Chapter 282 The Three Emperors Alliance Again

The colony that accepted the largest number of Ashanti natives was naturally the Spanish colony of Gambia.

As a key colony for agricultural development in Spain’s West African development plan, the Gambia colony required a large amount of labor to cultivate the land and maintain the operation of the plantations.

The land reclaimed by these indigenous workers will be used to attract more European immigrants. Only by increasing the number of European immigrants in the colonies can the stability of the colonies be maintained.

Of course, some European immigrants also farmed, but they were a minority. Most people could get a certain amount of loans from the two major official banks in Spain, and use the money to hire cheap indigenous labor and open a farm or plantation, which would definitely be more profitable than farming on their own.

Of course, agricultural planting was not the only way out for European immigrants. Immigrants with more abundant capital could explore for minerals. If they encountered minerals with relatively high value, their wealth could be multiplied several times, and they could even become millionaires instantly.

There are also business activities, etc. These jobs that can earn more money and are easier are what European immigrants, especially Spanish immigrants, should do.

As more and more Ashanti natives were transported away, other tribes in the federation finally realized that something was wrong.

Although the Spanish army did not launch an attack on them, it was clear that Spain’s ruling strategy in Ashanti would not give up easily.

Several larger tribes gathered together again, trying to rebuild the Council of Chiefs and discuss how the federation should be maintained after the loss of the Ashanti tribe and how to avoid war with Spain as much as possible.

The actions of these larger tribes attracted great attention from the Gold Coast Colony. In order to dispel the doubts of these natives, the Gold Coast Colony made a major decision, which was to directly wage war against these natives.

It is easy to find reasons to start a war, and it is not even important whether there is a reason or not.

A few days later, the Gold Coast Colony launched a war directly against the Ashanti Federation, using the excuse that the Ashanti Federation had sheltered a large number of Ashanti soldiers during the time when Spain was waging war against the Ashanti tribe.

The federal tribes, which were not fully prepared, experienced the same panic and terror that the Ashanti chief had experienced half a month ago. They were afraid that they would follow in the Ashanti chief’s footsteps, and not only would all their families be massacred by the Spaniards, but their tribe, which had been passed down for hundreds of years, would also perish.

The Spanish army’s decision to attack was the same as its previous attack on the Ashanti tribe, which focused on speed and striving to eliminate these indigenous tribes in the shortest possible time.

In a short period of time, these indigenous tribes cannot gather many people. The transmission of information takes time, and the mobilization of manpower in these indigenous tribes also takes time.

This period of time was the golden time for the Spanish attack. Because the tribes had not yet reacted, the Spanish army could defeat them one by one, without having to worry about these tribes forming a federal army to resist the Spanish attack.

As long as they controlled the chiefs of these tribes, they would be equivalent to controlling these indigenous tribes. The indigenous chiefs were afraid of death, and as long as they did not want to lose their lives immediately, they had to cooperate with the Spanish colonial government.

It is worth mentioning that the first target of the Spanish army’s attack was the tribe that had escorted the Ashanti chief to the Spanish-controlled area half a month ago.

At that time, Spain rewarded the tribal chief with a large amount of food, which also made other chiefs in the entire federation relax and think that they and their tribes had survived.

Unexpectedly, this was just a delaying tactic by Spain. After Spain completely controlled the situation of the Ashanti tribe, the butcher knife was still swung towards these remaining tribes.

The anxious tribal leaders immediately summoned the natives of the tribe and planned to form a federal army again to resist the Spanish colonial attack.

But they forgot one important thing, that is, when facing the British colonial invasion, they simply handed over the army to the ruler of the federation, the Ashanti chief, and they could ensure the security of the entire federation by managing their own tribes.

But now, the ruler of the Federation is gone, and the major tribes have not been able to decide on a new chief of the Federation.

Without unified and effective management, even if these tribes were willing to send troops to resist the Spanish colonial invasion, it would be doomed to be futile.

The ultimate result of the lack of a leader is that each tribe fights on its own. In the absence of a unified command, the first choice of the soldiers from each tribe is to protect their own tribe. After all, the families of these indigenous soldiers live in their respective tribes, and they cannot be indifferent to the safety of their families.

This also gave Spain the opportunity to defeat them one by one. The largest tribe of the remaining tribes in the Ashanti Federation had a population of only a few hundred thousand, and the smaller tribes had only a hundred thousand or even less than a hundred thousand people.

Under such circumstances, it was impossible for the tribes fighting each other to resist the attack of the Spanish army on their own.

In less than a day, the large tribe closest to the Ashanti tribe was successfully occupied by Spain.

This was like a domino effect. In the next week, several tribes were conquered by the Spanish army, including two tribes with a population of hundreds of thousands.

In just one week, more than half of the large tribes of the Ashanti Federation were conquered by Spain. The population of all the remaining tribes combined was not as large as that of the Ashanti tribe.

This also means that Spain’s complete occupation of the Ashanti Federation’s territory is not far away in the future.

It was only a matter of time before the remaining tribes continued to stay on this land and were destroyed.

There were also some smart people among these natives. Some tribes chose to flee to the mountains and forests in the north to avoid the attack of the Spanish army when the federal government was losing ground.

This was a difficult decision for these natives. The Ashanti Federation was originally located inland of the Gold Coast, and their tribe was in the northernmost part of the Federation, which was why the Spanish army had not yet invaded their tribal land.

If they flee further north, there will be less land to survive in, because further north is the vast Sahara Desert, a desert with an area of ​​more than 900 million square kilometers and few people.

But they had no choice but to flee. The Spanish army would not give them more time, and except to continue fleeing north, these tribes could only wait to die where they were.

As for heading east or west, the indigenous tribes also did not consider it because there were also indigenous forces in these two directions. If they rashly led the tribe there, it would likely lead to their tribe being annexed by other indigenous forces.

Although European colonists are the common enemies of African natives, this does not mean that different African ethnic groups will join hands to fight against European colonists.

Not to mention the different African ethnic groups, even different indigenous tribes of the same ethnic group would most likely not be able to unite to fight against foreign invasion.

It has to be admitted that the choice of these indigenous tribes fleeing northward was indeed successful. Although there are still indigenous forces to the north of the Ashanti Federation, compared with the indigenous forces to the east and west of the Ashanti Federation, the indigenous forces to the north are not as strong.

The Spanish army also took advantage of the situation and after completely occupying the land that originally belonged to the Ashanti Federation, it no longer planned to attack the Kingdom of Gonga further north.

Although the Kingdom of Gonga was weaker than the Ashanti Federation, Spain’s continuous war actions would certainly cause panic among these nearby indigenous countries.

Under normal circumstances, they would not be able to unite together, but if they were under the oppression of the powerful enemy Spain, these indigenous countries might really unite to resist the Spanish colonial invasion.

This is not worth the loss for Spain. In addition, it will take some time to deal with the millions of people in the Ashanti Federation, so the Spanish army does not intend to set foot on the land outside the Ashanti Federation, at least not in the short term.

The annexation of the Ashanti Federation has nearly doubled the land area of ​​Spain’s Gold Coast colony, which will take time to digest.

Of course, it is also necessary to conduct extensive mineral exploration on the land of the Ashanti Federation. Whether it is gold mines or other mineral resources, Spain will not let them go.

It would certainly be better if one or two large gold mines could be discovered. After all, in addition to its extremely expensive value, gold also represents the stability of the Spanish currency.

The Gold Coast Colonial Government still adopted the old method to deal with the population of other tribes in the Federation. There were hundreds of thousands of elderly people and children in the entire Federation, and Spain would not show any mercy to these indigenous people who could not generate economic value.

As for the remaining adult indigenous people, they still have high economic value. As long as they don’t commit suicide, the Gold Coast colonial government is happy to retain these workers and let them create greater value elsewhere.

Not long after the Spanish government established the Ashanti Federation, two major international events occurred one after another.

The first major event was the re-signing of the Three Emperors Alliance.

As mentioned before, since the Russo-Turkish War, the relationship between Germany and Russia has reached a freezing point. Alexander II even almost tore up the Treaty of the Three Emperors and chose to ally with France to fight against Germany.

With the assassination of Alexander II, the Russian government also became low-key at the diplomatic level. This also gave German Prime Minister Bismarck an opportunity. If possible, he still wanted to repair relations with Russia and continue to maintain the Three Emperors’ Alliance.

Shortly after the assassination of Alexander II, German Chancellor Bismarck summoned the Russian ambassador to Germany and expressed Germany’s desire to maintain friendly relations with Russia.

The Russian government, which needed a stable environment at the time, immediately seized the olive branch thrown by Bismarck. The Russian government did not want to tear up the Treaty of the Three Emperors’ Alliance. Only by staying under the Three Emperors’ Alliance could Russia maintain long-term stability.

With Germany showing affection and Russia interested, the relationship between Germany and Russia quickly became closer.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire also saw the restoration of relations between Germany and Russia. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had already taken over the Bosnia and Herzegovina region after the Russo-Turkish War. Therefore, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was also willing to repair relations with Russia. After all, Germany had expressed a clear attitude of winning over Russia.

In this way, the Alliance of Three Emperors was established again.

The Russian and Austro-Hungarian ambassadors held a cordial meeting with German Chancellor Bismarck in Berlin and re-signed an alliance agreement.

This alliance agreement made certain modifications to the previous alliance agreement among the three countries, and overall made the three governments quite satisfied.

The treaty stipulates that when any of the contracting countries goes to war with a fourth country, the other two contracting countries should maintain benevolent neutrality and try to localize the conflict as much as possible.

The so-called localization of conflicts is also easy to understand, that is, to avoid the outbreak of a large-scale multinational war.

In fact, this is also the lesson that France’s launching of the Tunisian War brought to the three countries. Even though France was fully prepared, it was eventually taken advantage of by the Italians. The real reason why the Italians were able to take advantage was the support from the Spanish. The intervention of the great powers will play an extremely important role in the war.

Localizing the conflict can ensure that Germany, Russia and Austria do not have to worry about interference from other powers during the war. After all, their allies are not fake, and when the war is interfered by other powers, their allies can also intervene to ensure that they will not be isolated in the peace talks.

The second article stipulates that any changes to the Ottoman Empire’s territory in Europe must be approved by the joint agreement of all contracting parties.

The main purpose of this provision was to ease the conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary. The Ottoman Empire’s only territory in Europe was the Balkan Peninsula, which was targeted by both Russia and Austria-Hungary.

In order to maintain the Triple Alliance, Germany certainly could not side with Austria-Hungary in the conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary.

The Russian government added this clause mainly to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Empire from controlling the Balkan Peninsula with the support of Germany and blocking Russia’s path to the south.

The third and final clause of the treaty stipulated that the Strait of Constantinople must not be handed over by the Ottoman Empire to any belligerent power for use in military operations.

This is easy to understand. It was mainly used by Russia to prevent Britain from blockading its Black Sea Fleet.

Neither the German nor the Austro-Hungarian fleets would pass through the Strait of Constantinople, and the only beneficiary of this would be Russia.

It can be seen from the three major items of the treaty that in order to keep Russia in the Triple Alliance, Germany and Austria-Hungary still paid certain interests.

Austria-Hungary guaranteed that it would not continue to expand in the Balkans without Russia’s permission, and Germany guaranteed that Russia would not be blocked by Britain at the Strait of Constantinople if it went to war with Britain.

The efforts of Germany and Austria-Hungary brought Russia the reward that Russia would continue to remain in the Triple Alliance, and the alliance between France and Russia was just an impossible guess.

I don’t know what Britain and France think about the re-signing of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. In short, the continuation of the Triple Alliance is definitely a good thing for Carlo and Spain.

The reason is very simple. The Three Emperors’ Alliance was mainly aimed at France, which made France absolutely dare not break off relations with Spain and Italy.

After the signing of the Treaty of the Three Emperors, Russia would certainly have to postpone its rapprochement with France.

If France offends Spain and Italy again, the whole of Europe, except Britain, will basically be France’s enemy.

Don’t forget that the hatred between Britain and France is also not shallow. The situation of doing so is that France will be surrounded and beaten by the whole of Europe. Not to mention the current France, even if Napoleon were alive, it would be impossible for him to lead France to continue to sit firmly on the throne of European hegemony in such a diplomatic environment.

Since France will not break off relations with Spain and Italy, it means that Spain can continue to develop its West African colonies and expand its existing West African colonies.

These years are also the best opportunity for Spain to develop its colonies in West Africa. If the historical process is followed, when the Three Emperors’ Alliance breaks up in a few years, once the Franco-Russian Alliance is formed, France will not be so polite to Spain and Italy.

With a powerful ally, France will no longer fear a war with Spain, and Spain should seriously consider the consequences of offending two superpowers at the same time.

The signing of the Triple Alliance Treaty was just one of the major international events that took place during this period. Another major international event was the news that the current US President Garfield was assassinated.

Although the United States is not highly regarded in Europe, it is still one of the great powers, and the assassination of the US president is not a small news.

More importantly, Tsar Alexander II had just been assassinated a few months ago, and US President Garfield was assassinated again, which made the monarchs of European countries begin to worry about their own safety.

With the development of weapons, assassinating rulers has become easier and easier. At present, all rifles in various countries have evolved into breech-loading rifles, which not only have greater shooting power but also longer shooting distance.

No matter who the person is, if they are shot in the torso with a rifle, the final result will be death.

Only those who are extremely lucky can survive, but overall it is still a narrow escape.

The power of a rifle is not as simple as it appears in the game. Especially a high-powered rifle, a bullet will penetrate the body and form a huge wound the moment it penetrates the body.

Although the muzzle is only a few centimeters in diameter when viewed from the front, the wound on the back is often more than ten centimeters.

Even if the bullet doesn’t hit the head, as long as it hits the torso, it can cause serious damage to the internal organs.

This kind of injury, let alone in today’s medical environment, even with future medical technology, would pose a great risk of death if not treated in time.

The news of two consecutive assassinations of rulers of powerful countries made the rulers of many European countries begin to worry about their own safety, and they have increased their investment in their own security forces.

Carlo was naturally among them. As the saying goes, there are all kinds of birds in a big forest, and Carlo couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be a few outliers with extreme ideas in Spain.

If he was really attacked by such an alien with a gun, it would be a lot of fun. The medical technology of this era is so bad that Carlo will not rely on the medical technology of this era for his life.

The best solution is to strengthen your own security and avoid appearing in public places as much as possible.

Fortunately, the vehicles Carlo rides in have been specially modified, so speed is not a requirement, but safety must be top-notch.

In order to ensure the safety of himself and members of the royal family, Carlo allocated new funds to the Royal Security Intelligence Service and asked the director of the Royal Security Intelligence Service, Kader, to increase the infiltration of domestic intelligence to avoid assassinations.

Speaking of the assassinated US President Garfield, this president was definitely an extremely unlucky victim of backward medical technology.

As the second American president to be assassinated after Lincoln, Garfield’s assassination caused widespread heated discussion in the United States.

Although only 50 years old, Garfield had a lot of experience. He participated in the Civil War in his early years and was promoted to the rank of major general.

He later served in the Christian Church and became the first clergyman president in American history.

It’s just that this American president, who has excellent mathematical talent and clergy status, does not have much luck.

He was assassinated by an unemployed lawyer at the train station in Washington, the capital of his country. Less than two meters away from the president, the lawyer pulled out a revolver and fired two shots quickly. One shot pierced the president’s arm, and the other hit the torso and caused heavy bleeding.

It is worth mentioning that Garfield did not bring any guards with him when he traveled. It was the security personnel at the train station who subdued the assassin, which is why the assassin was able to get within two meters of the president before shooting.

It was the close enough distance that effectively increased the pistol’s hit rate. Although the assassin only fired two bullets, both of them hit the president’s body.

The good news for President Garfield is that neither of the two shots hit his vital parts. Needless to say, the shot in the arm would not be life-threatening as long as it was disinfected and bandaged in time.

The shot to the torso looked dangerous, but in fact it avoided all vital parts and was theoretically non-lethal.

As long as the bullet can be found and treated in time, the president’s life will not be in danger.

But unfortunately, there was no X-ray technology in this era. This technology was not invented until 14 years after Garfield was assassinated.

American doctors certainly know that they need to find the bullet before they can bandage the wound. How did they find the bullet that shot into the president’s body? The answer is with their hands.

Yes, reach into the wound with unsterilized fingers and explore.

This not only aggravated the president’s injuries, but also put Garfield’s wounds at risk of infection.

This is how President Garfield died in history. He did not die from an assassin, but from the treatment he received from his doctor.

It is worth mentioning that in order to find the bullet in the president’s body, the president’s medical team even asked for help from Bell, the inventor of the telephone, hoping that he could invent a metal detector.

Bell did make such a metal detector, but the president’s medical team did not follow Bell’s instructions completely. When using the detector, they did not avoid contact between the detector and other metals, which resulted in the detector failing to detect the bullet in the president’s body.

Of course, none of this has happened yet.

When the news of the assassination of US President Garfield reached Europe, it immediately became a hot topic in European countries.

Kings of various countries were strengthening their own defense forces and at the same time ridiculing Garfield, the President of the United States, for going out without any guards.

In addition to strengthening his own defense force, Carlo also increased his investment in medical technology. As the saying goes, there is always a loophole in a hundred precautions, and Carlo dare not be sure that he will not be assassinated in his lifetime.

How to survive after being assassinated is what Carlo has to consider and try his best to achieve.

The second update of 6200 words, please give me your monthly votes!

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(End of this chapter)