines?

without TR's initiative, there would have been no battle of Manila

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • No

    Votes: 4 80.0%

  • Total voters
    5

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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According to the way he told it, Theodore Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish-American war took advantage of his boss's absence on a Friday afternoon to order Commodore Dewey to steam from Hong Kong to Manila in anticipation of fighting. This in turn resulted in Dewey being in position to launch the battle of Manila almost as soon as war was declared. Winning the battle at Manila and follow on efforts to get all Spanish forces there to surrender got the US possession of the Philippines.

So if the SecNav, roosevelt's boss, had been more workaholic that Friday, would Dewey have never been sent to Manila?

Since the war was about Cuba at the start, might a pacific front and pacific territorial acquisitions from Spain have been avoided, with action only on the Caribbean front?

Controversy over Cuba had brewed since 1895. There had been controversies over Cuba in prior decades as well. Was 1898 the first time it was likely or possible for a Spanish American war to lead to conflict not just in the Caribbean, but in the western Pacific as well?
 
I don't think TR did anything Long wouldn't have done:

"Revisionists to the contrary, Roosevelt's orders to Dewey were not part of an imperialist cabal to get a jump on...American expansion. A naval attack on the Philippines in a war with Spain had been contemplated at least since the previous summer in the Naval War College scenarios. Long was aware of it and had endorsed the operation should it come.

"Roosevelt's action in triggering the movement, though certainly beyond the scope of his nominal duties, was a sensible act of military preparedness."

Ivan Musicant, *Empire by Default: The Spanish American War and the Dawn of the American Century,* cited at https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/some-snarky-history-from-wapo/

"Roosevelt may have acted on his own, and as Secretary Long put it, 'He has gone about things like a bull in a China shop,'4 but his actions were not done in secret, and the Secretary did not change any of the actions. In fact Long would follow up with nine additional orders to Dewey over the next two months..." Lawrnce Lenz, *Power and Policy: America's First Steps to Superpower, 1889-1922* https://books.google.com/books?id=YIBNBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA74
 
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