Chapter 277: Naval Development Plan
Although France’s attitude in the negotiations was very tough, it was clear that Italy, returning to the negotiating table, had already gained considerable advantage.
France had no intention of launching a war against Italy, which also meant that the colonial dispute between France and Italy could only be resolved at the negotiating table.
Spain was biased toward Italy, so no matter what France did, it could only ensure it did not suffer too much loss and could not gain any more benefits from Italy.
Although the negotiations fell into a stalemate, as Spain expressed its support for Italy, France ultimately chose to concede.
Both sides agreed to establish their own Tunisia colonies based on the land currently occupied by the two countries.
The French originally proposed exchanging the central Tunisia region from Gafsa to Gabes for the Kairouan to Sfax coastal area occupied by Italy.
If both sides could exchange colonies, France would occupy northern Tunisia, and Italy would occupy southern Tunisia, avoiding the awkward situation of two disconnected colonies.
But the Italian Government quickly rejected the French Government’s proposal. Although the Gafsa to Gabes line mentioned by the French was also coastal, it extended deep into the interior of Tunisia.
This area not only had the vast Chott el Djerid salt marsh, but the south was also a vast desert, with very limited developable land.
In contrast, the Kairouan to Sfax line currently occupied by Italy had relatively flatter terrain, almost all plain areas, very suitable for developing agriculture or animal husbandry.
Although integrating the colonies into one piece would be more conducive to colonial development, in the case of mismatched land value, Italians would certainly prefer to hold the Kairouan region.
This also meant that Italy’s Tunisia colony would be divided into two parts, with the northern and southern Tunisia colonies not connected, only relying on ports for material transportation.
With the formal signing of the agreement between both sides, the dispute over Tunisia between the two countries also came to an official end.
For France, they secured most of the Tunisia region, and these areas were connected to Algeria, which was a considerable gain.
For Italy, they successfully seized two pieces of land in the Tunisia region, successfully establishing Italy’s first colony, which was a good start for their future colonial actions.
More importantly, the southern Tunisia controlled by Italy was connected to Libya, which also meant that Italy would have a great advantage in the action of colonizing Libya.
France had basically withdrawn from the competition for the Libya colony. Because to colonize Libya, they would have to go around Italy’s colony or cross the desert in southern Tunisia, and the cost of colonization would be enormous.
Of course, the reality was that the French had no intention of colonizing Libya either. Although Libya’s area was much larger than Tunisia’s, Libya’s arable land was only 1% of its territory, and the land usable for agriculture or animal husbandry was only about one-fifth of Tunisia’s land.
This data was quite exaggerated. Tunisia’s total area was only 160,000 square kilometers, while Libya’s total area was as high as 76 million square kilometers, 11 times that of Tunisia.
With 11 times the territory yielding only one-fifth the arable land, this data alone was enough to imagine what kind of country Libya was.
It was said that Middle East countries were built on deserts, but Libya’s situation was no less severe than the Middle East, even more exaggerated than some Middle East countries.
Precisely because it was covered in deserts everywhere, Libya had long been a remote and rarely visited frontier area, which was also why Tunisia submitted to the Ottoman Empire but remained relatively independent.
After the peace talks ended, French Foreign Minister Gambetta left without saying goodbye, clearly very dissatisfied with the outcome of the peace negotiations.
But dissatisfaction was one thing; France could only accept the result of the peace talks—who made it impossible for them to bear the consequences of launching a war against Italy and Spain?
After Gambetta left, it conveniently allowed friendly discussions between Spain and Italy.
Italy being able to snatch two colonies from the jaws of France was largely due to Spain’s strong support playing a crucial role.
Without Spain’s firm support, even if Italy could occupy these two pieces of land, it would ultimately have to return them under the threat of the French.
The Italian side naturally understood the importance of Spain’s support, and Umberto I and Italian Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli had instructed the Italian Foreign Minister before the peace talks that no matter the outcome, they must maintain good relations with the Spanish Government.
Although Italy successfully held onto the land it occupied, maintaining these lands next would still require Spain’s support.
Before Italy could establish a foothold in the Tunisia region, jointly countering France’s colonial invasion with Spain was the best choice.
Unless Italy’s military strength expanded to the point of guaranteeing the safety of its homeland and colonies, Italy would not abandon its good relations with Spain.
Because both sides had intentions for joint cooperation, after a brief exchange with the Italian Foreign Minister, Prime Minister Cánovas signed an agreement with the other party regarding colonial cooperation between the two countries in the North Africa region.
The so-called colonial cooperation was not the two countries jointly developing a piece of land, but rather their colonies advancing and retreating together in the face of external colonial competition to ensure the safety of both countries’ colonies.
In plain terms, it was Spain supporting Italy’s colonization of Tunisia in exchange for Italy supporting Spain’s colonization of Morocco.
As for colonial conflicts outside North Africa, such as Spain’s colonial competition with France in the West Africa region, Italy did not have to abide by this cooperation clause.
This was also the flexibility both governments left for themselves. Although both countries had various competitive relations with France in colonization, Spain’s colonies in Africa were far more numerous than Italy’s at present.
Italy was willing to cooperate with Spain but clearly did not want to completely offend the French to death for the sake of Spain’s West African colonies.
Limiting the cooperation scope to North Africa ensured that the interest gap between Italy and Spain would not be too large. Although Morocco’s land area was more vast, Tunisia had more arable land, which was roughly balanced.
Although a formal colonial cooperation clause had been signed with Italy, Carlo had no intention of formulating a plan for invading Morocco.
The reason was simple: those eyeing Morocco were not only France, but also Britain, which seemed detached from the European Continent but was actually more concerned with the European situation than countries on the European Continent.
Spain and Italy uniting could counter France because France’s navy could not crush the combined naval strength of Spain and Italy, and its army could hardly quickly defeat Spain and Italy.
But the British were different. The British Navy could easily crush the combined navy of Spain and Italy, which also meant that the British could blockade Spain and Italy along the coast without deploying their army.
Before Spain’s naval strength reached a level threatening the British, or before the British were tied up in other wars, Spain could only temporarily abandon colonizing Morocco and temporarily bow to the British.
However, temporarily abandoning the colonization of Morocco was not without benefits for Spain. At least Spain could concentrate efforts on developing West African colonies and promote the colonial exchange with Portugal as soon as possible.
As mentioned before, there was an indigenous nation called the Asante Empire in the northern Gold Coast, which was also the main indigenous force that once fought heavily with the British Gold Coast.
Since Spain had taken over the Gold Coast colony, conquering this indigenous tribe was necessary for the safety and stability of the Gold Coast.
The so-called Asante Empire was actually just a loose indigenous federation, established around the early 18th century.
This indigenous federation was quite special, managed by an organization called the Chieftains’ Council, with the nominal supreme leader being the Ashanti Tribal Chief, also the political and spiritual leader of the entire country.
But as head of state, the Ashanti Tribal Chief had no command authority over other tribes; all indigenous tribes were equal members.
However, for the stability of the entire federation, all participants in the Chieftains’ Council jointly formulated a rule: all indigenous tribes must swear loyalty to the Chieftains’ Council, pay a certain tax revenue annually, abide by the trade rules set by the Chieftains’ Council, and in wartime hand over command of one troop for external combat.
It was precisely this regulation that allowed this seemingly loose federation to persist against the British Empire’s colonization until now.
The British had firm ships and sharp cannons, but these indigenous people were very familiar with the local terrain and used it to inflict considerable casualties on the British Army.
After contacting these indigenous people, the British shifted from simple military conquest to a plan of provoking relations between the states and the most powerful Ashanti Tribe.
The results proved quite effective. Although on the surface the Ashanti leader had no command authority or other power over other tribes.
But the Ashanti leader was always the leader of the entire federation and could always find ways to exercise power.
Over a long time, other tribes in the federation had more or less some dissatisfaction with the dominant Ashanti Tribe, which allowed the British plan to provoke relations to achieve certain results.
However, obviously, after Spain took over the Gold Coast colony, the preparations made by the British previously became a wedding dress for Spain.
After learning about the situation of tribes near the Gold Coast from the Colonial Affairs Department, Carlo decided to imitate the British policy of provoking relations, continue to sow discord among the states of the Ashanti Federation, and destroy their unity when facing strong enemies.
Try to make them erupt into internal strife first, then Spain could wipe out the entire federation in one go.
Compared to Britain’s divide-and-rule attitude, Carlo had no intention of incorporating these indigenous people into Spain’s colonial rule.
Mass colonizing Africa would bring a drawback: the country risked being “blackened.” Historical France was like this; as black people continuously entered Metropolitan France, France transformed from a white country into one where whites and blacks cohabited.
It was well known that babies born from black people and anyone else were black, which actually meant that France could very likely become a European country where black people occupied the majority or even overwhelming majority of the population in the future.
Spain had to be highly vigilant about this. Actually, every race had more or less flaws, whether it was the currently self-proclaimed noble whites or the yellow race suffering oppression—this was human nature.
But compared to these two races, black people had extremely many flaws, many of which were quite fatal, which was why Carlo rejected black people.
First, black people were generally lazy and rude. Compared to diligently farming to get grain to fill their stomachs, black people preferred simple and crude ways to obtain income, such as robbery and theft.
When they were the lowest stratum of the country’s race, their harm was not that great. Once the world began to emphasize human rights and countries had to grant them rights, the harm of black people would immediately become apparent.
When large-scale robbery and theft incidents occurred, it would cause panic and disturbances throughout society, even racial confrontation, increasing the risk of national division.
In addition, the germs carried by black people were also various. This was not discrimination against black people, but a real situation.
Africa’s sanitation conditions, whether now or in posterity, were extremely poor; black people did not pay attention to sanitation at all, which created various possibilities for disease transmission.
At the same time, infectious diseases like AIDS, which everyone dreaded, also originated from Africa.
It was said that the earliest AIDS virus was discovered in gorillas; as for how such a virus spread from gorillas to humans, that would have to be asked of the Africans at the time.
The consequences of AIDS were already quite severe, but it was not the only disease Africa spread to the world.
Including the quite serious Ebola virus in posterity, these were all deadly viruses originating from Africa.
Carlo not only would not consider incorporating Africans into Spain’s colonial rule, but would even consider effectively reducing the number of black people in Spain’s existing colonies to avoid terrible events where African germs spread to Spanish colonies through contact with black people.
Although frequent wars with these African indigenous people would increase Spain’s military expenses, thinking positively, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Army would also increase accordingly.
Wars with African indigenous people certainly did not have the effect of regular wars with European countries, but they could let Spanish soldiers see blood and feel the cruelty of the battlefield.
Currently, the only colony needing large-scale war against indigenous people was the Gold Coast; the Congo Territory temporarily did not need large-scale external expansion.
The reason was simple: the southward expansion direction of the Congo Territory had been blocked by Carlo’s colonial exchange plan with Portugal, so it could only expand north or northwest.
But indiscriminate expansion was not good; the Congo Territory’s area was already too vast and troublesome to manage.
Currently, the immigrants in the Congo Territory had just broken through 50,000; there was no need for further large-scale expansion.
It was better to stabilize for now and concentrate limited energy on other colonies.
At the cabinet meeting after the Madrid peace talks ended, the cabinet members voted and passed the Ashanti conquest plan proposed by Minister of Colonial Affairs William.
According to this conquest plan, in addition to the two Colonial Defense Regiments of the Gold Coast, Spain also needed to draw one Colonial Defense Regiment each from the South Morocco Colony, Congo Territory, and Guinea Colony, gathering five Colonial Defense Regiments to launch war against the Ashanti Federation.
Five Colonial Defense Regiments had about 12,000 troops, which was certainly more than enough to conquer a small Ashanti Federation.
Of course, preliminary preparations, such as accelerating the sowing of discord among the tribes of the Ashanti Federation, were also very necessary. After destroying the internal stability of the Ashanti Federation, the Spanish Army’s offensive would be easier, avoiding more casualties and military spending.
Because only colonial armies were used, and the total troop number was only 12,000, the military expenses for this action were also very low, estimated between 15 million pesetas and 25 million pesetas.
This military spending was not much, but if the plan went smoothly, the area of Spain’s Gold Coast colony could expand by double, with a total area exceeding 100,000 square kilometers.
This was actually why European countries were enthusiastic about colonization: basically no great expense was needed to obtain a large piece of developable land.
It must be known that the land area of most European countries was only tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, and only one country exceeded one million square kilometers: the Russian Empire, whose territory extended to the easternmost part of Asia.
Even the Russian Empire was very enthusiastic about territorial expansion, let alone other European countries with areas of only hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of square kilometers.
In addition to the Ashanti conquest plan proposal, the cabinet meeting also passed a new application from the Defense Department: the construction plan for new warships.
Several years had passed since the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard last produced the design blueprints for the Revival-class ironclad, and Spain’s major shipyards had not produced warship designs satisfactory to the Navy.
Spain also had relevant warship construction cooperation with France and Italy, but it generally focused on armored cruiser construction rather than true ironclads.
The so-called armored cruiser, like the battlecruisers that would appear in the future, was a rather special warship design.
The armored cruiser had firepower close to that of ironclads, absolutely at the level of capital ships in terms of firepower. But the biggest difference between cruisers and ironclads was the construction cost per warship.
Compared to ironclads, armored cruisers required lower investment. This also meant that when designing warships, the armor protection of armored cruisers had to be reduced to ensure firepower comparable to ironclads.
In plain terms, armored cruisers were cruisers equipped with capital ship main guns, with armor protection capability only slightly stronger than ordinary cruisers, far behind the ironclads in which countries were investing massively.
This type of warship was first funded and built by Russia, intended only as auxiliary warships for the fleet to provide extra firepower for capital ship units.
But with Russia’s decay, during the Russo-Japanese War, such warships with obvious defects became Russia’s main capital ships. Because of the relatively thin armor of armored cruisers, many ultimately suffered heavy blows from enemies during wartime.
Under Carlo’s influence, Spain’s attitude toward the navy was: it could choose not to build capital ships, but if building, it must build the best capital ships.
After years of hard work, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard finally produced a warship satisfactory to the naval military, which was why the military proposed the construction proposal.
The new warship design was more an improved product by the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard based on the Revival-class ironclad than a completely new design.
Of course, the degree of improvement was very significant. This ensured that the new warship design would maintain world-class status and effectively strengthen Spanish naval strength.
In terms of power, the new warship would use two sets of double-cylinder inverted compound expansion steam engines, with 12 cylindrical boilers, twin-screw propulsion, providing about 7,000 horsepower under natural ventilation.
If switched to forced ventilation mode, it could provide about 9,600 horsepower for the warship, a huge improvement over the Revival-class ironclad’s power.
With strengthened power, the shipyard could flex its muscles in the warship’s armor and artillery.
For the main guns, this warship still used 12-inch 305 mm breech-loading naval guns, a product of cooperation between Spanish military industry enterprises and Austrian military industry enterprises, with greatly improved range and power.
Although the caliber was the same as the Revival-class ironclad’s main guns, the firepower was improved by at least 20%.
Then there was armor protection. Thanks to cooperation with Germany effectively improving Spain’s steelmaking capacity, this ironclad’s armor would use Spain’s latest special steel plates, with protection capability at least 30% better than previous ordinary steel armor.
Spain’s current steel output was more than sufficient to provide enough steel plates for one warship’s protection, which also made the steel armor thickness in this warship design even more exaggerated than the previous Revival-class ironclad.
From the ironclad’s armor protection capability, one could understand why Spain was not interested in armored cruisers. Although firepower was not much different, an ironclad could withstand several main gun bombardments without hitting weak points.
But armored cruisers could not. Once hit by an enemy capital ship’s naval guns, an armored cruiser would be crippled if not sunk, greatly affecting combat effectiveness.
Back to Spain’s warship design. Due to the increased armor thickness, the entire warship’s tonnage would reach an exaggerated figure.
Just the standard displacement already reached 9,552 tons, and under full load, this warship’s displacement would exceed 10,000 tons in an instant, making it Spain’s first true ten-thousand-ton giant ship.
However, due to the power improvement, even though this new ironclad design reached ten-thousand-ton level, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard estimated the warship’s top speed could still reach about 17 knots.
Overall, this warship design not only had powerful firepower, excellent armor protection capability, but also extremely high speed.
Under full load, this warship could travel 7,000 nautical miles at 10 knots, equivalent to nearly 13,000 kilometers, almost the total distance from Spain to the Philippine Colony.
For this new warship design, what the Navy was most satisfied with was the speed improvement. Although the Revival-class ironclad had excellent performance in all aspects, its speed was only about 13 knots, with a gap compared to other European capital warships.
But this latest warship had closed the speed gap; even in combat with capital warships of powerful countries like Britain and France, there was no need to worry about falling behind in speed.
Even if Spain could equip a large number of these brand-new warships, there was hope to challenge the status of the British Naval Hegemon.
However, the British would certainly not sit idly by if Spain massively built capital warships. If Spain insisted on mass-building warships, it would definitely provoke a naval arms race with Britain or even all of Europe.
Because it had been a long time since building capital warships, the proposal submitted by the Navy Department to the cabinet included the construction of four capital warships.
Unlike the Revival-class ironclad costing no more than 500,000 pounds sterling, this warship’s estimated cost was as high as 530,000 pounds sterling, and plus the shipyard’s construction cost, the selling price per warship could not be less than 700,000 pounds sterling.
This was still the internal price from the shipyard to the Spanish Government. If sold to other countries, it would add a large sum on top of 700,000 pounds sterling.
From the situation where Revival-class ironclads had no takers, it was clear that exporting ironclads was still very difficult at present.
Ironclads were too expensive to build; great powers all had their own construction capabilities and naturally did not need to buy from outside.
Small countries’ finances were tight and could not afford hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling to build a warship.
After all, warship costs besides the construction itself also had to consider navy formation and subsequent maintenance expenses.
The total cost of one warship added up to at least a million pounds sterling to start, and building a fleet would cost millions of pounds sterling at least.
In plain terms, only countries with substantial volume could play with current fleets.
Spain’s naval strength had always ranked in the world’s top eight even in its extremely weak period, the real reason being that European countries besides great powers basically had no decent navy fleets.
At 700,000 pounds sterling per warship, Spain needed to spend 2 million pesetas to build each latest ironclad.
The Navy Department requested building four ironclads, with the warship construction cost alone reaching 8 million pesetas. Plus navy soldier training and subsequent maintenance expenses, the Navy’s proposed plan required the Spanish Government to pay nearly 100 million pesetas in funds.
This was just for four capital ships. Equipping the various auxiliary warships needed for this fleet would require at least another 50 million pesetas in investment.
Even though Spain’s finances had clearly improved, such investments easily exceeding 100 million were still very headache-inducing.
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