Empire Rising: Spain

The British Government, of course, understands that this news is actually released by the Spanish Government. The purpose of releasing this news is naturally to remind and threaten the British.

The Spanish Government is openly telling the British Government that Spain can cooperate with countries other than the UK; all European Powers are within Spain’s scope of cooperation.

Who the Cuban Colony belongs to is not important; what’s important is that, if this incident pushes Spain completely towards Germany, won’t France be completely diplomatically isolated by Germany?

The threat from Germany itself is already significant; the British Government is considering assisting France in wooing Russia to form a Franco-Russian Alliance to resist the threat from Germany.

If Spain runs to Germany, then how can the Franco-Russian Alliance play out? France would be directly attacked from both sides by Spain and Germany, and Austria-Hungary’s army might bypass Switzerland to attack France’s border.

Don’t forget about Italy, a Great Power nation, although its army is not strong, it can still pin down 300,000 to 500,000 French troops.

If Spain really leans towards Germany, then there’s no point in playing with the European situation unless the British are willing to personally intervene to help France. But the problem is, the British army isn’t strong either.

For the British Government, it must prevent Spain from leaning towards Germany at all costs. Spain must either maintain diplomatic neutrality or temporarily align with France.

Unless the Triple Alliance breaks up, the British do not want France to be at a disadvantage.

What’s more worrisome for the British is that if Spain leans towards Germany, on the European Continent, Germany will have allied with four out of the seven great powers: the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Spain, forming a Germany-Austria-Russia-Italy-Spain alliance of five great powers.

In such a situation, what role do the British have in the European scenario? No matter how strong the British are, it is impossible to fight five on its own, let alone rely on France alone to withstand the alliance of five great powers.

This also means that the British Government must make some concessions, at least not setting too harsh conditions, to avoid extreme dissatisfaction from Spain, leading it towards the Triple Alliance.

With such an interlude, the conditions proposed by the British Government the next day became much more generous.

In addition to the British Gold Coast, the British added the British Gambian Colony, and the financial compensation increased from five million Pounds to ten million Pounds.

Based on the cost of 500,000 Pounds per Ironclad in this era, ten million Pounds is already enough for Spain to build twenty of the latest Ironclads, which is by no means a small number.

If converted into Pesseta, ten million Pounds is worth 260 million Pesseta, which exceeds a quarter of Spain’s annual total fiscal revenue.

Although the British Government has improved its terms, such terms clearly cannot satisfy Spain’s appetite.

Prime Minister Canovas proposed more demands, such as the Sierra Leone Colony sandwiched between two British colonies, and more land demands.

Spain may abandon its colony in Brunei, but Spain should acquire larger areas of land to avoid public indignation caused by the loss of the colony.

The negotiations continued for several more days after this, finally guiding the discussion towards the land in the Middle East.

For the British, the land in the Middle East is not only large but also of little value. More importantly, this land is not in their control, so promising the land in the Middle East to the Spaniards doesn’t cost the British anything.

Precisely because of this, the UK and Spain quickly reached an agreement.

Spain exchanged the Cuban Colony for the British Gambian Colony, Sierra Leone Colony, and Gold Coast, while the British Government also allowed Spain to launch colonial activities in Oman in the Middle East.

The British Government will also pay five million Pounds as financial compensation to the Spanish Government. The exchange of colonies between both sides will be completed within three months, and the news of the colony exchange will only be considered for public announcement once all delivery work is completed.