Chapter 413: Naval Arms Race

Compared to the somewhat reactive response of the British government, the reactions of other European countries appeared much calmer.

This was actually quite normal; after all, other European countries did not rely on maritime power to survive. Except for France, which had the most powerful navy besides Britain, it actually relied on its own army strength to stand on the European continent.

Countries like Germany and Russia naturally did not need to be mentioned; they all relied on the army to build their reputation. Only Britain at present, if it did not have the support of the navy, could never continue to stay on the throne of world hegemon.

If one wanted to become a world hegemon, one must realize three hegemonies, which were diplomatic hegemony, economic hegemony, and military hegemony.

Economic hegemony and military hegemony were easy to understand, which was to establish one's own hegemonic status in a certain region through economic or military behavior.

And diplomatic hegemony and economic hegemony and military hegemony were complementary; under the support of economic hegemony and military hegemony, diplomatic hegemony would become three-dimensional.

For Britain at present, they had received quite serious challenges in all aspects. In terms of economic hegemony, the newly emerging United States and Germany, as more powerful industrial countries, had caused a huge impact on the original British industrial system.

And in terms of military hegemony, European countries were building navies without interruption, and Spain had invested a large amount of 20 million pounds.

Economic hegemony and military hegemony had both been challenged, and Britain's diplomatic hegemony naturally could not continue to be maintained.

In terms of the army, Britain was obviously unable to compare with land powers like France and Germany. What could allow Britain to continue to maintain its military hegemony could only be a navy that dominated Europe and even the whole world.

This was also the reason why Britain was extremely sensitive to the development of navies of various countries; even if Spain had no other meaning, responding to Spain's naval construction plan was very necessary for the British government.

For the British government, any provocation regarding Britain's naval hegemony would be met with an extremely powerful response.

Regardless of whether such a provocation was intentional or unintentional, Britain absolutely did not allow any country or any force to challenge itself, and it would definitely go all out to respond and crush the country that dared to challenge itself.

When Gao Da learned that the British government angrily spent 50 million pounds to respond to his naval construction plan, Gao Da was a bit surprised.

Although he expected that Britain would definitely respond to Spain's naval construction plan, he did not expect the British response to be so powerful.

This was 50 million pounds, almost close to Spain's total annual financial revenue. If all this money were given to Spain, Spain's industry and economy could be greatly stimulated, and the army and navy could also obtain more funds to expand their scale.

Although somewhat surprised by the British grandiosity, Gao Da felt not the slightest worry regarding the British behavior of building battleships on a massive scale.

First of all, it could be confirmed that the Dreadnought battleship that pushed the development of navies of various countries in history had not been born yet. The British Navy had its own ideas about the improvement of battleships, but at this time, there was no relatively clear warship design; after all, it was only the end of 1902.

The reason why Spain developed the Dreadnought battleship in advance, in addition to Spain's efforts in warships and technology industry for so many years, was also Gao Da's ideas for the Spanish Navy.

Although Gao Da knew nothing about warship design, Gao Da still had some impressions of what some warships looked like in history and what changes the dreadnought had compared to battleships.

These impressions might not be able to help Spain quickly design a battleship that changed the world, but they could let the warship design experts of Spain's major shipyards have a clear idea.

Most of the time, having a relatively clear research direction was very necessary. The Europe of this era was an era that produced talents; some scientists who were unknown were not because their ability was not enough, but because they found the wrong direction when researching, and finally spent their whole lives without getting any decent research results.

Such people were not in the minority. Scientists who left their names in history and unknown scientists, sometimes the difference was really just a little bit of inspiration.

Gao Da provided this little bit of inspiration for Spain's group of warship design experts, which finally promoted the development of the Spanish Navy.

Coupled with the fact that Gao Da had always invested a lot in major shipyards, with a clear research direction and sufficient research funds, it was a matter of course for Spain to develop the dreadnought earlier than history, and he would not be surprised.

Before Spain successfully developed the Dreadnought battleship, Britain's research progress on battleships did not have much change. Under these circumstances, the Dreadnought battleship belonging to Britain would not be born early.

This was also the reason why Gao Da was not worried about the British spending a lot of money to build battleships, because the battleships built by Britain at this time could never reach the level of Spain's Dreadnought battleship.

This also represented that the warships built by Britain with 50 million pounds were just a pile of scrap metal that could barely be counted as warships in front of Spain's latest Dreadnought battleship.

According to the construction cost of previous battleships, the 50 million pounds invested by Britain could build about 20 to 30 battleships, and this scale had already far exceeded the number of battleships possessed by other European countries.

But in terms of battleships, quantitative change would not cause qualitative change. No matter whether Britain built 20 battleships or 30 battleships, as long as the technical level of these battleships did not reach the level of the Dreadnought battleship, they would never be able to pose a threat to Spain's latest Dreadnought battleship.

This was also equivalent to the money Britain threw out being almost all wasted; after Britain's own Dreadnought battleship was born in the future, these warships rushed out in a short period of time would eventually become a pile of scrap metal.

And don't say it, in this point, those countries with insufficient capital instead took advantage.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the first country to give up naval competition; they only expressed concern about the behavior of Spain and Britain building navies on a large scale, but did not intend to join the ranks of large-scale naval construction themselves.

This was instead a good thing for the Austro-Hungarian Empire; at least there was no loss without investment.

Compared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy's approach appeared a bit unwise.

The Italian government, upon learning of the behavior of Spain and Britain building navies one after another, not only did not wisely choose to give up competition but also decided to take this opportunity to let Spain's navy ranking go to a higher level.

The King of Italy at this time had become Gao Da's nephew, Victor Emmanuel III, who had the same name as Gao Da's father.

As for Gao Da's brother, Umberto I, who had high ambitions, he was assassinated by an anarchist as early as 1900 and said goodbye to his throne early.

Speaking of which, I don't know if there was a problem with the genes of Victor Emmanuel II, or if the luck of the Italian royal family was not very good.

Anyway, so far, the only son of Victor Emmanuel left was Gao Da, and several daughters were still alive, but they had no major relationship with the Italian royal family.

Of course, according to the succession rules of the European throne, even if Gao Da's two brothers had passed away, the throne of Italy was still a relatively long distance from Gao Da.

The succession of the European throne generally followed the primogeniture system, and the succession order of the eldest son's descendants was higher than that of the second son and his descendants.

This also represented that even if the current King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, had no descendants, his throne would be inherited by the children of Gao Da's brother, Prince Amedeo.

Of course, the Italian throne strictly followed the male succession law; although this made the Italian princesses lose the right to inherit the throne, Gao Da was still a long distance from the Italian throne.

Because Gao Da's brother, Prince Amedeo, was very capable of giving birth, and all the children born were sons. Prince Amedeo and his two wives had a total of 4 sons; although only the three sons born to his first wife possessed the right to inherit the throne, these three sons still made Gao Da and the Italian throne have an unreachable distance.

Unless an accident occurred that affected these Italian royal family members, Gao Da would have no connection with the Italian throne in his life.

Of course, Gao Da really had no ideas about the Italian throne. After all, his father, Victor Emmanuel II, was quite good to him, and his two brothers and he could be considered brothers who were friendly and respectful, so Gao Da would not actively do anything that harmed the interests of the Italian royal family.

Regardless of whether Spain would stand on the opposite side of Italy in the future, Gao Da would try his best to preserve the Italian royal family after the war.

For Gao Da, the more monarchical countries in Europe, the more stable Spain's monarchy would be.

As for whether the kings of these monarchical countries possessed power, that was not what Gao Da cared about. Whether it was a king with real power or a king who was hollowed out, as long as they could maintain the appearance of a monarchy, they could help the monarchy continue to continue in various countries of the world.

If these European monarchical countries generally perished, if Spain continued to maintain the monarchy in the future, it would inevitably become a target of public criticism.

If Gao Da reminded the Italian government, it would inevitably arouse the vigilance of the British government.

On the other hand, Italy's loss had nothing to do with the Italian royal family, and Gao Da had no need to destroy his own strategic deployment for the sake of Italy's interests.

Anyway, no matter how much Italy lost, it was not as much as the British lost. Letting the Italian government suffer setbacks could also let them understand the gap between Italy and top great powers, so as not to make some confusing choices.

If Italy's behavior of building a navy was ignorant of the height of the sky and the thickness of the earth, then Germany and France also choosing to follow up to build a navy was simply not afraid of the British.

Like the British, upon learning that Spain was building a navy on a large scale, the German and French governments also held meetings to discuss.

Among them, the one that reacted most fiercely was the French government.

The reason was also very simple: Germany was not a Mediterranean coastal country, while France was a Mediterranean coastal country, and it was right next to Spain.

Whether the Spanish Navy was powerful or not was not important to Germany; with the British blocking in the middle, the Spanish Navy could not cross half of Europe to threaten Germany's coast in the Baltic Sea. ===== CHAPTER 414 =====

Whether the Spanish Navy is powerful or not is of no importance to Germany; with the British standing in the middle as a barrier, the Spanish Navy cannot possibly cross more than half of Europe to head to the Baltic Sea and threaten the German coast.