Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 158: Chapter 135: Visitors from France (Double-Length Chapter) (Part 3)

Of course, what made Thiers renowned across Europe was not only his suppression of a certain movement, but also his personal signing of the diplomatic document for the indemnity of 5 billion francs to Prussia.

Perhaps the citizens of Paris did not expect that their action, initiated to oppose the government’s weakness towards Prussia, would ultimately lead the government to be even weaker towards Prussia.

Of course, the French government also had an extremely tough side. However, the toughness of the Third Republic manifested in the citizens’ movements in Paris, where Thiers became renowned throughout Europe through brutal and bloody suppression.

How brutal was the suppression at that time? French newspapers once reported scenes of massacre: “A blood channel from a barrack flowed into the Seine River, hundreds of meters of river water were polluted, presenting a long, narrow blood river.”

Yes, it was by the banks of the renowned Seine River.

The suppression of the citizens’ movement in Paris lasted for a whole month, with over 30,000 people massacred, and more than 100,000 exiled and imprisoned.

However, despite suppressing the citizens’ movement in Paris, the internal affairs of the French government were still quite chaotic.

Many national governments and media were not optimistic about the Third French Republic, because republican regimes in France historically had short lifespans.

The strength of the French Royalist Party was extremely powerful, so powerful that it could easily destroy the power of the republic.

However, the Royalist Party was internally divided into several factions, namely the Orthodox Faction supporting the Bourbon Dynasty, the Orleanist Faction supporting the Louis Philippe Dynasty, and the Bonaparte Faction supporting the Bonaparte family.

If these Royalist factions united, they would hold the majority seats in the French National Assembly, easily passing the restoration of the French Empire through the National Assembly, re-establishing an empire.

But unfortunately, these three royalist factions supported different families, and France was destined to only have one emperor, which also meant that compromise among the factions was impossible.

It is worth mentioning that Thiers also claimed to be a Royalist. On one hand, he wanted to restore the French Empire, but on the other hand, he feared that placing an emperor over the French people might lead to renewed opposition from them.

Precisely because of the fierce contradiction between supporters of the republic and the monarchy, plus the dissatisfaction of many French citizens with the government’s cowardice towards the former Prussia, now Germany, and the brutality of suppressing the revolution, the internal situation in France was extremely chaotic.

In order to suppress the revolution in France, Thiers spared no efforts. He enacted a law requiring all who propagated certain ideologies to be sentenced to 2 to 5 years in prison, and also banned all union organizations and abolished the freedom of the press and association.

To repay the indemnity of 5 billion francs promised to Prussia, the Thiers government issued a large number of government bonds, and each issuance was excessive.

In addition to massive loans from capitalism, so far more than half of the 5 billion francs have been repaid by the French government.

This is quite astonishing. Five billion francs is not a small amount, and for the Spanish government, it is practically an astronomical number.

According to the Spanish government’s fiscal revenue, repaying such an indemnity would take at least 20 years. Even with continuous issuance of government bonds and borrowing from private capital, it would be impossible to repay it within 15 years.

But the French government managed to do it, which proves one thing: the development of French capital and the scale of its industry and economy remain vast, which is also the reason France became a superpower.

However, even though the French government managed to gather 5 billion francs in a short period, it does not mean that 5 billion francs are unimportant to them.

The French government incurred a large amount of national debt because of this, and the heavy economic burden also fell on the shoulders of the French people.

At the same time, capital gained significant power by lending to the government. France is gradually transitioning to capitalism, and the impact on France’s future development is profoundly significant.

Returning to Thiers’ visit to Spain.

This matter was relatively sudden, even Prime Minister Prim learned about it only the day before Thiers arrived in Spain.

By the time Carlo learned of this news, Thiers was already about to arrive in Madrid.

Fortunately, Carlo did not need to personally step in, as Prime Minister Prim’s status and position were sufficient to welcome President Thiers.

For the arrival of this French president, Carlo, although somewhat caught off guard, upon thinking carefully, understood his intentions.

There was no choice; the development of the current situation somewhat surpassed the French government’s expectations.

Considering the development of the current European situation carefully, for France, it is undoubtedly fatal. Firstly, France had completely failed in the competition with Prussia, and the position of European land hegemon had fallen into the hands of the Germans.

Next, there was the policy of isolating France proposed by German Chancellor Bismarck, which currently seemed to have been formed.

Austria-Hungary and Russia were discussing certain matters, which made the French a bit anxious. If Austria-Hungary and Russia reached a compromise, the greatest conflict on the European Continent would become the Franco-German conflict.

Moreover, Austria-Hungary was continuously showing goodwill towards Germany; did this also mean that Austria-Hungary would draw closer to Germany?

The Germans certainly would not reject Austria-Hungary’s goodwill since Austria-Hungary could also help significantly in isolating France.

Meanwhile, Italy, Germany’s ally before its unification, had not been abandoned by the Germans.

Spain and the Italian Royal Family were from the same family and had alliances with Austria-Hungary; they were connected by marriage.

From the worst perspective, the Germans could very likely form a Four-Nation Alliance including Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain, thoroughly isolating France in Western Europe.

If the Germans really managed to accomplish this, then France could forget about development. Northward, France faced the Low Countries, where Britain, France, and Germany all had influence; France could not achieve dominance.

Among all the neighboring countries, only Switzerland, a neutral country, remained, while southward, the route to colonize Africa might still be cut off by Spain and Italy’s union.

France must find every possible way to prevent the formation of this Four-Nation Alliance; otherwise, France’s future development would suffer a devastating blow.

And among the Four-Nation Alliance, Spain was currently the most approachable.

Why is this so? Austria-Hungary was actively drawing closer to Germany; it was impossible for France to win over Austria-Hungary.

Moreover, Italy was Germany’s ally, and because it regained the southern South Tyrol, it had eased tensions with Austria-Hungary.

In contrast, the French occupied the Savoy Region, which Italy ceded, while the Italian Royal Family’s family name was exactly Savoy!

Under such circumstances, winning over Italy was extremely difficult, and Italy’s colonial ambitions in Africa directly conflicted with France’s.

That left Spain, even though Spain was allied with Austria-Hungary and related to the Italian Royal Family, but fortunately, it had little to do with Germany.

As it stood, as long as Spain did not form an alliance with Germany, at least France could use Spain to ensure it would not be completely blocked.

Another piece of good news was that the British would also prevent Spain from colonizing Morocco; therefore, Spain needed a powerful ally to assist itself.

The Germans might not be willing to offend the British for Spain, but the French could not care less.

France itself was already hard-pressed, thus it must exhaust every possible way to win over Spain to break the blockade the Germans were planning for France.