[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-rise-of-the-empire-spain":3,"chapter-rise-of-the-empire-spain-rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-436":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Rise of the Empire: Spain",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2365364,4632,"Chapter 436: The Problem of the British Government","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-436",436,"\u003Cp>To facilitate the offensive plan for a surprise attack on Lisbon, Spain could be said to have laid all the groundwork.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, starting on September 16, under the suggestion of the Spanish military, the Portuguese Democratic Republic army followed the Spanish army and launched a fierce attack on the Portuguese Republic army and British army located to the west in Montemor-o-Novo.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The number of troops deployed by Spain and the Portuguese Democratic Republic for this offensive was close to 100,000, and the number of defenders from the Portuguese Republic and Britain was also around 100,000.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two sides engaged in intense combat on the land between Montemor-o-Novo and Évora; the sounds of gunfire and artillery never ceased, and the casualties on both sides were quite heavy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the three days from September 16 to September 18, the casualties of the Spanish army reached over five thousand, and the casualties of the Portuguese Democratic Republic exceeded ten thousand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The situation for the British army was even worse than that of the Spanish. In these three days alone, the total casualties of the British army approached seven thousand, and this was despite the advantage of being the defending side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The casualties of the Portuguese Republic army were also not small, with the total number of casualties likewise exceeding ten thousand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the fierce offensive of the Spanish army, the front line had been pushed to the vicinity of Montemor-o-Novo. According to this trend, Montemor-o-Novo could be captured by the Spanish army within a few days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Montemor-o-Novo could be said to be the last line of defense outside of Lisbon. Once Montemor-o-Novo is captured by the Spanish army, the Portuguese Republic and British armies will only be able to rely on Barreiro and Setúbal around Lisbon for defense, which also means that the sphere of influence of the Portuguese Republic will shrink to a range of several dozen kilometers around Lisbon, and cities to the north including Coimbra, Tomar, and Marinha Grande will have to be abandoned.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as the Portuguese Republican government was worried about this, a piece of news made the high-level officials of the Republican Party instantly terrified. According to information revealed by a small number of Portuguese immigrants who had been won over by the Portuguese Republican Party and had traveled to Spain, Spain was conducting frequent troop movements in the Extremadura region and might continue to send tens of thousands of reinforcements to Portugal in a short period of time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was definitely not good news for the Portuguese Republican Party. The current Portuguese front line was already showing a trend of Spain and the Iberian Party suppressing the British and the Republican Party.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Spain continued to send reinforcements to Portugal, it would be completely impossible to hold Lisbon relying solely on Portugal's existing military strength, even with the help of tens of thousands of British troops for defense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After confirming that there was a high probability that this news was true, the Portuguese Republic government did not dare to have the slightest hesitation and immediately contacted the British government, requesting the British government to send more troops for support.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the British government received the news of Portugal's request for aid, the British cabinet was actually also engaged in quite intense discussions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The current British Prime Minister, Arthur James Balfour, came from the Conservative Party in Britain's two-party system. Since 1895, the Conservative Party had controlled the British cabinet for nine consecutive years, leaving the Liberal Party, also one of Britain's two major parties, as the opposition party for nine years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Controlling the government for nine consecutive years meant that the British Conservative Party held immense political power during this period. Both the Boer War and this Anglo-Spanish War broke out during the term of the Conservative cabinet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tradition of the two-party system is for the opposition party to oppose the ruling party, and this point was manifested to the fullest in the British government.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Britain used concentration camps and a scorched-earth policy in the Boer War, and this point also became a reason for the Liberal Party to attack the Conservative Party.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Do not think that the Conservative Party could monopolize power just because they controlled the British cabinet; the British Liberal Party at this time had only missed out on the premiership due to internal divisions, but the energy of the Liberal Party was still quite powerful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The current leader of the British Liberal Party was Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was the very British Prime Minister who would succeed Balfour in history.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was not all; within the Liberal Party, there were also Herbert Henry Asquith of the Liberal Imperialist faction and David Lloyd George of the pro-Boer faction, two legendary politicians who would also serve as British Prime Ministers in the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These three high-level officials of the British Liberal Party almost all had a relatively unified attitude, which was to oppose the scorched-earth policy implemented by the British Conservative government in the South African region.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War, there were also significant voices of opposition within the Liberal Party, believing that starting a war with Spain at this time held no benefits for Britain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, according to the evidence provided by Spain later, although the result of the Battle of Gibraltar was the total annihilation of the fleet dispatched by Britain, the cause of the naval battle was indeed that the British fleet took the initiative to fire, and the Spanish Navy was in passive defense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This also meant that the British government did not occupy the moral high ground in this war; one could not simply demand that the Spaniards pay in blood just because the Spanish Navy was in passive defense and caused the total annihilation of the British fleet, could they?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the subsequent heavy losses of the Mediterranean Fleet, the voices opposing this war spread from within the Liberal Party to the entire British political scene, and even included the Conservative Party as the ruling party.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Judging from the results achieved by this war so far, Britain could be considered to have lost everything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The pride of the Royal Navy had been defeated twice by the Spanish Navy, and the Royal Navy was now even afraid to launch a final decisive battle, which also meant that the once-proclaimed invincible Royal Navy had begun to fear the Spanish Navy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the land war had not yet been decided, counting on winning against the Spaniards on land was better than counting on winning against the Spaniards at sea.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding Spain's development over so many years, the countries of Europe were quite clear in their hearts. Do not look at the scale of the Spanish army as only ranking at the end of the great powers; the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army was absolutely first-class or even top-tier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the British Conservative government to want to fight a land war against Spain right at their doorstep, was this not just showing off one's incompetence and asking for trouble?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Boer War cost Britain over 200 million pounds in military expenditures, which was already equivalent to the total fiscal revenue of the British government for two years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such a massive military expenditure made the British government take several years to recover, and now they wanted to have another large-scale war no less than the Boer War; how would the British public view this?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the current war having reached this point, the Home Fleet only dared to cower north of the English Channel, and the army was completely no match for the Spanish army.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gibraltar had already been occupied by Spain, and large swaths of Portuguese territory had also fallen. What was the point of fighting such a war? Must they wait until Spain had completely occupied Portugal for these foolish Conservative cabinet members to realize that the current Britain was completely no match for Spain?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amidst the intense arguing between the pro-war and pro-peace factions, the British cabinet received the news of the Portuguese Republican government requesting support.\u003C\u002Fp>",1342,"2026-06-25T09:27:15.200Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","43981c1c8d566a44b6bbad9a1b6f93c19accca72ffa9421e2e2088d594be5620","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-437","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-435",493,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Frise-of-the-empire-spain-cover.jpg"]