[{"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-450":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},2365378,4632,"Chapter 450: The Treaty of Lisbon","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-450",450,"\u003Cp>As time reached March 1905, Spain finally made some progress in the peace negotiations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour, who had single-handedly orchestrated the Anglo-Spanish War and personally presided over the funeral of the British Empire's glory, was dismissed by King Edward VII. This act of dismissal by Edward VII was not opposed by the public; on the contrary, it was unanimously praised by the British people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Succeeding Balfour as the new British Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Although both he and Prime Minister Balfour were Scots, the two Scottish-born prime ministers held diametrically opposed attitudes toward handling the major disputes currently facing Britain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The new British Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, had always opposed Britain's brutal methods in South Africa, yet he did not agree with the pro-Boer faction within the Liberal Party, choosing instead a middle path between imperialism and the pro-Boer faction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was precisely this moderate ideology that earned him the approval of King Edward VII. The reason Edward VII dismissed Prime Minister Balfour was, on one hand, that the British cabinet led by Balfour had become notorious in Britain, and they had also caused Britain's international prestige to vanish completely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the other hand, public dissatisfaction with the government had risen to the level of the royal family. If Edward VII did not deal with the boiling public resentment in the country in time, it was feared that the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which had just gained a firm foothold in Britain, would perish along with the Balfour cabinet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the death of Queen Victoria, although the British throne was inherited by her son Edward VII, the dynasty ruling Britain had undergone a substantive change.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Edward VII's surname was not Queen Victoria's Hanover, but rather Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, inherited from his father, Prince Albert.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This also led to the formal demise of the House of Hanover, which had ruled Britain for nearly 200 years, and Britain officially entered the era of rule by the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although only the surname of the British royal family had changed, and the royal family remained descendants of Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria and Edward VII were completely different. The latter did not possess the incomparable prestige of the former, and naturally could not obtain power comparable to that of Queen Victoria.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The current crisis within Britain was capable of threatening the British royal family. If it had been Queen Victoria, who was far removed from the center of political power, she could have ensured the royal family remained unaffected.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for Edward VII, only by preemptively dismissing the Prime Minister could he avoid the royal family being caught up in this crisis.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the instructions of King Edward VII, the new British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed a new cabinet with the utmost speed and subsequently took over the peace negotiations with the Spanish government.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman understood that the cabinet's primary task at present was to maintain stability; to put it bluntly, this meant sacrificing some interests for the sake of domestic stability in Britain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since dragging out the peace negotiations would only hurt the British government, there was no need to delay any further. Britain had been defeated in the war, and naturally, it had to bear the consequences of defeat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, bearing the consequences of defeat was one thing, but accepting Spain's harsh demands for reparations was another.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the British cabinet government, the former was certainly acceptable, but the latter was absolutely impossible to accept.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At present, the British government still had a pile of messy domestic affairs to deal with, and handling these matters required extremely massive financial expenditures.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under these circumstances, the British government could not accept huge reparations. After all, huge reparations would not only affect Britain's finances but would also significantly lower Britain's international prestige once again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this day and age, those who pay reparations after defeat are basically the weak. If Britain agreed to Spain's huge reparations, wouldn't that mean Britain's self-proclaimed status as a world hegemon had become a laughingstock?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even now, the British still considered themselves the undisputed world hegemon, believing they had simply been caught off guard in the war by Spain's unknown, powerful battleships.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Faced with the war reparations of up to 200 million pounds proposed by the Spanish government, the British government stated it could only offer one-tenth, which was 20 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, this money could not be labeled as war reparations, but rather as aid for Portugal's post-war reconstruction and the redemption of prisoners.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the current exchange rate, 20 million pounds was equivalent to 500 million pesetas, which in reality already exceeded Spain's expenditures in this war. But for Spain, this amount of money was naturally not worth considering.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only territory Spain had directly gained in the war was Gibraltar. Gibraltar was originally land that Britain had seized from Spain, so it was only right and proper for Spain to recover it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Portugal was still a nominally independent country to this day, and Spain would need to make multiple efforts to annex Portugal later on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This actually meant that Spain's territorial gains from this war were minimal. Since there were no major gains in terms of territory, Spain naturally needed to demand more reparations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, to demonstrate its sincerity in wanting to conduct peace negotiations, the Spanish government was also willing to reduce the proportion of the war reparations it had proposed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the new round of negotiations between the British and Spanish governments, the Spanish diplomatic representative reduced the requested 200 million pounds in war reparations to 100 million pounds and expressed a willingness to bundle all British prisoners in the country for a price of 5 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This reparation payment needed to be shared with the Portuguese government, which meant that the reparations Spain could actually obtain would only be in the tens of millions of pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the view of the Spanish government, such a reparation demand was already quite lenient; after all, Spain had lost tens of thousands of soldiers because of this war, and the lives of these soldiers were something money could not restore.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The British government clearly did not recognize the viewpoint of the Spanish diplomatic representative. The two sides remained deadlocked for nearly another month over the issue of the amount of reparations the British government needed to bear, before finally reaching a consensus. It was agreed that the British government would pay a total of 55 million pounds in reparations and ransoms, of which the Portuguese government would receive 5.5 million pounds in war reparations and 4.5 million pounds in post-war reconstruction costs, totaling 10 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Spanish government would receive 40 million in war reparations and 5 million in prisoner ransoms, totaling 45 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The payment period for these war reparations and ransoms was set at 5 years. In the first year of the treaty's signing, which was the entirety of 1905, the British government was required to pay at least a 25 million pound installment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The remaining portion only needed to be paid to the Spanish and Portuguese governments before the end of December 31, 1909, to complete the entire payment of reparations and ransoms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If the British government paid late, for every year of delay, it would need to pay 10% of the total 55 million pounds in reparations as interest, which amounted to 5.5 million pounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Witnessed by representatives from Germany and France, the British and Spanish representatives formally signed the \"Treaty of Lisbon\" on April 15, 1905, ending this war that had lasted several months.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In addition to the 55 million pounds in reparations and ransoms mentioned above, the British government also had to publicly renounce its sovereignty over Gibraltar and publicly apologize for its previous interference in Portugal's internal affairs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Spanish side was required to return all British prisoners within one month and ensure the free passage of British merchant ships through the Strait of Gibraltar after the signing of the treaty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding the Strait of Gibraltar, the western exit of the Mediterranean which was already under the actual control of Spain, it was also mentioned multiple times during these peace negotiations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For many European countries, the importance of the Strait of Gibraltar was higher than that of the Suez Canal. These countries worried about their right of passage when Britain controlled the Strait of Gibraltar, and they would worry about their right of passage just the same when Spain controlled it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To put European countries at ease, Spain took advantage of the peace negotiations to sign the \"Strait of Gibraltar Convention\" with the three major powers of Britain, France, and Germany, confirming that all countries should enjoy the right of passage through the Strait of Gibraltar during non-war periods, and that the Spanish government could not levy tolls for passing through the strait.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the same time, however, the Spanish government could refuse passage through the Strait of Gibraltar to countries currently engaged in war to ensure its own neutrality. If Spain were in a state of war, it would have the power to close the Strait of Gibraltar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although Spain could not levy tolls in the Strait of Gibraltar, if ships passing through the strait needed to dock at ports near the strait and replenish supplies, the Spanish government could levy service fees and port maintenance fees at the ports, which could also be considered another source of income.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the Spanish government needed to promise to open the Strait of Gibraltar to all countries during peacetime, this matter had almost no impact on Spain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, this was a major traffic artery concerning multiple European countries; even the British Empire could not stop European countries from passing through the Suez Canal, let alone a strait that leaned more toward public ownership.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The nature of this \"Strait of Gibraltar Convention\" was actually the same as the conventions reached by European countries regarding the Suez Canal; both ensured free passage for European countries during peacetime and closure to warring nations during non-peaceful times.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Doing so both respected the power of the country possessing sovereignty over the canal and the strait, and ensured that the passage of merchant ships from European countries would not be restricted in any way during peacetime.\u003C\u002Fp>",1719,"2026-06-25T09:27:15.200Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","d7e2dc045e047bbcfd9fa4f807ab2f285607b896349ccfd3b1ebe5ed6907f263","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-451","rise-of-the-empire-spain-chapter-449",493,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Frise-of-the-empire-spain-cover.jpg"]