Pretenders To The Throne
1840 Pretenders To The Throne
It was in 1840 in which Spanish people would come to understand that their ambitions were far greater than the country in which they lived. In the spring of 1840 the war with Tunis drew to a close leaving Tunis with only her capital province and abject humiliation.
An Uneventful War Ends
However Spain has now grabbed most of the "low hanging fruit" and expansion with its meager military would come at an ever increasing cost. The mild expansion of industry that had come as a result of mechanical production had now drawn to a close and neither the private or public sector had the resources to continue an expansion. Where would progress come with such anemic research and innovation ?
When a colonial scandal broke out and further tarnished an already battered political reputation, Spain awoke to the reality that her dreams of empire had never been further away. With a prestige of -40 Spain sat as the 3rd
worst nation in the world with respect to prestige. Stepping on uncivilized nations with an anemic military impressed no one. She was a bully and a remarkably weak one at that.
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We Truly Could Not Afford This
News Abroad
The empire upon which the sun never sets has entered into a difficult conflict in India. Their war with the Panjab has bogged down in northern India, occupying a great deal of British troops and attention. British tension with China has been put on the back burner while she attempts to deal with an extreme agitation. Some believe that this may give the massive nation of China time to prepare itself for any future conflict. Who would know the consequences if this sleeping giant awoke at British provocation.
Economic Report
The predictive power of the Spanish Economic Council seems in doubt. Just as poor Austrian economic performance is predicted, a 17% boom shakes the sleep from a rusty economy. Both the US and PRU, two of the most stable economies to this date, fell into a recession. The cyclical nature of the business nature seems apparent as no nation aside from Spain has strung together constant economic progress. If military expansion slows and new markets do not continue to open for Spanish goods, a decline in growth may be seen.
More troubling than sustaining growth in Spain is the fact that even with growth, catching the other major powers seems an insurmountable feet. Austria, a nation similar to Spain, has over double the GDP per capita.
** Note: The extreme boom / bust pattern thus displayed in the economic data is likely due to several causes. One, already mentioned, is price fluctuation. The young nations have few factories, and when prices shift, they can dramatically impact exports. Secondly and perhaps more importantly is how innovation is implemented. For the most part the impacts are sudden and directly with little integration time. When I discover electricity in the game, the gains are nearly immediate. In reality the integration of electricity and its impact on productivity took a great deal of time. This difference may give rise to the extreme difference in the real GDP growth rates vs Victoria GDP growth rates.
