USA Loses the Spanish American War
- Thread starter Bexar
- Start date
I can't say in regards to the wider world, but I bet Cuba gets independence around this time even without US victory. I'd still expect major US influence in Cuba also.
Not sure about Puerto Rico and the Philippines though. Seems like they would remain Spanish possessions until at least WWII.
Not sure about Puerto Rico and the Philippines though. Seems like they would remain Spanish possessions until at least WWII.
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Anaxagoras
Banned
I see no reasonable scenario in which the United States could lose, though there are many PODs that could result in them doing considerably more poorly. The war certainly could have lasted longer and American casualties could have been far heavier.
Could the war be dragged out to the point it's not an overwhelming U.S. victory?
Say the Spanish raid the East Coast and draw away ships from Cuba and Puerto Rico, harming the logistics and causing delays to the point disease starts to take a major toll. This avoids the plowing the Spanish fleet gets OTL and the jingo-heads stirred up by the trashy papers might reconsider their bloodthirst when they're getting shelled.
If the war starts to grow unpopular, McKinley (who didn't even want the war in the first place--he was a drummer boy or something in the Civil War) might start looking for a face-saving way out.
Maybe Cuba goes independent, but the Spanish retain Puerto Rico and the Philippines?
Say the Spanish raid the East Coast and draw away ships from Cuba and Puerto Rico, harming the logistics and causing delays to the point disease starts to take a major toll. This avoids the plowing the Spanish fleet gets OTL and the jingo-heads stirred up by the trashy papers might reconsider their bloodthirst when they're getting shelled.
If the war starts to grow unpopular, McKinley (who didn't even want the war in the first place--he was a drummer boy or something in the Civil War) might start looking for a face-saving way out.
Maybe Cuba goes independent, but the Spanish retain Puerto Rico and the Philippines?
This is a very tough one I can't see any realistic scenario where Spain can win the Spanish American war. For starters the United Kingdom which is the only power that could probably help the Spanish win has no intrest in going to war with the USA being more proecupied in stopping German advance in Africa and in establishign his Cairo to Cape railway. Maybe Mexico could interfire on the side of Spain? Around this time they were under the rule of Porfiro Diaz. Maybe Spain asks the Mexicans for help in this war in return for Cuba. Mexican Cuba anyone?
I suggest that the Brits ally with the Spanish and the Spanish cede one of their colonies to the Brits notably northern philippines, where in the brits supported the rebellion a century earlier in exchange for Gibraltar.
Plenty of international observers expected the US to do very poorly. When Dewey's Fleet was in Hong Kong waiting to go to the Philippines, most of the British officers expected the Americans were sailing to their deaths.
Battle of Manila went so well rather out of luck. Dewey was shooting blindly through a wall of smoke. The Spanish for some reason boxed themselves in (didn't want Manila getting caught in the crossfire).
Many observers of the American landing south of Santiago noted that the bungled landing could have been stopped by a mere handful of troops guarding the beaches.
Those two events going poorly would've changed the entire story of the war.
A good POD would be T.R. (yes, him) not becoming Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He enacted massive, swift reforms which brought the meager Navy up to shipshape very quickly. McKinley didn't want him but was eventually worn down by supporters. If he had simply said no, some ineffective political stalwart would've probably been put there and the US Navy would be far less effective...
Battle of Manila went so well rather out of luck. Dewey was shooting blindly through a wall of smoke. The Spanish for some reason boxed themselves in (didn't want Manila getting caught in the crossfire).
Many observers of the American landing south of Santiago noted that the bungled landing could have been stopped by a mere handful of troops guarding the beaches.
Those two events going poorly would've changed the entire story of the war.
A good POD would be T.R. (yes, him) not becoming Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He enacted massive, swift reforms which brought the meager Navy up to shipshape very quickly. McKinley didn't want him but was eventually worn down by supporters. If he had simply said no, some ineffective political stalwart would've probably been put there and the US Navy would be far less effective...
Well, you can have one with a POD that involves the government investing less in the 1880s naval expansion. Perhaps you can butterfly away that incident in which a Spanish ironclad visiting New York caused a panic because there was heightened tension with Spain, and it was realized that that ship could decimate the US Navy. But don't take it too far: without an ironclad fleet of significant size, the US isn't going to challenge the Spanish.
You can have the government invest a lot less in the 1880s naval expansion. The US Navy can have much lower training and equipment standards than it did in OTL, and perhaps you have a lesser fleet (not too small though, or there will be no declaration of war). Say the US Navy is the sixth or seventh largest in the world, rather than the fifth.
With a significant (but smaller) fleet, no real concern over its capabilities (the US government apparently didn't know the army was woefully unprepared to fight a campaign in Cuba), the US Navy could lose to the Spanish Navy. Either the Spanish immediately act to disrupt the invasion and decisively engage the US fleet, or the events go like they did at first in OTL: they remain blockaded in port for a while, and then try to break out. In OTL, the Spanish were annihilated with minimal US losses. Here, the Spanish could win.
Perhaps the victory gives time for Spain to send naval reinforcements if it sees it fit to do so.
With Spain now ruling the seas around Cuba, it becomes impossible to land or support an invasion force.
Meanwhile, the US Navy will also likely give a poor performance when it reaches the Philippines and fights the Battle of Manila Bay. In addition, there is the possible scenario that the Spanish will have mined the bay (Dewey ordered his ships forward despite the risk of mines, but there were none).
Overall, the US fails to capture Cuba and the Philippines. Spain holds its own, but it knows that it was lucky, and it isn't likely to try anything stupid like attacking the US mainland. All its assets will be engaged in holding back the US. No harsh peace terms are imposed. Spain wins a limited victory, and the US suffers a military setback, but not overly devastating defeat.
That's the best I could do.
Alternatively, an overly zealous United States navy ship misfires and causes a military vessel of powerful foreign country to go up in flames, killing a few dozen people. The aftermath and fallout of the incident get rather ugly, so the US has to back off, leaving Spain the only man standing.
Anticlimacus
Banned
Not reasonable?
Alt. Cavite bay battle:
POD: Admiral Montojo deploys closer to coastal batteries.
Let's assume that artillerymen on both fleets perform as OTL (USA: 2% hits, Spain: 3% hits).
USA fleet runs out of ammo (as OTL) but Spanish admiral does not feel he has lost and does not sink his ships (as OTL)
USA fleet retreats to Hong Kong
Alt. Caribbean operations:
POD: Spanish fleet does not go to Santiago but to Havana.
Blockade is harder to the American fleet.
Spanish fleet can make some sorties and harass US support ships.
Ground campaign is harder to American forces, war lasts longer and American yellow-press readers (and tax payers) get tired of the war.
The problem is than both nations would have very different standars of victory.
It is impossible for the USA to lose in any way than they would recognize as a loss -Spanish marines sacking New York, Washington burning (again), a bridgehead New Orleans with the army going north to the great plains, even something as simple as a treaty than would force the USA to scrap half its navy. If there was any actual risk of this, the huge american industry would rally and destroy Spanish military capacity.
But for Spain, a simple draw -a return of the Satus Quo Ante, with Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and rebel-filled Cuba in spanish hands- counts as a victory.
Spain could not win a war, but they could stall adn earn enough victories in Cuba to get a peace treaty, wich is good enough for then.
It is impossible for the USA to lose in any way than they would recognize as a loss -Spanish marines sacking New York, Washington burning (again), a bridgehead New Orleans with the army going north to the great plains, even something as simple as a treaty than would force the USA to scrap half its navy. If there was any actual risk of this, the huge american industry would rally and destroy Spanish military capacity.
But for Spain, a simple draw -a return of the Satus Quo Ante, with Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and rebel-filled Cuba in spanish hands- counts as a victory.
Spain could not win a war, but they could stall adn earn enough victories in Cuba to get a peace treaty, wich is good enough for then.
Hoist40
Banned
In the Battle of Manila Bay the Spanish could have had more mines and if they had taken out the two US protected cruisers, Olympia and Baltimore, it could have shifted the balance. The US forces could have had to retreat back to Hong Kong and either get interned or try to conduct a commerce war against the Spanish.
Snake Featherston
Banned
The USA losing it is actually much easier than it seems. The US plan for a landing was a complete clusterfuck and if the Spanish had shown even a slight degree more of initiative then the entirety of the Cuban land campaign would have been one of the greatest military embarrassments in US history, akin to the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 or the Bay of Pigs. Perhaps like the latter the USA thinks it has greater reservoirs of aid in Cuba than it actually does and decides to embark on a poorly-chosen landing against a badly-reconnoitered enemy........
Good points, it's actually pretty amazing we did accomplish multiple invasions across oceans, a new tactic other than attacking our own well-known coast a few hundred miles from the starting ports during the Civil War.
The Spanish Navy attacking the Cuba invasion fleet would likely have turned it back with tremendous troop losses from all of the accounts of the clusterfuck that was our cobbled together effort, and the logistical base in Tampa would make the survivors less ready rather than quickly rebuilding.
Malaria and Yellow Fever along with dysentary killed more U.S. troops than the Spaniards, simply increase the epidemics speed in the invading forces, like Napoleon's similar invasion of Haiti/Santo Domingo a century earlier and you've got the mosquitos and jungle serving as the meat grinder for America's small number of Army Regulars and Marines, let alone officers and non-coms with any combat experience from the Indian wars or in Wheeler's case, the Civil War. Losing that core and trying to replace it entirely with volunteers would make reinforcements steadily less valuable. Training,organizing, and shipping new invasion expeditions would be nearly an annual ordeal and taxpayers and media would soon lose patience in losing so much for places we didn't really want anyway.
The Spanish Navy attacking the Cuba invasion fleet would likely have turned it back with tremendous troop losses from all of the accounts of the clusterfuck that was our cobbled together effort, and the logistical base in Tampa would make the survivors less ready rather than quickly rebuilding.
Malaria and Yellow Fever along with dysentary killed more U.S. troops than the Spaniards, simply increase the epidemics speed in the invading forces, like Napoleon's similar invasion of Haiti/Santo Domingo a century earlier and you've got the mosquitos and jungle serving as the meat grinder for America's small number of Army Regulars and Marines, let alone officers and non-coms with any combat experience from the Indian wars or in Wheeler's case, the Civil War. Losing that core and trying to replace it entirely with volunteers would make reinforcements steadily less valuable. Training,organizing, and shipping new invasion expeditions would be nearly an annual ordeal and taxpayers and media would soon lose patience in losing so much for places we didn't really want anyway.
FTR, McKinley served in the 23rd Ohio IR, and rose from Private to Major. At the end of the War GEN Hancock tried to get him to apply for the regular Army. He was in the both the Overland Campaign and the Shenandoah Valley under Sherdian,
Had the Spanish Army actually attempted to resist the US landings in Cuba then an American debacle was all but assured.
Disinterested observers looked with shock as the entire American force which could be shipped landed below high ground from which a defending force could have shredded the Americans. Instead the entire Spanish contingent in the area had been withdrawn.
Disinterested observers looked with shock as the entire American force which could be shipped landed below high ground from which a defending force could have shredded the Americans. Instead the entire Spanish contingent in the area had been withdrawn.