Chapter 267: The Secret Anglo-Spanish Treaty

After agreeing on the specific time for the diplomatic visit with the British government, preparing for the negotiations with the British government became the top priority of the Spanish government.

Although the current trend of things was within the expectation of the Spanish government, this did not mean that the final result of the negotiations could be the same as what the Spanish government expected.

As a European country, Spain naturally knew the greed of the British government. For the British Empire, if it could not obtain more benefits, the British government could not agree to the terms of colony exchange.

Spain hoped to obtain all of Britain's colonies in West Africa in the process of colony exchange; achieving this matter was not that easy.

But the good news was that if Britain withdrew from the colonial competition in West Africa, then the countries colonizing West Africa would only be Spain and France.

Although the relationship between Spain and France could be considered good, the possibility of the two cooperating in colonial development in West Africa was close to zero.

Considering the inferior nature of the British as a stirrer, even if the British government agreed to give up all colonies in West Africa, it would certainly dig a big hole in the diplomatic relationship between Spain and France.

Considering France's awkward situation in Europe, the deterioration of the diplomatic relationship between France and Spain would likely cause a series of changes.

Even Gao Da was seriously considering Spain's diplomatic situation; once the Three Emperors' Alliance broke, the classic German-Austrian Alliance resisting the Franco-Russian Alliance in history would appear instantly.

Where should Spain go in the confrontation between these two major military alliances? According to the in-law relationship, Spain should be closer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

If Spain obtained all of Britain's colonies in West Africa, this would also deepen the conflict with France. If Spain wanted to fully annex Morocco and control the West African colonies, it must also stand on the opposite side of France and even Britain.

But the problem was that the German-Austrian military group plus a Spain was obviously not the opponent of the five major powers of Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States.

Unless they could let Russia explode in revolution early and prevent Italy from jumping ship, perhaps they could achieve the situation of Britain and France vs. Germany, Italy, Spain, and Austria.

If they could achieve such a situation, the Americans would certainly also maintain neutrality and would not easily join the war.

While Gao Da was still thinking about how to break the situation, time had quickly arrived in September.

The British government formed a grand diplomatic visiting team and went to Spain for a diplomatic visit in a bright and upright manner.

Such a diplomatic visit was quite rare for Britain and Spain, two countries whose diplomatic relations were not good, and the diplomatic meeting between the two countries also attracted the attention of many European countries.

Neither country would leak the content to be discussed before reaching an actual agreement, which also caused the media of various European countries to guess what the two governments were going to discuss during the few days the British government visited Spain.

At the Ma Deli Royal Palace in Spain, Gao Da met the British government's diplomatic visiting mission. Facts could prove that the British were still quite serious about the proposal of colony exchange.

New Prime Minister Gladstone came out in person, and there were also many cabinet ministers; the scale of such a mission was already quite exaggerated.

Although Gao Da came out in person to meet the British diplomatic mission, Gao Da would not come out for the subsequent negotiations between Spain and the British government; the purpose was also to directly remove Gao Da.

Regardless of the result of the negotiations between Spain and the British government, the land Spain finally obtained through colony exchange was certainly not comparable to Cuba in terms of existing value.

This also meant that the officials who facilitated this clause were likely to suffer public criticism or even scolding. Gao Da, as the King of Spain, still had to avoid such a situation.

As long as Gao Da did not participate in the negotiations between the two governments, Gao Da would not have to take the blame for this matter.

In this era when monarchy was rampant in Europe, it was quite common for cabinet governments of various countries to take the blame for the monarch. Especially when the Conservative Party was in power, the interests of the party, the cabinet government, and the monarch were consistent, and taking the blame for the monarch was also very necessary.

If the monarch's reputation was damaged, even leading to public anger, the monarchy system would be impacted, which was also not a good thing for the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party was mostly composed of landlords and aristocrats, and these people were natural royalists. If the monarchy system ceased to exist, the special treatment they enjoyed would also disappear instantly.

This also formed a tacit understanding between European countries; in this situation with risks, the cabinet government must take the blame for the King.

Anyway, the cabinet government relied on elections; at worst, the Prime Minister's position would be dismissed, and then re-election would be conducted.

Taking the blame for the King was not a political stain; under the propaganda and whitewashing of public opinion, officials could even conduct the next cabinet election and would soon return to the stage of the government.

Prime Minister Gladstone obviously also knew the ways in this; he showed a quite respectful attitude towards Gao Da; after all, whether it was Spain's comprehensive strength or the status of the Spanish Royal Family in Europe, it was enough to let the British government maintain an attitude of importance.

If Spain's comprehensive strength was not strong, Britain would not even need such diplomatic negotiations; it could obtain colonies by threatening with military means.

This was after all an era of the law of the jungle. The two countries conducted diplomatic negotiations for only one reason, which was that they were relatively wary of the other side's comprehensive strength and were unwilling to offend the other side in non-essential situations.

Although Gao Da did not participate in the negotiations between the two governments on the surface, in the dark, Prime Minister Canovas still had to report the progress of the negotiations to Gao Da every day.

In the first few days of the negotiations, the progress of the two sides was quite slow, and it could even be said to be stagnant.

The British government was not stupid; they would absolutely not do a losing business. Even for the British government, as long as they earned less in colony exchange, it was no different from losing money.

The Spanish government side put forward the proposal of dividing Australia into two; Spain used the Cuba colony to exchange for the Western Australia colony plus Britain's Straits Settlements, and Spain and Britain established a buffer zone with a width close to 50 kilometers between the Western Australia and South Australia colonies.

Such a proposal was flatly rejected by the British government. Although the Western Australia colony did not have many people, besides mineral resources, it had no value.

But the area of this piece of land was still huge, and the mineral resources were countless; Britain did not need to pay Western Australia for a small Cuba.

The Straits Settlements naturally did not need to be mentioned. There was only one road for countries in East Asia to go to Europe, which was to go south through the Strait of Malacca, pass through the Indian Ocean along the coast of India, and then arrive at the Mediterranean from the Suez Canal.

It was not impossible to bypass the Strait of Malacca, but this would at least increase the distance of thousands of kilometers, and a round trip would at least take one or two weeks.

The geographical location of the Strait of Malacca determined that the British could not give up this piece of land; regardless of Cuba or not, this was not something that economic value could decide.

After vetoing the proposal put forward by the Spanish government, British Prime Minister Gladstone put forward his own proposal, which was to use the Huang Jinhaian and Spain's colonial rights to the Brunei Empire, plus 5 million pounds of funds to buy Spain's Cuba colony.

If Spain's proposal was still considering the value of the colony, then the British government's proposal did not consider the value of the colony at all; the conditions could be said to be quite harsh.

The British Huang Jinhaian possessed a large amount of gold mines; this was also the origin of the name Huang Jinhaian. But the problem was, this piece of land was discovered by the Portuguese as early as 1471, and the earliest European colonial settlement, Elmina Castle, was established in 1482, which had a history of nearly 400 years.

In these 400 years, the Portuguese, British, Dutch, Danes, Prussians, and Swedes all came here one after another to conduct trade in slaves, gold, ironware, necklaces, glass mirrors, rum, and guns, plundering a large amount of wealth and occupying many large and small gold mines.

The Huang Jinhaian had two most famous products; one was the gold produced by the grand gold mines from which the coast got its name. The other was the local specialty, African indigenous people, which was black people.

The Huang Jinhaian was not controlled by any one country for a long period of time, but was colonized and managed by many European countries respectively.

However, accompanied by the strength of the British Empire, after the British Huang Jinhaian was established, it gradually annexed the nearby Danish Huang Jinhaian and Dutch Huang Jinhaian, and the Huang Jinhaian also evolved into one of the large colonies under British control.

Because there were many gold mines, the Huang Jinhaian was Britain's largest colony in West Africa, and the population was also the largest.

It was just that these people came from various countries in Europe; the proportion of British people in the Huang Jinhaian was not high, and the people with the largest population were the Portuguese and the Dutch.

Although the Huang Jinhaian was rich in gold mines, because European countries had already mined for 400 years, the value of the Huang Jinhaian had been greatly reduced.

The wealth that various countries could exploit and squeeze had long been transported back to their own countries, leaving only a few relatively large gold mines still holding on.

But the output of these gold mines was not as huge as imagined, and the relationship between the British colony and the Ashanti Empire in the north was also not good, and even several wars broke out.

The main condition put forward by the British was the Huang Jinhaian, plus Spain could conduct colonial infiltration into Brunei. Although 5 million pounds of funds was not small, if compared with the Cuba colony, then 5 million pounds could not be counted as anything.

Such conditions were slightly shabby compared to the Cuba colony; from this aspect, one could also see the greed of the British; they were really unwilling to pay any great price, and wanted to get Cuba with very little interest by empty-handed white wolf.

Fortunately, Spain possessed sufficient strength at this time, and Britain did not dare to tear its face directly with Spain. The two sides could only sit at the negotiating table to negotiate, which was also beneficial to Spain.

Because Spain had many choices; since it was all a losing sale, why not sell it to a country with a better attitude?

Gao Da also had full confidence in this aspect. If the British government was really unwilling to reach cooperation, Spain was not without backup choices.

Either sell the Cuba colony to France, letting France tacitly approve Spain's annexation of Morocco. Or sell Cuba to Germany or the United States; Germany could provide the industrial technology and some technical talents Spain needed, and the Americans could provide sufficient funds, which were also what Spain needed.

In the situation where the negotiations between the two sides were in a stalemate, before the British government had any action, Spain released news that made the British government's face change greatly, which was that the Spanish government had a plan to visit Berlin diplomatically and was considering it.

The British government naturally understood that this piece of news was actually released by the Spanish government. The purpose of releasing this piece of news was naturally to remind and threaten the British.

The Spanish government was telling the British government in a bright and upright manner that the countries Spain could cooperate with were not just Britain, and European powers were all within the scope of Spain's cooperation.

Who the Cuba colony belonged to was not important; what was important was that if Spain was completely pushed to Germany because of this event, would France not be completely diplomatically isolated by Germany?

The threat of Germany itself was already very large, and the British government was considering helping France woo Russia to achieve a Franco-Russian Alliance to resist the threat of Germany.

If Spain ran to the German side, then how could the Franco-Russian Alliance play? France was directly pinched by Spain and Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's army also had the possibility of bypassing Switzerland to attack France's border.

Don't forget there was also Italy, this power-level country; although the land strength was not strong, it could still contain 300,000 to 500,000 French troops.

If Spain really leaned towards the German side, then the European situation would not need to be played. Unless the British were willing to go down to help France in person, but the problem was that Britain's land army was also not strong.

For the British government, no matter what, they must prevent Spain from leaning towards Germany. Spain must either maintain diplomatic neutrality or could only temporarily lean towards France's side.

Unless the Three Emperors' Alliance broke, the British did not hope that France's situation would be too inferior.

What made the British even more worried was that if Spain leaned towards the German side, among the seven major powers of Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Spain in the European continent, Germany had wooed four, forming an alliance of the five major powers of Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Spain.

In such a situation, what did the European situation have to do with the British? Britain, no matter how powerful, could not fight five, and could not count on France alone to resist the union of the five major powers.

This also meant that the British government must make concessions, at least the conditions could not be too harsh, avoiding Spain being extremely dissatisfied with Britain and leaning towards the Three Emperors' Alliance.

With such a small episode, the conditions put forward by the British government the next day became much more generous.

On the basis of the British Huang Jinhaian, the British added the British Gambia colony, and at the same time increased the fund compensation from 5 million pounds to 10 million pounds.

According to the construction cost of 500,000 pounds per ironclad ship in this era, 10 million pounds was enough for Spain to build 20 of the latest ironclad ships; this was absolutely not a small figure.

If converted into Pesetas, 10 million pounds also had a value of 260 million Pesetas, exceeding one-fourth of Spain's total annual fiscal revenue.

Although the British government increased its conditions, such conditions obviously could not satisfy Spain's appetite.

Prime Minister Canovas put forward more requirements, such as the Sierra Leone colony sandwiched between Britain's two colonies, and more land requirements.

Spain could give up colonial infiltration into Brunei, but Spain should obtain land with a larger area, thereby avoiding public anger caused by the loss of colonies.

The negotiations continued for several days after this, and finally led the topic to the land in the Middle East.

For the British, the land in the Middle East was not only large but also had no value. More importantly, this piece of land was not controlled by themselves; promising the land in the Middle East to the Spanish was also not a loss for the British.

Precisely because of this, Britain and Spain also quickly reached an agreement.

Spain used the Cuba colony to exchange for Britain's Gambia colony, Sierra Leone colony, and Huang Jinhaian; at the same time, the British government also allowed Spain to launch colonial actions against Oman in the Middle East.

The British government would also pay 5 million pounds of fund compensation to the Spanish government; the colony exchange between the two sides would be completed within the next three months; after all delivery work was completed, the two governments would consider releasing the news of colony exchange to the outside world.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 268 =====