Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 240 Shipbuilding Cooperation
As Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov completely gave up resistance, Britain and Austria-Hungary officially launched the process of revising the Treaty of San Stefano.

During the week of contract revision, Russian Foreign Minister Alexander remained silent on most aspects except for insisting on certain bottom lines.

This also made the progress of contract modification quite smooth. In just one week, a brand new "New San Stefano Contract" was released.

Under the terms of the new treaty, Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania would become completely independent from the Ottoman Empire, while Austria-Hungary would gain the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria would gain autonomy.

Constantinople and the Straits still belonged to the Ottoman Empire, and the Black Sea countries did not have any navigation privileges in the Straits of Constantinople.

This new treaty completely stopped Russia's expansion into the Balkans, and all Russia gained were a few small pieces of land in the Caucasus, with minimal benefits.

Instead, the Austro-Hungarian Empire became the biggest beneficiary of the peace talks. The Austro-Hungarian Empire obtained Bosnia and Herzegovina. The value of the Bosnia-Herzegovina region itself was enough to make people pay attention to it, not to mention that it could continue to serve as a bridgehead, allowing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to extend its hand deeper into the Balkan Peninsula.

When the news of the signing of the new "Treaty of San Stefano" spread throughout Europe, there were rumors that Russian Tsar Alexander II, after learning the specific content of the revised treaty, angrily smashed all the decorations in his office to pieces.

Foreign Minister Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, who signed the contract, was also scolded by Tsar Alexander II and almost lost his official position.

But no matter how angry he was, Alexander II also understood that this was an inevitable outcome. When Britain and Austria-Hungary announced their intervention, Russia had already fallen into a disadvantageous position in the negotiations.

It is worth mentioning that as the news of the revision of the Treaty of San Stefano spread throughout Europe, the reputation of the British Empire was once again resounding.

In the eyes of most European people, Russia is already a very powerful country in Europe, and can even be said to be the overlord of Eastern Europe.

But even such a powerful country had to succumb under the coercion of the British. This further highlights the power of the British Empire and makes every British person proud of the power of the British Empire.

Compared with the benefits that Britain and Austria-Hungary gained after the peace talks, Carlo was actually more concerned about the direction of the Triple Alliance.

Germany maintained a neutral role in the peace negotiations, which did prevent a deterioration in relations between Germany and its two allies.

But it is undeniable that Germany did not support Russia when Russia needed support the most, and Russia was definitely disappointed.

Although it is not as serious as the Austrian Empire's backstabbing of Russia in the Crimean War, for Russia, which has already suffered once, how the relationship between Germany and Russia will develop in the future is definitely a focus worthy of attention.

The changes in the relationship between Germany and Russia will also affect the relationship between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Previously, Russia had the support of Germany, and Austria-Hungary generally took a concessionary attitude in decision-making in the Balkans.

Without Germany's support, Austria-Hungary naturally no longer feared Russia. In the future, the struggle between the two great powers of Austria-Hungary and Russia on the Balkan Peninsula will be a good show, and it may even involve the situation in the whole of Europe.

Originally, there were no intense conflicts among the ethnic groups in the Balkan Peninsula, but under the competition between the two major powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, these affected Balkan countries would also take different paths.

Of course, this development direction is a good thing for Spain. At least so far, the European situation has not transcended history, and Carlo can still use the experience brought by history to help Spain choose a more appropriate path.

As the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Balkans became increasingly fierce, Germany could only choose one of its two allies, Austria-Hungary and Russia.

Once Russia is abandoned, France will take over Russia in an all-round way, and the situation in Europe will become a situation of confrontation between Germany and Austria and between France and Russia.

Germany's overall strength is slightly stronger than France's, and Russia's overall strength is slightly stronger than Austria-Hungary's. Carlo simply doesn't believe that such a Politburo was not secretly planned by the British.

Isn't this the regional balance policy advocated by the British? It's just that the British played it too far, and Germany exploded with unimaginable strength, and finally almost shook the whole of Europe with its extremely powerful military force.

Now that the future direction of history is clear, the most important thing is to figure out which side Spain will take in the future and how much benefits it can get after taking that side.

Of course, before that, Spain's comprehensive strength needs to be improved to ensure that Spain will not become a prey in the future confrontation between the two major military groups.

Now that he had strengthened his ties with France through diplomatic visits, Carlo had no intention of missing this opportunity.

Although France's overall strength has fallen behind Germany, it is still the third most powerful country in the world after Britain and Germany.

As the saying goes, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. The combat effectiveness of the French army and navy can be considered excellent, and they are still very powerful compared to Spain.

Although the Spanish shipyards also used the national strength to design the Renaissance-class ironclad ships, a very advanced and powerful class of ironclad ships, the Royal Guarnizo Shipyard still had no idea how to design the latest ironclad ships in the following years.

The ironclad ships designed either did not have much progress in firepower, armor and speed, or had major defects in some aspects. In short, there was no more complete new design.

The navy is developing rapidly, and the Spanish navy must not stand still.

The Renaissance-class ironclad ship was indeed a very powerful design a few years ago, and it even had the potential to be among the top five European ironclad ship designs.

But after a few years, the British Empire's ironclad series had long been updated, and the French had also designed the latest ironclad ships. The Renaissance-class ironclad ships had been demoted from the top five in Europe to the top ten designs in Europe.

Although the top ten designs in Europe are equally advanced, their rankings will continue to decline in the future.

For Spain, it is necessary to continue to design a more powerful ironclad ship. This will not only demonstrate Spain's strong foundation and ability in naval design, but also enhance Spain's national pride.

Only when a person is proud of his country can he develop a strong sense of patriotism. At present, the Spaniards still love their country very much, and Carlo will never destroy the feelings between the Spaniards and the country.

Now that we have strengthened our ties with France, now is naturally the time to cling to France.

France still has relatively excellent capabilities in naval design. Although Germany's overall strength has surpassed France, in terms of navy, France is still the second most powerful navy in Europe and even the world.

It is no exaggeration to say that the only naval force that can pose a threat to Britain is the current French navy.

However, the French navy could only pose a threat and was far from being able to defeat the British navy.

For Spain at present, France is indeed the only reliable partner that can jointly develop more powerful ironclad ships.

The British were naturally better at naval design, but they were definitely not that reliable. Moreover, the relationship between Britain and Spain was not very good, and cooperation between Spain and Britain was almost impossible.

After making the decision, the Spanish government immediately began contacting the French ambassador to Spain to discuss the possibility of cooperation between the two countries in the development of ironclad ships.

Although Spain's overall strength is not strong, its naval strength is still among the top five in Europe. Although most of the reasons are due to Spain's old-time heritage, the top five in Europe are the top five in Europe, and this is irrefutable.

It is not too disadvantageous for France to cooperate with Spain. It can even ensure the security of its southern border by strengthening relations with Spain.

Sure enough, when the French ambassador reported the Spanish government's request to Paris, the French government immediately agreed to the Spanish government's request.

The two sides contacted each other through diplomatic ambassadors and agreed to cooperate to develop a most advanced ironclad ship design.

Because of the cooperation between the two parties, once the design of the ironclad ship is finalized, France and Spain will both obtain complete design information of the ironclad ship.

Subsequent improvements to the ironclad ships made jointly by both sides will also be fully shared, with one exception, that is, France or Spain completes the improvements to the warships on their own.

In addition, the two sides also agreed that after the warship is designed, the initial version of the warship will not be sold to the outside world. If the shipyards of the two countries want to sell the jointly designed warship, they should carry out a second modification of the warship to ensure that the relevant information of the initial version of the warship will not be leaked.

Because both sides were willing to cooperate, the two governments quickly reached an agreement and immediately began cooperation in warship research and development.

The French hope to further strengthen their relationship with the Spanish government through this cooperation, while Spain hopes to use the French warship design capabilities to design more powerful ironclad ships for Spain.

Driven by mutual interests, the Spanish shipyard also sent a large number of experts to the French shipyard. For a long time in the future, they will study the latest warship designs in the French shipyard and jointly discuss the rationality and irrationality of the warship design.

Before these experts went to France, Carlo met with them and encouraged them.

Many of these experts have participated in the design of the Renaissance-class ironclad ships. Their warship design capabilities are absolutely excellent and are considered top-notch in Spain.

This trip to France to cooperate with French warship design experts will also allow them to be exposed to France's mainstream design ideas and enrich their own resource library.

The design of a warship is not based on imagination, but requires comprehensive consideration based on the specific needs of the two countries and the shortcomings and advantages of the battleships in service, in order to design an ironclad ship that combines all the advantages of battleships and can meet the needs of both countries.

This also means that after these experts go to France, they will have the opportunity to see the design drawings of France's current ironclad ships, which will be an extremely valuable asset.

Although it is impossible for the French to make public the blueprints of the most advanced ironclad ships in service, as long as these experts have never been exposed to information before, they will definitely be able to learn something new.

What Carlo hoped was that they could absorb France's valuable experience in shipbuilding and some unique design ideas, so that Spain could go further in warship design and at least reach the level of the five major powers.

There is no way. Due to Spain's small population, the number of talents in the country is definitely not comparable to that of the five major powers.

Not to mention that the educational situation in Spain was quite poor ten years ago. With most of the population being illiterate, there must be very few outstanding talents.

The education situation in other powerful countries is much better, and their population is much larger than that of Spain, which also means that these powerful countries have a talent pool that is far superior to that of Spain.

In particular, Germany's educational situation is definitely among the best among European countries.

Throughout history, a large number of outstanding physicists and chemists came from Germany, including the famous Einstein.

After successfully reaching cooperation with the French government, Carlo was not satisfied and immediately reached relevant cooperation with Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was not outstanding in terms of the navy, but it cannot be said that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had no naval capabilities. The warship research and development of Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire mainly focused on small and medium-sized warships, especially small warships under 3500 tons.

With the industrial scale and naval strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Spain, it would be no problem for them to develop several designs of small and medium-sized warships of around 3500 tons.

It is impossible for a country's navy to consist entirely of ironclad ships. One ironclad ship also requires many small and medium-sized warships to form a complete fleet.

Therefore, the role of these small and medium-sized warships is still relatively important. Whether it is a cruiser that can fight in the ocean and even compete with the main battleship, or a gunboat that can only defend and patrol near the coast, they are relatively scarce for Spain.

After all, Spain's colonies are spread all over the world, which also means that Spain needs a large navy to protect its homeland and colonies.

According to Carlo's plan, Spain will form two fleets in the future, namely the Home-African Fleet and the Philippine Fleet.

The Spanish Navy's miscellaneous wooden warships and some relatively backward warships will be transferred to the Philippine fleet, which will be sufficient to ensure the security of the Philippine colony.

The Home-Africa Fleet will be equipped with more powerful ironclad ships and new warships to significantly improve the fleet's combat effectiveness.

With the development of naval designs in various countries, Spain's old sailing warships have basically become useless.

Although it could improve the Spanish fleet's paper data, when facing the enemy's ironclad ships head-on, the sailing ships and some wooden warships could only wait for death.

Whether it is the firepower, defense capabilities, or speed of a warship, there is a huge difference, which cannot be changed by quantity.

The situation in the Philippine colony was different. The Philippine colony was mainly facing the Dutch fleet and some pirates, and sailing warships were more than enough.

Although the Netherlands was once a famous European overlord, its area was too small at that time to support a large fleet.

The Dutch navy, like the Spanish one, was large in size but actually consisted of an old fleet with only a handful of new ironclad ships. It was even less likely that the Dutch would send ironclad ships to be stationed in the colonies.

This also means that these old Spanish fleets can still play an important role after arriving in the Philippines, at least ensuring that the Philippines will be relatively stable for a long time in the future.

Carlo has not yet made a decision on what to do with the Philippine colony.

The Cuban colony must be sold, and it must be sold at a high price in the short term.

The Philippine colony was also a colony far away from the Spanish mainland, but it had already grown in size, and the troops sent by Spain were sufficient to ensure the stability of the Philippines.

Under such circumstances, it became extremely difficult to sell the Philippine colony. The people would not accept the loss of the Philippine colony without any accidents unless they could exchange it for a larger and richer colony.

But this is impossible. The great powers are not fools and they will not exchange better colonies for worse ones.

Although the Philippines also has a large indigenous population, these local indigenous people are generally lazy, and the benefits that the colony can create are really limited.

From this perspective, the Philippine colony is like a piece of chicken ribs, tasteless to eat but a pity to throw away.

Fortunately, Carlo still has enough time to make a choice. Both Cuba and the Philippines are currently firmly controlled by Spain.

If the cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian Empire is to be optimistic about the foundation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then the cooperation with Italy is simply to be optimistic about the future of Italy.

Although Italy is a newly-emerged power, it is still a power after all. In addition, due to the poor combat effectiveness of the army, Italy has focused its main development direction on the navy since the reign of Carlo's father, Vittorio Emanuele II.

The current King of Italy is Carlo's brother Umberto, who is an outright nationalist and imperialist.

Historically, it was under the leadership of King Umberto that Italy joined the arms race and expanded the size of its army and navy.

It must be admitted that Italy does have certain capabilities in naval design. In the era of pre-dreadnought battleships, Italy also designed the most advanced battleships in Europe, which is by no means something that an ordinary great power can do.

At least in terms of the navy, the benefits of cooperating with Italy may now be greater than those of cooperating with Austria-Hungary.

Fortunately, Carlo is an adult and can have both. Spain can reach cooperation with Austria-Hungary as well as Italy.

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(End of this chapter)