cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26015783
source: https://www.statista.com/chart/3441/countries-never-invaded-by-britain/
source's source: https://archive.org/details/allcountriesweve0000layc/mode/2up
22 countries have never been invaded by the British yet.
Hmmm.
When were Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain , Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria or Romania invaded by the British?
Germany, and probably Austria: World War 2
At the time the Netherlands and Belgium were occupied by Germany. Don’t know if that counts.
France: Probably during the Hundred Years’ war.
Weird to exclude Luxembourg from that as they were also occupied by Germany and freed by the Allied forces
Edit: checked the book and:
So the book is taking "invasion" more lenient than the comment section:
The introduction also states "invasion, had some control over, or fought conflicts in the territory"
Italy, probably WW2 too (operation dragoon)
Maybe they are counting any wars where the British fought? If so, the two world wars would account for a lot of it.
Still Switzerland? We weren’t invaded in WW2 or WW1.
Switzerland was a part of the wars of the 2nd, 5th and 6th coalition against Napoleon against the British.
Yeah, they are. It's bullshit.
Rampjaar. 1672. We where the dutch republic back then so it included belgium, Luxembourg. We had a lot of wars before and after between us and the English in which the english took a lot of our colonies by fotce.
Belgium was "invaded" during WW1 and again during WW2.
Spain: ever heard of Gibraltar?
The English fucked with everyone who had a ship back then.
Parts of probably, e.g. Gibraltar
The Britain's invaded Britain. Power move.
So many times depending on who you trace modern Brits to. Romans invaded the Celts. Saxons invaded the Romans. Normans invaded the Saxons. And that's just England. Wales and Scotland could probably come up with another dozen plus examples between them
I guess the civil war counts?
That's the American Revolution.
Horseshit, half the countries in the world didn't even bother getting around to existing until long after the British put the great project on pause
The map is bullshit tbh. It includes countries where the brits actually helped achieve independence (the Baltics after WWII).
The definition of invasion according to the book is apparently "has fought in conflicts in territory".
E.g Sweden is uninvaded according to this map. If Norway invades Sweden and the UK goes to help Sweden, it'll count as the brits having invaded Sweden for this map.
Yup, when did Britain invade Poland, Lithuania, Estonia or Latvia?
Their politics still sucks to this day.
To clarify a lot of confusion I see in the comments. This book considers a country to be invaded when:
At any point during the history of England, Whales, northern Ireland, Scotland, and or significant predecessors any army of theirs "invaded",
Counting any part of the land that is now considered part of the UN country. So not only from when the country existed,
And being invaded meaning they had some control over, or fought conflicts in the territory.
To distinguish Chad and Romania, Romania should add the UK flag in a corner (like New Zealand)
US?
Edit: I am incorrect. I didn't see the "never" in the title.
Well, The British? What do you have to say for yourselves?!
Loves me empire, hates immigrants, simple as.
Please calm down and would the outstanding 22 form an orderly queue.
Looks like the US is going to try to break this record
Pretty sure the British never invaded South Sudan…
They saw the Flag of Ivory Coast and thought they allready invaded it.
The Brit fears the Mongolian
Don't rush them! They're doing their best. If anything, the Tories have been working with US Republicans to get things back on track.
Rule #1 to not get invaded: Hide your country as centrally as possible in your continent.
At first I thought that it was a bit of a stretch to include Brazil there, but I think that you can say that if you consider the English corsairs/pirates activity during the early period of Portuguese colonization.
Edit: also, probably that's the reason why the indland countries in South America are out of this list.
Crap!
I don't think they ever invaded the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula, they had protectorates: Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, South Yemen, and the seven emirates that later formed UAE.
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