13.1.64 to 13.1.68

Twilight in the Global Empire (1808-1898) The intrusion of Napoleonic forces into Spain in 1808 (see Peninsular War cut off effective connection with the empire. Spain lost her possessions on the mainland of America with the independence movements of the early 19th century, during the power vacuum of the Peninsula War. In the 19th century, Spain was taken over by Napoleon without firing a shot, the Peninsula war ensued, followed by a power vacuum lasting up to a decade and turmoil for several decades, civil wars on succession disputes, a republic, and finally a corrupt liberal democracy. Spain lost all the colonial possessions in the first 3rd of the century, except for the swaths of desert given to it by the European powers when they partitioned Africa, and Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, isolated on the far side of the globe. It is indefensible to say that the Spanish were a world power at any point in the nineteenth century, save for a brief spit in the 1870s when the capable Alfonso XII of Spain and his thoughtful ministers succeeded in restoring some vigour to Spanish politics and prestige. In the 19th Century, the Romantic travellers, converted Spain into an exotic country. Now Spain was a colony of France and England. Nevertheless, Spain held onto significant fragments of its empire until the Spanish-American War of 1898, and its coastal toeholds in Africa lasted even longer. In the late 19th century, Spain colonized the islands of Palau. The Marshall Islands were claimed by Spain in 1874. At the end of the century most of the remaining Spanish Empire (Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam )was lost in the Spanish American War in 1898.