Chapter 412: Britain's Response

Although a large number of Spanish enterprises shared 260 million pesetas of the national debt, the remaining 240 million pesetas were purchased entirely by the Spanish public in just two and a half months, which was something the Spanish government had far from expected.

Raising 500 million pesetas in just two and a half months not only indicated that the Spanish public had a high willingness to support the government, but also that the current standard of living for the Spanish public was relatively good.

After all, no matter how willing the public is to support the government, they must have money in their hands to purchase government-issued national debt. If they had no money, they would have no way to purchase the debt, and the issuance of the debt would naturally not have gone so smoothly.

Since sufficient funds had already been raised, the next steps were simple.

Starting in November 1902, Spain officially launched its naval construction plan, which would vigorously build Dreadnought-class battleships over the next ten years, allowing Spain to possess enough naval strength to contend with the British Royal Navy.

In the first few years after the naval construction plan began, Spain would not be able to build two Dreadnought-class battleships a year.

After all, these were giant ships with a full-load displacement of over 20, 00 tons; the preparation of materials alone before construction would take a long time, and coupled with the need for a large amount of manpower, the only ones actually qualified to build Dreadnought-class battleships were the Royal Guanizo Shipyard and the Valencia United Shipyard.

Because the Dreadnought battleship was built by the Royal Guanizo Shipyard, the second Dreadnought-class battleship, the Courage, would also be built at the Royal Guanizo Shipyard.

Because the Dreadnought battleship took only nearly a year to complete, Spain planned for the second major warship of the Dreadnought class to be completed in about the same amount of time.

Starting in November 1902, the second battleship, the Courage, officially began construction. According to estimates by the Spanish naval department, the Courage battleship was expected to be officially completed by December 1903 and enter service at the beginning of 1905.

The third battleship, the Fury, being built at the Valencia Shipyard, would be delayed until February of next year to begin construction. Because the start time was delayed by three months, the completion time for the Fury battleship would also be delayed until around April 1904.

In this way, by the time the Fury battleship entered service, the time would be around June 1905.

Looking solely at the service dates of the Courage and the Fury, Spain actually had quite a comfortable margin of time. Because historically, the British Dreadnought battleship did not officially enter service until December 1906, Spain had the hope of possessing at least four Dreadnought-class battleships before December 1906.

Of course, as Spain began to vigorously build its navy, it would certainly attract the attention of Britain and even more European countries.

The complete construction period for the Dreadnought battleship built by the British was only one year and two months; if they were determined to vigorously build their navy alongside Spain, then Spain's naval construction speed might not truly be a match for the British.

Of course, apart from the British, no other country would be able to surpass Spain in the short term regarding Dreadnoughts.

Although France, Germany, and the United States possessed such industrial strength, their current research into Dreadnoughts was still very weak, and the United States did not invest much in its navy; after all, their location was quite safe, and the competition among European countries could not interfere with the United States.

In order to lower the vigilance of European countries as much as possible, Spain did not publicly disclose its naval construction plan, and also maintained a high level of secrecy regarding the movements of the two major naval shipyards.

However, the news that Spain had previously issued a large amount of naval construction debt still attracted the attention of many European powers, including Britain, France, and Germany.

For the British, they were extremely sensitive regarding naval matters. Since Spain had issued naval construction debt, it meant that Spain would certainly have unknown naval construction plans in the coming years.

Combined with the previous rumors that Spain might be building a warship of enormous tonnage, it could basically be confirmed that Spain's naval construction debt was issued for the purpose of building the latest type of battleship.

Although Britain did not yet know the specific data of the Dreadnought-class battleships, for Spain to spend such a massive amount of funds to build them, the specifications of this battleship must be quite dazzling.

This abnormal behavior by Spain immediately alerted the British government. For Germany and France, their navies did not need to be that powerful.

Because their homelands were located on the European continent, they had to pay more attention to the situation on the European continent, and the development of the army was more important than the navy.

But the British were different. The British colonial system relied on a powerful navy, and as an island nation isolated from the European continent, the importance of the navy was even greater.

If there were no powerful navy to blockade the English Channel, whether it was Germany or France, their armies could easily land in Britain via the English Channel.

Although the British Army was not weak, compared to powerful armies like those of Germany and France, the British understood that they had no chance of winning.

This was also the reason why Britain placed excessive importance on naval development; the navy was the only trump card for Britain to stand among the European powers, and it was also their greatest means of protecting their colonial system.

After the British ambassador to Spain noticed that Spain's movements were somewhat unusual, he immediately reported the news back to London.

The British government also immediately convened a meeting to discuss what impact such abnormal behavior by Spain would have on Britain.

The British Prime Minister at this time was Arthur James Balfour, a fellow who had some fame in history.

In 1917, he proposed the famous Balfour Declaration; the main content of this declaration was to propose the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Palestine region, which was also the origin of the founding of Israel.

Setting aside the impact of the famous Balfour Declaration on the world order of later generations, and speaking only of the current Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour, he was still just a not-so-famous politician.

Although Prime Minister Balfour did not have much fame at this time, when discussing naval matters, the British government had a quite unified tacit understanding.

For the British government, they could accept challenges to Britain's international status from European powers like Germany and France, but they would not allow these countries to challenge Britain's status in maritime power.

Britain could maintain a low profile regarding the European situation, but Britain absolutely could not maintain a low profile regarding world maritime power.

Maritime power was the foundation of Britain's nation-building, and any country that challenged Britain's maritime power would be met with a powerful counterattack from Britain.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, in my view, we should immediately strike back at Spain's naval construction plan. If they are truly building a very powerful type of battleship, we must also develop even more powerful warships in response."

"According to the news sent back by the diplomatic ambassador, the total share of national debt issued by Spain reached 500 million pesetas, which is about 20 million pounds."

"According to the construction prices of major battleships in various countries at present, this so-called naval construction debt could build at least 15 major battleships."

"If Spain truly intends to invest all these funds into naval construction, then we should be prepared."

"This will cause an extremely serious impact on our naval status, and we must adjust our naval deployment within Europe and appropriately strengthen our naval forces in the Mediterranean, so that we can prevent Spain's conspiracy from succeeding." At the beginning of the British cabinet meeting, the First Lord of the Admiralty could not wait to put forward his point of view.

For Britain, over a long period of time, very few countries had provoked Britain in terms of naval construction.

On one hand, it was because Britain at this time was already wealthy and powerful; the Indian colony alone could contribute a large amount of fiscal revenue to Britain every year, not to mention that Britain's colonies were spread all over the world, and the income from important colonies like Canada and South Africa was also not small.

Although the British government's expenditures in various colonies were also not small, if the British government got serious, it would be quite easy to come up with tens of millions of pounds to build warships.

Spain needed to issue national debt domestically to raise 20 million pounds, while for the British government, this amount of funds did not need to issue national debt at all; it could be easily produced by the British government's own finances.

"That is correct. We absolutely do not allow any country to challenge the British Empire's status in maritime power, let alone Spain, with whom our relationship is not pleasant."

"What is our current financial situation? Does the naval department have any response plans? If we want to respond to Spain's naval construction plan, how many battleships do we need to build? How much capital investment is required?" Prime Minister Balfour nodded, still quite in agreement with the opinion of the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Because they possessed vast colonies, the British Empire's fiscal revenue far exceeded that of other European countries, and the funds that could be invested in the construction of the army and navy naturally also far exceeded those of other European countries.

Since Spain wanted to provoke a naval competition with Britain, Prime Minister Balfour did not mind letting Spain understand just how exaggerated the financial gap between Spain and Britain really was.