Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 438 The Problem of the British Government

Spain had laid the groundwork for their attack on Lisbon.

Starting on September 16, at the suggestion of the Spanish army, the Portuguese Democratic Republic army, together with the Spanish army, launched a fierce attack on the Portuguese Republic army and the British army located in Nova Montemor to the west.

The offensive involved nearly 10 troops from Spain and the Democratic Republic of Portugal, while the defending forces from Portugal and Great Britain numbered around 10 as well.

The two sides engaged in fierce fighting on the land between Novo Montemore and Évora, with gunfire and artillery fire never ceasing, and both sides suffering considerable casualties.

In just three days, from September 16 to September 18, the Spanish army suffered more than 9 casualties, while the Portuguese Democratic Republic suffered more than 9 casualties.

The situation for the British army was even worse than for the Spanish. In just three days, the total number of British casualties had approached seven thousand, and this was despite being on the defensive and having the upper hand.

The Portuguese army also suffered heavy casualties, with total casualties exceeding 10,000.

Under the fierce offensive of the Spanish army, the front line had been pushed forward to the vicinity of Nouveau Montmor. At this rate, Nouveau Montmor would fall to the Spanish army within a few days.

Nova Montemor can be considered the last line of defense outside of Lisbon. Once Nova Montemor falls to the Spanish army, the Portuguese Republic and British forces will only be able to rely on Barrerou and Setúbal around Lisbon for defense. This means that the Portuguese Republic's sphere of influence will shrink to a few dozen kilometers around Lisbon, and cities in the north, including Coimbra, Tomar, and Marínia Grande, will have to be abandoned.

Just as the Portuguese Republican government was worried about this, a piece of news sent chills down the spines of the Republican Party's leadership. According to a small number of Portuguese immigrants who had been recruited by the Republican Party and were traveling to Spain, Spain was making frequent troop movements in the state of Extremadura and might send tens of thousands more troops to Portugal in the near future.

This is definitely not good news for the Portuguese Republican Party. Currently, the front lines in Portugal are showing a trend of Spain and the Iberian Party gaining the upper hand over Britain and the Republican Party.

If Spain continues to send reinforcements to Portugal, Portugal's current troop strength, even with the help of tens of thousands of British troops, will be completely insufficient to hold Lisbon.

After confirming that the news was highly likely to be true, the Portuguese government did not hesitate for a moment and immediately contacted the British government, requesting that the British government send more troops to support them.

When the British government received Portugal's request for assistance, the British cabinet was actually engaged in quite intense discussions.

The current British Prime Minister, Arthur James Balfour, comes from the Conservative Party, one of the two parties in the British system. Since 1895, the Conservative Party has controlled the British cabinet for nine consecutive years, leaving the Liberal Party, one of the two major parties in Britain, in opposition for nine years.

The Conservative Party's control of the government for nine consecutive years signifies the immense political power it wielded during that period. Both the Boer War and the recent Anglo-Spanish War occurred within the term of the Conservative cabinet.

The tradition of a two-party system is that the opposition party opposes the ruling party, and this is especially evident in the British government.

Britain's use of concentration camps and scorched-earth policies during the Boer War became a point of attack for the Liberal Party against the Conservative Party.

Don't assume that the Conservative Party's control of the British cabinet means they can monopolize power. At this time, the Liberal Party only lost the prime minister's power due to internal divisions, but the Liberal Party's power is still quite strong.

The current leader of the Liberal Party in the UK is Henry Campbell Bannerman, who is the same British Prime Minister who succeeded Balfour in history.

That's not all. Within the Liberal Party, there are also two legendary politicians who will become British Prime Ministers in the future: Herbert Henry Asquith, a member of the Liberal Party's imperialist faction, and David Lloyd George, a member of the pro-Boer faction.

These three senior Liberal Party officials almost unanimously opposed the scorched-earth policy implemented by the British Conservative government in South Africa.

After the outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War, there was considerable opposition within the Liberal Party, which argued that a war with Spain at this time would not benefit Britain in any way.

Furthermore, according to evidence provided by Spain, although the Battle of Gibraltar resulted in the complete annihilation of the British fleet, the cause of the battle was indeed that the British fleet initiated the attack, while the Spanish navy was on the defensive.

This also means that the British government did not have the support of public opinion in this war. Just because the Spanish navy was on the defensive and the British fleet was completely destroyed, they should pay for the blood debt with blood, right?

As the Mediterranean fleet suffered heavy losses, opposition to the war spread from within the Liberal Party to the entire British political arena, including even the ruling Conservative Party.

Judging from the current outcome of this war, Britain can be considered to have lost everything.

The once-proud Royal Fleet was defeated twice by the Spanish Navy, and at this point, the Royal Fleet no longer dared to launch a final decisive battle. This also means that the Royal Fleet, which was once known as invincible, had begun to fear the Spanish Navy.

Although the land war is still undecided, it is better to hope to defeat the Spanish at sea than to hope to win on land.

European countries are well aware of Spain's development over the years. Despite the Spanish army's relatively small size compared to other major powers, its combat effectiveness is absolutely first-rate, even top-tier.

The British Conservative government wants to wage a land war against Spain on its doorstep. Isn't this just showing off its limited skills and asking for trouble?

The Boer War cost Britain more than £200 million in military spending, which was equivalent to two years of the British government's total fiscal revenue.

Such a huge military expenditure gave the British government several years to catch its breath, and now it is about to wage a large-scale war that is no less than the Boer War. How will the British people view this?

As the war has progressed, the home fleet only dares to remain north of the English Channel, and the army is no match for the Spanish forces.

Gibraltar has already been occupied by Spain, and large swathes of Portuguese territory have fallen. What's the point of fighting such a war? Must these foolish Conservative cabinet members wait until Spain has completely occupied Portugal before they realize that Britain is no match for Spain?

Amidst the heated debate between the pro-war and pro-peace factions, the British Cabinet received a request for support from the Portuguese Republican government. As leader of the Conservative Party, British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour was certainly not going to support the ideas of the opposition Liberal Party. More importantly, this war was originally spearheaded by Prime Minister Balfour; if it ended so hastily, not only would the British government suffer heavy losses, but Prime Minister Balfour himself would also be severely affected.

Whether it's to save face or to retain his position as prime minister, now is definitely not the time to stop the war.

At the very least, the Spanish army must be severely damaged on the battlefield before a more suitable time for peace talks can be found.

Both Spain and Britain understood that it was impossible to completely force the other side to surrender; the only way was to gain a certain advantage and compel the other side to back down, thus initiating peace negotiations.

This also means that the situation on the battlefield does not determine the final outcome of peace negotiations. As long as one holds the advantage, one can still strive for more benefits when it comes to peace negotiations.

If the British government could gain a certain advantage on the land battlefield, even if it couldn't recapture Gibraltar, it could still allow the Portuguese Republic to control more territory and prevent the Iberian Peninsula from being unified by Spain.

It was with this in mind that Prime Minister Balfour decided to take the final gamble. The situation had already spiraled out of his control; if he didn't agree to continue the fighting, he, as Prime Minister, might be the first to lose his position within the British government.

After a period of heated debate, British Prime Minister Balfour ultimately overruled objections and decided to continue sending tens of thousands of reinforcements from the UK to Portugal.

At the same time, the British will transfer at least tens of thousands of colonial troops from colonies such as India, South Africa, Canada, and Australia to Portugal to fight alongside the British army.

In this way, the number of British troops sent to Portugal could reach more than 100,000, creating a significant numerical advantage.

If Spain were to send another 50,000 reinforcements, the British army, with its numerical advantage of 150,000 to 100,000, could declare that the advantage is in their hands and launch a counterattack against the Spanish army.

To force Spain to send a larger number of troops, Britain could subsequently mobilize an equal or even larger number of troops from its homeland and other colonies to support it.

With these 100,000 troops, Portugal's situation could at least be sustained for several more months, giving the British government more time to move troops from other colonies.

Just as the news of Spain's troop movements could not be kept from the British government, the news of the British government's troop movements could not be kept from the Spanish government.

Sending spies was nothing new to European countries, and it reached its peak at the beginning of the 20th century.

The various countries of the two major European military blocs sent spies to each other. Countries like Spain and the United Kingdom, which were not part of either bloc but closely monitored the situation in Europe, also sent their own spies to several European powers.

Immigration between European countries is already frequent, which greatly reduces the difficulty of sending spies. Although there are still some differences in the populations of different European countries, the presence of these immigrants directly eliminates these differences.

In addition to sending spies to other countries through immigration, one can also train immigrants from other countries, turn them into spies, and then redeploy them to those countries.

It might be strange for a Spaniard to be a spy in Britain, but it's not surprising for immigrants from Britain to be spies there. While European countries do have regulations regarding immigration screening, they are generally not as strict.

After all, immigration is quite common in Europe. Whether it is a major country or a small or medium-sized country, there are a large number of people flowing in and out every year. You can't possibly screen all of these people, or that would increase the workload of the immigration department several times or even dozens of times.
Moreover, the spies that can be dispatched are all rigorously trained, and some of the information is also modified.

It's absolutely impossible to screen out spies through simple screening. It's far more effective to rely on domestic intelligence gathering than on screening immigrants.

Upon learning that the British government had mobilized not only troops from the mainland but also tens of thousands of troops from its colonies, the Spanish side breathed a sigh of relief.

This also means that the British were unaware of Spain's actual troop movements. The British only thought that Spain wanted to reinforce the main battlefield, but they did not expect that Spain was planning to directly attack Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

Mobilizing troops from the UK mainland takes as little as a few days and at most less than half a month.

However, it would take at least a month to move troops from the various British colonies, and sometimes as long as two or three months.

For this reason, after discussions with the General Staff, Carlo decided to postpone the attack on Lisbon, which also allowed the troops responsible for the attack to make more thorough preparations.

Based on the Spanish General Staff's estimates of the British troop movement, the British government's troops should all arrive in Lisbon by the end of November.

For this reason, the Spanish General Staff decided to postpone the attack on Lisbon until early December, and to strive to capture Lisbon in one battle and encircle the more than 12 British troops sent to Portugal.

If these British troops can be completely eliminated or captured, then the British government should seriously consider whether to engage in peace negotiations.

It should be noted that in the Boer War, which severely damaged the British government, the British army suffered only slightly more than 2 casualties.

If Spain were to eliminate or capture more than 100,000 British troops in this battle, the impact on the British government would be no less than if Spain had destroyed the British fleet twice in a row.

A war of this scale was never going to end in a fight to the death; neither Britain nor Spain had any intention of annihilating the other in a single battle.

The outcome of this war clearly would not affect the homelands of Britain and Spain, which in fact meant that whoever won the Portuguese campaign would have the upper hand in future peace negotiations.

If Spain were to eliminate or capture the British army, it would win the Portuguese Civil War. In that case, unless the British government went completely mad, their only option would be to back down and begin peace negotiations.

(End of this chapter)