Chapter 346: Things are always so bad in Iberia
Chapter 343: Things are always this bad in Iberia
In the makeshift meeting room of the Golden Lion Inn, the two unexpected guests sat down around a round table with Arthur and the others.
Just as his buttocks had settled, Napier sized up Louis and Dumas, who were sitting next to Arthur.
The battle-hardened Royal Navy admiral opened his mouth and asked, “Mr. Hastings, can these two men of yours be relied upon? Before we discuss the specifics, you had better be able to confirm that the two of them are not spies sent by the French.”
Arthur lifted his cup and took a sip of tea, “General Napier, you don’t have to worry about that, the two of them won’t be French spies because this fat gentleman beside me holds French nationality as if he were a fake. Normally, he is openly set up for information, there is no need for an undercover agent. Incidentally, he is also a French artilleryman.”
Dumas nodded with a rather flattering sniff, “That’s right, in terms of artillery, I am highly trained.”
Napier laughed heartily at this, “You really are a young man who understands humor. However, if this fat gentleman is a French artilleryman, then what is the origin of this thin officer next to you?”
Arthur raised an eyebrow, “You ask Louis? He’s worse. The guy is a royal relative, and if I remember correctly, he’s second in line of succession in the current Bonaparte family.”
Louis complied by taking off his hat and saluting, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Napier.”
Seeing this battle, Napier also couldn’t help but joke, “Really? Mr. Hastings, is it possible that you have rehearsed this scene before? The lines are all so neatly matched, no wonder those prisoners who were locked up in Scotland Yard could be bluffed by you.”
Arthur didn’t want to continue explaining when he saw that he didn’t believe him, but the secretary of the Foreign Ministry who came with him couldn’t help but open his mouth and clarify to Napier.
“General, Mr. Hastings is telling the truth.”
“The truth?”
Napier froze for half a day before blinking at Arthur, “Young man, are you playing for real? A charge like treason would have to be sent to the House of Lords for a public trial.”
Arthur sniffed with the same wryness, “If being on good terms with the French is treason, then perhaps you should worry about the Duke of Wellington first, who has maintained a friendship with the French ambassador, Mr. Talleyrand, for more than a decade.”
Napier laughed out loud, “Let the House of Lords try the Duke of Wellington? How dare you think of that. When the Duke of Wellington was young, when he didn’t have so much honor, he didn’t even soften his back when he was court-martialed. If the House of Lords really dares to put him on trial, I reckon that Duke Wellington is afraid that he will directly copy his eight marshal’s staffs to whip the Speaker of the House of Lords hard on his ass.”
Hearing this, Arthur just coughed softly, “General Napier, although I don’t mean to be accusatory, it’s always socially inappropriate to satirize a teacher in front of a student.”
It was only when Napier heard this that he suddenly remembered that the Speaker of the House of Lords was none other than Lord Chancellor Brougham.
He scratched the side of his face and rushed back to find a remedy: “Just kidding, don’t take it to heart. I this time it is not easy to be restored by the Ministry of the Navy, can not be because of a joke on …… you should know, the Royal Navy, the ship jokes to relieve boredom is also normal behavior.”
Arthur smiled, “As you said, the Royal Navy, I understand. Once upon a time when I was involved in a chase on the Beagle, they’ve already shown me that.”
Dumas’s brow furrowed furiously when he heard this, and it reminded him of certain not-so-pleasant experiences.
Napier scanned the two Frenchmen back and forth, and suddenly rushed to the Foreign Office secretary at his side and asked, “Are these two really okay here?”
The secretary smiled back with the same smile, “Whether or not these two gentlemen have a problem depends largely on who is in power in France right now. As far as the situation in France is concerned, the two of them are likely to be safer than quite a few Britons, even above the average of the British Foreign Office.”
The speaker had no intention of listening.
Dumas and Louis had been a little distracted, but as soon as they heard this, the two of them caught a whiff of the imminent victory of the revolution.
Dumas pursued, “You finally can’t stand the rule of that tyrant Louis-Philippe across the channel?”
Louis was also a little difficult to hold down the excitement in his heart, his voice sounded a little trembling: “I knew that Talleyrand came to London certainly did not have any good intentions, he betrayed the July Dynasty this time to get the payment should not be low, right?”
Napier was stunned by the reaction of these two Frenchmen for a while before he came to his senses.
“Oh …… after half a day’s mess, it turns out that one is a French political prisoner, and the other is always thinking of restoring Napoleon’s glory in Paris!”
Arthur sipped his tea and said in a salty manner, “General Napier, how can you tell the truth? If one day the French government sends out a letter slamming Scotland Yard for having fallen into a Parisian dissident’s stronghold, you’ll be half responsible.”
Napier joyfully slapped his thighs and laughed, “Only half the responsibility, young man, it seems that you are much more righteous than the Admiralty, and are actually willing to carry the other half yourself.”
“No, Admiral Napier, you have misunderstood.”
Arthur blended some milk into his cup of black tea, “The other half of the responsibility is Director Rowan’s, he is the one in charge of Scotland Yard.”
“Tsk tsk tsk ……”
Napier couldn’t help but give Arthur a high look at what he said, “Young man, remember what I said, just based on what you just said, if you go to do something at the Ministry of Navy in the future, how can you also become the Executive Undersecretary of the Ministry of Navy.”
“The future, who knows?”
Arthur shrugged, “Maybe the Undersecretary of the Admiralty is floating around on whichever sea near South America at the moment.”
Dumas added with a sniff, “If you are measuring the Undersecretary of the Admiralty in that dimension, Mr. Carter has indeed reached the mark. After all, there aren’t too many monkeys these days who can speak English and know water.”
Arthur glanced at Dumas, “That’s right, on this island, monkeys who can speak French have been hanged on the beach as spies.”
Dumas’ eyebrows jumped twice, “I must say, Arthur, you have a good memory, you still remember that case file?”
Arthur just shook his head, “Can’t help it, most of the things I’ve stumbled across about France are rather bizarre and dangling, so I’m too impressed to always forget.”
Napier couldn’t understand what the two were talking about, so he simply changed the topic back.
“Since there’s nothing wrong with the people here, I’ll just keep the Foreign Ministry’s orders straight. I need a merchant ship to Portugal now, and the sooner the departure time, the better.”
“You need a ship as well?”
Arthur rubbed his forehead only to find this absurd, “It seems that London’s port segregation policy is really being enforced too forcefully. To tell you the truth, you are not the first person to come to Liverpool and ask me for a ship’s ticket. The American Legation doesn’t carry enough weight to arrange a ship to America in London. But how dare the harbor management company disobey even an order from the Foreign Office? Is it so difficult to arrange a ship for you from London?”
The Foreign Office secretary waved his hand and said, “Mr. Hastings, you must not misunderstand. The Foreign Office is certainly capable of arranging a ship out of London, but the situation at hand is rather special, and the Foreign Office does not want the news of General Napier’s departure for Portugal to be known by too many people. Moreover, the Admiralty has not officially reinstated Mr. Napier to active duty for the sake of secrecy, and has simply returned his uniform and shoulder boards to him for the time being.”
“This ……”
Arthur had originally thought that Napier had been assigned to command the Liverpool Anti-Smuggling Fleet, but when he heard this series of news, he immediately realized that things didn’t seem to be that simple.
And even faster than Arthur’s reaction were the two French bonded political boys.
They keenly captured the two keywords ‘unofficial’ and ‘Portugal’, and then linked it to Napier’s previous concerns about their French identity as well as the changes in the situation in Europe in recent years, what Napier was going to do had almost come out in a huff.
Louis asked softly, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to intervene in the Portuguese civil war?”
The secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs coughed softly at the words.
“Sergeant Bonaparte, please be careful with your wording, this has nothing to do with the Foreign Ministry, the Foreign Ministry has never officially declared its intention to intervene in the Miguel War, and as I mentioned before, Mr. Napier doesn’t hold an official title in the Royal Navy either, he’s just a free-status person right now.
Where he wants to go, what occupation he wants to pursue, what kind of money he wants to earn, that’s all his freedom. Britain is a free country and we have no right to inquire into personal matters. Of course, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also promotes and encourages the citizens of the country to be able to do what they can, to use their skills to realize their personal values in life, and is happy to help them.”
The secretary had already said his words to this point, so Arthur naturally understood what he meant.
It was as if Viscount Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, had said earlier in the House of Commons, in response to the Polish question, “Just because we have signed the Treaty of Vienna does not mean that we are going to guarantee that the Russians will abide by it.”
If you apply this guideline, just because the Foreign Office doesn’t officially declare its involvement doesn’t mean that the Foreign Office really isn’t involved.
It’s as if, at the time of the Greek War of Independence, Britain had been slow to officially declare war on the Ottoman Empire, but that didn’t stop them from sending a corps of Royal Navy officers headed by Admiral Thomas Cochrane, the ‘Bomb Ship Madman’, to help train the Greek navy.
Because of this, the Greek Navy used a range of standards that were almost exclusively British, and the Greek naval forces became a stronghold of pro-British forces as a result.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Navy, General Andreas Vokos Miaoulis, who was General Cochrane’s deputy in those days, was even elected as one of the members of the Greek Supreme Council of Three as a pro-British leader after the assassination of the President.
It was the success of the Greek experience that led the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to think of repeating it in Portugal.
Britain, as an ally of Portugal for more than 400 years, has maintained very good relations with Portugal since the 14th century.
Only in recent years, due to the fact that ‘things have always been so bad in Spain’, Britain no longer regarded the former oceanic hegemon as a major competitor. Accordingly, Portugal, an ally of the British government that was originally regarded as an unsinkable fortress on the Iberian Peninsula, was neglected.
Of course, the Foreign Office cannot be blamed entirely for this desperation. Rather, it was due to the fact that Portugal was a country that did not look like a Western European country in terms of population, economy or natural conditions, except for its location in Western Europe.
They had neither fertile land like France nor good ports like England, not to mention the coal and iron resources necessary for the Industrial Revolution. Of course, Portugal was not destitute; they were still quite rich in resources in terms of poor mountains, bad water, and unruly people.
The Iberian Peninsula gave Spain the best of its sunshine and, at the same time, Portugal the worst of its natural conditions.
That being said, Portugal’s harsh mountainous and highland terrain doesn’t always play a negative role, or at least it’s very popular with military enthusiasts.
These mountains not only helped Portugal fend off the Spaniards, who had their sights set on annexing it, but also helped the Duke of Wellington, who landed in Portugal at the head of the British army during the Peninsular War.
Wellington has always been good at fighting defensive wars made full use of these favorable terrain, alive half of the Iberian Peninsula has fallen into the hands of Napoleon back.
And the poor natural conditions also made the Portuguese forced to become the ‘first crab in the sea to make a living’, the Great Age of Sail is from this barren land to start.
However, the splendor of the great voyage has now become a bubble of the past, today’s Portugal is not only less concerned by the rest of Europe, and even their own royals do not look at this land.
In 1817, the Portuguese colony of Brazil, unable to stand its own poor family, started a revolution of independence and declared itself the Republic of Brazil.
Although this republic only lasted for 76 days, it finally brought a heavy blow to Portugal, which was barely able to maintain it, and also opened the eyes of the Portuguese domestic opposition to another possibility.
In 1820, the Portuguese, who were deeply affected by the liberal winds of the French Revolution, started a revolution that forced King João VI of Portugal to go into exile in Brazil.
After a year of wrangling between the two sides, João VI and the Constituent Assembly finally agreed to abolish the dictatorship and establish a constitutional monarchy as the premise of the end of the exile to return to the country, while Prince Pedro, the successor of João VI, was left in charge of the management of the local Brazil.
When the members of the Constituent Assembly realized this situation, they immediately sent a message to the king, saying something strange like ‘the prince is a real dragon, it is not appropriate to stay in the land of the barbarians for a long time’, and asked the king to call the prince back to the country.
Not only that, but this group of parliamentarians, who despised Brazil from the bottom of their hearts, also passed a bill to downgrade Brazil, which had already been elevated to the status of a kingdom, back to being an overseas province of Portugal, or a colony.
Such an act naturally aroused the strong resentment of the Brazilians, and the call for independence once again resounded through the streets of Brazil.
At this time, Prince Pedro, who had been left by the king to administer Brazil, resolutely chose to stay in Brazil, and took the initiative to shoulder the important responsibility of the leader of the Brazilian Independence Faction.
The prince, who had been living in exile with his father since the Napoleonic Wars, had strong feelings for the land, and in order to avoid the return of Brazil to colonial status, Prince Pedro even issued a statement that even in his father’s view was very dark.
The first time Prince Pedro learned of the news, he exasperatedly exclaimed, “Even if there is to be a merger, it should be a fourth-rate country, a poor country, Portugal, merged into a first-rate country, Brazil, and not the other way around!”
Later, Prince Pedro also officially released a statement to the public, “For the benefit of all and for the well-being of the entire nation, I have decided to say to everyone that I will remain in Brazil.”
He then officially announced his refusal to comply with the demands of the Portuguese Constituent Assembly.
When the Constituent Assembly was informed of this news, it was also in the spirit of a one-step process that it directly declared the Brazilian government illegal and issued a threat of war against Brazil.
And the first reaction of Prince Pedro, who had just finished training with his cavalry and was drinking and resting on the banks of the Ipiranca River, when he learned of the news, was to stomp this official communication into the mud with his riding boots.
He turned on his horse and announced to his soldiers: “It’s time! Independence or death! We have broken with Portugal!”
The Constituent Assembly immediately sent a counter-insurgency force to Brazil.
Just before the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, on October 12, Pedro I was enthroned in Rio de Janeiro and crowned ‘Emperor and Permanent Protector of Brazil’.
And after a few years of fighting between Portugal and Brazil, the Portuguese finally could not take the Brazilian navy under the tutelage of General Cochrane, the ‘bomb-ship madman’ who had been discharged from the Royal Navy.
And King João VI of Portugal to see his son actually so out of the blue, in the heartbroken himself reduced to a constitutional king, at the same time, his son are mixed into the behavior of the Brazilian emperor is also quite pleased.
So, in the end, João VI was able to get Portugal to recognize Brazil’s independence.
Prince Pedro dared to take on his old father, and his brother was no less a hero.
On the principle of the half-breed beating his old man to death, while the eldest son, Prince Pedro, led Brazil in the ‘Teach Dad a Lesson’ campaign, the second son, Prince Miguel, also mixed up as the leader of the Portuguese absolutists and decisively opened his ‘ Operation Exterminate Dad’.
In 1823, the absolutists, led by Prince Miguel, swooped in and aimed their troops directly at the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, demanding the dissolution of parliament and the abolition of the constitution.
João VI, who was sitting on two dutiful sons, really could not deal with two sons at the same time, so he had to make concessions to the rebels, and gave the title of Commander-in-Chief of the entire Portuguese army to Prince Miguel.
The old king thought that now his son should always stop, but I did not expect the next year, Prince Miguel again, but this time, early defense of João VI let him see what is ‘your father is your father’.
The rebels suffered an unprecedented defeat and Prince Miguel was arrested. Subsequently, João VI declared Prince Miguel persona non grata and ordered his expulsion from the country, so Miguel had no choice but to slink off to Austria to hug Metternich’s leg.
And by the time 1826 came around, João VI choked himself to death while eating something he wasn’t paying attention to.
Although this method of death sounds as implausible as a czar having a stroke, the pragmatic Portuguese were quick to accept this fact.
The unexpected death of the king also brought a new problem, that is, the king did not clearly designate an heir before his death.
So there was once again a ‘great and passionate discussion’ in Portugal around the issue of the succession to the throne, with the liberals supporting João VI’s eldest son, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, to succeed to the Portuguese throne, while the absolutists supported the second son, Prince Miguel.
In the fight for the throne, the liberals, who held the government, struck first, and they preemptively declared Pedro as the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Portugal.
The absolutists, on the other hand, declared the liberals unconstitutional, arguing that Prince Pedro could not succeed to the Portuguese throne while being Emperor of Brazil.
Seeing that the two factions were about to gudgeon each other in the outskirts of Lisbon, Pedro, anxious to solve the problem, hastened to promulgate a Magna Carta in 1826 to replace the constitution drawn up in 1822.
Pedro also declared that he would not succeed to the Portuguese throne, but would give the title to his seven-year-old daughter Maria, while his brother, Prince Miguel, the leader of the absolutist faction, would marry his seven-year-old niece, in order to bridge the gap between the two groups.
On Pedro’s initiative, Prince Miguel was to be regent until Queen Maria came of age.
After Maria came of age, Portugal was ruled by the couple.
I call you brother, you call me father, we were originally a family, this is the kiss on the family, live together, can still leave what?
However, although Pedro I thought very good, but Prince Miguel obviously and his brother’s concept is not quite the same.
Does not love lolita, do not love nieces, and even more have no intention of lowering the generation, thinking very Catholic devotee Prince Miguel on the surface to accept his brother’s proposal, but he returned to the country in 1828, things began to move towards the fast track of civil war.
When Prince Miguel assumed power, he immediately turned against his own brother.
He refused to accept the Magna Carta, declared the restoration of the monarchical dictatorship and, following the ancient system of holding a three-tiered council attended by the clergy, the nobility and the commoners, proclaimed himself King of Portugal.
More than that, he pulled in the recognition of the United States, Russia, Spain and the Holy See early on, ready to have his way with his elder brother.
The Portuguese Civil War began in 1829 and was officially fought.
Originally, the British government had been watching the Portuguese Civil War with a cold eye, as Britain had always had little interest in this kind of domestic affair with little oil.
However, the July Revolution in France in 1830, followed by the independence of Belgium and the Polish Uprising finally alerted the Foreign Office.
Although the British Foreign Office was not a neighborhood matron, much less the Inquisition, if this messy family business continued to be left unattended ……
A bad win for the Portuguese liberals would probably result in a reversal to France, while a win for the absolutists would probably result in a reversal to Austria or Czarist Russia.
Arthur thought of this, for General Napier’s sudden visit, finally have a clear perception.
It seemed impossible not to give him the go-ahead on this matter.
Arthur sighed: ”Okay, I know, the matter of finding a ship I will let someone arrange it as soon as possible. But …… the Ministry of Foreign Affairs now still have the spare energy to care about Iberia, it seems that people say that Viscount Palmerston has a lot of energy, this statement is really not false.”
The Foreign Office secretary was also relieved to hear that the problem had been solved.
He took his hand on the table and spoke, “Who says it isn’t? The group has tossed him around enough, and His Excellency the Viscount is purely using us as donkeys. However, Mr. Hastings, after not seeing you for so long, you haven’t had an easy time! Do you remember me? We met at the Foreign Office.”
Hearing this, Arthur re-examined the other party before he tapped his head and said, “Ah! You’re the affairs officer who came from the German Hessian Duchy?”
(End of chapter)