This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History.
In 1898,
U.S. Naval forces were dispatched to Havana Harbor in order to protect
U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. In the opinion of
many dovish politicians, this ill-advised and preemptive move by the
hawkish Assistant Navy Secretary Theodore Roosevelt was a thinly
disguised forward deployment in anticipation of a war with the crumbling
Spanish Empire.
The chauvinistic desire to build an American empire by acquiring Spanish territories was an extension of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
The growing sense that war-mongers and yellow journalists were
agitating for conquest was soon highlighted by the arrests of
subversives in Havana Harbor on February 15. Ultimately, political
pressure from doves prevailed and the Sampson Board of Inquiry placed the blame on the actions of Cuban rebels. Roosevelt was disgusted by this whitewash and left office soon afterwards.
A Spanish-American war
had been averted, but, of course, matters did not rest there.
Spain was losing control of the island because she was hopelessly
incapable of keeping her far-flung empire together. Despite not having a
history of selling-up, the near-bankrupt Spanish government decided to
cash in her chips. This occurred right after the next crisis in Morocco ,
which brought the expanding German Empire into Spain's orbit. One direct
consequence of this engagement was the purchase of the Philippine
Islands by Berlin. A nascent Great Power, Germany, like the U.S.A., was
rapidly playing catch-up in the scramble for overseas territories.
Named
after Phillip II of Spain, and dominated by Catholics, the Philippine
Islands at least had some religious affinity with their new German
overlords. The Kaiser quickly lost interest in Tsingtao and sent the
East Asia Squadron of the German Imperial Navy to Manila. Sixteen years
of rapid development then followed as Wilhem basked in the summer of his
long-desired "Place in the Sun."
The First World War brought
unexpected changes to the balance of power. This opened the door to the
troubling development of the Japanese conquest of the Philippines on the
eve of the U.S. entry into the war. The architects of the Treaty of Versailles
would reluctantly create a Japanese Mandate, although the rising
civilian disorder under German rule would only intensify under Shinto
over-lordship. This acquisition unsettled Western powers for numerous
reasons: the precedent of Christians being ruled by non-Christians as
well as the strategic position of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the
sea-lanes. Immediately after the armistice, the ever-belligerent
Theodore Roosevelt called for a U.S.-led international force to expel
the Japanese invaders. But the Great Powers were simply exhausted,
America was heading towards isolationism, and the broadsheet newspapers
mocked "Roosevelt Riders" for its unwanted adventurism.
Oppression
on the Philippines was brutal. It was a clear sign of future intent
because Tokyo was eyeing nearby strategic resources of oil and rubber under
European control. The British and French, who were
absorbing other mandated territories, still believed that they could
maintain control of their Far Eastern Empires, but the unstoppable rise
of Hitler would lead to much more pressing security issues for them much
nearer to home. Although the abdicated Kaiser would never forgive the
Japanese, Hitler could not care less about the Far East.
With
Japanese forces directly threatening U.S. interests in China, there was
growing pressure to move the U.S. Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl
Harbor in an echo of 1898. However, much like the last months of
Buchanan's presidency eighty years earlier, the timing was all wrong for
such a change of direction. Having lifted America out of the Great
Depression, the former Maryland governor Albert Ritchie was in the final
months of his second presidential term. An isolationist America
headed to the polls in 1940 with the so-called Japanese Question unresolved. But at some point, the American military would have to confront the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere while the British and Dutch Empires and their allies could still provide a platform for a near-future war in the Pacific.
Robbie Taylor's Addendum:
After Germany's entrance into the Boer War, and German-puppet Spain's North African possessions attacking eastward, the African continent became
as embroiled as Europe in the great conflict, devastating a land that
had already been sucked dry of resources by Europeans. It is considered
that if the Axis powers had not had so much control over Africa due to
the German/Spanish alliance dating back to the Spanish-American affair, the
outcome of the Second World War would have been much more tilted to the
Allied side...
Provine's Addendum:
The United States would be jolted out of isolationism in 1959 when Japan-Peru relations reached a new level of trade agreements giving Japan, rather than the U.S., preferential treatment. Shocked cries protested violation of the Monroe Doctrine, which was already under fire from Atlantic-facing South American countries courting German diplomacy. Efforts to secure "everything north of the Panama Canal" would lead to extensive U.S. investment in Central America and the Caribbean and a much freer flow of immigration, causing an abrupt about-face with American support for the Castro government in Cuba.
Author's Note:
In reality, the sinking of
the U.S.S. Maine contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War. This led to the transfer of sovereignty for the Philippine Islands
to the United States, which set the stage for war with Japan.
