Chapter 282: The Renewed Three Emperors' Alliance

The colony receiving the largest number of Asante Indigenous People was naturally Spain’s Gambia Colony. As a key colony for agricultural development in Spain’s West Africa Development Plan, the Gambia Colony needed a large amount of labor to reclaim land and maintain the operation of plantations.

The land reclaimed by these indigenous laborers would be used to attract more European immigrants. Only by increasing the number of European immigrants in the colony could the colony’s stability be maintained.

European immigrants also engaged in cultivation, of course, but these were only a very small minority. Most people could obtain certain loans from Spain’s two official banks, and using this money to hire cheap indigenous laborers, opening a farm or plantation would definitely be more profitable than cultivating the land themselves.

Of course, agricultural planting was not the only option for European immigrants. Immigrants with more substantial capital could engage in mineral exploration, and encountering valuable minerals could multiply their property several times over, even instantly making them millionaires.

There were also commercial activities and so on—these jobs that earned more money and were easier were what European immigrants, especially Spanish immigrants, should do.

As more and more Asante Indigenous People were transported away, the other tribes of the federation finally noticed something was wrong.

Although the Spanish Army had not launched an attack on them, Spain’s ruling strategy in the Ashanti was clearly not going to let things rest easily.

Several larger tribes gathered again, attempting to rebuild the Chieftains’ Council and discuss how the federation should continue after the Ashanti Tribe was gone, while trying to avoid war with Spain as much as possible.

The actions of these larger tribes drew great attention from the Gold Coast Colony. To dispel these indigenous people’s doubts, the Gold Coast Colony made a major decision: to directly launch a war against these indigenous people.

The reason for launching the war was easy to find, and even whether there was a reason or not was not that important.

A few days later, the Gold Coast Colony used the excuse that the Ashanti Federation had harbored a large number of Ashanti soldiers during Spain’s war against the Ashanti Tribe, and directly launched a war against the Ashanti Federation.

The unprepared tribes of the federation experienced the panic and fear that the Ashanti Chieftain had gone through half a month earlier. They feared following in the Ashanti Chieftain’s footsteps—not only would all their family members be massacred by the Spaniards, but tribes passed down for hundreds of years would also be destroyed because of it.

The Spanish Army’s decision to attack was the same as the previous attack on the Ashanti Tribe: emphasizing speed is of the essence, striving to deal with these indigenous tribes in the shortest possible time.

In a short time, these indigenous tribes could not muster many people. Transmitting information took time, and mobilizing manpower for these indigenous tribes also took time.

This period was the golden window for the Spanish attack. Because the tribes had not yet reacted, the Spanish Army could defeat them one by one without worrying about these tribes forming a federal army to resist Spain’s attack.

As long as the chieftains of these tribes were controlled, it was equivalent to controlling these indigenous tribes. Indigenous chieftains were all afraid of death; as long as they did not want to lose their lives immediately, they had to cooperate with the Spanish Colonial Government.

It was worth mentioning that the first target of the Spanish Army’s attack was the tribe that had escorted the Ashanti Chieftain to the Spanish-controlled area half a month earlier.

At that time, Spain had rewarded that tribe’s tribal chief with a large amount of food, which also put the other chieftains of the entire federation at ease, thinking that they and their tribes had escaped disaster.

Unexpectedly, this was just Spain’s delaying tactic. After Spain fully controlled the Ashanti Tribe situation, the butcher’s knife still swung toward these remaining tribes.

The anxious tribal chiefs immediately summoned the tribe’s indigenous people, planning to form a federal army again to resist Spain’s colonial invasion.

But they forgot one important thing: when facing the British colonial invasion before, they had only handed the army over to the federation’s ruler, the Ashanti Chieftain, and managing their own tribes well ensured the safety of the entire federation.

But now, the federation’s ruler was gone, and the major tribes had never decided on a new great chieftain for the federation.

Without unified and effective management, even if these tribes were willing to send troops to resist Spain’s colonial invasion, it was doomed to be in vain.

The ultimate result of lacking a leader was that each tribe fought on its own. Without unified orders, the first priority for soldiers sent by each tribe was to protect their own tribe—after all, these native soldiers’ families lived in their respective tribes, and they could not remain indifferent to their families’ safety.

This also gave Spain the opportunity to defeat them one by one. The largest remaining tribe in the Ashanti Federation had only a few hundred thousand people, and smaller tribes had only over a hundred thousand or even fewer than a hundred thousand.

In such a situation, tribes fighting independently could not resist the Spanish Army’s attack with their own strength.

In less than a day, the large tribe closest to the Ashanti Tribe was successfully occupied by Spain.

This was like knocking over dominoes. In the following week, several tribes were conquered by the Spanish Army, including two tribes with populations in the hundreds of thousands.

In just one week, more than half of the Ashanti Federation’s large tribes had been conquered by Spain. The remaining tribes combined did not have as large a population as the Ashanti Tribe.

This also meant one thing: Spain’s complete occupation of the Ashanti Federation’s land had become not a distant future.

The remaining tribes continuing to stay on this land meant their destruction was only a matter of time.

There were smart people among these indigenous people too. Some tribes directly chose to flee to the more northern mountains and forests amid the federation’s successive defeats, to evade the Spanish Army’s attack.

This was a difficult choice for these indigenous people. The Ashanti Federation was already inland in the Gold Coast; their tribes were at the federation’s northernmost point, which was also why the Spanish Army had not yet attacked the land where their tribes were located.

Fleeing further north meant there would be little land left for survival. Because further north was the vast Sahara Desert, an uninhabited wasteland spanning over 9 million square kilometers.

But they had no choice but to flee. The Spanish Army would not give them more time; besides continuing to flee north, these tribes could only wait to die in place.

As for the east or west directions, they were similarly not within the indigenous tribes’ considerations. Because these two directions also had indigenous forces, rashly leading the tribe there could very likely result in their tribe being annexed by other indigenous forces.

Although European colonists were the common enemy of African indigenous people, this did not mean different African ethnic groups would join hands to resist European colonists.

Not to mention different African ethnic groups—even different indigenous tribes under the same ethnic group were unlikely to unite against foreign invasion.

It had to be admitted that the choice of these indigenous tribes fleeing north was indeed successful. Although there were still indigenous forces north of the Ashanti Federation, compared to the indigenous forces on the east and west sides of the Ashanti Federation, the northern indigenous forces were not that strong.

The Spanish Army also knew when to stop. After fully occupying the land originally belonging to the Ashanti Federation, they had no intention of attacking further north into the Gonga Kingdom.

Although the Gonga Kingdom was weaker than the Ashanti Federation, Spain’s continuous wars would definitely cause panic among these nearby indigenous nations.

Normally, they could not unite, but under the oppression of a strong enemy like Spain, it might really lead these indigenous nations to join together to resist Spain’s colonial invasion.

This would be more loss than gain for Spain. Moreover, handling the several million people of the Ashanti Federation would take some time, so the Spanish Army had no plans to set foot on land outside the Ashanti Federation, at least not in the short term.

This annexation of the Ashanti Federation had already expanded the Gold Coast Colony’s land by nearly double. The next period needed to properly digest it.

Of course, large-scale mineral exploration on the Ashanti Federation’s land was also very necessary. Whether gold mines or other mineral resources, Spain would not let any go.

If one or two large gold mines could be discovered, that would be even better. After all, besides its extremely high value, gold also represented the stability of Spanish currency.

For handling the population of the federation’s other tribes, the Gold Coast Colony Government still adopted the old method. The elderly and children of the entire federation numbered in the hundreds of thousands; Spain would show no mercy toward these indigenous people who produced no economic value.

As for the remaining adult indigenous people, they still had high economic value. As long as they did not court death, the Gold Coast Colony Government was happy to retain these laborers and let them create greater value elsewhere.

Not long after Spain took the Ashanti Federation, two major international events occurred in succession.

The first major event was the renewal of the Three Emperors’ Alliance.

As mentioned before, after the Russo-Turkish War, relations between Germany and Russia had dropped to freezing point. Alexander II had even nearly torn up the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty, choosing to ally with France against Germany.

After Alexander II was assassinated, the Russian Government became more low-key in diplomacy. This gave German Chancellor Bismarck an opportunity; if possible, he still wanted to repair relations with Russia and continue maintaining the Three Emperors’ Alliance.

Not long after Alexander II was assassinated, German Chancellor Bismarck summoned the Russian ambassador to Germany and expressed Germany’s desire to maintain friendly relations with Russia.

The Russian Government, which needed a stable environment at this time, immediately seized the olive branch extended by Bismarck. The Russian Government did not want to tear up the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty; only by staying under the Three Emperors’ Alliance could Russia maintain long-term stability.

With Germany willing and Russia interested, relations between Germany and Russia quickly warmed.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire also saw the repair of Germany-Russia relations. Plus, after the Russo-Turkish War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had taken Bosnia and Herzegovina, so it was also willing to repair relations with Russia—after all, Germany had clearly expressed its intent to pull Russia closer.

And so, the Three Emperors’ Alliance was established once again.

Diplomatic ambassadors from the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire held a cordial meeting in Berlin with German Chancellor Bismarck and re-signed an alliance agreement.

This alliance agreement made certain modifications to the previous alliance agreement among the three countries, and overall, it was satisfactory to the three governments.

The treaty stipulated that if any country concluding the alliance treaty went to war with a fourth country, the other two contracting parties should maintain benevolent neutrality and try to localize the conflict.

The so-called localization of conflict was easy to understand: avoiding the outbreak of large-scale multi-country wars.

This was actually a lesson from France’s launch of the Tunis War for the three countries. Even though France had made full preparations, it still lost quite a few advantages to the Italians.

The real reason the Italians gained advantages was support from the Spaniards; intervention by great powers would play an extremely important role in war.

Localizing the conflict could ensure that Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary did not have to worry about intervention by other great powers in war. After all, their allies were not fake; when war was interfered with by other great powers, their allies could also intervene to ensure they would not be isolated in peace talks.

The second provision was that any change regarding the Ottoman Empire’s European territory must be permitted only through joint agreement by all contracting parties.

The main purpose of this provision was to ease contradictions between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Ottoman Empire’s territory in Europe was only the Balkan Peninsula, which was eyed by both Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Since the Three Emperors’ Alliance was to be maintained, Germany definitely could not side with the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the conflict between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Russian Government added this provision mainly to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Germany’s support, from controlling the Balkan Peninsula and blocking Russia’s path south.

The treaty’s third and final major item stipulated that the Straits of Constantinople must not be handed over by the Ottoman Empire to any belligerent country for military action.

This was also easy to understand: it was mainly for Russia to prevent Britain from blockading its Black Sea Fleet.

The fleets of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would not pass through the Straits of Constantinople, so the beneficiary of this item was basically only Russia.

From the treaty’s three major items, it could be seen that to keep Russia in the Three Emperors’ Alliance, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had made certain concessions.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire guaranteed it would not continue expanding in the Balkan Peninsula without Russia’s permission; Germany guaranteed that Russia would not be blockaded by Britain in the Straits of Constantinople during war with Britain.

Only through the concessions of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire did they get Russia’s reward: Russia would continue to stay in the Three Emperors’ Alliance, and alliance between France and Russia was just an impossible speculation.

No one knew what Britain and France thought of the re-signing of the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty, but in any case, the Three Emperors’ Alliance continuing was absolutely good news for Carlo and Spain.

The reason was simple. The Three Emperors’ Alliance was mainly aimed at France, which also made France absolutely dare not tear faces with Spain and Italy.

After the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty was signed, Russia would definitely pause getting closer to France.

If France offended Spain and Italy to death, then in the whole of Europe, except Britain, basically all would be France’s enemies.

Do not forget, the hatred between Britain and France was also not shallow. The situation of doing so would be France being ganged up on by the whole of Europe—not to mention the current France, even if Napoleon were alive, he could not lead France to continue sitting steadily as the European hegemon in such a diplomatic environment.

Since France would not tear faces with Spain and Italy, it meant Spain could continue deeply developing its West African colonies and expanding the existing West African colonies.

These years were also the best opportunity for Spain to develop West African colonies. If following the historical process, waiting until the Three Emperors’ Alliance collapsed a few years later and once the Franco-Russian Alliance was formed, France would not be so polite to Spain and Italy.

France with powerful allies would no longer fear war with Spain, and Spain should seriously consider the consequences of offending two superpowers at the same time.

The signing of the Three Emperors’ Alliance Treaty was only one of the international major events during this period. The other international major event was the news of the assassination of current US President Garfield.

Although the United States was not highly regarded in Europe, it was still a great power, and the assassination of the US President was not small news.

More importantly, just a few months earlier, Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated, and now US President Garfield was assassinated again, which made the monarchs of various European countries start worrying about their own safety.

With the development of weapons, assassinating rulers had become increasingly easy. Currently, rifles in various countries had all evolved into breech-loading rifles, which not only had greater shooting power but also longer shooting distance.

As long as the torso was hit with a rifle, no matter what identity the person had, the final result was only death.

Only people with particularly good luck could survive, but overall, it was still nine deaths and one life.

The power of rifles was not as simple as in games. Especially high-powered rifles—a single shot would penetrate the body, forming a huge wound the instant it passed through.

Although the muzzle from the front was only a few centimeters in diameter, the exit wound on the back was often over ten centimeters.

Even if not hitting the head, as long as hitting the torso, it could cause severe damage to internal organs.

Such injuries, let alone in the current medical environment, even with later medical technology, without timely treatment, there was still a high risk of death.

The successive news of assassinations of rulers from great power countries made the rulers of many European countries start worrying about their own safety and increase investments in their personal security forces.

Carlo was naturally among them. As the saying goes, in a big forest, there are all kinds of birds; Carlo dared not guarantee that Spain would not produce a few extremists with rather radical thoughts.

If really attacked by such extremists with a gun, that would be a big trouble. The medical technology of this era was so poor; Carlo would not entrust his life to this era’s medical technology.

The best solution was to strengthen personal security while avoiding public appearances as much as possible.

Fortunately, the vehicles Carlo rode in were specially modified; speed was not required, but safety had to be top-level.

To ensure the safety of himself and royal family members, Carlo allocated a new fund to the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, letting Director Cadillac increase infiltration of domestic intelligence to avoid assassination incidents.

Speaking of the assassinated US President Garfield, this president was absolutely an extremely unlucky victim of backward medical technology.

As the second US President assassinated after Lincoln, Garfield’s assassination incident caused widespread discussion in the United States.

Although only 50 years old, Garfield had considerable seniority. He had participated in the Civil War early on and was promoted to major general rank.

He had also served in the Christian church and became the first president in US history with clerical identity.

However, this US president, excellent in mathematical talent and with clerical identity, did not have much good luck.

He was assassinated at his country’s capital Washington train station by an unemployed lawyer. From a distance of less than two meters from the president, this lawyer drew a revolver and quickly fired two shots: one pierced the president’s arm, the other hit the torso causing massive bleeding for the president.

Worth mentioning was that Garfield’s outing had no security guards with him. The ones who subdued the assassin were the train station’s security personnel, which was also why the assassin could get within two meters of the president before firing.

It was precisely the sufficiently close distance that effectively increased the pistol’s hit rate. Although the assassin only fired two bullets, both hit the president’s body.

For President Garfield, the good news was that neither shot hit a vital area. The arm shot naturally went without saying; as long as disinfected and bandaged in time, there would absolutely be no life threat.

The torso shot looked dangerous but actually missed all important parts and was theoretically non-fatal.

As long as the bullet could be found and treated promptly, the president would similarly have no life threat.

But unfortunately, this era had no X-ray technology; this technology would not be invented until 14 years after Garfield’s assassination.

The American doctors naturally knew to find the bullet to bandage the wound; how did they search for the bullet that entered the president’s body? The answer was with their hands.

Yes, stretching unsterilized fingers into the wound to explore.

This not only worsened the president’s injury but also put Garfield’s wound at risk of infection.

In history, President Garfield died in this unfortunate way. He did not die from the assassin’s assassination; he died from the doctors’ treatment of him.

Worth mentioning was that to find the bullet in the president’s body, the president’s medical team even sought help from telephone inventor Bell, hoping he could invent a metal detector.

Bell did manufacture such a metal detector, but the president’s medical team did not fully follow Bell’s instructions; when using the detector, they did not avoid contact with other metals, causing the detector to fail to find the bullet in the president’s body.

Of course, all this had not happened yet.

When the news of US President Garfield’s assassination reached Europe, it immediately became hot news in various European countries.

The kings of each country were strengthening their guard forces while mocking that US President Garfield actually went out without any security guards.

Besides strengthening his own guard forces, Carlo also increased investment in medical technology. As the saying goes, even the most careful plan has a loophole; Carlo dared not be certain that he would never encounter an assassination in his life.

How to survive after being assassinated was something Carlo needed to consider and strive to achieve.

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