1890-1899 : Wars with Sokoto, the Ottoman Empire and Italy.
Let's talk about the conflicts Portugal was involved in the years between 1890-1899. In 1895, Portugal annexed Sokoto. The Netherlands, still friendly with them, didn't intervene this time.
But that was not the major conflict Portugal was involved in this decade. In 1895, the Ottomans declared war on our sphereling Egypt, to recover the Aleppo region. The troops we were able to commit to the Middle East war theatre were outnumbered by the Turks, and at first we had to make a fighting retreat. But we knew we would win the war eventually, as we had a better technology.
But after a couple of months, the Italians attacked Egypt as well. Casus belli was the Asmara region. Now that was a much more dangerous enemy, one we could not outclass that easily.
What are the Italians even after? This is the Asmara region they wanted.
They even had the guts to invade Spain. Spain had an even worse technology than ourselves.
We choose the easy way out. France had offered us an alliance a couple of years ago. We were allied with UK and France. We could not call both to arms, as one of them would become war leader and would not let us call to arms the other. We picked France, who had a direct border with Italy.
In January 1896, France had already invaded Italy. Fun fact is, Italy was in France's sphere. It was obvious the Italians didn't have a chance against their "cugini d'oltralpe" - cousins from beyond the Alps.
And in Portugal, everybody went "Vive la France!".
"C'est pas trop tot" - they weren't too early. In fact, it's only because of AI incompetence Portugal troops don't get surrounded. Italians troops totally outclassed Portugal's in Egypt, without France's intervention Asmara would have become Italian.
No matter how hard we tried, Italians troop consistently defeated our troops. The main reason was probably that we didn't have any artillery.
We were actually taking one for the team, as France could invade Italy unhindered.
France had already added a wargoal, and I guess it is fair they got something out of this war. Without them, Portugal's defeat would have been certain.
With the Italians out of the picture, we could go on the offensive. The Ottomans were an enemy we could beat without help. But Egypt had signed a peace with the Ottomans, and had ceded them the Aleppo region they wanted. I was not getting it back for them.
This was the situation in August 1897.
By July 1898, as the Ottoman Empire was fully occupied, a Communist Revolt broke out. We wanted it to win, as that would have given us the opportunity to sphere them. It was time to sign a peace treaty.
We dismembered - partly - the Ottoman Empire. Ugly borders - maybe unrealistic - but I wanted to go with the flow and enforced the spherelings' requests, and added a couple of my own.
To connect our African territories to the Mediterranean, we also got the Tripoli provinces, which wasn't considered a place in the sun and therefore cost us a lot of infamy.
In 1899, our sphere includes several new countries : Colombia, Greece, Montenegro, Argentina and the Ionian Islands.
Not sure how it works, and it wasn't planned. But controlling Colombia allows us to build the Panama Canal.
At last we seem to have the economy in our control and manage to have a good positive balance without bleeding our people dry.
We are the fifth industrial power in the world. It seems that at last most of our industries are making a profit.
We financed some railroads the Capitalists were planning to build, as it is always cheaper than building them yourself.
Now the Capitalists are able to actually get something done, and the projects get built consistently. They are fairly rich now.
World map in April 1899.
