Chapter 412: Britain's Response

Although a large number of Spanish enterprises shared 260 million pesetas of national debt, the remaining 240 million pesetas of national debt were all purchased by the Spanish public in just two and a half months, which was something the Spanish government had never expected.

It took only two and a half months to raise 500 million pesetas in funds, which not only represented that the Spanish public had a high willingness to support the government but also represented that the living standards of the Spanish public were currently relatively good.

After all, no matter how willing the public was to support the government, they had to have money in their hands to purchase the national debt issued by the government. If they had no money, they would have no way to purchase the national debt, and the issuance of the national debt would naturally not be so smooth.

Since enough funds had been raised, the next thing was very simple.

Starting from November 1902, Spain officially launched the naval construction plan, which would vigorously build Dreadnought-class battleships in the next ten years, allowing Spain to possess enough naval strength to counter the British Royal Fleet.

In the first few years of the naval construction plan, Spain could not build two Dreadnought-class battleships a year.

After all, this was a giant ship with a full-load displacement of over 20,000 tons; just the preparation of materials before construction required a long time, and coupled with the need for a large number of people to build, the ones that actually had the qualifications to build Dreadnought-class battleships were only 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, Courage, would also be built at the Royal Guanizo Shipyard.

Because the Dreadnought battleship only took nearly a year to build, Spain's plan for the second main warship of the Dreadnought-class battleship was also to be completed in about a year.

Starting from November 1902, the second battleship, Courage, officially started construction. According to the Spanish Navy Department's estimate, the Courage battleship had hope of being officially completed before December 1903 and entering service at the beginning of 1905.

And the third battleship, Fury, built at the Valencia Shipyard, would be postponed to start construction in February next year. Because the start time was postponed by three months, the completion time of the Fury battleship would also be postponed to around April 1904.

In this way, by the time the Fury battleship entered service, time had almost come to June 1905.

Just looking at the service time of the Courage and Fury battleships, Spain's time was actually quite ample. Because in history, Britain's Dreadnought battleship did not officially enter service until December 1906, Spain had hope of possessing at least four Dreadnought-class battleships before December 1906.

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

The complete construction period of the Dreadnought battleship built by the British was only one year and two months; if they were determined to build the navy vigorously with Spain, then Spain's naval construction speed might not necessarily be the opponent of the British.

Of course, except for the British, in terms of dreadnoughts, no country could surpass Spain in a short period of time.

Although France, Germany, and the United States possessed such industrial strength, their research on dreadnoughts was still very weak, and the United States did not invest much in the navy; after all, their position was quite safe, and the competition of European countries could not interfere with the United States.

In order to reduce the vigilance of European countries as much as possible, Spain did not disclose its naval construction plan to the outside world and also carried out high-level confidentiality for the movements of the two major naval shipyards.

But the news that Spain had issued naval construction national debt on a large scale still attracted the attention of many European great powers, including Britain, France, and Germany.

For the British, they were extremely sensitive in terms of the navy. Since Spain issued naval construction national debt, it meant that Spain would definitely have an unknown naval construction plan in the next few years.

Combined with the news that Spain might be building a warship with a huge tonnage, it could basically be determined that Spain's naval construction national debt was issued to build the latest type of battleship.

Although Britain did not know the specific data of the Dreadnought-class battleship so far, it could make Spain spend such huge funds to build it, so the data of this battleship must be quite dazzling.

This abnormal behavior of Spain immediately aroused the vigilance of the British government. For Germany and France, the navy did not need to be so powerful.

Because their homeland was 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 to maintain, and they were isolated from the European continent, so the importance of the navy was even more important.

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

Although the British Army was not weak, if compared with strong armies like Germany and France, the British understood that they had no chance of winning at all.

This was also the reason why Britain attached excessive importance to naval development; the navy was the only trump card for Britain to stand among the European great powers, and it was also the greatest means for them to protect their colonial system.

After the British Ambassador to Spain noticed that Spain's movements were a bit wrong, he immediately reported the news back to London.

The British government also immediately held a meeting to discuss what impact Spain's abnormal behavior had on Britain.

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

He proposed the famous "Balfour Declaration" in 1917. 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 establishment of Israel.

Not to mention the impact of the famous "Balfour Declaration" on the world order of later generations, just talking about the current Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour, he was still just a politician who was not famous.

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

For the British government, they could accept the challenge of European great powers like Germany and France to Britain's international status, but they did not allow these countries to challenge Britain's maritime status.

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

Maritime power was the foundation of Britain's founding; any country that challenged Britain's maritime power would be met with a powerful counterattack from Britain.

"Prime Minister, in my opinion, we should immediately counter Spain's naval construction plan. If they are really building a very powerful battleship, we must also develop a more powerful warship as a 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 was about 20 million pounds."

"According to the construction price of the main battleships of various countries at present, this so-called naval construction national debt can at least build 15 main battleships."

"If Spain really intends to invest all these funds into the construction of the navy, we should be prepared."

"This will cause an extremely serious impact on our naval status; we must adjust the naval deployment in the European scope and appropriately strengthen the naval power in the Mediterranean, so that we can prevent Spain's conspiracy from succeeding." At the beginning of the British cabinet meeting, the Minister of the Navy couldn't wait to put forward his point of view.

For Britain, in 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; just the Indian colony could contribute a large amount of financial revenue to Britain every year, not to mention that Britain's colonies were all over the world, and the income of important colonies like Canada and South Africa was also not small.

Although the British government's expenditure on various colonies was not small, if the British government got serious, it was quite easy to take out tens of millions of pounds to build warships.

Spain needed to issue national debt to the country to raise 20 million pounds, while for the British government, this fund did not need to issue national debt at all, and it could be easily taken out by the British government's finance alone.

"That's right. We absolutely do not allow any country to challenge the British Empire's maritime status, not to mention Spain, with whom our relationship is not pleasant."

"What is our current financial situation? Does the Navy Department have any response plan? If we want to respond to Spain's naval construction plan, how many battleships do we need to build? How much capital cost is needed?" Prime Minister Balfour nodded, and he was quite in agreement with the opinion of the Minister of the Navy.

Because of possessing large colonies, the British Empire's financial revenue far exceeded other European countries, and the funds that could be invested in the construction of the army and navy naturally far exceeded other European countries.

Since Spain wanted to provoke naval competition with Britain, Prime Minister Balfour did not mind letting Spain understand how exaggerated the financial gap between Spain and Britain was. ===== CHAPTER 413 =====