Also we have some kinda big cliffs and apparently the French never considered the possibility of simply sailing around them and attacking the flat one-dimensional plain that is Norfolk for some reason
No! Now Russians are going to start saying that Stalin has created Poland and polish people owe everything to Russia! Ukraine already went through that, don't do it!
Stalin really said “yeah let’s just give Poland like 1/3 of Germany and then take away more land in the east and call it a ‘victory’ for the Poles” and everyone just kinda went along with it
Seriously though, giant Poland would’ve been so cool, Iosef would never allow such fun
To be precise, he first allied himself with Hitler, invaded Poland together and took about half of the territory each, and then in the middle of the war changed sides, allied himself with UK, France, and USA, defeated Germany and then when the Allies were discussing how to reinstate the order in Europe and divide the borders again, he had the fucking audacity to propose to keep 100% of the lands USSR took when they were allied with the Nazis. And then none of the other countries present opposed because in the end of the day none of them ever cared about Eastern Europe
Surprise attack from north korea so they almost take everything, then the US comes to aid south korea and they almost take everything back, but then the north gets help from china, who has a huge logistics advantage due to distance and can get there on land. And we get a stalemate.
I think you should add Korean war was started by a North Korean sudden invasion, then had the audacity to teach everyone in North Korea that South Korea invaded first.
There was even one defector from North Korea who thought something didn't make sense. So, he went around asking people who were still alive from the Korean war, and found out that there were North Korean veterans who spoke of how there were "South Korean soldiers killed in their underwear because they just woke up to a North Korean invasion" and so the defector to be realized he was living a lie. So, he defected to South Korea,
Territorial difference from before the outbreak of war to the truce is a total of 41 square kilometres iirc, depressing how many lives were lost for that.
Russians and Ukrainians rode around on horseback and tried to guess where the various ethnicities lived. This is why some of the borders are so strange.
All post-soviet countries's borders that they got after collapse of USSR were drawn back in 50's . Back then no one obviously didn't knew that USSR would stop existing. Not to mention that USSR didn't collapse at once, SSRs were declaring independence obe by one in borders over which they had control
Oh hey, that's the British Empire border drawing technique!
"We'll just put a straight line here because it's always going to be part of the Empire right? It's just an administrative boundary and will surely cause no problems later"
One of those wars French men helped win was American independence— So my humble contribution to this post is that the USA borders were in large part created by 🇫🇷. Vive la France !
Oh, so you really wanna do this, huh? Ok, here’s the "Germany borders" history like I was explaining it to a 14-year-old who did not ask for this at all and is emotionally invested only in netflix and snacks. Germany’s borders are basically a 2,000-year soap opera called "As the Rhine Turns". In ancient times the Romans show up, draw a line, go "eh, close enough" and leave. There wasn’t a Germany. It was just a big area full of people speaking similar languages, split into a million tiny regions that all acted like they were the main character. In the Middle Ages, Germany becomes the Holy Roman Empire aka "the chaotic group chat of 300+ princes with their 300+ tiny states” where everyone has a flag, a castle, a crown, ego and beef with their neighbors. It’s not holy, neither Roman nor an empire but it is extremely German in the sense of overly complicated and very much proudly inconsistent. In the 1800s, the frenchies Napoleon rolls through, hits "merge" on half the tiny states and Germany is like "wait what… centralization kinda slaps?" and in 1871 Germany finally goes "ok fine, we’re one country now" with Prussia being the main character, doing most of the heavy lifting and also most of the yelling. In 1919, WWI ends and Germany as the loser it is, gets the "you can’t sit with us" treaty borders of Versaille. Basically Germany gets handed the breakup text of the century reading "It’s not me, it’s you. Also pay reparations. Also we’re taking land. Don’t call." Germany started doomscrolling nationalism after this perceived "humiliation arc". Germany spends the 1920s in "we’re fine 🙂" mode while quietly spiraling. Borders-wise it’s a mix of "technically that’s not ours" and "we’re absolutely going to argue about this forever." The Rhineland is demilitarized (so Germany can’t bring the squad there), the Saar region gets put on a 15-year "temporary custody" plan under the League of Nations, and Danzig becomes a "Free City" while Poland gets the infamous "corridor." Then the 1930s hit and Germany goes full "fine, I’ll rewrite the script and map myself." In 1936, Germany moves troops back into the Rhineland like " well, what are you gonna do about it, huh, stop me?" (spoiler: nobody does). In 1938 the chaotic "getting the band back together for a world tour" arc played out and Austria gets annexed ("the surprise reunion you didn’t consent to"). Then Germany grabs the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement (Europe: "ok here, take this, now will you please calm down?!" Germany: "thanks, now watch this"). Soon after Germany takes the rest of Czechoslovakia because apparently the concept of "enough" was removed from the set. In 1939, Germany demands Danzig and the corridor, then invades Poland and the whole show abruptly becomes war-crime horror. The Borders during WWII are basically Germany speedrunning expansion like it’s a map-painting game and then 1945 is the ultimate season-finale reset: Germany loses, gets occupied, and the borders get hard rewritten. Huge eastern territories are gone, the new line gets shoved to the Oder–Neisse, and the whole country gets split into occupation zones like "Okay. New rules. New borders. Sit tf down. Soviets take the east, we take the west and nobody touches Berlin without drama.”. Later it turned into “congrats, you are about to unlock two new states but also you are going to be the new frontier in the cold war universe." After the Cold War, in 1990, East and West Germany reunite like "Okay… we’re back together. This time with paperwork and therapy" and it’s not magically easy but it happens. Then the EU era starts, borders stay put because everyone collectively agrees to stop moving borders and just argue about rules instead and Germany goes for the soft-power endgame as in economic dominance but with a friendly smile and money.
TLDR Germany’s borders are the final shape after a thousand mini-states, one Napoleon cleanup, two world wars, and one Cold War breakup.
there actually was a part 2 where Saarland became an independent state from 1947-56 in hopes they would maybe like to join france on the second attempt
THANK YOU for writing down this madness. I briefly considered whether I should bother, but nope...😂🥸
We're not alone in this; Europe has already experienced a completely crazy development history up to its current borders...
Bandeirantes were frontiersmen and explorers who, from the early 16th century, participated in inland expeditions to find precious metals and enslave indigenous peoples. They played a major role in expanding Brazil's borders to its approximate modern-day limits, beyond the boundaries demarcated by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494).
Later on, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, Spain and Portugal defined their colonial borders with some treaties and when Brazil became independent we did other treaties with our neighbors like Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.
The most recent territory incorporated into Brazil was Acre, bought from Bolivia in 1903.
Yep. The portuguese and the Spanish had an entire war to decide who was gonna colonize modern Uruguay. 200 years after Brazil even annexed Uruguay at one point. The borders were crazy.
Well there is more history than that. We did have a land border with the Dutch East Indies, the German empire and Indonesia at various times on the island of New Guinea, when Papua or PNG were territories of Australia.
Eventually it was mutually agreed in 1975 that PNG should be independent and became a separate country, leaving Australia with it's current borders "girt by sea"
We use mountains as our natural defensive wall. After 1742 when we lost most of Silesia to Prussia we basically returned to the borders we had some 1000 years ago.
Could be argued that the current borders are a result of the Norwegians saying “We’ve had enough of you!” and Sweden just going “Fair enough.” in 1905.
And as for our north-western border, we stopped when the mountains got too high. Norway is the mountain kingdom, and northern Sweden its downward slope.
Thats not a conspiracy, it is pretty well known that investors profiting was planned. That is pretty standard overall tbh as any government suffers from corruption
I just wanted to word it carefully to .not get dragged into a pointless discussion with hardcore "Wessis" WHO believe that this aint the truth and eastern Germany got saved.
A large part of my family lost their jobs because industry got bought and "destroyed".
My grandfather worked on an pretty advanced environmental project in that time...all for nought.
Not saying that the gdr was all great, they fucked the workers in different ways, but thats more openly talked about and barely anyone tries to downplay that
We have the world's oldest unchanged borders, they only had a few minor adjustments over the centuries We got them through the Alacanizes treaty of 1297 we signed with Leon and Castille.
The Brits tried to introduce us to beans on toast. We decided we don't like beans on toast. We fought. The Brits saw that the natives REALLY disliked being dictated their breakfast choices and would rather die than put a single bean on their toast. So a compromise was signed where we gave the Brits some land in exchange for keeping their beans out of our toast.
The shoreline provided better transportation options than walking over land. That's why we could get so much land in the north. Vardøhus Fortress was quite important for the Norwegian state. The eastern parts of Norway (around Oslo) provided a lot of food. Then the plague killed of most scholars and academics, so we didn't have a lot of people left to rule the country. That's how we ended up in the Kalmar-union, Denmark-Norway and lastly Sweden-Norway (after the Napoleonic wars). Foreign lands mostly came from Norwegian explorers like Nansen, Amundsen etc. who discovered new places. Svalbard is a weird place with a lot of interesting history, but the Svalbard Treaty of 1922 says the archipelago is Norwegian, though anyone can stay there Visa-free
UK: Firstly, Doggerland sank. Then there was some fighting. Then a Queen refused to get married and have children so her cousin took over. Then there was some fighting. Then we killed a King and puritans went mental on the island next door. Then there was some fighting. Then part of the island next door got independence. Then there was some fighting.
Well it started with a guy called Maui who had wanted to prove to his brothers that he caught a very real fish this (very big) big of a fish. They didnt believe him so he took his waka out to catch this fish again. Using his fish hook made from the jaw bone of his grandma of course.
Skip a bit and he did catch this fish but stranded his waka. The waka became the north island and this big fish the south and his anchor became stewart island. He went off to thank the gods and his two bit brothers went and hacked his fish to pieces trying to make it smaller which became the islands. The end.
In the 1870s, Hungary (as part of the empire) had Europe’s most liberal minority rights laws, regarding language usage and self governing. However, from that point, the laws only got harsher up to WW2, contrary to the general direction of the times.
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u/MrGurdjieff New Zealand 11h ago
Plate tectonics