AHC: Spanish-American colonial expeditionary force fights to help Spain in *Europe*

[raharris1973]

Semi-inspired by this thread on precocious US involvement in European wars www.alternatehistory.com/fo...uropeans-attack-u-s-mainland-pre-1900.519908/, and US history in general, and the history of British Dominions' involvement in European wars, I will issue the follow alternate history challenge:

Spanish-American expeditionary force, or troop units raised in Spanish America get sent to fight in Europe for Spain in the peninsular war of 1807-1815, or the Pyrenean War of the 1790s, the War of Polish Succession in the 1730s, or the War of Spanish Succession in the early 1700s

What needs to change to make this plausibly happen, to make it plausible?

I selected these particular wars, rather than all 18th century wars involving Spain, or all wars involving Spain from the very beginning of Spanish colonial enterprise in the Americas in the 1490s, for a couple reasons.

I chose these particular wars, because these were wars where Britain or England was on Spain's side (or *a* Spanish side) or at least not at war against Spain and liable to be a constant menace to Americas to Spain troop and supply convoys. I also only considered wars from 1700 on, to give Spanish America more than a century, in some cases, two centuries, to grow and get established, before being called upon to support the mother country with soldiers.

I figured this was only fair, when making an analogy with the Anglosphere.

Certainly, Australia provided overseas expeditionary support much more quickly than this two-century mark (working from the founding of Santo Domingo or Cuba to 1700) or 150 year mark (working from the foundation of Peru) to provide support for Britain in the Boer War and then WWI in Africa and then Asia and Europe in just a bit over a century after founding, and while still with a relatively small population.

Canada, if we date its truly continuous Anglophone population from Nova Scotia in 1715 or so, or from the conquest 1760-ish, was contributing significantly to Britain in Europe in fighting from 1914, a mere 150 to 175 years later.

Britain's biggest, and oldest, overseas offspring, the USA, took much longer to help out in the Atlantic and Europe, as shown by the 310-11 year gap between the foundation of the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607 and the US DOW on Germany in 1917 and engagement of its Navy and ground Expeditionary Force.

By 1700, the time of the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession, Spanish America as a whole outnumbered metropolitan Spain's population by about half a million, 9,230,000 subjects of the Crown in the Americas to 8,770,000 subjects in Iberia. This suggests that the American colonies should have had the surplus manpower to supply military manpower for the struggle for Spain. Especially if the Viceroys in America were loyal to a Habsburg rather than Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne and their supporters in Castille, and thus would have the support and cooperation of the English and Dutch navies at transferring troops across the ocean to Castille to support their side against French-supported pro-Bourbon factional supporters.

Of course, certainly Spanish America contained a variety of frontier societies and frontiers, so it had many tasks at home for its military manpower: guarding against African and native slave uprisings, protecting against pirates, etc. It also may understandably may have been more difficult to extract able-bodied men from working not just security, but working the land or the crafts in towns to serve in military units overseas in these less specialized, lower per capita productivity times of 1700 compared to the industrial 1900 timeframe and beyond, when manpower could be more flexibly deployed long-distances perhaps.

I don't have the relative figures for Spain and Spanish American comparative populations during the 1733-1735 Polish Succession War, but I would imagine the absolute and relative share of Spanish America grew a bit more from a higher base and more cultivatable land. And an important thing about this war is that while Bourbon Spain and France fought this war as allies against the Austrian Habsburgs, and I believe their Romanov Russian and Hohenzollern Prussian allies, Britain sat this war out as a neutral, so Spanish troop movement across the sea would have been unimpeded by a serious navy.

It would seem to me that given the increase of the power of Spain's European neighbors over the rest of the 1700s, and despite some Spanish stabilization, its loss of relative power position compared to them over the century counting down to 1800, that Spain could have used support in Europe from its American domains even *more* at the end of the 1700s than at the beginning, and again in the 1800s, both times fighting off French invasion and occupation.

To give you an idea of relative populations in this timeframe, I'll compare them for the year 1800, at this point, a good round 300 years after the start of Spanish America in the Caribbean, 275 from the beginning of New Spain, and 250 from the beginning of Spanish South America. In 1800, Spanish America's total population was 13,432,116 to Iberian Spain's 10,541,000. Although it was nothing like the scale of the near-double population the US had over the metro UK in 1900, it was a Spanish American edge of about 3 million people, which was substantial.

Now obviously, no such mobilization of "doughboys" or "minutemen" or "summer soldiers" or expeditionary forces from New Spain, New Granada, Peru, La Plata, or Cuba emerged to serve and help Spain in the war of the Pyrenees circa 1795, or to support the soldiers of the Junta of Cadiz and Wellington's troops in the Peninsular War, and certainly there must have been good reasons for this.

Spain's practical control over the Americas was certainly being eroded by the latter, peninsular war period, post 1807, with colonial elites nitpicking and criticizing Spanish administrative practices, although Spanish Americans or Peninsular, Creole, Mestizo, and Indio varieties all seemed pretty united in verbal and vocal condemnation of Napoleon, his brother, their Spanish collaborator, and support for the legitimate Spanish Bourbon line.

What would need to have been done either in colonial policy in Habsburg times in the 1500s and 1600s, to make the Americas into a military resource the Habsburg's could have used to fight for the Castilian Spanish Crown in the 1700 Succession War, or in Bourbon times to make the Americas into a military resource the Spanish Bourbons could have used to support Spain in Europe in Iberia and elsewhere (like Italy and the Mediterranean) in other, later wars, like the Polish Succession in 1700s (mostly fought in Italy), the war of the Pyrenees, mid 1790s, and peninsular war after 1807?

[Max Sinister]

Interesting idea. Yeah, why didn't they do it? Maybe because it wouldn't have paid off, for it'd have been too costly to transport soldiers over the Atlantic, and Spain had too little money for investing in this to begin with?

[stevep]

   From what I've read, albeit in terms of general history the Spanish colonies in the Americas were very stratified.  At the top were the peninsula Spanish, i.e. those who were born in Spain and often sent over to take the key jobs in government and the military.  Next down were the pure blood Spanish colonists who's ancestors had lived in the colonies for some time.  Below that were in places the local elites, for instance Simon Bolivar was often described as such - although that could now be dated as he's now reported as being pure Spanish of colonial background.  However there seems to have been some strata of different 'native' groups in places and also right at the bottom generally the slaves, although on the mainland the Spanish colonies seem to have less of them, possibly with more native labourers to compete with them in the Andean and Mexican provinces.  Also there seems to have been a considerably disparity in wealth with relatively small numbers of people controlling the bulk of the wealth, whether in areas such as mining or the bulk of the best agricultural lands.  A problem which still haunts much of the region to the present day.

  As such I think you would have to get some changes to shake things up a bit and have the bulk of the population having more reason to welcome continued Spanish rule, let alone be willing to cross an ocean to defend its 'homeland' at great risk to themselves and also their economic situation, being away from home for probably years.  Also one thing with the comparison with British dominion contributions to aiding Britain is that that was at a markedly latter date than your suggestion in the 18thC.  When cross ocean travel was much easier and safer and also communications in general so the volunteers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc knew with a lot more detail about what was involved.  Also by the time such actions occurred the colonies were self governing and largely controlling their own affairs and economies, with only really national security and trade protection being dominated by the 'homeland'.

  Hence I think you would really need radical changes in both the Spanish colonies and probably 1st of all in the homeland so that the government and general population was more willing to accept the colonists as equals, or largely so.  This would probably need such economic and social changes in Spain itself that would boost Spain's economy and military capacity markedly more than a few thousand volunteers from the distant American colonies would help it in its wars.  Although something like the war of the Spanish succession or the Napoleonic occupation, when Spain was either deeply divided or totally unable to defend itself against a foreign occupier would with the right conditions in both Spain and the colonies prompt some sympathy for the homeland, although you would probably still see such volunteers in the low thousands or tens of thousands at most due to the difficulties and expenses of trans-Atlantic travel in those times.

  The key thing would be that the population of the colonies as a whole, not just the pure-breed Spanish would need to feel a loyalty to the empire so that their willing to make such an effort in aiding it in a crisis.  Going back to Bolivar to quote from his wiki entry

Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy family of American-born Spaniards (criollo) but lost both parents as a child. Bolívar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa, who died in Venezuela from yellow fever in 1803. From 1803 to 1805, Bolívar embarked on a Grand Tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end the Spanish rule in the Americas. In 1807, Bolívar returned to Venezuela and promoted Venezuelan independence to other wealthy creoles. When the Spanish authority in the Americas weakened due to Napoleon's Peninsular War, Bolívar became a zealous combatant and politician in the Spanish-American wars of independence.

  I.e. a high born Spaniard who was exposed to Spain was prompted not toward loyalty toward it but to overthrow its imperial control in the lands he thought of as home.  Partly this was probably due to being exposed to the enlightenment and revolutionary ideas coming from France at this time but if someone with his background had that reaction a relatively poor peasant farmer or trader of a native background is unlikely to be willing to leave family and whatever business or farm they have to travel across an ocean to fight for Spain.  There needs to be a Spain that appears to those people.

  There is one possible exception that comes to mind.  After all during much of this period while the officers and commanders of the British army were generally of aristocratic or at least pretty wealthy backgrounds many of the rank and file came from very poor backgrounds, but with training and discipline - even if draconian by our standards - proved efficient and loyal troops.  The most extreme cases probably being the significant numbers who signed up from the Catholic peasants of Ireland who had no reason to feel much if any loyalty to the British crown of the house of Hanover - or the latter Stuarts. - As such there is a possibility of recruiting from the very poor and making them valuable soldiers but recruiting such men in numbers from across an ocean could be a challenge and the Spanish officer corp would have to be distinctly better than it seems to have been OTL.  Also this would make such recruits more mercenaries, desperate for money and then rigorously trained rather than volunteers coming over to aid a loved but distant 'homeland'.