Chapter 302: Pan-Iberianism

Of the three places Britain was willing to concede, except for the Trucial States, Gao Da did not want the remaining two.

In the last conflict regarding Kalimantan Island, Spain had already occupied the Sultanate of Kutai. If it expanded further south, Spain would take over all of the Netherlands' land on Kalimantan Island.

In this way, the situation on Kalimantan Island changed from colonial competition between Spain and the Netherlands, with Britain staying out of it, to direct competition between Britain and Spain.

Gao Da did not want to have colonial competition with Britain in such a distant place; the time required to travel back and forth between the mainland and Kalimantan Island was already a huge expense.

New Guinea Island was the same. The reason Gao Da let the Philippines colony send a colonial team to join the colonization of New Guinea Island was to delay the speed of other Great Powers colonizing New Guinea Island.

Now Spain's colonization of New Guinea Island had been very effective; if there was British support, getting half of New Guinea Island would not be an exaggeration.

But the problem was that New Guinea Island and Kalimantan Island had the same awkward situation, which was that they were too far from the Spanish mainland.

Plus Spain's population was not large, Gao Da had no plans to develop these lands in the short term.

Maintaining these colonies also required huge expenses, so what Gao Da really valued was only Britain's third condition, the Trucial States.

However, Spain's valuing of the Trucial States could not be directly expressed; it needed to adopt a kind of helpless compromise to obtain this region.

If Spain actively demanded this region, the British would suspect Spain's motives. If the British discovered the large oil fields on the Middle East Peninsula, Spain at this time could not hold the Middle East land it had already occupied.

Only by passively accepting this land would the British not suspect the Spanish government's motives, and Spain could accumulate strength to protect this land.

As long as it could survive World War I, Spain after World War I would definitely have the ability to hold this land. By then, the European Great Powers that had experienced the World War would not recover their vitality in a short time, and even the powerful British Empire would be unable to launch another Great Power-level war.

Gao Da did not talk to the British ambassador for long, only confirming that Spain and Britain should maintain a rational and concessionary attitude toward the conflict over the land in the southern Congo.

As for what compensation the British should pay later, that was a matter for the Spanish government to negotiate with the British.

Although Spain and Britain reached a compromise on the ownership of the land in the southern Congo, regarding Portugal, both sides tacitly did not mention it.

Don't look at the compromise reached by the two countries as having a trend of repairing relations; in fact, both the British and Spanish governments understood that such a compromise was only a helpless move.

And after the compromise was reached, the subsequent roping in of the Portuguese government by the two countries would become the main policy of the two governments.

The British side did not want to see Portugal lean toward Spain, while Spain had to seize the opportunity to continue to alienate the relationship between Portugal and Britain.

After long negotiations between the British and Spanish governments, the two sides finally reached a compromise on the issue of land in the southern Congo.

The Kingdom of Luanda and the Kingdom of Buonda that Portugal had already obtained still belonged to Portugal, which could be considered as completing the proposal reached when Portugal and Spain exchanged colonies.

Spain obtained the Kingdom of Kuba in the north of the Kingdom of Luanda, and Portugal obtained the Kingdom of Luba in the east of the Kingdom of Luanda, which was another kind of compensation for Portugal.

As for the most critical Kingdom of Barotseland, Kingdom of Mwata Kazembe, Kingdom of Malawi, and Kingdom of Yeke, they were taken down by the British to build the Cairo-Cape Town line in Britain's plan.

To compensate Spain, Britain also needed to pay the Trucial States, while allowing Spanish merchants and immigrants to freely enter and exit the land in the southern Congo.

Of course, the Portuguese were the same. This could also be considered as giving the Portuguese government a little face, so that the Portuguese government would not get nothing.

After the two countries reached a consensus, the debate on the land in the southern Congo at the Berlin Conference ended quickly.

Originally, this debate was caused by the competition between Britain and Spain; since the competition between the two countries no longer existed, there was naturally no need to discuss this topic.

Other Great Powers did not interfere in the slightest in the compromise reached by Britain and Spain, and they would not offend Britain and Spain over such small matters.

After the first topic ended, the Berlin Conference soon ushered in the second topic, which was the topic of partitioning Africa.

European countries all had their own colonial plans for Africa; at the Berlin Conference, each country proposed its own colonial plan, many of which had conflicts.

In order to avoid conflicts between Great Powers in the colonization of Africa, German Chancellor Bismarck proposed regulations on effective occupation.

The so-called effective occupation meant that when participating countries established colonies or protectorates on the African coast in the future, they needed to notify other countries participating in the conference so that other countries could put forward their own requirements.

At the same time, if countries wanted to establish colonies, they must ensure that they possessed ruling power that could protect the existing rights of European countries, and ensure trade freedom and transit freedom under specified conditions when necessary; only by following the above conditions could it be regarded as effective occupation, which was the so-called legal colony.

And such a legal colony would be recognized by all countries participating in the conference; no country could destroy another country's legal colony and must respect other countries' spheres of influence.

The effective occupation principle proposed by Chancellor Bismarck received the support of many European countries, but for the British government, the impact of such a proposal was still very large.

As everyone knew, the country that currently occupied the most land in Africa was the British Empire.

When other countries' occupation of Africa was still limited to the coast, Britain had already established the Cape Colony and the Egypt colony, and had already gone deep into Sudan in the African interior.

If according to the effective occupation principle proposed by Chancellor Bismarck, in fact, Britain's existing three major African colonies did not meet the requirements of legal colonies.

Although there was no blind country that would compete with Britain for colonization in these three places, this nominal illegality would always make the British Empire suffer restrictions.

The occupied Egypt, South Africa, and Sudan regions were fine; Britain had already formed effective rule, and it was difficult for other countries to destroy Britain's colonies.

But in other parts of the African continent, Britain would be on the same level as other countries, and everyone needed to establish legal colonies to establish their ruling status.

This also meant that Britain would face direct competition from European Great Powers led by Germany and France, and the African coast that had not yet established colonial rule would also usher in more intense colonization and contention.

Even though the British representative argued strongly, they could not refute the effective occupation principle supported by multiple countries.

Germany and France both saw the benefits in it; with the support of the two Great Powers of Germany and France, unless Britain obtained the support of Great Powers of the same level, it would be impossible to stop the effective occupation principle from being added to the treaty.

But the problem was that Russia, because of its contradiction with Britain in Central Asia, could not support Britain.

And the Austro-Hungarian Empire was Germany's ally; the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not betray its ally to support Britain.

The remaining Spain and Italy were even less likely to support Britain; the former had just had a colonial conflict with Britain, and the conflict had only been resolved for a few days. The latter had no interest connection with Britain, and Italy was also a powerful country colonizing Africa.

Unknowingly, Britain was already in a state of isolation and helplessness at the Berlin Conference.

The final result was also obvious; the British representative could not stop the effective occupation principle from being added to the treaty at all, and they could only seek more clauses favorable to Britain.

Gao Da only paid a little attention to the situation of the Berlin Conference after the Spanish government and the British government negotiated, and then no longer paid attention to the negotiation situation of the conference.

The partition of Africa still needed to be negotiated for a long time; after all, it involved multiple Great Powers and European countries, and everyone was unwilling to have the fat in their mouths snatched by others.

It was estimated that this conference would take at least until the end of the year to end, and if it was slow, it might even drag on until next year to have results.

For Gao Da, he was not in a hurry to wait for the Berlin Conference to end. In this colonial conflict incident, Gao Da had already achieved his goal and could be considered full of harvest.

On the Trucial States side, Gao Da did not intend to send troops to conquer for the time being.

Anyway, the British had promised that Spain could colonize this land; conquering it early or late was the same; anyway, before oil was discovered, this land had no value.

Getting this land later could also let the British see Spain's reluctance, and their guard against Spain occupying the Trucial States would naturally decrease.

According to the Royal Security Intelligence Agency's attention to the domestic situation in Portugal, so far, the relationship between Portugal and Britain could be said to have been severely sabotaged.

The Berlin Conference had been held for several months, and there were still public parades in Portugal from time to time. The Portuguese held high banners of "Resisting British Colonial Extortion" and walked majestically through the streets and alleys of Portugal.

Such parades received the support of many Portuguese, and even Portugal had many more parties opposing the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance overnight.

These Portuguese believed that the so-called Anglo-Portuguese Alliance severely sabotaged the relationship between Portugal and Spain that should have been united, which was Britain's forced interference in the Iberian Peninsula.

Before Britain snatched Portugal's colony in the southern Congo, Britain had already forcibly snatched Spain's Gibraltar; this had a precedent.

The Portuguese government could no longer trust Britain and should keep a distance from the British government to prevent Portugal's colonies from being further annexed by Britain.

Gao Da, as the King of Spain, high-profilely supported Portugal in this conflict incident, winning the favor of many Portuguese, which also made many people in Portugal begin to support Iberianism, the so-called Iberian Union thought.

Iberianism, also known as Pan-Iberianism, mainly existed in Spain before and had currently spread widely to Portugal.

Iberianism was first proposed by Spanish hawks, with the purpose of unifying the Iberian Peninsula and bringing Portugal into Spain's rule.

After spreading to Portugal, Portuguese intellectuals made certain modifications to its thought, but it was also about the idea of Portugal and Spain uniting to form a federation.

Scholars who supported Iberianism believed that it was difficult for Portugal alone to compete with Great Powers like Britain. Only by uniting Spain and Portugal to form a powerful Iberian Federation could they counter external interference factors like Britain.

These scholars were very cultured; they did not just talk, but produced a lot of data to prove the power of the Iberian Federation.

If Spain and Portugal could really form a federation, this federation would possess a population of over 27 million and almost exclusively occupy the entire Iberian Peninsula.

This new country would possess the world's fifth-largest army, the world's fifth-largest navy, and the world's second-largest colony, and its industrial and economic level would also be in the world's top five.

In this way, the traditional European five Great Powers would become the European six Great Powers, and even the comprehensive strength of this Iberian Federation would exceed the Austro-Hungarian Empire, becoming a true first-class Great Power.

The various data proposed by Iberianists in Portugal were quite reasonable, and the strength displayed by this so-called Iberian Federation was even more exaggerated.

Precisely because of this, Iberianism instantly became a thought that received much attention in Portugal. Many famous writers expressed their support for this kind of ism; against the background of the Portuguese government and royal family being weak and incompetent, supporting Iberianism seemed to have become a trend.

Against such a big background, Portugal newly established many parties related to Iberianism.

Among these parties, two parties had already developed a certain scale, namely the Great Iberian Party and the Federal Party.

The Great Iberian Party was founded by the call of those Portuguese writers who supported Iberianism and currently had the support of the Portuguese literary world.

The Federal Party was founded by the opposition party in Portuguese politics; their desire to establish a Portugal-Spain federation was not that strong, and it was more like using such a vent to rope in more Portuguese people to support themselves.

The constantly emerging Iberianism in the country made the Portuguese government very headache-inducing. Luis I, who learned the news, had a pale face; he guessed that the intellectuals who constantly emerged in Portugal and supported the federation might be supported by Spanish funding.

But the problem was that without any evidence, he could not ask the Spanish government for accountability for no reason.

At most, he could only let the government arrest these people who supported Iberianism, but doing so sometimes would only brew bigger trouble.

Currently, the parade wave in Portugal had not cooled down; if they broke out that the Portuguese government forcibly arrested Iberianists, it would only ignite the parade wave of the people again.

The people's disappointment with the government and royal family in this incident had already been overflowing; if Luis I did any more stupid things, it was really not guaranteed that there would be radicals among the people who would forcibly promote the revolution to promote the formation of the federation.

Don't look at those intellectuals shouting about what benefits there were in forming a federation; Luis I understood that as long as Spain and Portugal formed a federation, the Portuguese government would lose all say.

Spanish King Gao Da still had means; if he annexed Portugal, Portugal might not be able to find an opportunity to become independent again like the last time it was annexed.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 303 =====