Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 139 Morocco Agreement (two in one)

Carlo did not pay much attention to the meeting with French President Thiers, but he still took the time to meet with Thiers and had a short friendly exchange.

Although the Spanish royal family consists of only two people, Queen Carlo and Queen Sophie, it is closely connected with the Italian royal family and the Austro-Hungarian royal family.

So even though Carlo is a young man and has not yet taken control of real power, President Thiers must still show enough respect to Carlo.

However, because Carlo was not interested in interfering too much in diplomatic affairs, after a brief meeting and greeting with Carlo, President Thiers left the palace and continued his lengthy negotiations with the Spanish government.

For the French government, Spain must be won over. Even if it costs a certain price, it must ensure that Spain leans more towards France between Germany and France.

Because only in this way can we ensure that France will not be completely isolated. This is related to the situation in the future hegemony between Germany and France. The French government will not make any concessions or compromises.

President Thiers had long anticipated the difficulty of negotiations with the Spanish government. Diplomatic negotiations are never accomplished overnight, especially when it comes to the future national policies and strategic routes of France and Spain, which will take at least several weeks to complete.

However, President Thiers did not intend to negotiate the entire cooperation agreement himself. As the head of France, what he had to do was to negotiate a charter of cooperation between the French and Spanish governments, and then the two governments would formulate more detailed cooperation based on the charter agreed upon by the top leaders.

After confirming that the Spanish government had not completely sided with the Germans, President Thiers' mood finally improved.

At least France would not face the worst situation, and this is what President Thiers really wanted to know and ensure.

Although Spain's land environment is the worst in Europe, when it comes to tourism resources, Spain still has many scenic spots worth visiting.

The diplomatic negotiations lasted for a long time, and President Thiers stayed in Madrid for nearly ten days.

The good news is that before President Thiers left Madrid, he and Prime Minister Primo finally signed a draft agreement on cooperation between the two governments.

There was further discussion on certain key aspects of cooperation between the two sides, such as the share of funds that Spain can borrow from the French financial industry.

According to the draft of the cooperation agreement, the French government is willing to provide Spain with a low-interest loan of at least 5 million francs.

If the Spanish government borrows more than 5 million francs at one time, the French government will lend all the loans to the Spanish government over a period of five years.

Because the loan was issued over a long period of time, the Spanish government had a repayment period of 20 years. It only needed to repay the principal of 20 million francs plus the interest of 5 million francs within the 1th year after the loan.

Although the interest on 1 million francs seems a bit high, if it is spread over 20 years, the interest to be repaid each year is only 500 million francs, which is 1% of the principal.

Of course, such a low interest rate also has additional conditions. First, of the 5 million franc loan, at least 3 million francs can only be used to purchase supplies from France, and the remaining 2 million francs can be freely allocated by the Spanish government.

In other words, the Spanish government can only get 5 million francs out of the 2 million franc loan. The remaining 3 million francs is more like the virtual currency promised by the French, which can only be used to import materials from France and cannot be used in other countries.

However, Spain can accept this. France is also a powerful industrial country, and Spain can import a large amount of industrial equipment and technical information from France.

At present, the value of francs and pesetas is not much different. According to the latest exchange rate, 5 million francs is equivalent to 5.1625 million pesetas, which is equivalent to Spain's total fiscal expenditure last year.

It has to be admitted that even after paying a compensation of 50 billion francs, the French were still able to provide Spain with a loan of 5 million francs within five years. Such an economic scale and size is quite exaggerated.

Spain's total fiscal revenue last year was less than 5 million francs, which also proves the gap between Spain and France. Spain is still a long way from being a real powerful country, at least in terms of industry and economy.

Prime Minister Primo naturally accepted the low-interest loan offered by the French. The French did not dare to attach any harsh conditions to the loan, after all, they really wanted to win over Spain.

Even if it is impossible to establish an alliance treaty between Spain and France, at least we must ensure that Spain is more inclined towards France and away from Germany.

In addition to financial assistance, the French will also provide their own industrial technology to help Spain develop and build better.

Except for some more important industrial equipment and technologies, other common industrial technologies can be sold to Spain.

These include not only heavy industry and chemical industry, but also military industry and mechanical design and manufacturing.

With the loan provided by the French, Spain does not have to worry about not having enough money to purchase equipment and technology. Although 5 million francs is not an astronomical figure for the great powers, it is enough to buy a large amount of industrial equipment and related means of production for Spain, which is not large in size, to help Spain better build heavy industry and chemical industry, as well as military industry and other industrial industries.

In order to ensure that France and Spain would not cause conflict at the strategic level, President Thiers and Prime Minister Primo also agreed to sign the Morocco Agreement on African colonization after the two governments reached consensus through friendly consultations.

The main purpose of this agreement was to avoid conflicts between Spain and France over African colonization. As long as Spain did not stand in opposition to France and remained neutral or sided with France in the competition between Germany and France, the French would not interfere in Moroccan colonization for the time being and would support Spain's colonial actions in Morocco.

In other words, France temporarily used Morocco to stabilize Spain, and by giving up its colonies in Morocco for a short period of time, it exchanged Spain's neutrality or a more friendly attitude in the competition between Germany and France.

At first glance, one might be surprised that the French would make such concessions, and even be willing to allow Spain to colonize Morocco unscrupulously.

But if you think about it, this is actually a naked conspiracy by the French.

If Spain wanted to colonize Morocco, it would inevitably come into conflict with the British Empire. Even if the French did not participate in the colonial competition in Morocco, Spain might not be able to annex the entire Morocco under pressure from the British.

As long as Spain cannot annex the entire Morocco, France will still have the possibility of colonizing Morocco after the end of the future treaty.

After the relationship between Britain and Spain became worse, Spain would definitely need a powerful country of sufficient level to protect itself.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was clearly not strong enough. After all, the opponent was the British Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's naval strength was not much different from that of Italy, so it could not pose a major threat to the British Empire.

Although France's navy is not as strong as that of the British Empire, it is closer to Spain and can provide more support.

As for Germany, although Germany defeated France, its navy was extremely poor.

In addition, because France was between Germany and Spain, the help that Germany could provide to Spain was more limited than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Under such conspiracy of the French government, even if Spain annexed the whole of Morocco, it would still face strong pressure from the British.

In order to fight against the British, Spain had to continue to get closer to the French, and even conclude a military alliance with France to ensure its own safety, no matter how reluctant it was.

If Spain cannot even annex Morocco, that would be a good thing. Not only can France plan to colonize Morocco again after the end of the treaty, but it can also confirm that Spain is not a big threat to itself.

At the same time, France can use Morocco, which the Spanish cannot get at all, to keep the Spanish hanging. During the entire period of signing the agreement, the relationship between France and Spain will be relatively friendly, and the French can make their diplomatic situation not so bad without spending much cost.

To put it bluntly, the French saw that Britain would not allow Spain to annex the whole of Morocco, which led to the birth of the Morocco Agreement.

In fact, Prime Minister Primo also knew what the French were thinking, because the British ideas were completely obvious.

Perhaps this is also the pride of the British Empire. The British Empire has never concealed their vigilance against Spain, and even actively interfered with Spain's colonization of Morocco.

Even though Spain had a gap in power with the other powerful countries, it was still much stronger than Morocco, an indigenous African country. However, Spain never occupied Morocco, which was only separated from it by a strait, and even finally divided Morocco through cooperation with the French.

The British are also the biggest obstacle to Spain's expansion at present. They are even more worried about Spain's strength than the French, because Spain's first goal after becoming strong is to retake Gibraltar.

The conflict between Spain and Britain is irreconcilable unless Spain is willing to give up the hope of national revival and become a second-rate country in Europe.

In later generations, the two countries had various disputes and conflicts over Gibraltar. This also shows the Spanish hatred for the British occupation of Gibraltar and how hateful the British were in that era.

The reason why Prime Minister Primo agreed to sign the Morocco Agreement was to put President Thiers and the French government at ease. However, the Spanish government had no plans to colonize Morocco again in the short term, after all, the British were not so easy to deal with.

Maintaining the scope of the existing colonies in southern Morocco and stabilizing the colonies of Cuba and the Philippines were all Prime Minister Primo had in mind regarding Spain's existing colonies.

If Spain wants to achieve revival, the most important thing is to build its own industry and economy. Although Spain's land environment is somewhat worse than that of other powers, the size of its territory is still there.

Spain has a land area of ​​more than 50 square kilometers, which is considered a large country in Europe. The UK is only 24 square kilometers, and Italy is just over 30 square kilometers.

With an area of ​​more than 50 square kilometers, Spain's development potential has been greatly improved. Even though it cannot accommodate hundreds of millions or even millions of people, it is not a problem to support a population of about 5000 million.

However, Spain still has not achieved this population milestone until 2024. For Spain at present, population is the most lacking and the biggest gap between it and other powerful countries.

Why are countries like Britain, France and Germany so powerful? In addition to their huge industries and economies, their large populations of tens of millions are also a major factor in their strength.

Currently, in the population ranking of European countries, except for the relatively special existence of Russia, the country with the largest population is Germany, with a population of nearly 4200 million.

France and Austria-Hungary both had populations of over 3600 million, and were also the closest to Germany in terms of population.

The reason why Germany has such a large population is actually because Germany has integrated most of the German region. Bavaria, the largest state in southern Germany, was once a medium-sized country, and now it has become a part of the German Empire, which is enough to show how huge this integrated empire is.

Excluding Russia, whose population is too exaggerated, Germany is in the first tier in terms of population, followed by France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then the United Kingdom and Italy are in the third tier.

However, because Britain promoted the First Industrial Revolution, it has the most industry and economy among all countries.

But the above data also shows the problems of the British. The UK is far behind other countries in terms of both land area and population size.

The lead brought by the First Industrial Revolution is constantly being caught up by other countries, and the impact of the Second Industrial Revolution will become increasingly stronger.

The reason why the British Empire was so powerful was because they maintained a large navy that was large enough to crush other countries.

But the powerful Royal Fleet was supplied by all the colonies of the British Empire. When the colonial system collapsed, all the glory of the British Empire disappeared in an instant.

This is why Morocco is so important to Spain. Morocco and Spain are only separated by a strait, and this is a region that can be localized.

Once the localization of Morocco is achieved, Spain will become a country spanning the European and African continents, with a total land area of ​​more than 77 square kilometers.

If the Western Sahara region in southern Morocco is included, the country's land area can even exceed 96 square kilometers, which is not far from one million square kilometers.

Although Morocco's land environment is not very good, it can also accommodate tens of millions of people. The population capacity of Spain and Morocco combined will be close to 1 million, which is the greatest hope for Spain's future revival.

Before technology completely replaced manpower, population was the most important thing for a country. Although the strength of a country cannot be fully reflected by its population, countries with larger populations definitely have greater development potential.

Of course, if we have to talk about it, Spain has another target that can be annexed, and that is its neighbor Portugal in Iberia.

Portugal has a land area of ​​more than 9 square kilometers and is located on the Iberian Peninsula, making it the best target for Spanish expansion.

However, the relationship between the Portuguese and the British is better. The British do not agree with Spain's annexation of Morocco, and are even less likely to agree to Spain's annexation of Portugal.

Although both Portugal and Spain are countries on the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal is located in the southwest corner of Iberia and its land environment is much better than that of Spain.

If you have a topographic map of Iberia, you can see that the more fertile land of the entire Iberian Peninsula is distributed around the peninsula, and the most densely populated area is the southwest corner where Portugal is located.

It can be said that the most fertile land in Iberia is in Portugal, while most of the land in Spain is desert and mountainous, and the land fertility is far lower than that of Portugal.

Although Portugal's land area is only 9.2 square kilometers, the food that can be produced from these 9.2 square kilometers of land is more than that produced by Spain's 20 square kilometers of land.

Of course, this is compared with those areas with poor soil fertility. If we only compare it with the plains with more fertile soil, the difference is basically not much.

However, the plain area of ​​Spain, with an area of ​​50 square kilometers, is smaller than that of Portugal, which shows the difference in terrain between Portugal and Spain.

However, Portugal's land is not all good. Because it faces the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the westerly belt, the wind in Portugal is too strong and the temperature difference between day and night is small, which is not suitable for the growth of crops.

Another reason is land salinization, which caused Portugal, whose plain area is larger than Spain, to have a grain output of less than one twentieth of Spain in later generations.

But if Portugal can be taken, the Iberian Peninsula will become a whole. If Gibraltar can be taken, the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco in the northwest corner of Africa can be connected together. Spain will have the potential to become a top power and the hegemon of the western Mediterranean.

The Iberian Peninsula is definitely easy to defend and difficult to attack. The only northern region connected to the European continent is blocked by the Pyrenees Mountains, and only the gaps in the east and west directions can be easily passed.

Spain only needs to build military fortresses in these two gaps to easily resist the army coming from France in the north.

However, it is very difficult to achieve such a strategic goal. Morocco and Portugal are protected by the British, and it is difficult for Spain to annex these two countries.

Gibraltar has even become British territory. If you want to take Gibraltar, it means you have to fight a friendly war with the British.

But it is precisely because such a goal is difficult that it aroused Carlo's interest. If he can accomplish it, Carlo will become the greatest monarch in Spanish history and restore the glory of this long-declined empire.

He didn't even have to annex Portugal. All he had to do was recapture Gibraltar and colonize Morocco to infinitely improve the favorability of the Spanish people and become a candidate for the greatest monarch in their hearts.

President Thiers left Madrid at a farewell ceremony organized by Prime Minister Primo and set out on his journey back to Paris.

He left with a smile on his face, and it was obvious that this trip had accomplished the purpose for which he came.

Prime Minister Primo also smiled. This meeting with President Thiers was only good for Spain.

The financial loans and industrial assistance provided by the French can effectively help the construction of Spain's industry and economy.

The amount of the loan is larger than Spain’s total fiscal revenue last year. Investing all of this money in Spain’s development will naturally bring obvious results.

We have to sigh at the strong economic strength of the French. The fact that they became a loan shark empire that was talked about by later generations also proves how strong the economic strength of the French was in that era.

Apart from anything else, if the Spanish government were to raise 5 million francs, it would definitely have to sell everything it had.

Even if this amount of money only needs to be paid out within five years, it will definitely put Spain's finances in great crisis.

This also made Prime Minister Primo and Carlo see the benefits of cooperating with the French. At least the French are really rich, and they can really come up with money to help Spain.

Of course, the French did not make a loss. The funds will eventually receive 1 million francs in interest. At present, the exchange rate fluctuations of various countries are not large, and French private capital is basically a stable profit.

Although the profit is relatively small, it is difficult for such loans between countries to go bad. After all, countries that can lend money are powerful. If countries want to make bad debts, they will not only offend the private capital of the borrowing country, but also offend the country that lent the loan.

Therefore, unless it is really necessary, this kind of foreign loans between countries are relatively stable.

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(End of this chapter)