Chapter 302: Pan-Iberianism

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

In the previous conflict over the island of Kalimantan, Spain had already occupied the Sultanate of Kutai. If they were to expand further south, Spain would effectively take over all of the Netherlands' lands on the island of Kalimantan.

In this way, the situation on the island of Kalimantan shifted from a colonial competition between Spain and the Netherlands with Britain staying on the sidelines, to a direct competition between Britain and Spain.

Gao Da did not want to have a colonial rivalry with Britain in such a distant place; the time required just to travel back and forth between the homeland and the island of Kalimantan was already a considerable expense.

The same logic applied to the island of New Guinea. The reason Gao Da had the Philippine colony send out a colonial team to join the colonization of New Guinea was to delay the speed at which other great powers colonized the island.

Now that Spain's colonization of New Guinea was already quite effective, if they had the support of the British, it would not be an exaggeration to obtain half of New Guinea.

But the problem was that New Guinea and the island of Kalimantan shared the same awkward predicament: they were too far from the Spanish homeland.

Coupled with the fact that Spain did not have a large population, Gao Da had no intention of developing these lands in the short term.

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

However, Spain's regard for the Trucial States could not be directly expressed; it required a kind of reluctant compromise to obtain this region.

If Spain were to actively demand this region, the British would suspect Spain's motives. If the British were to discover the vast oil fields of the Arabian Peninsula, the Spain of this time would not be able to hold onto the Middle Eastern lands it had already occupied.

Only by passively accepting this land would the British not suspect the motives of the Spanish government, and only then could Spain accumulate the strength to protect this territory.

As long as they could survive the First World War, the Spain of the post-war era would absolutely have the ability to hold onto this land. By then, the European powers that had experienced the world war would not be able to recover their vitality in a short time, and even the powerful British Empire would be unable to launch another war of the great power level.

Gao Da did not talk with the British ambassador for long; he only confirmed that Spain and Britain should maintain a rational and yielding attitude regarding the conflict over lands in southern Congo.

As for what compensation the British should pay subsequently, 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 lands in southern Congo, both sides tacitly avoided mentioning Portugal.

Do not be fooled by the trend of repairing relations following the compromise between the two countries; in reality, both the British and Spanish governments understood that such a compromise was merely a last resort.

And after the compromise was reached, the subsequent wooing of the Portuguese government by the two countries would become the primary policy of both governments.

The British side did not want to see Portugal lean toward Spain, while Spain wanted to seize the opportunity to continue alienating 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 southern Congo.

The Kingdom of Luanda and the Kingdom of Buonda, which Portugal had already acquired, remained under Portugal, which could be considered the fulfillment of the proposal reached when Portugal and Spain originally conducted their colonial exchange.

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; this was considered another form of compensation for Portugal.

As for the most critical Kingdom of Barotseland, the Kingdom of Mwata Kazembe, the Kingdom of Malawi, and the Kingdom of Yeke, they were taken by the British to construct the Cairo-to-Cape Town connection planned by Britain.

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

Of course, the same applied to the Portuguese. This was also considered giving the Portuguese government a little face, so that the Portuguese government would not end up with nothing.

After the two countries reached a consensus, the debate at the Berlin Conference regarding the lands of southern Congo soon ended.

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 with the compromise reached by Britain and Spain, nor would they offend Britain and Spain over such a small matter.

After the first topic ended, the Berlin Conference soon welcomed the second topic, which was the issue regarding the partition of Africa.

European countries each had their own colonial plans for Africa; at the Berlin Conference, each country put forward its own colonial plan, many of which had conflicting points.

In order to avoid conflicts between great powers in the colonization of Africa, German Chancellor Bismarck proposed regulations regarding effective occupation.

The so-called effective occupation meant that in the future, when participating countries established colonies or protectorates on the African coast, 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 the ruling power to protect the existing rights of European countries, and ensure that they observed free trade and free transit under the prescribed conditions when necessary; only by following the above conditions were they considered effective occupation, which was the so-called legitimate colony.

And such legitimate colonies would be recognized by all countries participating in the conference; no country could destroy the legitimate colonies of other countries and must respect the spheres of influence of other countries.

The principle of effective occupation 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 significant.

It is well known that the country currently occupying the most African land is the British Empire.

While 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 penetrated deep into the Sudan in the African interior.

If the principle of effective occupation proposed by Chancellor Bismarck were followed, in reality, none of Britain's three existing African colonies met the requirements for legitimate colonies.

Although there were no short-sighted countries that would launch a colonial competition with Britain in these three places, this nominal illegitimacy would always cause the British Empire to suffer restrictions.

The already 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; everyone would need to establish legitimate colonies to establish their ruling status.

This also meant that Britain would face direct competition from European 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 representatives argued strongly, they could not refute the principle of effective occupation supported by multiple countries.

Germany and France both saw 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 prevent the principle of effective occupation from being added to the treaty.

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

And the Austro-Hungarian Empire was an ally of Germany; 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 a few days ago. The latter had no interest connection with Britain at all, and Italy was also a powerful country in colonizing Africa.

Unknowingly, Britain had already fallen into a state of isolation at the Berlin Conference.

The final result was also very obvious; the British representatives could not stop the principle of effective occupation from being added to the treaty at all, and they could only seek more terms favorable to the British side.

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

The partition of Africa would still require a long time to negotiate; after all, it involved multiple great powers and European countries, and everyone was unwilling to have the fat meat in their mouths snatched away by others.

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

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 to have a full harvest.

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

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

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 damaged.

The Berlin Conference had already been held for several months, and public demonstrations still broke out from time to time in Portugal. The Portuguese held high banners of "Resist British Colonial Extortion" and walked in a grand manner through the streets and alleys of Portugal.

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

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

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

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

In this conflict incident, Gao Da, as the King of Spain, high-profilely supported Portugal's attitude, which won the favor of many Portuguese, and this also made many among the Portuguese start to support Iberianism, which is the so-called Iberian Union thought.

Iberianism is also called Pan-Iberianism; it previously existed mainly in Spain, and currently has spread widely to Portugal.

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

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

Portuguese scholars who supported Iberianism believed that it was difficult to compete with great powers like Britain by relying solely on Portugal's strength. Only by uniting Spain and Portugal to form a powerful Iberian Federation could they resist external interference factors similar to Britain.

These scholars were very cultured; they did not just speak without evidence, but brought out a lot of data to prove the strength of the Iberian Federation.

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

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

In this way, the traditional five great powers of Europe would become the six great powers of Europe, and the comprehensive strength of this Iberian Federation would even exceed that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, becoming a first-class power in the true sense.

The various data proposed by the 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 highly-regarded thought in Portugal. Many famous writers expressed their support for this kind of ism, and against the background of the weakness and incompetence of the Portuguese government and royal family, supporting Iberianism also seemed to become a trend.

Against this general background, many new parties related to Iberianism were established in Portugal.

Among these parties, two parties had already developed to 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 had currently received the support of the Portuguese literary world.

The Federal Party was founded by the opposition party in Portuguese politics; their desire to establish a Portuguese-Spanish federation was not that strong, and it was more like taking advantage of such a trend to win more Portuguese people to support themselves.

The constantly rising Iberianism in the country gave the Portuguese government a headache. Upon learning the news, Luis I had a livid complexion; he guessed that the intellectuals constantly emerging in Portugal who supported the federation might be funded by Spain.

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

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

Currently, the wave of demonstrations in Portugal had not yet cooled down; if it were exposed that the Portuguese government forcibly arrested Iberianists, it would only ignite the people's wave of demonstrations again.

The people's disappointment with the government and the royal family in this incident was already overflowing; if Luis I did any more stupid things, it was really hard to guarantee that there would be radicals among the people who would forcibly promote a revolution to facilitate the formation of the federation.

Do not look at those intellectuals shouting one by one about what benefits there were to forming a federation; Luis I understood that as long as Spain and Portugal formed a federation, the Portuguese government would lose all say.

The King of Spain, Gao Da, still had many means; if he were allowed to annex Portugal, Portugal might not be able to find an opportunity to become independent again like the last time it was annexed.

(End of chapter)