ADMIRAL TOROBOTE ENGAGES IN FILTHY INTERCOURSE WITH THE BRITISH THEN CHEATS WITH AMERICANS.
Spain left feeling weak and empty.
The BULL SEAT
Spain's Naval Century blog
( ... )
As the 21st century dawned, Spain was left floundering. Long considered the weakest among the Great Powers, Spain had to contend with multiple civil wars and losing its overseas territories one by one through revolution and intercine conflict. "The Spanish people are ungovernable", Amadeo I had proclaimed
as he walked away from the throne in disgust, and from the First Republic to the Restoration of the Monarchy and then ousted to form the Second Republic and
then the New Monarchy, and the Phony War with America ended only because America was confused as to whom they were actually fighting... the turn of the century saw Spain bleed heavily whatever prestige, economic and military might it could present as a colonial power for frankly just
stupid reasons.
Among the nations, Spain was an unpredictable madman that was tolerable mainly because he bludgeoned himself to collapse before he could ever be a serious threat to anybody. It was a mad age and needed a mad solution.
The Mad Bull of Seville
Admiral Pinguno Torobote entered stage by successfully stopping the revolutions in both Cuba and the Philippines. He argued for radical changes were proposed in order to maintain order through Spain's far-flung colonies. All people born whether in Europe or in the colonies would not just be subjects of Spain, but full citizens and thus deserved representation in the Cortes. In exchange for accepting the grievances laid out by the insurrectos, the colonies would have greater independence similar to the relationship between Great Britain and Canada, and the Crown to Australia, in which they would largely now be self-ruling with obligations only to provide manpower and military basing when required. In exchange for Spain no longer imposing any direct tax, the colonies had to work to improve their own self-sufficiency and much stricter separation of powers between church, state, and judiciary.
Most of all, what people demanded was real justice instead of the system of patronage and naked bribery that passed for in the islands. New, impartial judges were sent to the islands and the police forces formed of the natives were called to enforce the laws without regard to wealth or position. Eager young men became evangelists of their new society, only to run against young native priests now finally allowed to rise to authority and more familiar with the real needs of their flock. Ironically both despite their frictions worked to stabilize unrest. Educational reforms had actually begun in the mid-1860s but never actually carried out from lack of funding and pushback from the friars who in their Orders and colleges maintained an effective monopoly over higher education in the colonies. The New Monarchy by Alfonso XII continued the reforms instituted by his mother, Isabella II, backed by stronger legitimacy and the support of most of the army and the navy.
Pinguno Torobote was the King's Mad Bull and Alfonso XII showed an extreme amount of trust to the admiral. It was claimed that the the King was saved from an early death by the Admiral, and in exchange was given a free hand with constructing the Navy. The New Monarchy's power rested strongly upon its navy because for the first time unrest in the mainland could be threatened to be quelled by bringing in colonial soldiers instead of usually the opposite with the army suppressing revolt.
All of these reforms and shedding colonial obligations left the country with only a trickle of the former colonial riches it used to be able to collect.
Admiral Torobote's solution was radical and almost set off another civil war and had him the subject of more than several assassination attempts.
Compromised Morals
When the American South seceded over the issue of slavery, European powers largely decided to insulate themselves from that hot mess. The Confederate States lacked the industrial capacity to match the North in naval power, and had to rely on unconventional and asymmetric warfare.
However, seeing their desperation, Admiral Torobote proposed a radical solution.
In exchange for large quantities of raw goods, gold, trade agreements, and the firm guarantee to actually start the process of true emancipation (that nonetheless would leave most black citizens as an easily-exploited underclass), Spain would sell them the bulk of their Navy to instantly put their ship numbers approaching parity with the USA. Spain would give them
all their battleships, all but two of their Armored Cruisers, and almost
all their Light Cruisers and Destroyers.
With this support and the open proclamation of the Staged Freedom Guarantee, the Confederacy was able to somewhat undercut the North's basis for warfare and stalemated them long enough to form an armistice. The secession from the United States was still a thorny question, and while fighting could still erupt Spain didn't care about any of that because they already had what they wanted.
It was a very hated measure of realpolitik that nonetheless saw Spain quickly enriched, and Admiral Torobote quickly put that money to work buying two more modern battleships of his design from the British.
Perhaps the most divisive quality of Admiral Torobote was that he was a mulatto. Equal parts Black, White, Native Carribean and Asian through his parents and grandparents, the hatred for his support for slavers was only matched by the surprised acknowledged that he actually made it work and bilked so many advantages out of people who disdained him for his skin, and that it did end slavery in its own way. Good or evil, what mattered most for Spain was that it worked.
(scribbled on the edges:
Seriously, what kind of voodoo space magic did he pull to make this possible?)
The Empty Rolls of the Navy
Nonetheless, despite the Spanish Empire being at peace in itself for the first time in half a century, the Spanish Navy was left in a poor state. They were left with just four ships in the effective battlefleet (all other ships sold to the self-ruling colonies and only a mild expectation that the armada could be collected again). Torobote needed new ships and he needed them quickly.
Surprisingly, Torobote pulled his strange wordy magic again and managed to talk the United States into building more of his ships. Likely it was due to how much of an intelligence coup it would be, the US Navy would have a clear idea of what goes into those ships and how they performed. That predictability would be very useful in case they ever faced each other in war, and the money paid could be put to building their own more effective ships.
As December 1899 turned into January 1900, everyone looked at Spain with a mixture of pity and disdain. Even Austria-Hungary, who had no real colonial assets to speak of, could beat them up - that everyone prophesized the death of Spain as a Great Power.
But Torobote's madness wasn't done just yet.