Chapter 277 Naval Development Plan
Although France has a tough attitude in the negotiations, it is clear that Italy, which has returned to the negotiating table, has gained considerable advantage.

France had no intention of launching a war against Italy, which also meant that the colonial disputes between France and Italy could only be resolved at the negotiating table.

Spain is leaning towards Italy, so no matter what France can do, it can only ensure that it does not suffer too much, and it is impossible to gain any benefits from Italy.

Although the negotiations reached a stalemate, France eventually chose to give in as Spain expressed support for Italy.

The two sides agreed to establish their own Tunisian colony based on the land currently occupied by the two countries.

The French had also proposed to exchange the central Tunisia region from Gafsa to Gabes for the Italian-occupied coastal line from Kairouan to Sfax.

If the two sides could exchange colonies, France would occupy northern Tunisia and Italy would occupy southern Tunisia, and there would no longer be the embarrassing situation of the two colonies being unconnected.

But the Italian government quickly rejected the French government’s proposal. The line from Gafsa to Gabes mentioned by the French is also along the coast, but also deep into Tunisia.

Not only is there the vast Jered Salt Marsh here, but there is also a vast desert to the south, so the land that can be developed is very limited.

In contrast, the area from Kairouan to Sfax currently occupied by Italy is relatively flat, almost all plains, which is very suitable for developing agriculture or animal husbandry.

Although consolidating the colonies into one piece would be more conducive to colonial development, the Italians would certainly prefer to hold the Kairouan area if the land values ​​did not match.

This also led to the division of Italy’s Tunisian colony into two parts. The North and South Tunisian colonies were not connected, but relied on ports for material transportation.

With the formal signing of the contract between the two parties, the dispute between the two countries over Tunisia officially came to an end.

For France, they took over most of Tunisia, and these areas were connected to Algeria, which was a considerable gain.

For Italy, they successfully seized two pieces of land in Tunisia and successfully established Italy’s first colony, which was a good start for their future colonial operations.

More importantly, southern Tunisia controlled by Italy is connected to Libya, which also means that Italy will have a great advantage in the operation to colonize Libya.

France has basically withdrawn from the competition for the Libyan colony, because if they want to colonize Libya, they have to bypass the Italian colonies or cross the desert in southern Tunisia, and the cost of colonization is extremely high.

Of course, the reality is that the French have no intention of colonizing Libya. Although Libya is much larger than Tunisia, Libya’s arable land accounts for only 1% of its land area, and the land that can be used for agriculture or animal husbandry is only about one-fifth of Tunisia’s land.

This data is quite exaggerated. The total area of ​​Tunisia is only 16 square kilometers, while the total area of ​​Libya is as high as 176 million square kilometers, which is 11 times that of Tunisia.

11 times the land area only makes up one-fifth of the arable land. This data alone is enough to imagine what kind of country Libya is.

It is said that the Middle East is a country built in the desert, but the situation in Libya is no less serious than that in the Middle East, and is even more exaggerated than that in some countries in the Middle East.

Precisely because of the deserts everywhere, Libya has been a remote and inaccessible area for a long time. This is also the reason why Tunisia surrendered to the Ottoman Empire but was relatively independent.

After the peace talks ended, French Foreign Minister Gambetta left without saying goodbye, obviously dissatisfied with the outcome of the peace talks.

But no matter how dissatisfied they were, France had no choice but to accept the outcome of the peace talks. Who could blame them for not being able to afford the consequences of launching a war against Italy and Spain?
After Gambetta left, friendly negotiations between Spain and Italy became more convenient.

Spain’s support played a crucial role in Italy’s ability to snatch two colonies from France.

Without Spain’s firm support, even if Italy could occupy these two pieces of land, it would eventually have to give them back under the threat of the French.

The Italian side naturally also understood the importance of Spain’s support. Umberto I and Italian Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli had also instructed the Italian Foreign Minister before the peace talks that no matter what the outcome of the talks was, they must maintain good relations with the Spanish government.

Although Italy successfully retained the lands it occupied, it still needed Spain’s support to maintain these lands.

Before Italy gained a firm foothold in Tunisia, the best option was to join forces with Spain to fight against France’s colonial invasion.

Italy will not give up its good relations with Spain unless its military strength expands to a level sufficient to ensure the security of its homeland and colonies.

Because both parties had the intention to cooperate, after a brief exchange with the Italian Foreign Minister, Prime Minister Canovas signed an agreement with the other party on colonial cooperation between the two countries in North Africa.

The so-called colonial cooperation does not mean that the two countries jointly develop a piece of land, but that the colonies of the two countries advance and retreat together in the face of foreign colonial competition to ensure the safety of the colonies of the two countries.

To put it bluntly, Spain supported Italy’s colonization in Tunisia in exchange for Italy’s support for Spain’s colonization in Morocco.

As for colonial conflicts outside North Africa, such as colonial competition between Spain and France in West Africa, Italy would not have to abide by this cooperation clause.

This is also the room for maneuver that the two governments have left for themselves. Although both countries have various competitive relationships with France in terms of colonization, Spain currently has far more colonies in Africa than Italy.

Although Italy was willing to cooperate with Spain, it was obviously unwilling to completely offend the French for the sake of Spain’s West African colonies.

The scope of cooperation is limited to North Africa, which ensures that the interests of Italy and Spain do not diverge too much. Although Morocco has a larger land area, Tunisia has more arable land, which is roughly balanced.

Although he had formally signed terms of colonial cooperation with Italy, Carlo had no intention of formulating plans to invade Morocco.

The reason is very simple. It is not only France that has its eyes on Morocco, but also Britain, which seems to be isolated from the European continent but is actually more concerned about the European situation than the countries on the European continent.

Spain and Italy were able to unite to counter France because the French navy could not crush the combined naval power of Spain and Italy, and it was almost impossible for the army to quickly resolve Spain and Italy.

But the British were different. The British navy could easily crush the combined navies of Spain and Italy, which meant that the British could blockade Spain and Italy on the coast without deploying the army.

Before the naval power reached the point where it threatened the British, or before the British were hindered by other wars, Spain could only temporarily give up its colonization of Morocco and temporarily bow to the British.

However, temporarily giving up the colonization of Morocco is not without benefits for Spain. At least Spain can focus on developing its West African colonies and promote the exchange of colonies with Portugal as soon as possible.

As mentioned before, there is an indigenous country in the north of the Gold Coast called the Ashanti Empire. This indigenous country was also the main indigenous force that the British Gold Coast once fought against.

Now that Spain has taken over the Gold Coast colony, it is necessary to conquer this indigenous tribe for the safety and stability of the Gold Coast.

The so-called Ashanti Empire was actually just a loose indigenous federation established around the early 18th century.

This indigenous federation is quite special. It is governed by an organization called the Council of Chiefs. The nominal supreme leader is the leader of the Ashanti tribe, who is also the political and spiritual leader of the entire country.

But as the head of state, the leader of the Ashanti tribe has no command over other tribes, and all indigenous tribes are equal members.

However, for the stability of the entire federation, all participants in the Council of Chiefs also jointly formulated a code of conduct, that is, all indigenous tribes must swear allegiance to the Council of Chiefs, pay a certain amount of taxes each year, abide by the trade codes formulated by the Council of Chiefs, and hand over the command of a force for external combat in times of war.

It is precisely this provision that has allowed this seemingly loose federation to persist until now in the face of the colonization of the British Empire.

Although the British had strong ships and powerful guns, these natives were very familiar with the local terrain and used it to their advantage, causing considerable casualties to the British army.

After coming into contact with these natives, the British shifted from simple military conquest to a plan to sow discord between the states and the most powerful Ashanti tribe.

This has proven to be very effective, although on the surface the Ashanti chiefs do not have any command or other authority over other tribes.

But the Ashanti chief is still the head of the entire federation and he always finds loopholes to exercise his power.

For a long time, other tribes in the federation had more or less dissatisfaction with the powerful Ashanti tribe, which made the British plan to sow discord have a certain effect.

However, it is obvious that after Spain took over the Gold Coast colony, the preparations made by the British beforehand had paved the way for Spain.

After learning about the situation of the tribes near the Gold Coast from the Colonial Affairs Department, Carlo decided to imitate the British policy of provoking relations and continue to alienate the relations between the states of the Ashanti Federation and undermine their unity when facing powerful enemies.

Try to let civil strife break out among them first, and then Spain will destroy the entire federation in one fell swoop.

Compared with the British attitude of divide and rule, Carlo did not intend to incorporate these indigenous peoples into Spanish colonial rule.

Large-scale colonization of Africa will bring a disadvantage, that is, the country will be at risk of being blackened. This is the case with France in history. With the continuous influx of blacks into France, France has also changed from a white country to a country where whites and blacks live together.

As we all know, babies born to black people and everyone else are black, which actually means that France is likely to become a European country in the future where black people account for the majority or even the vast majority of the population.

Spain should be highly prepared for this. In fact, every race has more or less shortcomings, whether it is the white people who currently think they are noble or the yellow people who are suffering from oppression. This is also human nature.

But compared to these two races, black people have many shortcomings, and many of them are fatal, which is why Carlo rejects black people.

First, blacks are generally lazy and rude. Compared with working hard to grow food to fill their stomachs, blacks prefer simple and crude ways to earn income, such as robbery and theft.

When they were the lowest class in the country, their harm was not that great. But once the world began to pay attention to human rights and countries had to grant them human rights, the harm of black people would immediately become apparent.

When large-scale robbery and theft occur, it will cause panic and unrest in the entire society, and may even lead to racial confrontation, increasing the risk of national division.

In addition, black people carry a variety of germs. This is not discrimination against black people, but a real reality.

The sanitary conditions in Africa are extremely poor both now and in the future. Black people do not pay attention to sanitary conditions at all, which creates various possibilities for the spread of diseases.

At the same time, infectious diseases such as AIDS, which everyone is afraid of, also spread from Africa. It is said that the earliest AIDS virus was found in gorillas. As for how such a virus spread from gorillas to humans, we have to ask what the Africans at that time thought.

The consequences of AIDS are already serious, but it is not the only disease that has spread from Africa to the world.

Including the Ebola virus, which was quite serious in later generations, these are all deadly viruses that originated in Africa.

Not only would Carlo not consider incorporating Africans into Spain’s colonial rule, he would even consider effectively eliminating the number of blacks in Spain’s existing colonies to avoid the terrible event of African germs spreading to Spanish colonies through contact with blacks.

Although frequent wars with these African natives would increase Spain’s military expenditures, on the bright side, the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army would also increase.

The war with the African natives was certainly not as effective as the regular war with European countries, but it also allowed the Spanish soldiers to see blood and feel the cruelty on the battlefield.

Currently, the only colony that needs to wage a large-scale war against the indigenous people is the Gold Coast, and the Congo territory does not need large-scale external expansion for the time being.

The reason is very simple. The southward expansion of Congo’s territory has been blocked by Carlo and Portugal’s colonial exchange plan, and it can only expand to the north or northwest.

But blind expansion is not a good thing. The territory of Congo is too large and difficult to manage.

Currently, the number of immigrants in the Congolese territory has just exceeded 5, so there is no need for large-scale expansion.

It would be better to settle down for the time being and focus limited energy on other colonies.

At a cabinet meeting after the Madrid peace talks, cabinet members voted and approved the Ashanti Conquest Plan proposed by Secretary of State for the Colonies William.

According to this conquest plan, in addition to the two colonial garrison regiments in the Gold Coast, Spain also needs to draw one colonial garrison regiment each from the colony of southern Morocco, the Congo Territory and the colony of Guinea, making up a total of five colonial garrison regiments to launch a war against the Ashanti Federation.

The five colonial garrison regiments have a total strength of about 1.2 soldiers, so conquering a small Ashanti Federation would certainly be a piece of cake.

Of course, preliminary preparations, such as accelerating the alienation of the tribes in the Ashanti Federation, are also necessary. After destroying the internal stability of the Ashanti Federation, the Spanish army will be able to attack more easily and avoid more casualties and military expenditures.

Because only colonial troops were mobilized and the total force was only 1.2, the military expenditure for this operation was very small, estimated to be between 1500 million pesetas and 2500 million pesetas.

The military expenditure is not much, but if the plan goes smoothly, the area of ​​Spain’s Gold Coast colony can be doubled, and the total area will reach more than 100,000 square kilometers.

This is actually the reason why European countries are keen on colonization. Basically, it does not cost too much to obtain a large piece of land for development.

You should know that the land area of ​​most European countries ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. There is only one country with an area of ​​more than one million square kilometers, and that is the Russian Empire, whose territory extends to the easternmost part of Asia.

Even Tsarist Russia was very keen on territorial expansion, not to mention other European countries whose area was only hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of square kilometers.

In addition to approving the Ashanti Conquest Plan, the cabinet meeting also approved a new application from the defense department, which is a plan to build new warships.

It has been several years since the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard last produced the design drawings of the Renaissance-class ironclad ship. The major shipyards in Spain have not been able to come up with a shipbuilding design that satisfies the navy.

Spain, France and Italy also have relevant shipbuilding cooperation, but they generally focus on the construction of armored cruisers rather than true ironclad ships.

The so-called armored cruisers, like the battlecruisers that will appear in the future, are a relatively special type of warship design.

Armored cruisers have powerful firepower close to that of ironclad ships, and are definitely at the level of battleships in terms of firepower. However, the biggest difference between cruisers and ironclad ships is the cost of each warship.

Compared to ironclad ships, armored cruisers cost less, which led to the fact that when designing warships, the armored cruisers had to reduce their protection to ensure that they had firepower comparable to that of ironclad ships.

To put it simply, an armored cruiser is a cruiser equipped with main battleship guns. Its armor protection capability is only slightly stronger than that of an ordinary cruiser, and it lags far behind the ironclad ships invested in on a large scale by various countries.

This warship was originally funded and built by Russia with the purpose of serving as an auxiliary warship of the fleet to provide additional firepower for the fleet of the battleship force.

However, as Russia became corrupt, during the Russo-Japanese War, such ships with obvious defects had become Russia’s main warships. Because the armor of armored cruisers was relatively weak, many armored cruisers suffered heavy blows from the enemy during the war.

Under Carlo’s influence, Spain’s attitude towards the navy was that it was not necessary to build battleships, but if it did, it must build the best battleships.

After years of hard work, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard finally produced a warship that satisfied the navy, which is why the military proposed to build a navy.

The new warship design is not so much a completely new design as it is an improvement made by the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard based on the Renaissance-class ironclad ships.

Of course, the improvements are significant, ensuring that the new warship design remains world-class and can effectively strengthen the Spanish Navy.

In terms of power, the new warship will use two sets of double-cylinder reverse compound expansion steam engines, with a total of 12 cylindrical boilers, dual-shaft propulsion, and can provide approximately 7000 horsepower of power under natural ventilation.

If converted to high-pressure ventilation mode, it can provide the warship with approximately 9600 horsepower of power, which is a significant improvement over the power of the Renaissance-class ironclad ship.

With the increased power, shipyards will be able to make improvements on the armor and artillery of warships.

In terms of main guns, the warship still uses a 12-inch 305mm breech-loading naval gun. This cannon is the product of cooperation between Spanish and Austrian military industrial enterprises. Its shooting range and power have been greatly improved.

Although the caliber is the same as the main gun caliber of the Fuxing-class ironclad ship, the overall firepower has been improved by at least 20%.

Another aspect is armor protection. Because the cooperation with Germany has effectively improved Spain’s steelmaking capacity, the armor of this ironclad ship will use Spain’s latest special steel plates, and its protection capability is at least 30% higher than that of the previous ordinary steel armor.

Spain’s current steel production is more than enough to provide a warship with enough steel plates for protection, which also makes the thickness of the steel armor in the design of this warship even more exaggerated than the previous Renaissance-class ironclad ship.

The reason why Spain was not interested in armored cruisers can be understood from the armor protection capabilities of ironclad ships. Although the difference in firepower is not big, ironclad ships can withstand a few main gun bombardments if they do not hit their weak points.

But armored cruisers cannot do this. Once hit by the enemy’s battleship’s naval guns, the armored cruisers will be injured if not killed, which will greatly affect their combat effectiveness.

Back to the Spanish warship design, because of the increase in armor thickness, the tonnage of the entire warship will reach an exaggerated number.

The conventional displacement alone is 9552 tons. When fully loaded, the displacement of this warship will exceed tons in an instant. This is also Spain’s first truly -ton giant ship.

However, due to the increase in power, even though the design tonnage of this new ironclad ship has reached the 17-ton level, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard estimates that the maximum speed of the warship can reach about knots.

Overall, the design of this warship not only has powerful firepower, but also excellent armor protection capabilities and extremely high speed.

When fully loaded, the warship can travel 10 nautical miles at a speed of 7000 knots, which is nearly 1.3 kilometers, almost the total distance from Spain to its Philippine colony.

The Navy is most satisfied with the design of this new warship because its speed has been improved. Although the performance of the Fuxing-class ironclad warship is excellent, its speed can only reach about 13 knots, which is still behind other European main warships.

This latest warship has eliminated the speed gap, and even when fighting against the main warships of powerful countries like Britain and France, there is no need to worry about falling behind in speed.

Even if Spain could equip itself with a large number of these new warships, it would still have hope of challenging Britain’s position as the naval hegemon.

However, the British would certainly not remain indifferent to Spain’s construction of a large number of main warships. If Spain insisted on building a large number of warships, it would definitely provoke a naval arms race with Britain and even the whole of Europe.

Because it had been a long time since the construction of main battleships, the proposal submitted by the Navy Department to the Cabinet included the construction of four main battleships.

Unlike the Renaissance-class ironclad ships, which cost no more than 50 pounds, the estimated cost of this warship is as high as 53 pounds. Adding the cost of building the ship in the shipyard, the selling price of each warship is unlikely to be less than 70 pounds.

This is the internal price that the shipyard paid to the Spanish government. If it were sold to other countries, a large amount of income would have to be added to the price of 70 pounds.

The fact that no one is interested in the Fuxing-class ironclad ships is enough to show that it is still very difficult to sell ironclad ships abroad at present.

Ironclad ships are too expensive to build, and major countries have the ability to build them themselves, so there is naturally no need to purchase them from abroad.

Small countries have tight finances and it is impossible for them to come up with hundreds of thousands of pounds to build a warship.

After all, the cost of a warship not only includes the construction of the warship itself, but also the formation of the navy and subsequent maintenance costs.

The total cost of a warship starts at at least one million pounds. If you want to build a fleet, the cost will start at several million pounds.

To put it bluntly, a country that is not large in size cannot manage the current fleet.

Spain’s naval strength remained among the top eight in the world even during its period of extreme weakness. The real reason was that, except for the great powers, European countries basically had no decent naval fleets.

Based on the construction cost of 70 pounds per warship, Spain would need to spend 1820 million pesetas to build each of the latest ironclad ships.

The Navy requested the construction of four ironclad ships, and the cost of the warships alone was as high as 7280 million pesetas. In addition to the training of naval soldiers and subsequent maintenance costs, the plan proposed by the Navy alone required the Spanish government to pay nearly 1 million pesetas.

These are just four battleships. To equip these four battleships with all the auxiliary warships needed by the fleet, at least 5000 million pesetas will be needed.

Even though Spain’s finances have improved significantly, it is still a headache to deal with investments of over 100 million yuan.

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(End of this chapter)