"US-German Naval War in 1902" Topic

I'm reading this facinating book on Theodore Roosevelt, and I was very suprised to learn that the US had very nearly gone to war with Germany in December of 1902.

It seems that Venezuela had defaulted on loans to England and Germany and in the tradition of the times those two countries had decided to blockade the Venezuelan harbors until they paid up. The US didn't have any trouble with that per se, since that sort of thing had happened before. But Roosevelt began to get troubling rumors that the Kaiser was planning to seize Venezuelan territory permanently to establish a naval base in the Caribbean. He'd done exactly the same thing in China just a few years earlier. Now THAT would be a clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine and Teddy wasn't going to stand for that! So, he mobilized the US Atlantic Fleet, put Admiral Dewey (a noted Germanophobe who had nearly opened fire on a German squadron in Manila Bay after he'd captured the place in 1898) in command and sent it south for "maneuvers". He then summoned the German ambassador and told him bluntly that the Kaiser needed to agree to arbitration of the dispute with Venezuela. The British (Germany's partner in the blockade) had already agreed to this. But the Germans didn't get the message. So a week later Teddy summoned the ambassador again and even more bluntly told him that the Kaiser had one week to comply or it would be war. Teddy also got a German friend of his who had a lot of influence in high places to whisper in the ambassador's ear that he wasn't bluffing. And he wasn't. He had a fast torpedo boat standing by in Puerto Rico (where there was a telegraph) and if the Germans didn't comply it would take a message to Dewey ordering him to destroy the German squadron off Venezuela. One day before the deadline, the Kaiser finally agreed to arbitration. The amazing thing is that all of this was done without ANY written records. It had all been done with face to face talk. TR had done this deliberately so the Kaiser could capitulate without losing any face. And it worked. Not only did the newspapers of the time not get a whiff of what was going on, but it was almost 70 years before historians caught on to it!

So, has anyone ever tried to game this almost war?

Never heard of the incident but I have played the Avalanche Press board game "Plan Black" which has a similar hypothetical Carribean conflict US vs Germany in the 20's.

Have to look into this one. The ships of the time are much more manageable game wise.

There was a book out that had a hypothetical war between the Us and Germany in I think it may have been in 1903. Tried to get it but it was out of print when I started to look for it.

Also we may have had a plan Black but the Germans had a war plan for a war with the US (I don't remember what it was called). It involved raids along the coast of the US and seizure of US territories. The plan was junked in 1906 as the US fleet had been expanded dramatically.

I´ve done it many times, and it does make for a fun game.

For capital ships, the Germans would have, if I can remember this stuff well, 12 or so ships available in 1902, while the Americans could muster only ten, not including the Texas, which was sorely outdated by that time. The USN battleships would also include the low freeboard Indiana class, but as they would probably be fighting close to home then their freeboard might not be an issue. The American ships also had bigger guns, so that should balance out the number advantage enjoyed by the Germans.

Armored cruisers would be a toss up, but in protected cruisers I think the USN would have the advantage. Regardless of the ships involved, in reality the Germans would be at a huge disadvantage fighting so far away from home without any friendly coaling stations around.

Have heard about it, but never looked into the details.

Yup…. I have 1903 fleets for both navies in 1/700. Great what if stuff.

Looks like the German Squadron was 4 ships, a protected cruiser, a lt cruiser and a gunboat, fourth I can't identify. Adm Dewey had 4 battleships, 4 cruisers and 2 gunboats. The Kaiser would have got some bad news.

Cool bit of history!

put Admiral Dewey (a noted Germanophobe who had nearly opened fire on a German squadron in Manila Bay after he'd captured the place in 1898)

My understanding is it was the other way around. The German squadron commander had orders to act and had dithered around for a couple days. When he finally steamed into the American anchorage in Manila Bay, fully intending to attack Dewey's inferior squadron, he was put off by finding a very large powerful British Cruiser anchored among the American ships. The German commander, fearing stray ships hitting the Brit, hauled off. Meantime the diplomatic situation in Europe made the German presence in Manila moot.

I think the novel you are thinking of may be '1901' by Robert Conroy and it should still be in print and very available on Amazon.

If there are no written records, how do we know it actually happened?

Sorry, I didn't want to make my post too long. There were some records, like for the ship movements and such and there were some oblique references to the press by some of the main actors (Roosevelt called Dewey on the carpet at one point to keep his mouth shut). But there was a deliberate effort on both sides to eliminate documents about the affair (the Germans wanted to avoid losing face for backing down, and Roosevelt thought in 'ungentlemanly' to crow over a beaten foe--plus he was afraid if the Germans got too mad, they'd go back on their agreement). There was no concealing the fact that there had been a blockade and US Naval maneuvers and US pressure on Germany to negotiate, but the full story was kept secret. So for decades the incident became a sort of urban myth that historians mostly dismissed. But in the 1970s new documents came to light that revealed the truth.

Any idea what ships were involved?

SMS Vineta, SMS Gazelle, SMS Panther and one other. Been poking around on line for the US ships but other than numbers I haven't found any specific ships yet. Apparently BBs were from the newly named North Atlantic Fleet and the the cruisers and gunboats were part of the Caribbean Squadron.

When I game this I always make it a fleet action with German BBs and ACs added to the mix. Of course you have to assume the Germans would be content to leave their coast defended by the old coast defense ships.

For the USN you can even throw in some monitors to make it interesting!

OK, so we've gone from "without ANY written records" to some records and documents. That makes it plausible

Actually, just having the fleets together in my game room makes it plausible.