Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 152: One Nation, One People, One Language

What are relatively tough measures?

In fact, it means using strong laws to forcefully unify the language, script, customs, and religious faith of various regions in Spain, expelling all heretics who reject Spanish culture, and always being prepared to fight against radical nationalists in the Catalan region and Basque Country.

If it were in posterity, this would of course be unfeasible. Because nationalism in posterity has taken deep root in people’s hearts, and support for ethnic autonomy and independence among Catalans and Basque people has become something everyone welcomes.

But in this era, even the concepts of Catalans and Basque people are not so clear-cut. Farmers in Catalonia don’t even know what ethnic group they belong to; they only know they live in Catalonia, which is the only proof that they are Catalans.

People who can’t even distinguish their own ethnic group naturally cannot support Catalonia’s independence. In fact, most farmers in Catalonia are very supportive of Spain; those who truly oppose Spain and seek Catalan autonomy and independence are extremely radical nationalists and republicans, and previously also Carlists.

These people are ultimately a minority; even being a bit radical toward them won’t damage the good relationship between Catalan farmers and the Spanish Government.

In fact, on top of the second approach, there is a third approach that is even more brutal. If the second approach still uses laws to enforce it forcefully, then the third approach is very simple and straightforward: military annihilation of heretics and alien ethnic groups.

However, it’s clearly not yet time to use the third approach, and such brutal measures are completely unnecessary on the Spanish Mainland.

After deciding to adopt the second method, Prime Minister Primó’s first action was to contact Carlo and seek support from the Royal Family.

Why seek support from the Royal Family? Because the public opinion institutions controlled by the Royal Family, namely newspaper offices, are countless in number and can quite effectively improve Spain’s public opinion climate. Although Carlo has disguised all the newspaper offices under him in various ways, on the surface, the Royal Family only controls the Spanish Sun Newspaper.

But in fact, the number of newspaper offices controlled by the Royal Family is dozens if not over a hundred, forming a quite terrifying scale in Spain.

To a certain extent, this is a good thing for Spain; after all, the originally uncontrolled public opinion environment can be effectively controlled, and the news released is all conducive to controlling the situation.

But it is also bad news. Because such public opinion means in the hands of the Royal Family is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over the government’s head.

Although Prime Minister Primó saw the threat of the Royal Family controlling public opinion, he did not want to interfere much with it.

The reason is also simple: the Royal Family’s public opinion empire has already formed a scale that is not so easy to restrict.

The government can only support more newspaper offices not belonging to the Royal Family to counter it, but with the Royal Family already controlling most of Spain’s news industry newspaper offices, resistance is clearly impossible.

News relies more on credibility. Royal Family newspaper offices led by the Spanish Sun Newspaper have been rooted in Spain’s news industry for several years, and their reports have not had major errors.

Unless the Spanish Government establishes official publications, it cannot compete with the Sun Newspaper in terms of credibility.

But what difference is there between official publications and the official statements of the Spanish Government? Moreover, Prime Minister Primó himself has more considerations.

Prime Minister Primó certainly understands the current power structure of the Spanish Government and that the prime minister’s power is greater than the monarch’s.

Currently, he, Carlo, and Grand Duke Serrano have a considerable tacit understanding, and Spain’s overall situation is naturally developing in a positive direction.

But if the future Prime Minister of Spain is a power-hungry guy, or even utterly incompetent in national development, some balance of power must be prepared in advance.

Naturally, the monarch’s power cannot be strengthened openly, as this could very likely destroy Spain’s existing constitutional system and reshape it into a monarchy.

Letting the Royal Family control public opinion is a better approach. In general, such public opinion does not have too great an impact on the government. Unless the government itself has major problems, public opinion can only play a role in fanning the flames.

If there are no sparks to begin with, no matter how much public opinion fans the wind, it actually has little impact on the government.

In February 1873, the Spanish Sun Newspaper published a news article that attracted great attention from many Spaniards, with the headline 《Un país， un pueblo， un idioma！》（One country, one ethnic group, one language！）

Of course, the report in the Sun Newspaper was not so direct and straightforward, but used a more tactful way to convey the good changes this system brings to Spain.

For example, if everyone uses Spanish language, communication among factory workers will be simpler and clearer, and factory production efficiency will also improve.

Also, if everyone is Spaniards, the government’s tax revenue and welfare policies will be fairer. As all are Spaniards, they will naturally enjoy the same tax policy and welfare benefits.

This report from the Sun Newspaper was frantically forwarded and published by other newspaper offices under the influence of the Royal Family, quickly sparking discussion among Spaniards through the Royal Family’s public opinion empire.

For most Spaniards, this report had little impact on them. After all, they already consider themselves Spaniards and speak Spanish language.

But for Catalans and Basque people, there is definitely an impact. Although Catalans also speak Spanish language, under the advocacy of some radical nationalists with ulterior motives, many factories and newspaper offices in the Catalan region require employees to communicate in Catalan language, and even news is in Catalan language.

If the government really decides, as this report says, to comprehensively ban the use of other languages and allow only Spanish language in public places, the ones most severely affected would be these radical nationalists and their plans.

This report merely opened discussions on ethnic language and religious issues; what truly caused an uproar was actually Prime Minister Primó’s actions.

After this report had fermented for a few days, under Prime Minister Primó’s order, a member of Parliament from the Progressive Party submitted to the Spanish House of Representatives 《a proposal on comprehensively unifying ethnic group, religion, and language》.

This proposal cited the benefits to Spain from comprehensively unifying ethnic group, religion, and language as reported in the Sun Newspaper, stating that only by comprehensively unifying ethnic group, religion, and language can Spain truly become a powerful country.

This proposal quickly sparked heated discussion in Parliament. Even if it wasn’t heated, there was no way around it—who let the member of Parliament proposing it be from the Progressive Party?

This is Prime Minister Primó’s party; who would believe that this member of Parliament proposed it without Prime Minister Primó’s permission?

Even thinking about it, this proposal might have been put forward by Prime Minister Primó himself, with this member of Parliament merely submitting it on his behalf.

Although there are quite a few conservatives among Parliament members, the vast majority are Spaniards. There are only a very few Catalans and Basque people in Parliament, and among the highest-ranking Catalans, Prime Minister Primó apparently supports the proposal to unify the Spanish ethnic group.

Precisely because of this, the discussion in Parliament was very rapid, even formulating a fresh-out-of-the-oven legislation 《Spanish Ethnic Group Religion Language Law》 in just a few days.

Its main contents include three points, corresponding to the unification requirements for ethnic group, religion, and language respectively.

First, “Spaniards” is the legal designation for all Spanish citizens and cannot be modified in any way. Spaniards are great and supreme, extremely honorable, and a symbol of honor.

Any designation of Spanish citizens as other ethnic groups is discrimination against Spanish citizens, violating the legal provisions on the concept of the Spanish ethnic group in the 《Spanish Ethnic Group Religion Language Law》, and will be sentenced to imprisonment and fines.

Second, Catholicism is Spain’s national religion, but the Spanish Government also accepts all Christian doctrines of God.

Only Spanish citizens who believe in Christianity have the right to join government and parliament at all levels, the army, and other official departments. （Including state-owned and Royal Enterprise）

Third, on Spanish land, any public place must and can only use Spanish language and Spanish script. （Such as schools, government, councils, hospitals, and train stations）

Certain special places may use the languages of Britain and France, Britain, France, and Germany, Italy, and Russia with discretion, but must report to the local government and not use them privately.

Government and Royal Enterprise internals must use Spanish language as the sole language; private enterprises may use other languages but will have no tax exemptions.

In other words, private enterprises wanting government tax revenue subsidies and exemptions must require all employees within the enterprise to communicate in Spanish language.

Of course, foreign experts are not within this scope. This regulation only targets employees with Spanish nationality, with the main purpose still being unification of language.

Although there is no mandatory requirement for private enterprises to use Spanish language, those capitalists will definitely proactively ban other languages within enterprises for the government’s tax revenue exemptions and subsidies.

Private entrepreneurs doing this proactively can also shift the conflict; at least entrepreneurs bear some hatred, as the government is not enforcing it forcibly—the corresponding language regulations are set by the enterprises themselves.

In the end, this legislation mainly affects Catalans and Basque people.

However, Spain’s history is not short, and its history of unification spans hundreds of years. In such a long time, although Spain has not completely assimilated the Catalan and Basque regions, it has made the public in these regions generally use Spanish language.

The current resurgence of Catalan language and Basque is merely a covert layout by some radical nationalists with ulterior motives.

Most of the public do not reject using Spanish language, just as they do not reject being Spaniards.

Prime Minister Primó was born in Catalonia and naturally has a thorough understanding of the situation there. Unifying ethnic group, religion, and language seems difficult but is actually easy to achieve.

Especially since radical elements in Catalonia and Basque have already been eliminated in part beforehand, advancing unification of language and ethnic group is even simpler.

Still that sentence: the common people at the bottom don’t have so many malicious intentions. They quite recognize the broader concept of the Spanish ethnic group, and with Spain overall becoming better and better, they naturally have little reason to oppose.

Although the concept of nationalism has long sprouted, it has truly begun to rise only in this period.

In other words, the Catalan and Basque independence issues that have plagued Spain for so long in posterity are, at this point in time, merely just getting started.

Nationalism that has just started is destined not to gain support from most commoners, who have quite vague concepts of ethnic group.

Current Spaniards and Catalans actually have little difference; the biggest difference is instead the place of residence.

The concept of Catalans proposed by some radical nationalists is even nonsense, as it includes all Spaniards living in Catalonia.

Logically, differences between two ethnic groups should come from language, culture, and customs, even with fairly obvious differences in diet and other minor aspects.

But the current differences between Spaniards and Catalans are not much. Both commonly use Spanish language as the main communication language, with similar dietary cultures, and even similar appearances.

In contrast, people in the Basque Country differ more from Spaniards, making assimilation much more difficult than in Catalonia.

For the Catalan and Basque regions where nationalism is relatively serious, Prime Minister Primó also has starkly different attitudes in response.

Prime Minister Primó was born in Catalonia and has a thorough understanding of it. Most of the public in Catalonia actually have little nationalist sentiment and are relatively supportive of the Spanish Government.

As long as those radical nationalists’ provocations are gone, Catalonia fully merging into Spain is just a matter of time.

Therefore, in policies toward Catalonia, Prime Minister Primó advocates subtly influencing through legal means and strongly suppressing some particularly unruly radicals.

While for policies toward the Basque Country, Prime Minister Primó advocates even stronger laws and more forceful suppression.

Even when the Basque Country is confirmed unable to assimilate, military means should be considered with discretion to force Basque people to migrate to other regions.

Anyway, Basque people within Spain total only a few hundred thousand; even migrating them all out would not have too great an impact on Spain.

Even after migrating Basque people out, Spain’s northern region would instead become more stable, and national development more efficient.

Catalans are more numerous than Basque people, so naturally prioritize assimilation where possible.

After all, Spain’s population itself is not large; losing Catalonia’s population would make hopes for Spain’s future revival even slimmer.

Carlo has been paying attention to Parliament’s vote and the law ultimately formed.

For Carlo, Prime Minister Primó proactively stepping forward to promote the grand unification of ethnic group, language, and religion is naturally the best possible.

Because this matter currently has a hundred benefits and no harm; at most it will only offend radical Catalans and Basque people.

But when nationalism spreads globally in the future, will these ethnic groups once expelled by Spain, or unified under high pressure, reconsider the harm this brings them?

Strictly speaking, this could become a stain. Carlo naturally does not want to bear this stain; after all, as a king under constitutional monarchy, it’s best to stay far from bad reputation, which is conducive to the throne’s inheritance and the Royal Family’s status stability.

Not exaggerating at all, once this legislation passed after Parliamentary discussion is promulgated, it will absolutely force tens of thousands of Catalans and Basque people to leave Spain, or fall under the government’s military suppression.

This is no joke; after the legislation is promulgated, the government will absolutely enforce it even more aggressively.

Most radical nationalists cannot survive in such a harsh environment. They will either directly launch resistance or helplessly leave their homes and depart Spain, this hellish environment for them.

Perhaps to demonstrate a firm attitude to the outside world, after the House of Representatives completed the initial draft of this legislation, the cabinet government immediately published the entire legislation and announced it would officially begin nationwide enforcement three days after publication.

Such swift speed is somewhat unreasonable, as generally legislation is published for a period to give the Senate sufficient time for review and suggestions before submission to the cabinet government for execution.

Although acting with thunderous speed, Prime Minister Primó has still prepared various countermeasures.

The two fully formed Spanish divisions are garrisoned not far from Catalonia and Basque Country, ready to head to the two regions along the railway at any time.

Given the current weapons and equipment of the Spanish Army, even if the Carlist faction rebellion happens again, the Spanish Army can resolve it calmly.

The artillery equipped by these two divisions is not for show; even as soon as the army formed, long-term target practice and artillery barrage training began.

The daily consumption of bullets and cannonballs is unimaginable for previous Spanish armies; under such powerful bullet and cannonball supply, the combat effectiveness of these two fully manned Spanish infantry divisions is naturally continuously rising.

It might sound exaggerated, but after Prime Minister Primó personally witnessed the training of the two infantry divisions, he has confidence that with these two divisions’ soldier scale of just reaching 25,000, they can resist the offensive of the previous 70,000 Spanish Mainland army soldiers.

No way around it—fully re-equipped with rifles and substantially increased cannon equipment numbers gives such confidence.

Moreover, the quality of both soldiers and officers in the current Spanish Army has improved, which previous Spanish armies lacked.

The later infantry divisions being formed are fine, but these two earliest formed infantry divisions are the Spanish First Infantry Division and Second Infantry Division, with soldiers all carefully selected veterans from before.

With these two infantry divisions glaring like tigers, let alone dealing with some radical nationalists—even facing the previous Carlist faction rebellion that swept several regions of Spain, Prime Minister Primó feels no panic at all.

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