Ryan Thomas' RP Archives

In the eyes of the Spanish navy, the Isabella-class battleship proved a general success, providing a balanced battleship which appropriately responded to the needs of Spain for a limited range navy, as a battleship which would be able to operate at the heart of a system of destroyers, submarines, and attack aircraft. Thus when the navy went on to design its successor, named the Manilla-class after the recently recaptured city of Manilla, it continued to broadly use the design of the Isabella, viewing the Manilla-class as an evolution of the Isabella class. The new ship would bring additional firepower, both in terms of its main battery and the second battery (the latter principally against enemy aircraft, even if it was decided to maintain the split battery found on the previous vessel), some improvements to protection, and various improvements to range and habitability in order to make it more capable of Pacific operations in the defense of Spain's new colonies in the Philippines....

Part of the need for any powerful nation in the current era is to have a powerful airline. An airline provides a visible symbol of the power and prestige of a state, with the landing of advanced modern aircraft across the world, the degree of commercial success being visible simply in the number of aircraft that land with the flag of their nation affixed to their aircraft's tail. It provides for an outlet and a destination for the industrial manufacture of aircraft, when otherwise there exists precious little reason to purchase aircraft, beyond military orders, as well as providing a source of pilots. And it of course, helps improve transport links, bringing people faster to new destinations, contributing to the success of the national economy.  For these various reasons, it is of the utmost importance for Spain to cultivate an important and capable national airline, a flag carrier. This must be capable of serving internal Spanish routes, as well as providing for international conn...

Unity is the word which must stand as part of the national pantheon of patriotism which every Spaniard must guard in their soul, and it must be on the lips of every son of Spain. Unity, for without its sacred touch the nation, the fatherland, risks to founder upon the rocks of chaos, unity, which guides the spirit of Spain, unity, which casts out the enemies of civilization and which purifies the guiding light of our liberties and the justice of our social order. A nation united is one built on solid foundations: a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Spain must be like the great nations of Europe - Germany, England, France, Italy - who, despite their quarrels, have proudly cemented the precious ties of nationhood, to not render the national people into divided groups, even when they fight for what they view as the truth of the national polity. For in Spain, it is clearly not the case that the wise example of this policy has been followed. Instead, we are confronted with the c...

Citizens of the Spain! For many of us in Madrid, even as we hoped against it in our hearts, even as we still held out in valiant belief that our suspicions of treason on the part of the Basques and the Catalonians were incorrect, we always knew that this day would come. We knew it with terrible clarity, we knew that these disloyal, these treasonous, these anti-Spanish elements would rise up in hatred against the great Spanish nation, against the fatherland and her acts. Not all of the Catalans and Basques have risen up, and some still remain loyal to the great Spanish nation, but enough among them have to raise the specter of civil war - a war we never wanted, we who interest ourselves only in peace and nationhood, but a war which they call upon our poor and beleaguered land nevertheless! These provincial bandits, so obsessed with their regional parochialism, with their fanatical anti-Spanish hatred, with arrogant feelings of superiority as compared to the rest of the citizens of the...

The Spanish Navy of the 1930s was a navy which was in a period of reconstruction, after its previous decline, as it attempted to build a force capable of coastal defense. Most of its ships by the 1930s were old at best of obsolete at worst, as could be testified by the Espana-class - which had to be taken out of service and the guns mounted as coastal defense artillery, for it was obviously the case that they would be completely useless in a naval exchange. There was also the question of what exactly the Spanish navy wanted to do, with ideas of a great ocean-faring fleet being obviously impossible in light of limited Spanish resources. Instead, in building new ships, Spain's fleet was supposed to be capable of defending the shores of Spain, supporting its colonies, raiding trade lines directly off its coast, and other limited naval tasks. This implied a fleet, which despite a limited battleship component, would above all else be focused on lighter ships, like submarines and destr...