This is inspired by many of the dead-end threads about the U.S. taking more territory from Spain, usually in the Atlantic (the Canaries) or Africa. They (rightfully, in my view) come to dead-ends because the US was allergic to taking on African colonial territory, and the more populated and Europeanized Canaries would be both harder for the Spanish to give up and harder for a new colonizer to hold.
However, the Spanish American War did stimulate the German Spanish Treaty of 1899, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Spanish_Treaty_(1899), which involved the German purchase of the Marianas, Palaus and Caroline islands from Spain. The territory in question is shown here:
However, Spain theoretically had more colonial territory it could have sold at the time. Not the Philippines or Guam or Puerto Rico or Cuba who were spoken for by the treaty ending the Spanish-American war, but elsewhere, in Africa.
Unlike the U.S., Germany had no allergy to acquiring African territory, and had 4 colonies on the continent already by 1899.
Additional territories available from Spain in 1899 would have been Rio De Oro, Seguia el Hamra and Cape Juby which together comprised the Spanish Sahara, and Spanish Guinea consisting of the islands of Fernando Poo, Annobon and a small block of mainland territory, conveniently adjacent to the existing German colony of Kamerun.
These territories would not have added much except to fill in more of the world in German colors.
For reasons I said above, mainly their population and integration with the mainland, I don't think the nearby Canary islands would have been sold or purchased. The others in Africa, I don't see an insurmountable problem.
So Germany purchases these territories in 1899. In the grand scheme of things, its not that big a deal. The Germans send in some folks to guard and administer the additional scraps of Africa.
Let's put a butterfly net on top of it for about 5 years, until after the start of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904. That brings us to a period approaching the 1st Morocco Crisis.
I suspect that there are going to be knock-on effects of some sort or another for the Morocco crisis. Germany is certainly more capable of intervening in southwestern Morocco at least.
How are things changed here?
Assuming that there are in the end no changes to the outcome of the Morocco crisis and Morocco's ultimate partition by 1912 (which I think unlikely, honestly) the French need to spend just a little bit more time using their Algerian, Moroccan and Senagalese troops for a couple weeks to clean up the "German Sahara" before those troops can move to metropolitan France to help man the western front. The enlargement of Kamerun to include Spanish Guinea results in at most trivial changes to the French campaign to clear out German Kamerun.
Post-World War I and independence the main affect is that equatorial Guinea is a mandate like Cameroon and becomes part of it, and does not eventually emerge as a petro-state in the early 21st century.
However, the Spanish American War did stimulate the German Spanish Treaty of 1899, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Spanish_Treaty_(1899), which involved the German purchase of the Marianas, Palaus and Caroline islands from Spain. The territory in question is shown here:
However, Spain theoretically had more colonial territory it could have sold at the time. Not the Philippines or Guam or Puerto Rico or Cuba who were spoken for by the treaty ending the Spanish-American war, but elsewhere, in Africa.
Unlike the U.S., Germany had no allergy to acquiring African territory, and had 4 colonies on the continent already by 1899.
Additional territories available from Spain in 1899 would have been Rio De Oro, Seguia el Hamra and Cape Juby which together comprised the Spanish Sahara, and Spanish Guinea consisting of the islands of Fernando Poo, Annobon and a small block of mainland territory, conveniently adjacent to the existing German colony of Kamerun.
These territories would not have added much except to fill in more of the world in German colors.
For reasons I said above, mainly their population and integration with the mainland, I don't think the nearby Canary islands would have been sold or purchased. The others in Africa, I don't see an insurmountable problem.
So Germany purchases these territories in 1899. In the grand scheme of things, its not that big a deal. The Germans send in some folks to guard and administer the additional scraps of Africa.
Let's put a butterfly net on top of it for about 5 years, until after the start of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904. That brings us to a period approaching the 1st Morocco Crisis.
I suspect that there are going to be knock-on effects of some sort or another for the Morocco crisis. Germany is certainly more capable of intervening in southwestern Morocco at least.
How are things changed here?
Assuming that there are in the end no changes to the outcome of the Morocco crisis and Morocco's ultimate partition by 1912 (which I think unlikely, honestly) the French need to spend just a little bit more time using their Algerian, Moroccan and Senagalese troops for a couple weeks to clean up the "German Sahara" before those troops can move to metropolitan France to help man the western front. The enlargement of Kamerun to include Spanish Guinea results in at most trivial changes to the French campaign to clear out German Kamerun.
Post-World War I and independence the main affect is that equatorial Guinea is a mandate like Cameroon and becomes part of it, and does not eventually emerge as a petro-state in the early 21st century.
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