Empire Rising: Spain

After Spain successfully established its colonial rule over the Cameroon Region, other European countries were not willing to lag behind and accelerated their colonization efforts in Africa.

Unlike Spain, which focused solely on West Africa, the European Powers led by the UK, France, and Germany set their sights on the entire continent of Africa.

This led to Germany, after failing to colonize Cameroon, wasting no time in turning to other parts of Africa.

After all, there was still plenty of African land untouched by European Powers, and despite Germany’s strength, there was no need to engage in a life-or-death struggle with Spain over the Cameroon Region.

It must be mentioned that Germany had its eyes on many places.

Apart from Cameroon, they were also interested in the Gold Coast and East Africa.

Of course, this Gold Coast was not Spain’s Gold Coast Colony but the area commonly referred to by European countries as the Gold Coast.

The area Germany truly had its sights on was the region east of Spain’s Gold Coast, later known as Togo.

This region was rich in mineral resources, though unlike the Gold Coast occupied by Spain, Togo’s mineral wealth was primarily in phosphates, limestone, barite, quartz sand, manganese, and other ores.

While these minerals might not sound as enticing as gold, silver, or diamond mines, nor could they directly propel industrial progress like coal and iron mines,

they still served a significant purpose, particularly phosphates, the primary raw material for producing agricultural fertilizers that could effectively increase crop yields on barren lands.

Spain’s homeland still had a great need for various agricultural fertilizers to boost food production, which indicated that the minerals in the Togo region were also of great importance to Spain.

Thus, almost simultaneously with Giotto’s conquest of the Bam Kingdom, troops from the Gold Coast side were being dispatched to continually invade Yoruba lands.

The land occupied by the Yoruba was precisely what would later be known as Togo, caught between Spain’s Gold Coast and Vida Colony.

Since it was on the planned connection line from Spain’s Gold Coast to the Congo Territory, Spain could not afford to let Germany lay claim to this land.

The good news was that several centuries ago, the Portuguese had already set foot on Yoruba lands.

Of course, a few Spanish explorers and colonists had also reached this region, but Spain ultimately colonized the Guinea Colony in Guinea Bay.

Nevertheless, the descendants of these Portuguese colonists could still be utilized. Spain had acquired several West African colonies from Portugal, and these Portuguese, who had fully immigrated to Africa, could only submit to Spanish rule.

By leveraging the long-term colonial influence of the Portuguese on this land, Spain could more swiftly seize the Yoruba lands to thwart Germany’s potential rise and avoid any interference between Spain’s Gold Coast Colony and the Congo Territory.

Because European colonizers hastened their colonial progress in Africa, regional wars erupted across Europe.

Many nations emulated Germany’s actions, abandoning their previous strategies of economic colonization in favor of quickly establishing colonial rule through military force.

The visible manifestation was the massive weaponry orders countries placed during this period to lay the groundwork for their African colonization.

It’s worth noting that since the advent of breech-loading guns, Spain’s standard-issued rifles hadn’t changed in over a decade.

Since its inception, the Vitali M1872 Rifle had been the standard gear for the Royal Spanish Army and Guard Army and was widely equipped in Spain’s colonial armies.

In the 1870s, the design of this rifle was highly advanced, maintaining the Spanish Army’s combat capabilities at a top-tier European level.

However, it was undeniable that as time passed, the Vitali M1872 Rifle had gradually fallen behind. This firearm, an improvement based on the earliest Swiss Vitali breechloader, was nearing the point of needing to step down.

More importantly, 1884 marked a particularly exceptional year.

For the military industries of various countries, 1884 would see the birth of a groundbreaking invention—a smokeless powder that would reshape the history of firearms.

In fact, the discovery of smokeless powder traces back to a routine experiment by Swiss chemist Schonbein in 1845.

On an ordinary day in 1845, during an experiment, Schonbein accidentally knocked over a bottle containing a nitric and sulfuric acid mixture. As the solution splashed onto the table, he casually wiped it with a cotton apron and then set it near the fire to dry it.

To his surprise, as the apron approached the stove, there was a "puff" sound, and the apron vanished like magic, without producing any smoke.

Schonbein immediately realized this was a significant discovery. Reflecting on the entire experiment, he successfully identified a new compound for gunpowder production, which he named "guncotton."

This new compound, later known as nitrocellulose, is a crucial ingredient in smokeless powder production.

However, at that time, nitrocellulose was unstable. At temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, it would decompose and spontaneously combust.

This resulted in a series of unfortunate events for chemists attempting to study this new compound. In nearly 40 years that followed, there were numerous reports of lab fires or even explosions linked to nitrocellulose research.