Chapter 463: Arms Race and Tanks

The expansion of the Spanish Army in 1907 was merely a microcosm; it was not just Spain, as all the major European powers engaged in massive military expansion and an arms race that year.

On the British side, they were highly focused on Spain's construction of battleships. To wash away their shame, the British government had high-profilely announced its shipbuilding plans for the coming years as soon as the war with Spain ended.

After investing heavily in research for new types of battleships, the British government officially began construction on its first new-style battleship in mid-1905; the British Navy named it the "Avenger," and it was self-evident who it was specifically targeting.

It must be admitted that the speed at which the British built their navy was extremely fast. The Avenger battleship, which began construction in mid-1905, was officially launched in March 1906.

It is currently unclear whether this British Avenger battleship has entered service, but what is certain is that this battleship was only the beginning for the British government.

As early as the beginning of 1906, the British government made its naval construction plan public, announcing that it would build five dreadnoughts between 1906 and 1908 to counter Spain.

Including the British government's first dreadnought, the Avenger, Britain would possess six dreadnoughts by 1909, which is sufficient proof of Britain's high investment in its navy.

In reality, if Spain had not taken the lead in dreadnoughts, it would likely have been truly impossible to defeat Britain at sea.

There was no helping it; because of Britain's powerful industrial scale and advanced shipbuilding industry, the speed at which it built its navy was extremely fast.

Spain's first dreadnought began construction in April 1901; by now, at the beginning of 1907, it had only built five dreadnoughts in six years.

As for Britain, its first dreadnought, the Avenger, took only a little over a year, and the time taken for each subsequent battleship would be even shorter, with the ability to even build several battleships simultaneously.

Under such circumstances, even Spain, which had already taken the lead, found it somewhat strenuous to face Britain's frantic pursuit.

Not to mention those countries that had not taken the lead over Britain in dreadnoughts; whether it was Germany or France, it was inevitably somewhat difficult to catch up to Britain in the number of dreadnoughts.

Of course, difficulty is one thing, but whether it was Germany or France, with European nations all engaging in large-scale naval arms races, they were certainly unwilling to fall behind others.

On one hand, France ordered three battleships from Spain. Although the delivery time for these three battleships was relatively late, it was enough to ensure that France would possess dreadnoughts relatively early among the European powers.

On the other hand, the French government was also developing its own dreadnoughts. According to the French government's plan, their first giant battleship of nearly 20, 00 tons was expected to begin construction in 1907 and officially enter service in the French Navy before 1910.

Although the service time would be later than the delivery of the three battleships from Spain, for a great power like France, the battleships they built themselves were what mattered most.

After all, others could build battleships for you, but they could also refuse to build them for you. Only by mastering the technology to build battleships oneself was one qualified to become a true naval power.

Among the current naval powers of the world, basically all had the ability to build their own battleships. Naturally, France could not give up on building battleships; no matter how high the price, they had to possess the ability to build their own.

Like France, Germany also decided to build its own dreadnoughts.

There was no other way; although Spain agreed to sell warships to France and Italy, it did not agree to hand over the blueprints and design data related to the new-style battleships to France and Italy.

Since Italy could not obtain the relevant design blueprints and data, it was naturally impossible to share them with Germany. Unable to obtain the relevant data, Germany had no choice but to rely on its own research and development if it wanted to possess dreadnoughts.

If it were some unimportant technology, one could just give it up. However, the 20, 00-ton battleship, represented by Spain's new-style warships, was precisely the most advanced naval design at present.

Germany could not possibly give up on building 20, 00-ton battleships under any circumstances; they held the same view as the French government—no matter how much capital was invested, they had to build their own dreadnoughts.

Compared to France and Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia did not have such grand ideas regarding dreadnoughts.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire could have purchased dreadnoughts from Spain, but after inquiring about the price of Spain's new-style battleships, they hesitated for a period of time and ultimately decided to temporarily give up on purchasing them.

In any case, its two allies, Germany and Italy, would possess dreadnoughts in the future, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire naturally did not need to place such importance on its own navy; it was still most important to prioritize the development of the army.

As for Russia, their financial situation was not much better than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it could even be said to be even worse.

The domestic turmoil in Russia had just ended, and both the government and the military were quite exhausted at this time.

Tsar Nicholas II had no interest in expanding the navy at this time; the Russian government could not afford such high military expenditures and could only rely on its ally, France, to be more capable and allow the Franco-Russian Alliance to possess dreadnoughts sooner.

Italy chose the same path as France. On one hand, they ordered several dreadnoughts from Spain to expand their naval strength.

On the other hand, they were also developing dreadnoughts domestically, hoping that Italy itself would possess the ability to design and build them.

As mentioned before, Italy still had a certain level of proficiency in naval design and construction. The Italian government was also quite ambitious; they wanted to become one of the few countries capable of designing and building new-style warships and to sell Italian battleships globally.

For Italy, they had high hopes of possessing the ability to design and build new-style battleships. Even if there was not much progress in research and development at the moment, they could wait until the warships built by Spain were delivered to Italy and then refer to the design of the Spanish warships.

Researching and researching would eventually yield results; it was merely a matter of time, and for the current Italy, it was something they could afford to wait for.

Throughout 1907, European nations were constantly expanding their military strength.

Those with money to build a navy developed their navy vigorously, while those without money to build a navy expanded their armies frantically.

It was precisely because of the actions of the major European powers in constantly expanding their armaments that various newspapers and media in Europe made all sorts of speculations; some newspapers even boldly predicted that a super war involving multiple powers might be about to break out, and this war would very likely affect the entire Europe.

Spain, of course, also participated in this arms race. In addition to the conventional army arms race and naval arms race, Yu Kaluo specifically paid attention to the research and development progress of tanks and aircraft.

In fact, if the requirement was just for a tank with combat capability, Spain had actually already developed its first generation of tanks.

During the water-tank research project of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, Yu Kaluo also saw a tank of this era for the first time.

The principle of the most primitive tank was actually very simple: a machine similar to a car or tractor covered with a layer of thick steel armor, and then equipped with a machine gun or a piece of artillery—basically, that was a rather crude tank.

From the outside, the shape of this tank was still quite similar to a tractor, only covered with a layer of thicker armor that made it look taller and clunkier.

And that was indeed the case. Although the engine was custom-made, the first-generation tank moved very slowly because the whole thing was too clunky.

There was a long gun barrel sticking out from the top of the tank, and this piece of artillery was also the tank's primary method of attack.

Inside the tank, a total of 4 positions were set up, corresponding to the driver, the observer, the gunner, and the loader.

The observer was generally the commander of the entire tank, because only the observer could clearly see the field of vision outside the tank; he not only needed to direct the driver to maneuver the tank but also needed to direct the gunner to aim at distant targets.

The loader's task was the simplest, only responsible for loading shells into the artillery. In normal times, the loader's task was relatively easy.

But if war were to break out, the loader would immediately become the most exhausted position. The weight of the shells was not small, and they had to be loaded frequently.

However, compared to other soldiers without any protection, these tank crew members with the protection of safe steel armor were still relatively lucky.

After testing by the project team, the crude tank before them reached an exaggerated tonnage of 15. tons, and on the basis of being able to accommodate 4 members, it could also carry 32 shells and the weapons of the 4 members.