According
to the newspaper Diario of Lisbon intended the Portuguese government to
reorganise the navy and the army and to buy 4 cruisers and 4 torpedo boats.
Another Dutch newspaper the Middelburgsche Courant of the same date
confirmed this item. At that moment was the daily life in Portugal quite
disturbed and king Carlos and his conservative government unpopular among the
common people. The main reason for the new measures was the distension between
Portugal and England caused by what happened in Africa.(1)
Note
1.
The British Lord Salisbury demanded on 11 January 1890 that Portugal withdrew
her troops from Mashina and Matabeleland (later known as Rhodesia and nowadays
as Zimbabwe) and the Shire-Nyasa area (later known as Malawi) because there
Portuguese and British interests collided. Portugal intended since several
years to consolidate her colonial interests in Africa while claiming a stretch
of land extending form the East side of Africa to the West side. England was in
fact doing the same although in the North-South direction.
