Chapter 240: Shipbuilding Cooperation
With Russian Foreign Secretary Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov completely abandoning resistance, the United Kingdom and Austro-Hungarian Empire also formally initiated the process of revising the 《San Stefano Treaty》.
During this week of treaty revisions, Russian Foreign Secretary Alexander persisted only on certain bottom lines, maintaining a silent attitude on most other aspects.
This also made the treaty revision progress quite smooth, and in just one week, a brand new 《New San Stefano Treaty》 was freshly produced.
According to the new treaty terms, Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania will fully independent from the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire obtains the Bosnia and Herzegovina region, while Bulgaria gains autonomy.
Constantinople and the straits still belong to the Ottoman Empire, and Black Sea countries have no passage privileges through the Straits of Constantinople.
This new treaty completely halted Russia’s pace of expansion into the Balkan Peninsula, with Russia gaining only a few small pieces of land in the Caucasus region, yielding negligible profits.
In contrast, the Austro-Hungarian Empire became the biggest beneficiary in this peace negotiation. The Austro-Hungarian Empire obtained Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the value of the Bosnia and Herzegovina region itself was sufficient to warrant attention, not to mention that it could continue to serve as a bridgehead, allowing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to extend its reach deeper into the Balkan Peninsula.
When the news of the signing of the new 《San Stefano Treaty》 spread across Europe, there were rumors that Russian Tsar Alexander II, upon learning the specific contents of the revised treaty, angrily smashed all the decorations in his office to pieces.
Russian Foreign Secretary Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, who signed this treaty, was also subjected to a furious tirade from Tsar Alexander II, nearly losing his official position.
But anger aside, Alexander II naturally understood that this was an inevitable outcome. The moment the United Kingdom and Austro-Hungarian Empire announced their intervention, Russia had already fallen into a disadvantage in the negotiations.
It is worth mentioning that as the news of the 《San Stefano Treaty》 revision spread across Europe, the prestige of the British Empire resounded once again.
In the eyes of most European public, Russia was already a quite powerful country in Europe, even describable as the hegemon of Eastern Europe.
Yet such a powerful country was forced to submit under British pressure. This further highlighted the strength of the British Empire, filling every British person with pride in the British Empire’s power.
Compared to the benefits gained by the United Kingdom and Austro-Hungarian Empire after this peace negotiation, Carlo was actually more concerned about the direction of the Three Emperors Alliance.
Germany maintained a neutral role in this peace negotiation, which indeed avoided deteriorating relations between Germany and its two allies.
But it is undeniable that Germany did not support Russia when Russia needed it most, and Russia was undoubtedly disheartened.
Although it was not as severe as the Austrian Empire’s backstab of Russia during the Crimean War, for Russia, which had already suffered once, the future development of German-Russian relations was absolutely a key focus worthy of attention.
Changes in German-Russian relations would similarly affect relations between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia. Previously, with Germany’s support, the Austro-Hungarian Empire generally adopted a yielding attitude in decision-making on the Balkan Peninsula.
Without Germany’s support, the Austro-Hungarian Empire naturally no longer feared Russia. In the future on the Balkan Peninsula, the hegemony struggle between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, these two great powers, would be a good show, potentially even affecting the situation across Europe.
Originally, there were no particularly fierce conflicts among the ethnic groups of the Balkan Peninsula, but under the competition between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, these two great powers, the influenced Balkan countries would also take different paths.
Of course, such a development direction was a good thing for Spain. At least up to now, the European situation had not deviated from history, and Carlo could still rely on the experience brought by history to help Spain choose a more suitable path.
As contradictions between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia on the Balkan Peninsula intensified, Germany would ultimately have to choose one between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, these two allies.
Once Russia was abandoned, France would fully take over Russia, and the European situation would reach a confrontation between Germany-Austria and France-Russia.
Germany’s overall strength was slightly superior to France’s, and Russia’s overall strength was slightly superior to the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s. If such a political situation had no covert plotting by the British, Carlo simply would not believe it.
Wasn’t this situation exactly the regional balance policy championed by the British? It was just that the British had played it poorly, as Germany erupted with unimaginable strength, nearly shaking the whole of Europe with its extremely formidable military power.
Since the upcoming historical trajectory was already clear, the most important thing was to figure out Spain’s future alignment and how much benefit it could gain after aligning.
Of course, before that, it was still necessary to elevate Spain’s overall strength to ensure that Spain would not become fish meat on the chopping board of others in the future confrontation between the two major military blocs.
Since contact had already been strengthened with France through diplomatic visits, Carlo had no intention of missing this opportunity.
Although France’s overall strength now ranked behind Germany, it was still the world’s third great power, second only to Britain and Germany.
As the saying goes, a skinny camel is still larger than a horse; the combat effectiveness of the French Army and Navy could both be considered excellent, still very powerful compared to Spain.
Although Spanish shipyards had mobilized the entire nation’s efforts to design the quite advanced and powerful Revival-class ironclad, in the years since, the Royal Gualnizo Shipyard still had no clue on designing the latest ironclads.
The designed ironclads either showed little progress in firepower, armor, and speed, or had significant defects in certain aspects; in short, there was still no relatively complete new design.
Naval development was advancing by leaps and bounds, and Spain’s navy absolutely could not stop.
The Revival-class ironclad was indeed a quite powerful design a few years ago, even with hope of ranking in the top five European ironclad designs.
But after a few years, the British Empire’s ironclad series had long since been updated, the French had designed the latest ironclads, and the Revival-class ironclad had dropped from Europe’s top five to top ten designs.
Although a top ten European design was still advanced, its ranking would continue to drop lower in the future.
For Spain, it was very necessary to continue designing an even more powerful ironclad. This not only demonstrated Spain’s strong heritage and capability in naval design but also boosted Spanish national pride.
Only when a person is proud of their homeland can they develop strong patriotic sentiment. Current Spaniards were still quite fond of their homeland, and Carlo absolutely would not undermine the affection between Spaniards and the country.
Since contact with France had already been strengthened, now was naturally the time to hug France’s thigh.
France still had relatively excellent capabilities in naval design. Although Germany’s overall strength had surpassed France, in naval terms, France remained Europe’s, even the world’s, second naval power.
It was no exaggeration to say that in naval terms, only France’s navy currently posed a threat to Britain.
However, France’s navy could only pose a threat, far from reaching the level of defeating the British Navy.
For current Spain, France was indeed the only reliable partner capable of jointly developing even more powerful ironclads.
The British naturally had even more excellent naval design capabilities, but the British absolutely would not be that reliable. Moreover, relations between Britain and Spain were not too good, making cooperation between Spain and Britain almost impossible.
After making the decision, the Spanish Government immediately began contacting the French Ambassador to Spain to explore the possibility of cooperation between the two countries on jointly developing ironclads.
Although Spain’s overall strength was not strong, its naval strength still ranked in Europe’s top five. Although most of this was due to the heritage from Spain’s old era, top five in Europe was top five in Europe, irrefutable.
Cooperating with Spain was not too much of a loss for France and could even ensure the safety of its southern border by drawing closer to Spain.
Sure enough, when the French Ambassador reported the Spanish Government’s request to Paris, the French Government immediately agreed to the request.
The two sides contacted each other through diplomatic ambassadors and agreed to jointly develop the most advanced ironclad design.
Because it was joint cooperation, once the ironclad design was freshly produced, both France and Spain would receive complete ironclad design information.
Subsequent joint improvements to the ironclad by both sides would also be fully shared, except in one case: improvements to warships completed by France or Spain single-handedly.
In addition, both sides agreed not to sell the initial version of the warship externally after it was designed.
If the shipyards of the two countries wanted to sell the jointly designed warships, they should carry out a second modification to ensure that information on the initial version of the warship would not leak.
Because both sides had the willingness to cooperate, the two governments quickly reached an agreement and immediately began cooperative warship research and development.
The French hoped to draw closer to the Spanish Government again through this cooperation, while Spain hoped to leverage the French warship design capabilities to design even more powerful ironclads for Spain.
Under the drive of mutual interests, Spanish shipyards also dispatched a large number of experts to French shipyards, where for a long time in the future, they would study the latest warship designs in French shipyards and jointly discuss the reasonable and unreasonable aspects of warship design.
Before these experts departed for France, Carlo specially met with them and encouraged them.
Many of these experts had participated in the Revival-class ironclad design, and their warship design abilities were absolutely excellent, top-tier in Spain.
Going to France to collaborate with French warship design experts would also allow them to access France’s mainstream design ideas, enriching their own resource libraries.
Warship design was not conjured from thin air but required comprehensive consideration of the specific needs of both countries as well as the defects and advantages of serving battleships, to design an ironclad that incorporated all the advantages of warships and met the needs of both countries.
This also meant that after these experts went to France, they would have the opportunity to see design blueprints of France’s current ironclads, which would be extremely valuable wealth.
Although the French would not disclose blueprints of their most advanced serving ironclads, as long as there was information they had not accessed before, these experts were sure to learn something new.
What Carlo hoped for was that they could absorb France’s valuable experience in shipbuilding and some unique design ideas, allowing Spain to advance further in warship design, at least reaching the level of the five great powers.
There was no way around it; due to Spain’s smaller population, the number of talents domestically definitely could not compare to the five great powers.
Not to mention that Spain’s education situation ten years ago was still quite poor, and under the premise that most of the population was illiterate, excellent talents were naturally scarce.
Meanwhile, other great power countries had much better education situations, plus far larger populations than Spain, which resulted in these great powers having talent reserves far superior to Spain’s.
Particularly Germany’s education situation ranked among the top in European countries.
History had numerous excellent physicists and chemists from the German region, including the renowned Einstein and others.
After smoothly reaching cooperation with the French Government, Carlo was not satisfied and subsequently reached related cooperation with Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was not prominent in naval terms, but it could not be said to have no capabilities at all in the navy. Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s warship research and development focused mainly on medium and small-scale warships, particularly small warships under 3500 tons.
With the industrial scale and naval strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Spain, developing several medium and small warship designs around 3500 tons was completely feasible.
A country’s navy could not consist entirely of ironclads; a single ironclad also required many medium and small warships to form a complete fleet.
Therefore, the role of these medium and small warships was still quite important. Whether cruisers capable of blue-water combat or even contending with capital ships, or gunboats only for coastal defense and patrol, they were all relatively scarce for Spain.
After all, Spanish colonies were spread across the globe, which also meant Spain needed a large navy to protect its mainland and colonies.
According to Carlo’s plan, Spain would form two fleets in the future: the Mainland-Africa Fleet and the Philippine Fleet.
The Spanish Navy’s miscellaneous wooden warships and some relatively outdated warships would all be transferred to the Philippine Fleet, which was sufficient to ensure the security of the Philippine Colony.
The Mainland-Africa Fleet would be equipped with more powerful ironclads and new warships to significantly improve the fleet’s combat effectiveness.
With the development of naval designs in various countries, Spain’s old sailing warships basically had no role left.
Although they could boost Spain’s fleet paper strength, when facing enemy ironclads head-on, sailing warships and some wooden warships could only wait to die obediently.
Whether in warship firepower, protective capability, or speed, there were heaven-and-earth gaps, which quantity alone could not change.
The situation in the Philippine Colony was different. The Philippine Colony mainly faced the Dutch fleet and some pirates, and sailing warships were more than sufficient.
Although the Netherlands was once a renowned European hegemon, its current area was too small to support any large-scale fleet.
The Dutch navy, like Spain’s, had scale but was actually an outdated fleet with very few new ironclads; the Dutch were even less likely to station ironclads in colonies.
This also meant that after Spain’s these old fleets arrived in the Philippines, they could still play important roles, at least ensuring that the Philippines remained relatively stable for a long time in the future.
Regarding the handling of the Philippine Colony, Carlo had not yet made a decision.
The Cuban Colony definitely had to be sold off, and at a high price in the short term.
The Philippine Colony was similarly a colony far from the Spanish Mainland, but the Philippine Colony had already scaled up, and the Spanish armies dispatched were sufficient to ensure its stability.
In such a situation, selling off the Philippine Colony became extremely difficult. The public would not accept losing the Philippine Colony without any accident, unless it could be exchanged for a larger and richer colony.
But that was impossible. The great powers were not fools and would not exchange better colonies for worse ones.
Although the Philippines had a large indigenous population, these local indigenous people were generally quite lazy, and the profits the colony could generate were quite limited.
In this light, the Philippine Colony seemed like a chicken rib—tasteless to eat but a pity to discard.
Fortunately, Carlo still had sufficient time to make a choice; whether Cuba or the Philippines, both were currently firmly controlled by Spain.
If cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian Empire was betting on its heritage, then cooperation with Italy was simply betting on Italy’s future.
Italy was a newly risen great power, but it was at least a great power-level country. Plus, due to its poor army combat effectiveness, since Carlo’s father Vittorio Emanuele II’s reign, Italy had focused its main development on the navy.
The current King of Italy was Carlo’s brother Umberto, who was a blatant nationalist and imperialist.
Historical Italy joined the arms race and expanded its army and navy scales under King Umberto’s leadership.
It had to be acknowledged that Italy did have certain capabilities in naval design. In the pre-dreadnought era, Italy even designed Europe’s most advanced battleship, which was not something an ordinary great power could achieve.
At least in naval terms, the benefits gained from cooperating with Italy now might be more than those from cooperating with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Fortunately, Carlo was an adult and could have both. Spain could cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and also with Italy.
5000-word two-in-one chapter, seeking support!
