The Maine isn't sunk?

The Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor in 1898. Whether or not the Spanish are to blame is debatable, but that's irrelevant: the fact is later that year Spain and America were at war.

So what if it didn't sink?
Would war happen anyways? Would America just sit passively on the sidelines as Spain's colonial empire collapsed? What the heck would happen to the Philippines?
 
Absent the Maine, some other incident would have touched off the war. My off-the-top-of-my-head guess is that it would have been some sort of incident in the Phillippines: say, a US ship got sufficiently close to a Spanish ship that a petty officer on the latter got spooked and pulled the lanyard (so to speak), firing the first shot as a function of nerves and an accident.

That wouldn't matter in the final analysis since that first shot would be all it would take. Next thing you know there's a declaration of war and away you go. Within about four months, the Phillippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and a few other odds and ends are in American hands.
 
I would think Cuba would the the match that lights the fuze. The yellow journalism going on would keep piling the tinder to the fire.
 
Top