Countries That Exist, but Easily Could Have Not
- Thread starter Sphenodon
- Start date
The Dutch knew Australia existed. They had discovered the continent in the 17th century. They simply not cared for it.
Every country in Africa (except perhaps Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana and (to an extent) Ethiopia and Liberia, are artificial creations of the Berlin conference and could have been hugely different with different territorial allocations.
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt all existed to varying approximations of their current borders long before the Berlin Conference (albeit with all save Morocco under Ottoman control or at least suzerainty). Not that a Berlin Conference POD would fall within the bounds of the thread, anyway.
Given that 3/5s of Iranians are Persian, I think the answers are "most of it" and "yes."
That is true, but if Morocco had been split four ways in 1912 for instance would it ever have reunited as one country? Or if Italy had been allowed to keep Tripolitania in 1912 but some other power awarded Cyrenaica would we have a Libya today? Or if Egypt had annexed Libya in the interests of Arab unification under Nasser?
Setting aside the dubiousness of the former two PODs (how and why would Morocco be divided into four? how the hell does the Italo-Turkish War result in someone else getting part of the colony Italy launched the war specifically to acquire with the blessings of Britain, France, and Russia?), I'm not saying that those states couldn't be prevented from existing by the present day (indeed, although I think it would be hard to get rid of Morocco, I specifically named Libya as a country that could have been kept from existing earlier in the thread), I'm saying that they have histories as united polities predating the Berlin Conference by centuries and the idea that they exist only because a bunch of European diplomats drew some arbitrary lines on the map is blatantly false.
There are 63 million Turks in Turkey and 50 million Persians in Iran. If Iran doesn't survive I'm certain a Persian state would.
Well, for example, Fashoda having been a bit nastier (not necessarily an Anglo-French war but Britain more suspicious of France and less so of Germany than OTL), different people in charge (especially Britain's foreign secretary not being a Francophile) and Italy not having the acquiescence of all the Great Powers as OTL? Or not being as militarily successful against the Ottomans as OTL?
Yes, not arguing with that at all. A very fair point. But, again, would a "Tunisia" consisting of the territories controlled by the Bey of Tunis prior to France taking indirect control of those territories (crudely put, the Bey/King got a lot more land under his nominal sovereignty in return for co-operating with the French) and somewhere between a quarter and a half of the size of modern Tunisia not be effectively a different country? Or a Tunisia seized by Italy rather than France? Different size, different borders, different political culture for around 100 years after the POD.
The Congress of Vienna could've easily carved up Switzerland and shared it between France, the German Confederation and Italy.
No, no and no.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of people who think Japan could've easily invaded Australia.
Australia is literally impossible to invade. The Japanese knew this from doing the math and crunching the numbers. The manpower required for a operation of this undertaking would be more than the manpower used in the invasion of the entirety of Southeast Asia. They deemed any plan to land troops on the Australian continent infeasible, even plans as small as establishing outposts on the tips of the Australian continent, because they knew the Allies would just push them out again.
Have you looked at a map of the Pacific Ocean? Japan is six thousand kilometres away from Australia. This distance was going to make supplying an invasion of Australia a impossibility because the supply lines are going to be stretched to the limit. Tojo even said the following while on trial after the war.
The last reason why a invasion of Australia was not going to work is because of geography. For this reason, I proclaim Australia the Russia of the Pacific.
Unlike the rest of the Pacific region which hosts tropical environments, Australia is 90% desert, which is why most of the population hugs the coast. If the Japanese somehow make landfall in say, the Northern Territory or Queensland, the Australian military will simply retreat into the Outback. Desert warfare is a type of warfare the Japanese have absolutely no experience in, since their soldiers are used to fighting in New Guinea-style environments and even that took some getting used to.
The Japanese can try to seize the cities if they want, but they can't truly conquer the continent until they've conquered the Outback.
Like Tojo said, their real plan was to use New Guinea as a base to not only raid Northern Australia, but to blockade Australia from the rest of the world and force it to voluntarily surrender. Of course, with the United States Navy around, this was never going to happen either.
And let's just say Japan invaded Australia, even though I just stated the multiple reasons why it couldn't have. The Australian people were being prepared for total war ala the Soviet Union. They were being told to destroy everything of value to the enemy, from bicycles to boats. If the Japanese landed troops on the Australian continent, the people of the continent were not going to make it easy for them.
No, no and no.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of people who think Japan could've easily invaded Australia.
Australia is literally impossible to invade. The Japanese knew this from doing the math and crunching the numbers. The manpower required for a operation of this undertaking would be more than the manpower used in the invasion of the entirety of Southeast Asia. They deemed any plan to land troops on the Australian continent infeasible, even plans as small as establishing outposts on the tips of the Australian continent, because they knew the Allies would just push them out again.
Have you looked at a map of the Pacific Ocean? Japan is six thousand kilometres away from Australia. This distance was going to make supplying an invasion of Australia a impossibility because the supply lines are going to be stretched to the limit. Tojo even said the following while on trial after the war.
The last reason why a invasion of Australia was not going to work is because of geography. For this reason, I proclaim Australia the Russia of the Pacific.
Unlike the rest of the Pacific region which hosts tropical environments, Australia is 90% desert, which is why most of the population hugs the coast. If the Japanese somehow make landfall in say, the Northern Territory or Queensland, the Australian military will simply retreat into the Outback. Desert warfare is a type of warfare the Japanese have absolutely no experience in, since their soldiers are used to fighting in New Guinea-style environments and even that took some getting used to.
The Japanese can try to seize the cities if they want, but they can't truly conquer the continent until they've conquered the Outback.
Like Tojo said, their real plan was to use New Guinea as a base to not only raid Northern Australia, but to blockade Australia from the rest of the world and force it to voluntarily surrender. Of course, with the United States Navy around, this was never going to happen either.
And let's just say Japan invaded Australia, even though I just stated the multiple reasons why it couldn't have. The Australian people were being prepared for total war ala the Soviet Union. They were being told to destroy everything of value to the enemy, from bicycles to boats. If the Japanese landed troops on the Australian continent, the people of the continent were not going to make it easy for them.
By staying very still.
Better question, how did Monaco avoid being absorbed by Vichy France?
1. If Japan avoided Militarism and successfully democratize in 1920s, independent korea(both north and south) Would be butterflied away.
I sense a good deal of "eternal empire" or "empire-wanking" wishful thinking here. It is really surprisingly difficult for democracies in the long run to keep ruling dissatisfied peoples who consider themselves foreign nations. (True, the US did manage to violently suppress southern independence. But it did so only by not only a bloody war but also by abolishing slavery which was the real basis for the southern independence movement in the first place--the Southerners did not feel themselves to be ethnically a different nation from the Yankees.) Of course absolutist regimes can forcibly suppress both independence movements and domestic "liberals" who advocate concessions to such movements (concessions which begin with autonomy but are likely to lead ultimately to independence). But absolutist regimes also tend not to last forever.
For that reason I am skeptical of assertions that different decisions in 1914 would mean that Poland would still be Russian or Ireland part of the UK.
For that reason I am skeptical of assertions that different decisions in 1914 would mean that Poland would still be Russian or Ireland part of the UK.
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Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Norn Iron (Northern Ireland) - a political construct that could have been larger (9 counties) or a lot smaller, or - if the parties could put aside their mutual loathing & fears - stayed within a United Ireland - which could be either a Republic or a fully-fledged member of the Empire / Commonwealth.