What if Spain won the Spanish-American war in 1898?

A warship, the USS Maine was sent to Spanish Cuba to protect American interests in the region. While it was docking in Havana, the capital of Spanish Cuba, the USS Maine exploded. Spain was blamed for the explosion, which later turned out to be false. Anyways, 2 mounts after that, the USA and Spain went to war.

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▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 - Video intro
00:26 - Pacific theatre
00:41 - Caribbean theatre
01:12 - Peace treaty of Paris
01:33 - How the war could have changed?
01:52 - The Spanish Empire
02:22 - Real-life silver coins
02:40 - State of Spanish colonies
02:55 - What if Spain won against the USA?
03:51 - The Spanish-American war
05:43 - Peace treaty of Havana
06:13 - Politics in the USA after the loss
06:33 - Post-war Spanish politics
07:03 - The Panama Canal situation
08:25 - Video outro

[TheAlrightyOne]

Nice video! One thing I think might be different is the fate of the U.S. government. President McKinley didn't want to go to war, and he was pressured both by the media and his own government to take aggressive action after the explosion of the USS Maine before he knew all the facts (it ended up being an accidental explosion not a mine). The assistant secretary of the navy, Teddy Roosevelt, actually illegally went behind McKinley's back to begin preparing the nation for war. So what I think would happen instead is that McKinley's anti-war position would be vindicated and he would remain in power. However, Teddy Roosevelt would be disgraced as a warmonger and be fired from his governmental position, which would still lead to a less aggressive foreign policy like you said.

One more thing was that the Dominican Republic wasn't part of the Spanish Empire by then, having regained independence in the 1860s.

Looking forward to the next video!

[kamerafreak]

Spain: *helps the 13 colonies to gain independence*
USA: *blows up their own ship to justify a war to gain even more land*
Spain: 😐

[spatialex]

I might be wrong, but I think that the Dominican Republic was independent when the Spanish-American war started.

[JeOrtiz]

In 1897, Puerto Rico gained self autonomy, one year before the United States invaded the island. Puerto Rico, unlike Cuba (and Dominican Republic prior to that) didn't have any rebelion and were fairly happy with the recently achieved autonomy. Cuban rebel leaders were in most part financially inspired to rebel due to them thinking that they would fully benefit from profits from the then cash crop of sugarcane. Unfortunately full autonomy and control over cash crops only were dominated much heavier under American domination.

[pedrofr]

Actually, the Spaniards had a strong and modern navy in mainland Spain but because of some troubles with the british and some indecisions theyu just did't send that navy neither Philipines or Cuba, if that navy were sent to one of those territories the war would have changed

[elianes]

Would love a follow-up video. I think not enough alternate history scenarios are made on Spain.

[kuroazrem]

I like this timeline because the Philippines, though independent, would be a Hispanic nation. ¡Viva las Filipinas hispánicas!

[nadri]

loved the video, it was realistic, and if our goverment back at the time had build some military factories in those islands for suplying the garrisons, they could have protected cuba and puerto rico without naval superiority. Keep the good work man, loved the video :D

[cgyoboi]

might sound like a nitpick, but Cuba did want independence from Spain. the Cuban war of Independence turned into the Spanish-American war, as the original war goal of the USA was to help Cuba gain independence, protect Americans property, and possibly liberate the Philippines, but that turned into annexation. (i heard somewhere the USA annexed them because of fears Germany would just conquer them if they didn't, but it could just be the USA was feeling a little imperialist at the time, as they also took Guam and Puerto Rico). But this is also a very good video, please keep making videos like this.

[mr.battledroid]

I expected Spain to annex the Florida keys

[andreman]

Doubt that because the US doesn't join the war, WW1 would end in Central power victory as the landings of the British in Thessaloniki made both Bulgaria and the Ottomans to exit the war, the Hamsburg Empire was really unstable so it would also collapse as well, the main thing that would probably change is the fact that France may fall to the Germans but I don't think that's enough to change the out come of the war, but overall great video keep it up!

[mqdboy]

Just one thing, Spain didn’t have colonies, they were territories

[MysticRyokan]

As someone who is alive today because of spanish expansion and colonialism in the new world and heavily influenced the language, religion and culture to this day I do feel bad that history did Spain dirty compared to all the other imperial powers like the British, French, Dutch, etc which all still have territories in the americas to the present and no one bats an eye or attempts to invade them as the U.S did. Granted the Spanish also had their own fair share of shame with colonialism but a lot of the other imperialist nations weren't any better

[elianes]

2:47
That's true. In fact, nowadays Peru doesn't have an independence hero. But rather a national hero that participated in a much later war (War of the Pacific)

[ktyphoy]

I like your newest video and I really like this scenario as well! 😁😆

[ari]

Sometimes, instead of a luxurious dish, you're in the mood to eat a simple but good sandwich. In the context of alt-history content, this is a good sandwich. It's nothing extravagant or revolutionary, but it's alt-history done right

[dusteerq]

I love your videos, you can always feel that you put a lot of work into them!

[ktyphoy]

I want to see Part 2 of this video to see what will happens to Spanish Empire in WW2. 😊😊

[micahistory]

really interesting video, I never saw anyone cover this before

[ktyphoy]

I’ll say that Spanish Empire will crash with the Japan during the WW2 at this universe.