Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 468 Splitting Morocco

As time progressed to 1908, Spain began to reap the rewards of its strategic plans formulated years earlier.

Firstly, regarding the localization of the Moroccan colonies, more than half of the work has been completed so far, and it can be said that the Moroccan colonies have already undergone initial localization.

In order to facilitate the localization of the Moroccan colony, Spain has been continuously sending large numbers of immigrants to Morocco for many years.

According to statistics from the Spanish government, since Morocco became a Spanish colony, Spain has sent more than 160 million immigrants to Morocco and nearly 300 million Moroccans to Spain or other colonies.

This has led to a sharp decline in Morocco's population to less than 300 million, with Spaniards making up nearly 60%, other Europeans accounting for about 15%, and only 25% being the original inhabitants of Morocco.

Under such circumstances, the Moroccan colony would essentially remain under Spanish control. The majority of the population was Spanish, and Morocco had been Spanish territory since ancient times; no one could change that fact.

In January 1908, the Spanish government officially announced the dissolution of the Moroccan colony, which was reorganized into four cantonal administrative regions: Melilla, Serra, Meknes, and Essaouira, under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Region of the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal.

Although the order involves administrative changes to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land, it has not caused any disturbance in Spain.

The reason is simple: Spain had already begun the process of localizing Morocco, and the Spanish had long been aware that this African land across the Strait of Gibraltar was destined to be incorporated into Spain.

The European powers were quite surprised by the speed at which Spain was localizing Morocco; they had not expected it to happen so quickly.

Countries like Britain and France, which are more concerned about Morocco's situation, have a relatively clear understanding of how to approach the localization of Spain. Essentially, it boils down to one thing: reducing Morocco's population and increasing Spain's.

After the Spanish conquest of Morocco, they did not carry out a brutal massacre in Morocco; they simply transported the Moroccans out of the region in a relatively peaceful manner.

Spain even provided these Moroccans with some compensation, allowing them to acquire large tracts of land in other Spanish colonies if they wished to travel there.

Of course, Spain does not reject Moroccans who are willing to acquire Spanish citizenship and move to Spain.

Of Morocco's millions of people, nearly 150 million have acquired Spanish citizenship after undergoing various immigration policy reviews. These individuals have gradually evolved into Spaniards through Spain's ethnic integration policies.

To prevent these Moroccans from gathering together in Spain and forming a separate Moroccan nation independent of the Spanish national system, Spain has carried out a rather meticulous process of separating these Moroccans.

Basically, each state doesn't receive many Moroccan immigrants. These Moroccans are eventually scattered and assigned to various states. They are surrounded by Spaniards, so it's impossible for them to form a national identity as Moroccan.

After a long period of assimilation, these Moroccans speak Spanish, eat Spanish food, celebrate Spanish festivals, and embrace Spanish culture, so they are no different from real Spaniards.

As for Morocco, both the Moroccan region and the Moroccan people have long been altered and divided by Spain, and the Moroccans can never go back to the past.

Following the reorganization of the Moroccan region into four state-level administrative regions, the number of seats in the parliaments of each state in Spain will also be slightly adjusted.

The 298 parliamentary seats held by the Spanish regions remain unchanged. The parliamentary seats held by these four new state-level administrative regions are essentially taken from the other state-level administrative regions of Spain.

Of course, since the entire population of Morocco is only slightly over 300 million, although the number of seats in the Spanish state parliaments has decreased, the overall changes are not significant.

According to government data, as of the beginning of 1908, Spain had a total population of 4241 million. The four new state-level administrative regions accounted for only about 7.6% of the population, which translates to about 22 parliamentary seats.

In Spain, the seats in the Congress of Deputies are allocated proportionally based on the population of each state. The more populous states don't care about these few seats, while the less populous states already have few seats, and the number of seats they lose due to the new state-level administrative divisions can probably be counted on one hand.

In terms of population, Spain has now fully made up for its disadvantage in this regard.

Spain had a total population of 4241 million, while Portugal had 561 million. The United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal had a total population of 4802 million, ranking fourth among the great powers, surpassing the populations of Great Britain and France.

If war breaks out in three years, the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal will have a population of over 5000 million and will be able to mobilize an army of at least 500 million, which will be more than enough to deal with a world war.

After all, Spain still had a large colonial army, and the armies of the indigenous people in the African and Philippine colonies alone could number in the millions.

In this way, Spain was able to mobilize tens of millions of troops during World War I. Such an army would be unbearable for any major power, and could only be countered by superpowers like Germany and populous nations like Russia.

This size of army was the source of Carlo's confidence in dealing with World War I, and also his trump card in planning a super war that was completely different from any in history.

With the addition of aircraft and tanks that Spain is developing, Carlo has reason to believe that even if the Spanish army were to face an unimaginable enemy, Spain would still have a good chance of victory.

Let's return to the topic of administrative division changes in Morocco.

In fact, to some extent, Morocco's reorganization into four state-level administrative regions and its integration into mainland Spain has had a certain impact on Portugal.

Portugal already had very little influence in the Spanish-Portuguese Union, and could be said to have been partially annexed by Spain.

After Morocco's territory was incorporated into Spain, Portugal's influence in the United Kingdom diminished further, to the point of being negligible.

Portugal's land area is only 9.22 square kilometers, while the combined land area of ​​Spain and Morocco is as high as 96.5 square kilometers. Portugal's land area is only about 9.5% of that of mainland Spain, less than one-tenth.

In terms of population, Portugal's 561 million people are only 13.23% of Spain's 4241 million people. Even after accounting for the large number of Spanish immigrants in Portugal, it is actually only a little over one-tenth of the population.

Although both were part of the United Kingdom, Portugal's future within the kingdom was uncertain due to the vast difference in their territorial size and population, and it was always at risk of being annexed by Spain.

The current Portuguese government is not unaware of this, but they are powerless to address it.

After all, it was quite reasonable for the Spanish government to incorporate Moroccan territory into its own territory, as it was originally a Spanish colony, and the majority of the colony's population was Spanish, with no connection whatsoever to Portugal.

Since they had no way to address the changing situation within the United Kingdom, they could only watch as Portugal's power within the Union waned. The good news was that the Spanish government did indeed keep its promise; at least the Portuguese government was preserved, and the Iberian Party and several Portuguese parties, including the Liberal Party, smoothly transitioned to the United Kingdom government.

Of course, most Portuguese political parties are only well-known within Portugal, but have no name recognition in Spain and therefore do not receive any support from Spaniards.

Even the Iberian Party, founded on Pan-Iberianism, hasn't achieved much success in Spain. Although it's the largest party in Portugal, it doesn't even rank in the top ten in Spain, and many Spaniards are quite unfamiliar with the name, or have never even heard of it.

Most Portuguese political parties are forced to remain confined to Portugal, maintaining their own small territories. While they regret their inability to expand into Spain, preserving their base in Portugal is not a significant loss for any of the major parties.

Because these Portuguese political parties have not yet suffered significant losses, they have not reacted strongly to Spain's policies.

However, the situation in Spain and Portugal will not remain so peaceful forever. Carlos does not want the Portuguese government to have too much power, which could ultimately lead to the fate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Under Carlo's orders, several Spanish political parties have begun to expand their influence in Portugal.

Spain’s three new major parties—the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party, and the Socialist Workers’ Party—have all established branches in Portugal and have won the support of a considerable number of Spanish immigrants.

The three major political parties in Spain are quite well-known in Spain, and these Spanish immigrants naturally have a higher level of favorability towards them than towards the local Portuguese parties.

As more and more immigrants go to Portugal in the future, the support rate of Spain's three major political parties in Portugal will also increase, and it is even possible that a Spanish party government will be formed in Portugal, achieving an alternative form of Spanish control over the Portuguese government.

Of course, Carlo's purpose in sending these parties to infiltrate Portugal was not to control the Portuguese government.

Carlos has several ways to simply control the Portuguese government, and it wouldn't take long at all.

What Carlos wanted was to subtly deepen his control over the whole of Portugal, and then at a suitable time, announce reforms to the existing Spanish-Portuguese Union, merging it into a truly complete and unified country.

Although the existing Spanish-Portuguese union can continue, Portugal will most likely remain under Spanish control.

However, Carlos did not want to accept the two-government structure under the United Kingdom system. The reason is simple: if it is the Portuguese government, it will certainly consider the interests of the Portuguese people.

A Spanish government that prioritizes the interests of the Spanish people and a Portuguese government that prioritizes the interests of the Portuguese people are destined to clash.

In the early days of the United Kingdom, such conflicts were not significant. After all, Spain was practically the dominant power, and the Portuguese government had little influence and no say, so naturally there were no conflicts with the Spanish government.

But as time goes on, once the Portuguese develop a clearer sense of national identity, they may seek national independence.

Although this is only one possibility, such a possibility could potentially break up the United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal.

Once the Portuguese, with their awakened and clear national consciousness, set their sights on seeking independence, it would mean that a civil war could very likely break out within the United Kingdom.

Carlo didn't want the Spanish Military Academy to reopen. Although Spain was likely to win the civil war, the wounds of war could not be healed in a short time, and the hatred between the Portuguese and Spaniards caused by the war could not be erased in a short time either.

The best solution would be to do what Morocco did: emigrate some of the more radical Portuguese people out of Spain through various means and send them to Europe or the Americas.

The remaining, less radical Portuguese could choose to be assimilated and dispersed among the various states of Spain.

When the Portuguese are gathered together, they form a complete Portuguese nation, making assimilation extremely difficult. However, if they are separated, with only tens of thousands of Portuguese in each canton, they would be unable to exert any substantial influence on mainland Spain.

Because the surrounding area is mostly inhabited by Spaniards, they have no choice but to fully assimilate into Spanish, speak Spanish, and learn the Spanish alphabet if they want to live a good life.

In this way, once these Portuguese people have multiplied for one or two generations, they will naturally join the larger Spanish nation.

The Spanish government also closely monitors these Portuguese people. Once some of the more extreme Portuguese are discovered, they are immediately sent to Europe or the Americas to cause trouble in other countries.

If in the future any Portuguese people still wish to seek independence, and the Spanish government is not comfortable using overtly violent means, it could choose to allocate a piece of land to the Portuguese and allow them to establish an independent state.

Anyway, Spain still had a lot of colonies. It was perfectly acceptable to just pick a piece of African colony that wasn't very useful and assign it to the more radical Portuguese so that they could form their own Portuguese government.

In short, within the Iberian Peninsula, there can only be one voice: the voice of the Spanish.

The Portuguese had only two choices: either fully integrate into Spain and become part of this diverse and cohesive Spanish nation.

Alternatively, they could go to other lands outside of Iberia, whether in European countries, the Americas, or Spanish African colonies. In short, there were vast tracts of land where these Portuguese who did not want to join the Spanish nation could find a place to live.

As for those who are neither willing to embrace the great Spanish nation nor willing to immigrate outside the Iberian Peninsula, then I'm sorry, we can only resort to some rather violent means.

It is believed that these ungrateful Portuguese are still a minority. As long as their numbers are small, the Spanish government can easily use violence to make them understand the importance of freedom.

Such violent methods are very common in this era, and even if Carlo were to use them, he wouldn't have to worry about incurring international condemnation.

The first 50 years of the 20th century were also the last era in which violence could be used openly. After that, the international impact had to be considered. After all, with the advent of the atomic bomb, major powers had tended toward peace and were unlikely to break out in a large-scale war easily.

In a peaceful environment, international reputation is certainly very important. Historically, European countries have skillfully cultivated an image of themselves as renowned civilized and gentlemanly nations worldwide.

In reality, it was these European countries that conquered most of the world during the colonial era and brutally ruled over the populations of vast colonies.

This highlights the importance of disguise, and it's something the Spanish government will need to do in the future.

(End of this chapter)