Cruiser Actions of the 1898 Spanish American War

As proposed by Glynn Stewart: Cruiser Actions of the Spanish-American War and the live done in Patreon 60

00:00 Cruiser Actions of the 1898 Spanish American War
14:00 Part 2
28:00 Part 3
42:00 Part 4
56:00 Part 5
01:10:00 Part 6
01:24:00 End

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[soupordave]

On the subject of high school education standards in the USA, I went to a moderately good suburban high school in Texas. Granted, I tool AP history courses but I always look sideways at Americans who claim "I was never taught this in high school history." The types of people who make these statements usually strike me as the type that paid as little attention as possible in class and forgot whatever they learned as soon as they no longer needed to retain it for testing.

[jyzow]

On the question you posed at the end, I suspect the shift was somewhat overdetermined: I can think of multiple reasons that would drive it: international relations, industrial planning, and domestic politics. Note that I'm an amateur and essentially deriving these from base principles; a proper response would have sources from the period.

At the end of the war, the US finds itself definitively in the major powers. It beat an existing major power, reshaped theaters far from its own territory (with help on the sly, but we're talking perception here), and it now has colonies (perception thereof, whether or not they are in reality). Accordingly, it now needs to have the presence of a major power. That means having capital ships to show off. Additionally, sticking to a battleship or two would mean staying in Spain's recently vacated spot at the bottom, whereas putting together a large fleet of them would suggest it belongs in the upper half. Having a balanced, well-rounded large fleet would require more money than Congress will pay with, so the USN will have to do with mostly battleships.

Battleships are very difficult to build. They are big (limiting the available slipways) and require oodles of armor plate. As a result, infrastructure that can build battleships is fairly specialized and not going to have a good time if you stop building battleships. (See what happens during the interwar treaties.) Additionally, battleships are extremely long-lead items - for the most part the battlewagons you bring to a fight are the only ones you'll have for the fight, so your peacetime construction (and especially peacetime when tension is low) should emphasize big capital ships.

Finally, domestic politics ropes together two distinct forces: state pride and isolationism. By state pride I mean "They have a battleship named after them; I want a battleship too!". A consequence of naming ships after places with political weight, once one has a shiny the others want one too. Plus, rising isolationism and anticolonialism mean a bunch of people want to make sure the Spanish American War doesn't have a repeat that results in the US having more overseas territories. The very success you cite is why this group pushes against cruisers.

I suspect that the reason there are still arguments about the change is that there were many forces pushing in the same direction. If one or both of the reasons I posit above did not apply, the remainder still pushes the baby in the direction we historically saw. There is certainly room to argue about how much weight to put on various factors and there are almost certainly some that I either don't know or forgot about. But US naval policy is driven by public pressure asking with sober analysis, and so the reasoning behind anything involving Congress in naval matters can be as complex as the portion of the public who contributes to the resulting course of action.

[ryangale]

Gotta say, politics and such aside, Cervera's speech has gotta be up there with the best in naval history. No wonder his crews didn't want to leave him behind, dude knew how to inspire his troops.

[pvi]

I still remember in history class we learned the catch phrase “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain”. Pretty sure it was from one of the Hurst papers. Granted I went to a Private Catholic School so overall a better education then our public school system

[doomedwit]

I mean the U.S. has great teachers and great school districts and bad ones. The key to remember is American schools are controlled at the City or County level. They are traditionally almost entirely independent. It's like our Universities to the extreme. We have some of the best in the world, and some of the worst now. American education is better described as unequal and inconsistent nationwide. Not necessarily good or bad as a whole. I had Amazing history teachers in Middle and High school. Of course there was also an awful teacher of history in the same middle school.