Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 566 Colonial Situation

When discussing Spain's imperial ambitions, one crucial point that must be mentioned is its African colonies.

Spain rightfully earned its title as the world's third-largest colonial empire, with colonies spanning Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

If Puerto Rico in the Americas is included, Spain's colonies were spread all over the world, something that newly emerging powers could not achieve.

Of all of Spain's colonies, the most important were undoubtedly those in Africa and the Middle East.

The colonies in the Middle East possess vast oil and natural gas reserves, and this region is crucial to Spain's future strategic layout, so it is something that Spain will do at all costs to control.

While Spain's colonies in Africa did not possess abundant oil and natural gas reserves, they did have substantial reserves of various mineral and natural resources, as well as plains that were scarce in Spain, which naturally increased their importance significantly.

Spain originally had four major colonies in Africa: the Moroccan colony, the West African colony, the Guinean colony, and the Congo territory.

With the original Moroccan colony being localized and Spain forming a united kingdom with Portugal, the number of colonies controlled by Spain did not decrease but increased, with the addition of Portuguese West Africa and Portuguese East Africa.

If you had a map of Africa, you would see that the land area controlled by Spain is almost one-third of the total area of ​​Africa. Britain, France and Spain have effectively divided Africa into three parts.

Given Spain's current population and industrial economy, it is impossible for Spain to fully develop these colonies.

Fortunately, each colony had its own purpose and did not require extensive development in the short term.

The Moroccan region, having been localized, is now being developed entirely as part of Spain. Due to technological and geographical limitations, a bridge across the Strait of Gibraltar cannot be built.

The main reason for this is not a lack of technology, but rather that the conditions of the Strait of Gibraltar itself make it impossible to build a sturdy bridge.

Fortunately, sea and air freight can make up for this shortcoming. Currently, there are many cruise and airship routes between Morocco and mainland Spain, and it only takes one hour to travel from the north coast of Morocco to the south coast of Spain.

The opening of these sea and air routes has indeed greatly facilitated economic and cultural exchanges between the Spanish people in Europe and Africa.

Morocco has largely completed its localization process. A significant number of Spaniards have chosen to immigrate to Morocco, where there is still a considerable amount of undeveloped land compared to Spain.

Although Morocco has less land available for development than Spain, its relatively small population somewhat compensates for this disadvantage.

Spain has a total population of 5527 million, of which approximately 670 million are in Portugal, approximately 430 million are in Morocco, and the population of mainland Spain is 4127 million.

A larger population is certainly better, but Spain's current population distribution is not ideal. Spain's large-scale migration of immigrants to Portugal and Morocco serves two purposes: firstly, to control these regions, and secondly, to better balance the population distribution.

After all, Portugal and Morocco can still accommodate a large population at present. Spain itself, while not reaching its population carrying capacity limit, is at least already operating at a high capacity.

According to Carlo and the Spanish government's estimates of Spain's land, the existing land in Spain can only support a maximum population of 5000 million.

Unless other regions can continuously supply food to Spain, Spain's population carrying capacity in the short term is limited to around 5000 million.

Compared to Spain, Portugal and Morocco have comparable population carrying capacity.

In extreme circumstances, Portugal could support a population of nearly 5000 million. Of course, rational development is the most important thing; Carlos's estimate for the Portuguese region is only around 2000 to 3000 million people.

The Moroccan and Portuguese regions complement each other, each supporting a population of 2000 to 3000 million. Thus, the combined population of Spain's three major regions exceeds 1 million, potentially reaching 1.2 million, which meets the population requirements for becoming a superpower.

This is good news for Spain, but Carlo is not satisfied.

Even if Spain could support 120 million people, it would only barely qualify it as a superpower. While a population of over 100 million was quite impressive at the time, for later generations, it was just one of the many factors required to become a superpower.

According to the latest data, there are now 16 countries with a population of over 100 million, and a population of 120 million only ranks thirteenth in the world.

If this problem is not resolved in advance, Spain will have had virtually no chance of territorial expansion after the two World Wars.

Spain will inevitably face a population disadvantage at that time, as its domestic population will not be able to support a large number of people, and it will be forced to send a large number of immigrants abroad, which is not good news for the country's development.

With expansion in Europe proving difficult, Spain's holdings of several African colonies became extremely important.

First and foremost, these colonies were not far from Europe, making localization relatively easier.

The indigenous people of Africa are the easiest to deal with; if necessary, a few massacres could be carried out to forcibly clear out the African colonies.

These two points alone have already completed more than half of the localization work of the colony.

Then there is the intrinsic value of these African colonies. West African colonies have great agricultural development value, Guinea has abundant gold reserves, and the Congo Territory has large uranium and other mineral resources, all of which are very suitable for localization.

Of course, the most suitable destination was the West African colonies. Apart from the Moroccan colonies, Spain's development of West Africa was the most extensive.

This region has become Spain's most important grain-producing area, with its total grain output approaching half of that of mainland Spain, which is an astonishing figure.

In order to develop the lands of its West African colonies, Spain had transported nearly a million immigrants to the colonies, most of whom were Spanish and Portuguese.

For Spain today, the indigenization of its West African colonies doesn't require much preparation. It only requires changing the political structure of the colonies, and then it can simply wait for the indigenization process to be completed.

The most important factor in any localization effort is population. In the present-day West African colonies, whites make up about half of the population, and the remaining blacks, although not slaves, are practically slaves in name only.

Otherwise, how could Spain have developed its West African colonies so quickly? It was all thanks to the free labor force from the local population.
The slowest-developing areas were probably the two former Portuguese colonies. Portuguese West Africa and East Africa were vast, their total area comparable to Spain's Guinea and Congo territories.

However, due to Portugal's small population, Portugal did not develop these two colonies much for a long time. Instead, it established large-scale colonial outposts on the coast of the colonies and used these outposts to control the local indigenous tribes and achieve colonial control.

Unlike Portugal, Spain's colonial development, while also relying on the help of local indigenous tribes, was not a true form of cooperation.

Spain often wielded more influence and could easily quell dissent within its colonies, something Portugal could not do in the past.

After consolidating military power under the United Kingdom government, Spain sent colonial troops to Portugal's East and West African colonies, firmly controlling both.

The only regret is that the Portuguese colonies in West and East Africa were forcibly separated by the British colonies. The two colonies were only tens of kilometers apart at their closest point, but they could not be connected.

This meant that if the West African and East African colonies wanted to make contact, they had to travel thousands of kilometers south, bypassing the South African colony.

Spain also attempted to claim the British territory sandwiched between East and West Africa during peace negotiations with Britain, but was ultimately rejected by Britain.

Fortunately, Britain ceded its Middle Eastern colonies to Spain, and these lands were far more valuable than the African lands, which led Carlo to quickly agree to the deal.

After the Paris Peace Conference, Spain gained another African colony, namely the Southwest African colony, which originally belonged to Germany.

Although Germany did not have many colonies, it did have two relatively large territories in Africa: the Southwest African Colony and the East African Colony.

The Southwest African Colony was located between the Portuguese West African Colony and the British South African Colony. This land, later known as Namibia, covered an area of ​​over 80 square kilometers, making it a very large territory.

In its original history, this land was occupied by British troops in South Africa during World War I, and after peace negotiations, it was placed under the trusteeship of the League of Nations to South Africa.

But the world is different now. Britain stood with Germany in the World Wars, so it was impossible for Britain to invade Germany's colonies.

Britain did consider invading Portuguese colonies, but its repeated attacks were repelled by Spanish colonial forces.

Although the Spanish colonial army was not very strong, it could still play a significant role in defensive battles.

Namibia is rich in uranium, diamonds, and gold, and its surrounding coast also boasts abundant fishery resources, making it a highly valuable resource.

Carlo naturally wouldn't be polite to this German colony. After the Paris Peace Conference, he sent troops to take over Southwest Africa and renamed it the Western Southwest Africa Colony.

Germany's colonies in East Africa were taken over by France. With Britain unable to participate in the partition, Spain and France were naturally able to divide up the largest part of Germany's colonies.

In fact, the French-occupied East African colonies were larger in area and population. This region, later known as Tanzania, covered over 90 square kilometers and was home to tens of millions of indigenous people.

Spain originally had the opportunity to acquire this land, but considering that Tanzania was blocking the way between British African colonies, and that managing such a colony with a large indigenous population would indeed consume too much energy, Carlo gave up the land.

Even if Spain were to occupy Tanzania, its future would inevitably be one of independence.

It would be better to hand over this land to France, which would further sow discord between Britain and France and reduce the benefits Spain would gain overtly.

Of course, Spain would not lose out either. The Middle Eastern colonies that Britain ceded to Spain alone were of immeasurable value.

Today, Spain is virtually the dominant power in the Middle East, and the eastern coasts of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are all under its control.

If the Persian Gulf coast possesses most of the world's oil reserves, then Spain possesses most of the Persian Gulf coast's oil reserves, boasting the world's largest total reserves.

However, at this time, the oil reserves in the Middle East have not yet been fully revealed, and most oil fields are still buried deep in the desert, unknown to the world.

This is precisely why Britain was so willing to cede so much Middle Eastern land to Spain.

Had Britain discovered the region's extremely rich oil reserves beforehand, it would have been far more likely to have ceded land in the Middle East, even if it had given up the land between Portugal's two African colonies.

This is the benefit of having an early advantage. These lands alone will make Spain's finances extremely wealthy in the future, and during the period when oil is the most important energy source, Spain's influence will increase infinitely.

By controlling these lands, Spain could even determine future oil prices on its own.

Of course, possessing so much land also carries significant risks. As the saying goes, "A common man is innocent, but possessing a treasure is a crime." Once these oil reserves in the Middle East are gradually exposed, Spain, which occupies the most land in the region, is destined to face condemnation from Europe and the world.

To retain these lands, Spain had to contend not only with the local indigenous populations but also with the covetousness of the world's major powers.

The good news is that large-scale exploration of Middle Eastern oil is still a long way off. With Spain controlling these lands, the disclosure of oil reserves can be delayed for even longer.

Spain only needs to have a stronger military during this period and stir up the world situation even more to ensure that no country can take the Middle East from its hands.

If necessary, the Middle East can also be won over by giving up a portion of the territory, thereby leveraging the strength of more allies to protect the region.

In order to conceal the fact that the Middle East had abundant oil reserves, Spain had no choice but to temporarily slow down the development of its Middle Eastern colonies.

As long as local oil remains undiscovered, much of the Middle East will remain just ordinary desert, attracting little attention from other countries.

Before acquiring a sufficiently strong military, Spain's primary task remained the localization of Morocco and its West African colonies, aiming to increase the population carrying capacity of the Spanish mainland.

(End of this chapter)