Empire Rising: Spain

The relationships among European countries are quite complex, as well demonstrated by the Triple Alliance.

Although Germany did not side with Austria-Hungary in peace negotiations, its self-proclaimed neutral stance also annoyed Russia.

Russia, having paid a great price to win the Russo-Turkish War, saw Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom reaping the benefits instead. This made Tsar Alexander II resent Germany, thus deteriorating German-Russian relations.

For Germany, how to proceed with its relationship with Russia became a very difficult choice.

German Prime Minister Bismarck secretly prepared an alliance with Austria-Hungary, wary of Russia potentially allying with France, while simultaneously wanting to mend relations with Russia and continue isolating France diplomatically.

Amidst such seemingly contradictory diplomatic stances, the German-Austrian Alliance was smoothly signed but remained undisclosed. This alliance treaty seemed more like a private agreement between Germany and Austria-Hungary, with both parties jointly guarding against a possible defection by Russia.

In this alliance treaty, Germany and Austria agreed that should either party be attacked by Russia, the other would assist with all its military forces and refrain from making separate peace treaties.

If one party was attacked by other European countries not including Russia, the other would maintain a benevolent neutrality. If the attacking country received Russian support, the other party should join the war according to the treaty.

This military treaty specifically aimed at guarding against Russia gave Austria-Hungary a sigh of relief and also formally brought Germany and Austria-Hungary closer together.

Germany also began to pay more attention to Austria-Hungary as an ally, since compared to the larger threat of Russia, Austria-Hungary was a more steadfast and manageable ally for Germany.

Although Russia was powerful, it was also an ally that could easily backfire on Germany. A German-led German-Austrian alliance was clearly more reassuring to Germany than the Triple Alliance, where each of the three countries had its own agenda.

With intelligence from the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, Carlo naturally learned about the secret meetings between German and Austrian diplomatic representatives.

From the trajectory of history, Germany ultimately chose Austria-Hungary, while Russia allied with France, thus giving rise to Europe’s two most powerful military coalitions to date, the German-Austrian Alliance and the Franco-Russian Alliance.

The current evolution of the European situation already shows this trend, although the situation is not yet entirely clear. Carlo is also pondering which side Spain should choose when the two great military groups evolve into their final forms, namely the Anglo-French-Russian Alliance Group versus the German-Austrian-Italian Alliance Group.

Carlo currently does not have a definite answer; perhaps only when that moment truly arrives will Carlo know which side Spain should rightfully choose.

For now, Carlo’s most important task is to help Spain build more advantages in the Second Industrial Revolution, trying to narrow the gap with other European countries as much as possible.

While each of the two military groups has three major powers, their actual overall strength is not proportional. The three major powers of the Anglo-French-Russian Entente are all dominant powers, with Russia being slightly weaker due to frequent domestic problems.

However, even such a Russia has a comprehensive strength that surpasses Austria-Hungary.

In the German-Austrian-Italian Alliance, only Germany can truly rival the three of Anglo-French-Russian group, with Austria-Hungary being a tier weaker, and Italy another tier weaker still.

Moreover, Italy is not a steadfast ally at all and actually shifted to the side of the Anglo-French-Russian during the war.

This also caused the First World War situation to essentially be Germany and Austria taking on all of Europe. In the mid to late stages of the war, it evolved into Germany alone against all of Europe.

At the very least, Spain needs to grow to the level of a major power like France and Russia to have hope of changing the course of the First World War on its own strength.

At that point, whether joining the Anglo-French-Russian side or the German-Austrian alliance side, Spain will have options and can ensure its ultimate victory in either case.

As time reached September 1879, Carlo also received two pieces of good news.

The first piece of good news was that with the help of Tesla, Graham’s Electricity Laboratory had successfully developed a more powerful generator.

Graham mainly researched a generator with a ring armature engine driven by hydroelectric power, having a maximum output of 6.5KW.

After Tesla joined the Electricity Laboratory, he proposed a completely different two-phase giant generator design than Graham’s.

With the help of many scientists in the Electricity Laboratory, after more than a year, the Electricity Laboratory finally produced the first-generation product, which is also the world’s first high-power generator.

This high-power generator reached a staggering output of 26.5KW, which is four times the output capacity of the previous generation generator.

This also signifies that the current electric power finally has hopes of being utilized in industrial production, thus genuinely opening the electric age in Spain.

Of course, there are still some challenges to be resolved. Although the generator’s capacity has increased, the transmission of electricity remains a significant difficulty.

Currently, electricity supply for lighting is fine, but for industrial production, at least multiple power plants need to work together for it to be feasible.

Unless the high-loss electricity transmission issue during the process is resolved, the door to the electric industrial age will remain closed.