Assuming the US decides to not take Cuba from Spain, so Spain in theory can keep repressing Cuba for an unlimited time, what would that lead to? Would get to a point that the war exhaustion in Spain would be so bad that they would create an Spanish version of the British Dominion system, or they would somehow put down the locals?
"Logical conclusion" to Spanish rule in Cuba.
- Thread starter Gukpard
- Start date
I could imagine Cuba declaring independence during the Spanish Civil War, if Spain keeping Cuba doesn't butterfly it.
Would this lead to a Spanish republic earlier? Also could the Spanish republic give independence to the Island of Cuba?
Cuba was already actively in revolt during the Spanish American war this is what caused the intervention of America in the first place (it was also why the USS Maine was in Havana harbor). If America never invades I think it is fairly likely that the revolt is successful after a year or two. I’m not exactly sure of how the revolution was fairing beforehand but I think there is only so long Spain is going to be able to whole on to the territory by force especially if Britain which I believe was sympathetic to the Cuban cause starts supplying them.
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Cuba being independent would have no bearing in Iberia. Republicanism in Spain tended to drift to the fascist side.
Loss of empire was a slow process of a Spain that didn't want to build allies but retain a colonial empire that served the pockets of the rich. The British evolved based on seeing how the USA and later Canada did. The idea of a Commonwealth, of some form of democratic union with territories was in the interest of the United kingdom.
Spain didn't understand that, nor wanted to. I will goes as far as same with the French.
Look at Cuba or the Philippines after the Spanish American war. Same issues, same fight, new power. Eventual result = independence
Colonialism was a dead horse by 1900, the next 60 years of decolonizing proved that. You need to change Spain to build a lasting Spanish empire based on a Commonwealth ideal. Only thing Spain has in common with wealth was colonies .. those in the colonies didn't have that in common with Spain.
Could you have seen an integration of Cuba into Spain? I'm not sure if the political mood in Cuba was universally 'independence or death' even at the close of the 19th century
This is so incorrect I don't even know where to begin. The loss of Cuba and the rest of the major overseas holdings was literally called "The Disaster" in Spain and completely changed many things in Iberia IOTL.
Republicans in Spain are almost definitionally the people who fought against the Fascist side.
What? The Spanish Civil War happened nearly forty years after the Cuban revolt (which was not the first One).
I have no idea how I wrote Spanish Civil War instead of the Spanish-American war my brain wasn't working that well that day I guess
BlackDragon98
Banned
I agree with @West234. Cuba was already in the middle of a revolution when the Americans invaded.
The revolution would have succeeded sooner or later regardless.
Afterwards though, Cuba would likely be shackled with a long line of military dictators like every other South American country.
The revolution would have succeeded sooner or later regardless.
Afterwards though, Cuba would likely be shackled with a long line of military dictators like every other South American country.
BlackDragon98
Banned
During the cold war, this was the case.
But I am talking about the turn of the century, 1900. There were plenty of caudillos at that point.
Not everything can be just blamed on American foreign policy, especially since America was isolationist until WW2.
The loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines was so bad that it led to an intellectual movement called “La Generacion del 98”, the year of the Spanish-American war and as @Falecius commented was very traumatic to the national consciousness.
Losing Cuba under any circumstances, will be as traumatic as the UK losing the Thirteen colonies, France being defeated at Sedan, the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, etc.
Cuba was Spain’s wealthiest territory, but it was drifting towards the US since the 1850s, there was significant investment from the US and, it made more sense for Cuba’s landowners and merchants to seek annexation or some form of association with the US. Also, in the 1870s, Cuba was forced to accept Catalan monopoly on textile manufacturing, which added to the discontent of Cuba’s growing mercantile class.
From a purely economic perspective, Cuba was lost well before the Spanish American war, the question here is not when, but how. Spain was fighting an on/off revolt since the 1860s and only issued formal autonomy in 1897, by that time, it was too late.
At most you can get a Dominion-like status, like Canada and the UK, but there are just too many bad memories to see this go amicably.
In short, it is not in Cuba’s landowners and merchants’ best interests to be linked to Spain, and it is not in Spain’s interest to let its richest territory go, so it’ll come down to a fight eventually. That is ignoring the fact the US wanted Cuba one way or another, it had the means, and the island is next door.
Losing Cuba under any circumstances, will be as traumatic as the UK losing the Thirteen colonies, France being defeated at Sedan, the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, etc.
Cuba was Spain’s wealthiest territory, but it was drifting towards the US since the 1850s, there was significant investment from the US and, it made more sense for Cuba’s landowners and merchants to seek annexation or some form of association with the US. Also, in the 1870s, Cuba was forced to accept Catalan monopoly on textile manufacturing, which added to the discontent of Cuba’s growing mercantile class.
From a purely economic perspective, Cuba was lost well before the Spanish American war, the question here is not when, but how. Spain was fighting an on/off revolt since the 1860s and only issued formal autonomy in 1897, by that time, it was too late.
At most you can get a Dominion-like status, like Canada and the UK, but there are just too many bad memories to see this go amicably.
In short, it is not in Cuba’s landowners and merchants’ best interests to be linked to Spain, and it is not in Spain’s interest to let its richest territory go, so it’ll come down to a fight eventually. That is ignoring the fact the US wanted Cuba one way or another, it had the means, and the island is next door.
I don't disagree with this. I believe Cuba will win that fight regardless and that will create bad blood between Cuba and Spain.
I also realize how traumatic it was for spain, that said Spain wasn't ready and capable of defending a colonial empire spread so far away, and Spain was also not capable to deal with the United States getting involved.
When Spain let it's Latin American empire go with out working to form a commonwealth of some verity, that is when the Spanish empire began to loose the prospect of a greater Spain. Spain wasn't always the best parent to it's colonies, and with a rapidly growing United States next to Cuba, as you mention, things will assuradly come to a head
Doubtful in both cases.
Although this probably won't make any sense to you, I don't understand why so many people seem hell-bent on assuming that a Republican Spain would necessarily be more inclined to grant independence to parts of its territory.
(The vast majority of Catalan nationalists who support a Republic in Spain do so solely in the name of the belief that the hypothetical Third Republic would be willing to give independence to Catalonia).
But if we look at the history of the two Spanish Republics, what we see is:
-The I Republic continued fighting against the Cuban independentists.
-The II Republic launched air strikes against Barcelona in response to Companys' Proclamation of the "Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic " (that's right, Companys wasn't even declaring unilateral independence for Catalonia).
Considering this history, I am honestly surprised by the concept that a Republic would be more willing to be Balkanized.
As for the long-term end of the war, it would probably end in a later version of the Disaster of '98 (where an opportunistic power attacks and annexes Cuba) or where Cubans get tired of being killed for nothing (because they are not achieving their goal of becoming independent) resign themselves, becoming an insular version of Catalonia.
Or alternatively, the Spanish Government does as in the Sahara in 1975 and simply withdraws one day, ignoring what happens next.
But the idea that the war would continue forever and ever is absurd.
With the opportunistic power being Cuba, the Cuban Revolt was about to succeed in 1898, shortly before US support for the revolt that year as part of the Spanish-American War.