Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 115 Change history?

The scale of this wedding was huge. The nobles invited to attend the wedding were all marquises or above, and the officials were at least leaders of the cabinet government and core departments.

Of course, this grand wedding also attracted the attention of many domestic and foreign media, and it has been the front-page headlines of major Spanish newspapers since a month ago.

The person who presided over Carlo's wedding was Pedro, Archbishop of Toledo, who is also the highest-ranking archbishop in Spain.

What surprised Carlo was that the church chose to remain neutral in the government's previous reforms and did not directly stand up against the government.

Although this also caused the church to lose a lot of interests, including most of the land controlled by the church. But at least for the current church, they can continue to exist instead of being replaced by new candidates by the government and the royal family.

It is true that Spain is a Catholic country, but the problem is that the current Catholic Pope’s own situation is not so good, let alone interfering in the affairs of the Spanish Church.

Now that the Carlist rebellion has been completely resolved, even if the church wants to incite a rebellion, the chances of success are unlikely.

After all, this is no longer an era of religiousism, and the influence of religion on Europeans has become increasingly weak. If it were 100 years ago, there might still be a chance of success, but in Spain today, religion no longer has the final say.

Of course, as the saying goes, a big stick in the left hand and a sweet date in the right hand, it is impossible to oppress the church, which is a very influential force in Spain.

When Carlo met with Archbishop Pedro, he personally promised that he would consider establishing the title of Archbishop of Spain. In addition to being the highest bishop of Spanish Catholicism, the future Archbishop of Spain will also control the Church in Spain and have certain restrictions on other religions.

As long as Archbishop Pedro is willing to cooperate with the government and the royal family, he will be the first Archbishop of Spain in the future.

Although he did not explicitly state the other possibility, Archbishop Pedro knew it in his heart. If he was unwilling to cooperate with the government and the royal family, perhaps Carlo would support another Spanish archbishop to counter the original position of the Archbishop of Toledo.

Although the Archbishop of Toledo is the most powerful and prestigious bishop in the Spanish Church, don't forget the existence of the Pope.

The Pope is still living in the Vatican, under the control of the Italian government. If the Pope cooperates with the Spanish government to create a Spanish archbishop under the coercion of the Italian government, how much power will he have left as the Archbishop of Toledo?
After all, the church's power is much weaker than that of the government. If the church is divided into two factions because of a power struggle, it will become a prey to the government.

Under the gaze of hundreds of nobles and senior officials, Carlo and Archduchess Sophie swore their vows together.

In addition to the Spanish nobles, even King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy and Archduchess Sophie's mother, Princess Sissi, attended the wedding in person.

In addition to these two distinguished nobles, King Luis I of Portugal and Carlo's sister Princess Maria Pia, as well as Carlo's eldest sister Princess Maria Clotilde, who married Napoleon Jerome Bonaparte, also came to the wedding.

In fact, in addition to these nobles, even the royal families of powerful countries such as Britain, Germany and Russia sent representatives to attend the wedding and presented their gifts.

In fact, whether it is Spain or Austria-Hungary, it is enough to attract the attention of the governments of these countries. If the two countries unite, their attention will be increased, and the representatives who come to the wedding will be either the crown prince or the duke who has a certain prestige in the military.

The royal families and governments of other countries are not stupid either. They are also thinking about the changes that this wedding will bring to the European landscape.

This marriage represents the closerness between the Spanish government and the Austro-Hungarian government. So, will the Italian royal family, which belongs to the same family as the Spanish royal family, join in?
What impact would it have on the situation in Europe if Spain, Italy and Austria-Hungary formed an alliance?

Even if the possibility is small, this incident will cause other governments and royal families to think deeply and consider their own actions.

The people who are most concerned about this are actually the British. The British deployment in the Mediterranean is well known. The Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal are like two solid fortresses, trapping all the countries along the Mediterranean coast in the Mediterranean.

Apart from the British, the ones who are more concerned about this matter are Germany and Russia. Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire have conflicts in the Balkans, but the current conflicts are not that intense.

After all, the Balkan Peninsula is still ruled by the Ottoman Sultanate, and many countries, including Bulgaria, have not yet gained independence. We can't fight with the Austro-Hungarian Empire for these countries that have not yet gained independence.

The most intense conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia was when the Balkan countries gained independence one after another and the two countries wanted to seek more control over the Balkan Peninsula.

The conflict between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia is not that intense now, which is why the Triple Alliance was finally formed in history.

So why did the Three Emperors' Alliance break up after it was formed? First of all, the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia intensified, and the British also kept trying to sow discord between the two countries.

Another thing is that the Germans, who were supposed to mediate, chose the Austro-Hungarian Empire in conflict after conflict, which also caused German-Russian relations to drift further apart.

But no matter what, although the relationship between Austria-Hungary and Russia is not so good now, it has not reached the point of becoming mortal enemies.

For the Russians, if there were really signs of rapprochement between Austria-Hungary, Italy and Spain, then the Russians would try to sign a non-aggression treaty with Austria-Hungary, temporarily end the dispute in the Balkans, and put more energy into competing with the British.

For Germany, this marriage allowed the Germans to see a possibility, a possibility of directly and completely blockading the French.

A closer look at the positions of Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Spain shows that they formed a solid defensive line to the east, south, and southwest of France.

Coupled with Germany's own blockade of northeastern France, France was directly trapped in its homeland. This was a perfect match for Bismarck's policy of isolating France, and it was also the reason why the Germans were concerned about this marriage.

After all, Italy is also an ally of the Germans, and Germany has some advantages in this regard. Since the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Spain have the intention of forming an alliance, it is better to expand this alliance infinitely and directly form a four-nation alliance of Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.

Even if this alliance is not aimed at war, but is only intended to symbolically isolate the French, it will definitely be enough to cause trouble for the French.

Because these four countries united, they directly isolated France in such a small piece of land in Western Europe. Apart from the three Low Countries, the only area where France could exert influence was Britain, which was separated by the English Channel.

Prime Minister Bismarck thought about it seriously and felt that such a four-power alliance was possible. The biggest contradictions in the four-power alliance were the contradictions between Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the contradictions between Italy and Austria-Hungary.

But in fact, these two major contradictions have been properly resolved. The German-Austrian contradiction is actually the Prussian-Austrian contradiction. Since Prussia unified the German Empire, this contradiction has actually ceased to exist. And the Austrians are constantly showing goodwill to Germany. I believe they also saw this point.

As for the conflict between Italy and Austria-Hungary, it was almost resolved. The conflict between Italy and Austria-Hungary was about Venice and South Tyrol. Of these two regions, Venice had been completely occupied by Italians, and the southern part of South Tyrol, where the largest number of Italians were, had also been taken away by Italians.

The remaining northern South Tyrol is mostly inhabited by Austrians. Even if Italy wants to, it is impossible to take it from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is still in its heyday.

So judging from the current situation, these two contradictions have been eased, and there is not much resistance to the formation of a four-nation alliance.

Of course, if there is any resistance, the British may not want to see the birth of the Quadruple Alliance, because the Quadruple Alliance can not only target the French, but also the British.

If Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain unite, what will the other countries have to do? Not to mention the once powerful Britain, even if Britain and France are combined, they may not be the opponent of these four countries.

Germany alone is enough to give the French a headache, not to mention that the three countries of Germany, Italy and Spain can attack the French homeland from three directions.

Coupled with the equally powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Quadruple Alliance was a huge threat to the French that could attack Paris at any time.

But this kind of foreign interference was no longer a big deal to Prime Minister Bismarck. If the Quadruple Alliance could be formed, the French government could be isolated to an unlimited extent.

In this way, the idea that Germany was worried about, that France might launch a war to retaliate against Germany in a short period of time, disappeared.

After all, if isolated by the Quadruple Alliance, it would be impossible to break through the blockade of the four countries unless it was during the Napoleonic Empire.

If the French still dared to declare war on Germany after forming the Quadruple Alliance, Prime Minister Bismarck would not mind letting the French understand what it meant to score twice.

Carlo, who was happily holding his wedding in Madrid, did not know that perhaps because of himself, the course of history had undergone some major changes.

On the day of the wedding, Madrid also showed a very happy atmosphere. In order to celebrate the wedding, Carlo reluctantly took out more than 200 million pesetas from his own coffers and distributed gifts to the Spaniards for free.

The value of the gift is not high, but everyone can participate. As long as the Spanish people line up at the gift distribution points set up by the government and offer their heartfelt wishes to the king and queen, they can receive a gift.

After the wedding ceremony, a larger celebration banquet was held in the largest banquet hall of the palace. As one of the three largest palaces in Europe, the Royal Palace of Madrid naturally has a very large banquet hall.

Even though there were hundreds of nobles and officials present, including foreign guests, they could still be accommodated easily.

In order to demonstrate the royal hospitality, the banquet prepared rich delicacies from all over Spain, as well as fresh seafood and fruits, including special red wine produced by the royal winery.

To celebrate the wedding of Archduchess Carlo and Sophie, the winery has already produced 1872 barrels of wine in advance, of which 225 barrels of original wine will be sealed as a commemoration of the wedding.

Unless there is a big event, these 200 barrels of wine will be sealed for a long time. After all, the older the wine is, the more expensive it will be, just like the 82 Lafite that has been popular for a long time.

But in fact, there are not that many bottles of 82 Lafite, and most of them on the market are counterfeit.

With the publicity from outside newspapers, this wedding has been promoted as a powerful alliance of Catholics.

Spain is a Catholic country, as is Austria-Hungary. Of course, Italy is also a Catholic country.

Many newspapers have already envisioned an alliance between these three Catholic countries, and then called the alliance of these three countries the Catholic Alliance.

Different people had different attitudes towards such reports. Prime Minister Bismarck was naturally quite happy to see such reports.

The fact that such reports can be produced proves that the people of these three countries are optimistic about the three countries getting closer to each other.

Doesn't this mean that the four-nation alliance that was previously conceived still has the possibility of being established?

But for the British, the mood is not so good.

The alliance between Austria-Hungary and Spain was already a headache, and if Italy got involved, it would become the most troublesome problem for the British in Europe.

The British government was originally worried about whether the Spanish government would have the idea of ​​retaking Gibraltar, and such concerns were exacerbated after the marriage between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Spanish royal family.

If the Triple Alliance of Austria-Hungary, Italy and Spain was really formed, it would mean that it would be impossible to remain indifferent to Gibraltar.

If Gibraltar is lost, the British plan in the Mediterranean will be largely destroyed. But if Gibraltar is defended, it means that Britain will directly conflict with the so-called Triple Alliance, which is exactly what the British do not want to see.

Britain's policy is to pursue a regional balance policy, supporting two relatively balanced forces in a region to confront each other, rather than allowing itself to join in.

It would be fine if there was no idea of ​​forming the so-called Triple Alliance. But if there really was an idea of ​​forming one, then it seems that Britain would also have to form a relevant alliance to ensure that the harm of the Triple Alliance was reduced to a minimum.

Thinking of this, the British representative, who had been smiling, gradually put on a serious expression and began to glance at the nobles attending the banquet, including some foreign guests.

A large chapter of 4,000 words will make up for yesterday’s update. Two more chapters will be updated tomorrow. Please support!

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(End of this chapter)