Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 205: Indian Empress

In the United Kingdom, besides the major news of the economic crisis making a comeback, there was another piece of news that also sparked heated discussion among the British public, which was the 《Empress Title Bill》（The Royal Titles Bill） promulgated in May.

This bill granted Queen Victoria a brand new title, that of Empress of India.

Although the United Kingdom was called the British Empire, the title of the British ruler was actually King or Queen of the United Kingdom. At a time when empires abounded in Europe, the United Kingdom, as the most powerful country in Europe, had finally taken a step toward the imperial rank.

But compared to the imperial titles of other European empires, the title of Empress of India was somewhat awkward.

The imperial titles of other European countries: the Russian Empire claimed to have inherited the title of the Eastern Roman Empire, while the Austro-Hungarian Empire was formed by the merger of the Austrian Empire and Hungary, originally established by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Although the German Empire was merely the empire of the German region, the German region had once possessed the Holy Roman Empire, an imperial title with legitimate jurisprudence.

In contrast, the long-prepared Empress of India for the British derived its jurisprudential basis from the previous ruler of the Indian region, the Mughal Empire.

In terms of imperial title jurisprudence, the so-called Indian Empire was completely disproportionate to the imperial titles of other European countries. Europe being a place that placed extreme emphasis on jurisprudence, this also put Queen Victoria under considerable pressure in her coronation as Empress of India.

The title of Empress of India originally came from the substitute title used by the native rulers of the Indian region for the Queen of the United Kingdom. When British rule over India shifted from the East India Company to the East India Colony, Queen Victoria, as the Queen of the United Kingdom, also began to firmly believe that she was the Empress of India.

Starting more than a decade ago, Queen Victoria had already grown accustomed to the title of Empress of India and regarded Indian land as part of the empire under her rule. In June 1872, when the envoy from the East India Colony prostrated himself in salute to Queen Victoria, she had used the self-designation of Empress of India: “As Empress of India, I refuse to accept such etiquette.”

Queen Victoria’s public acceptance and fondness for the title of Empress of India inspired some nobles to promote her coronation as Empress of India.

As early as three years ago, Queen Victoria’s secretary Frederick Ponsonby had publicly proposed to the Earl of Granville granting Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India.

And the reason given by Frederick Ponsonby was that the title of Empress of India had long been used as a substitute for Her Majesty Queen Victoria, but without a public proclamation.

As Queen Victoria’s secretary, Frederick Ponsonby could not possibly widely disseminate ideas that the Queen disagreed with.

This also meant that being crowned Empress of India was Queen Victoria’s own opinion.

The reason Queen Victoria was so eager to become Empress, besides her fondness for such a title, was largely because her son-in-law Frederik William Nicholas Carlo had been promoted from Crown Prince of Prussia to Crown Prince of the German Empire, while his father Wilhelm I had been elevated from King of Prussia to Emperor of the German Empire.

When her son-in-law eventually inherited the throne in the future, if she were still merely Queen of the United Kingdom, wouldn’t her title rank be one level below her son-in-law’s?

Among Europe’s five traditional great powers, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Tsarist Russia were all at the imperial level, while France as a republic was not counted among them.

The United Kingdom, with the greatest overall strength, was instead merely a kingdom, which was also a point of dissatisfaction for Queen Victoria.

Precisely because of this, despite heavy domestic resistance in the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria still relied on the Titles Bill to be crowned Empress of the Indian Empire, becoming the fourth monarch among the rulers of European countries to hold an imperial title.

While the United Kingdom was busy crowning its Queen with the Empress title, its arch-rival France was not idle either.

On the occasion of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of the United States, France announced domestically that it would gift the United States a statue representing freedom. This statue became extremely famous in posterity; it was the Statue of Liberty, symbolizing American freedom.

This proposal was put forward by French political intellectual Édouard de Laboulaye in 1865 and received help from many French people, including sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, as well as permission from the governments of both France and the United States.

It was also in that year that Bartholdi began work on constructing the statue. In a very short time, he sculpted the torch held aloft by the Statue of Liberty and shipped the torch from France to the United States to participate in the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia.

A hundred years ago, when the United States gained independence, the French had provided great assistance. And a century later, the French went to great lengths to gift the United States the famous landmark Statue of Liberty of posterity; France’s favor toward the United States could be said to run deep.

1876 was a relatively busy year for the European countries, and the same was true for Spain.

Carlo closely monitored the situation on the Balkan Peninsula, and the Russians at present seemed to have no intention of launching a war.

After adding a crown of Empress of India to Queen Victoria’s head, the British hurriedly prepared for the coronation ceremony in the United Kingdom.

After all, this was an imperial title of India; if the coronation ceremony was not held in India, the so-called imperial title would have little sense of existence.

One also had to admire the British attention to the situation on the Balkan Peninsula. Under the premise of being so busy at home, the British could still closely monitor the situation on the Balkan Peninsula and even complete material aid to the Ottoman Empire on schedule, helping the Ottoman Empire stabilize the situation on the Balkan Peninsula.

Seeing that no fighting would break out on the Balkan Peninsula, Carlo turned his gaze back to Spain, revising laws that had problems in Spain while accelerating Spain’s development progress, advancing toward the goal of making Spain great again.

For Spain, there was a lot of good news in these years of development.

First was the railway mileage.

More than two years had passed since the end of the last Five-Year Plan, and Spain’s achievements in railway construction were still quite impressive.

Since entering the Second Five-Year Plan, the average annual railway mileage constructed had exceeded 550 kilometers, bringing Spain’s existing railway mileage to an astonishing 8875 kilometers, with hope of raising the total railway mileage above 9000 kilometers this year.

At the current speed of railway construction, breaking 10,000 kilometers in total railway mileage for Spanish railways would 100% be achieved within the Second Five-Year Plan, and there was even hope of overfulfilling the target of 11,000 kilometers of railway mileage set by the Second Five-Year Plan.

In terms of railway mileage, Spain had already surpassed Italy, which had once been on par with it, and was chasing after Europe’s five traditional great powers.

The construction of railway mileage brought not only convenience in transportation, but also a series of improvements in railway-related ancillary industries.

Stimulating the overall growth of the Spanish economy by radiating these ancillary industries was the benefit of building railways that could not be seen on the surface.

As for what could be seen on the surface, there was actually a lot. Including facilitating exchange and freight transport between various regions of Spain, enabling the Spanish Government to more quickly and effectively control the regions, as well as stimulating population mobility, etc.; these were all benefits brought by the railway.

Spain’s total railway mileage did not include the simple railways built in the colonies. Otherwise, the total railway mileage within Spain’s sphere of influence would have long surpassed 10,000 kilometers.

Spain’s current colonies could be divided into the Cuban Colony, the South Morocco Colony, Guinea and Congo Colony, and the Philippine Colony.

Spain had built large amounts of railway and road systems in these four major colonies, with Cuba and the Philippines having the longest railway mileage.

However, with the decreasing importance of Cuba, and after newly occupying the South Morocco Colony and Congo Territory, Spain shifted the focus of railway construction in the colonies to the African region.

Although railways in Cuba and the Philippines were still being constructed, the intensity of construction and the proportion of funds invested were clearly less compared to the other two African colonies.

It was worth mentioning that after the military advisory group arrived in Lanfang, they also planned a railway construction plan connecting the Lanfang Republic and the Spanish-occupied areas.

The Lanfang Republic and the Spanish-occupied areas were located in the southwest and northeast of Borneo respectively, making it quite difficult to build a railway connecting the two regions.

Building the railway through the southernmost part across the Dutch colonies was fundamentally impossible, which meant that railway construction between the two regions had only two options: either go north through the Sarawak Kingdom and Brunei, or go through central Borneo, through the primary forest and then along the Sultanate of Brunai all the way north to connect with land controlled by Spain.

Going north would pass through the British sphere of influence, while going central would pass through the Iran Mountains in the central part of Borneo Island, making it very difficult to realize the plan to connect the railways of the Lanfang Republic and the Philippine Colony under Spanish control.

The good news was that, with the help of the military advisory group, the training of the New Army of the Lanfang Republic had gone quite smoothly. After a year of training, this army of about 20,000 men had formally become the main force of the Lanfang Republic.

During the army training period, the local indigenous people and Dutch were not without trouble. But due to their small numbers, they were quickly defeated by the newly formed New Army.

After all, it was an army of 20,000 men, all equipped with muskets and cannons. Although the weapons and equipment were not comparable to the main forces of European countries, in Borneo, it was more than sufficient compared to those indigenous people.

Most of the indigenous armies used cold weapons, with very few firearms. Even if equipped with firearms, the native soldiers had difficulty understanding how to use them.

The muskets and cannons possessed by the indigenous people were basically sold to them by the British and Dutch, which also meant they were extremely dependent on ammunition supplies from the British and Dutch.

Even if they could learn how to use guns and cannons, once bullets and cannonballs were exhausted, they had no means at all.

The British Mainland and Dutch mainland were separated from Borneo Island by over 10,000 kilometers, which also meant that the weapons and equipment and ammunition supplies these indigenous people could obtain were limited.

In such a situation, it was difficult for them to pose a threat to the 20,000 New Army trained by the Lanfang Republic, unless the Dutch were willing to personally intervene and transport a batch of weapons and ammunition to the colony ahead of launching war.

On the side of the Philippine Colony, after unifying the entire Philippine Region, Spain carried out a series of reforms and investments in the Philippine Colony.

Not only strengthening railway construction to ensure the colonial government’s control over the colony, but also investing in some plantations and mines, generating sufficient interests for the Philippine Colony.

For the management of the Philippine Colony, the Spanish Government adopted a strategy of division and suppression.

Separating the newly incorporated indigenous people from those originally belonging to the Philippine Colony, and granting certain privileges to the indigenous people originally belonging to the Philippines.

In this way, the Filipino indigenous people were not monolithic, making it more conducive to Spanish rule.

Those indigenous people who gained privileges had to support Spanish rule in the Philippines to maintain their privileges, while opposing those without privileges.

And those indigenous people without privileges, facing suppression by the privileged indigenous people, would redirect their hatred onto those with privileges.

Through division and suppression, the Filipinos who should have hated Spanish colonizers were internally divided into two factions, ensuring they would not unite to oppose Spanish colonial rule.

In fact, in Carlo’s conception, the Lanfang Republic was also a quite important link.

Although the Philippines could currently be effectively controlled by dividing the Filipino indigenous people, this was ultimately only temporary.

There was not much conflict among the Filipino indigenous people; their hatred would sooner or later return to the Spanish colonizers.

But if the Lanfang Republic were also involved, it would evolve into a conflict between Lanfang People and Filipinos.

Due to differences in ethnicity and culture, these two ethnic groups would find it difficult to unite against Spanish colonial rule. Spain could stabilize its rule in the Philippines by controlling these two ethnic groups and turn them both into its own auxiliary army.

The future World War I and World War II would still require a large amount of manpower to participate in the wars. Spain itself did not have a large population; if large auxiliary armies could be provided through Filipinos and Lanfang People, the population losses on the Spanish Mainland could be reduced.

And these losses of auxiliary armies were acceptable to Spain. Even if the battle damage ratio was a bit poor, as long as there was contribution, the expenses of forming the army were not a loss at all.

The extent of manpower losses also related to the distribution of post-war interests. France’s losses in World War I were astonishing, nearly wiping out a generation of French people.

The resulting economic and agricultural losses were even more severe; it was not until more than a decade after the end of World War I that France gradually emerged from the shadow of World War I.

But it was only emerging from the shadow. The wars took away young and strong laborers; the impact on the country could not be compensated in just over a decade.

France in posterity transforming from a traditional European white country into a colored country where black people occupied the majority of the population was also related to the huge losses in World Wars I and II.

France lost too much population in World War I, forcing it to rely on labor from the colonies to supplement the manpower needs on the mainland.

The consequence of doing so was that a large number of white people were colored, and France ultimately became a representative country where black people turned the tables.

For Carlo, he certainly did not want to see the day when Spain was colored. Precisely because of this, how to minimize Spain’s manpower losses in war as much as possible was a problem that Carlo needed to think about carefully.