Spanish-American War 25 years earlier

What would have happened if the Virginius Incident hadn't been resolved diplomatically and the USA had declared war on Spain in 1873?

I can see this being a close run thing, indeed many American naval commanders seemed to have thought they would lose. In comparison to Spanish vessals like the Numancia the US had very little - the US navy was in its so-called "Dark ages."

Let's say the HMS Niobe isn't close enough to Santiago to intervene with the execution of British and American nationals, so the Spanish continue instead of stopping after Lambton Loraine protests. The US population calls for war, which is duly declared. A fleet action is fought by the US and Spanish navies in the sea beween Florida and Cuba, where most of the American ships are sunk.

What happens when the Spanish have acheived naval superiority?
- Does the US sue for peace immediately, recognising Spanish possessions in the Caribbean.
- The US decides to continue the fight (although not sure what they can do at this stage.)
- The Spanish attemps to land on American soil (seems unlikely.)

Anyone have any thoughts?
 
I don't think the U.S. was serious about going to war, not so soon after the ACW. I always believed it was just diplomatic saber rattling.
It would take over a generation before the U.S. was ready to fight anyone other than indian tribes.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
OTL The USN immediately assembled all their available ships into an Atlantic Battlefleet and sent them to Florida. They had about 10 old ACW Monitors (mostly the later classes, Dictator was amongst them), about a dozen wooden cruisers (which included some relics reactivated from ordinary, such as Macedonian) and some gunboats. The entire US ironclad (i.e. Monitor) fleet had 34 guns once all the worthwhile vessels were repaired (plus 12 guns, i.e. 6 Monitors, which were irrepairable). The Spanish fleet had over 300 guns under armour...

It fairly obvious that the Spanish are going to win a fleet engagement, but then what?

The NYT made a great deal that most Spanish armoured warships were too deep draught to enter US ports (and they're right with the Southern Ports), but the coastal defences are in a worse state than during the ACW, hence the issue of all the remaining US heavy ordnance (James Rifles etc.) to the defences of Pensacola. With modern heavy guns, I can't see any US fort resisting a Spanish squadron for long. By the same token, landing an army in CONUS also seems unlikely....

At a guess, the USN gets thoughly smashed (which, long term, is a good thing for the US, they might move on and start building modern ships 20 years earlier to back up their pretentions of being a Great Power), the Spanish can raid the US coast at will, and maybe make some small landings to secure LoCs, and then we wait to see just how far down the pan the US will let the economy go before giving in.

As an idea, are there still a fair number of unreconstructed Condfederates? If a Spanish landing suddenly causes a southern state to throw off the occupying US (and ISTR some of the states are still occupied?), would that cause the Spanish to act more rashly?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
What if it had started in 1869 ?

PoD remove Hamilton Fish. He was a principal restraining influence on the Grant administration. There was a large congressional constituency for supporting the Cuban rebels and Grant was somewhat sympathetic.
 
The war probably ends on a status quo ante bellum: nothing changes, except Grant's presidential legacy to history is tarnished further.
 
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