Chapter 467: Splitting Morocco

As time reached 1908, the various strategic plans formulated by Spain many years ago gradually began to bear fruit.

The first was the localization of the Morocco colony, which was more than halfway complete by now; it could be said that the Morocco colony had undergone preliminary localization.

To facilitate the localization of the Morocco colony, Spain had been continuously transporting a large number of immigrants to Morocco for many years.

According to statistics from the Spanish government, since Morocco became a Spanish colony, Spain had cumulatively transported over 1. million immigrants to Morocco and moved nearly 3 million Moroccans to the Spanish mainland or other colonies.

This had led to the population of the Morocco region plummeting to less than 3 million, of which the proportion of Spaniards was already close to 60%, the proportion of other European populations was around 15%, and only 25% were the original inhabitants of the Morocco region.

Under such circumstances, the Morocco colony would basically not escape Spain's control. Most of the population living here were Spaniards; Morocco was, of course, Spain's territory since ancient times, and no one could change this fact.

In January 1908, the Spanish government officially announced to the outside world that the Morocco colony was formally dissolved and reorganized into four state-level administrative districts: Melilla State, Ceuta State, Meknes State, and Essaouira State, which were subordinate to the Spanish Region under the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal.

Although this order involved the administrative boundary changes of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land, it did not cause any fluctuations within Spain.

The reason was simple: Spain's localization work in Morocco had been carried out long ago, and Spaniards were also long aware that this piece of African land on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar would be merged into the Spanish mainland in the future.

Some European powers were quite surprised by the progress of Spain's localization of Morocco, as they had not expected the progress of Spain's localization of Morocco to be so fast.

Those who paid closer attention to the situation in Morocco, such as the United Kingdom and France, were quite clear about the methods of Spain's localization work. In fact, to put it bluntly, it was just one point: reduce the Moroccan population and increase the Spanish population.

After Spain conquered Morocco, it did not carry out cruel massacres in the local area, but only moved these Moroccans out of the Morocco region in a relatively gentle manner.

Spain even provided these Moroccans with a certain amount of compensation; as long as they were willing to go to other Spanish colonies, these Moroccans could obtain large tracts of land in those other colonies.

Of course, Spain did not exclude those Moroccans who were willing to join Spanish nationality and go to the Spanish mainland.

Among those millions of Moroccans, nearly 1. million joined Spanish nationality after passing various immigration policy reviews, and these people gradually evolved into Spaniards under Spain's national integration policy.

To prevent these Moroccans from gathering together on the Spanish mainland and forming a Moroccan nation independent of the Spanish national system, Spain carried out a relatively meticulous splitting of these Moroccans.

Basically, the number of Moroccan immigrants received by each state would not be too large; these Moroccans would eventually be scattered and arranged into various states, and since they were surrounded by Spaniards, it was naturally impossible for them to form the concept of a Moroccan nation.

Under long-term assimilation, these Moroccans spoke Spanish, ate Spanish food, celebrated Spanish festivals, and accepted Spanish culture, so naturally, they were no different from real Spaniards.

As for Morocco, whether it was the Morocco region or the Moroccan nation, it had long been subjected to various changes and splits by Spain; the Moroccans, in any case, could not return to the past.

After reorganizing the Morocco region into four state-level administrative districts, the number of parliamentary seats for each state within Spain also needed to be fine-tuned.

The 298 parliamentary seats held by the Spanish Region remained unchanged; the parliamentary seats held by these 4 new state-level administrative districts were essentially snatched from the hands of other state-level administrative districts in Spain.

Of course, because the entire Morocco region had a population of only just over 3 million, although the parliamentary seats of various Spanish states had decreased, the overall change was not significant.

According to government data, as of the beginning of 1908, Spain had a total population of 42. 1 million, and the population proportion held by the four new state-level administrative districts was only about 7. %, which converted to 22 parliamentary seats.

The parliamentary seats of the Spanish Chamber of Deputies were allocated proportionally based on the population of each state; state-level administrative districts with larger populations did not care about these few seats, and state-level administrative districts with smaller populations did not have many seats to begin with, so the seats they lost due to the new state-level administrative districts could likely be counted on one hand.

Speaking of population, Spain had now fully made up for its disadvantage in terms of population.

Spain's population totaled 42. 1 million, while Portugal's population was 5. 1 million, making the total population of the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal 48. 2 million, which already ranked fourth among the powers, exceeding the populations of the United Kingdom and France.

If the war broke out in three years, the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal would have a population of over 50 million by then and would be able to mobilize at least 5 million troops, which was completely sufficient to cope with a world war.

After all, Spain still had a large number of colonial troops; the troops armed by indigenous people in the African and Philippine colonies alone could muster a scale of several million people.

In this way, Spain could mobilize up to ten million troops in the First World War; no power could withstand such a scale of troops, and the only ones capable of dealing with it would be a super land power like Germany and a populous country like Russia.

This scale of troops was the confidence with which Kaluo would deal with the First World War, and it was also the trump card Kaluo used to plan a super war completely different from history.

Coupled with the aircraft and tanks that Spain was developing, Kaluo had reason to believe that even if the current Spanish army faced unimaginable enemies, Spain still had every hope of winning.

Back to the administrative division changes in the Morocco region.

In fact, to a certain extent, the reorganization of Morocco into 4 state-level administrative districts to join the Spanish mainland had a certain impact on Portugal.

Originally, Portugal's influence in the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal was already very low; it could be said that it was in a state of being half-annexed by Spain.

After the land of Morocco joined the Spanish mainland, Portugal's voice in the United Kingdom became even lower, and it could even be said to be negligible.

Portugal's land area was only 92, 00 square kilometers, while the land of Spain and Morocco combined reached as high as 965, 00 square kilometers. Portugal's land area was only about 9. % of the Spanish mainland, not even one-tenth.

In terms of population, Portugal's 5. 1 million people were only 13. 3% of Spain's 42. 1 million people; excluding the large number of Spanish immigrants in Portugal, it was actually just over one-tenth.

Although they were both part of the United Kingdom, because the gap in territory size and population between the two sides was too vast, Portugal's future in the United Kingdom was bleak, and it could be annexed by Spain at any time.

The current Portuguese government was not unaware of this, but they had no way to deal with it.

After all, it was quite reasonable for the Spanish government to incorporate the land of Morocco into its own mainland; this was originally Spain's colony, and the majority of the population living in the colony were also Spaniards, which had nothing to do with Portugal.

Since they had no way to deal with the changes in the domestic situation of the United Kingdom, they could only sit and watch Portugal's influence in the United Kingdom become weaker and weaker.