Unfortunate geographic losers

[Cutlass]

Exactly, Japan had to conquer half of Asia to get it's materials for the economy!

I don't understand your first line though.

Possession of raw materials isn't important. Access to them is. You don't need imperial expansion to have access, as Japan's post war economic success demonstrates. Asia suffered from Japan because Japan didn't know that before launching the wars. Which, to be fair, was hardly unique to them at the time.

The Japanese Islands have both positive and negative features, like the British Islands. It was hard to invade them, but they were limited in some things domestically.

 

[Winner]

They had always been less forested than Europe. Even before Europeans discovered North America.

The Eastern part used to be pretty much an one big forest, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. (Well, yes, Europe used to be an one big forest too, but it took us thousands of year to destroy most of its forests).

And how many times has a large army crossed the english channel in the past 500 years? Napoleon and Hitler most definitely would have invaded on a large scale if it wasn't for the channel.

So what? England had got invaded many, many times before that. Being on an island has its advantages as well as disadvantages.

 

[Flying Pig]

I feel sorry for the inhabitants of Egypt, who seemed to be right in the path of just about every conquering empire in history.

 

[Winner]

I feel sorry for the inhabitants of Egypt, who seemed to be right in the path of just about every conquering empire in history.

A path to where, exactly?

 

[Flying Pig]

A path to where, exactly?

Various places - the Middle East, North Africa, India, the rest of Africa and the Cape, basically depending on where the invaders were coming from.

 

[Verbose]

I feel sorry for the inhabitants of Egypt, who seemed to be right in the path of just about every conquering empire in history.

Well here's their problem to my mind: If you're a wealthy place with the makings of a relatively easy life, why, you tend to get invaded. Now, while this might be misfortune for the Egyptians, does it really mean Egypt is unfortunate?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I am thinking of Austria. How that eastern mark(pretty much a buffer zone) of HRE has been turned into empire of its own right?
Or what about berbers? The obscure tribes of north africa ending up extending greatly their influence(almoravid empire) in region end even coquering large parts of iberian peninsula.
This and other examples sugest that there are more factors to consider besides geography/politics...

 

[TheLastOne36]

I was going to mention Japan for it's lack of natural resources.

Venezuela's unbelievably extreme richness is a geographic weakness IMO.

 

[Leoreth]

You mean the paradox of plenty?

 

[innonimatu]

And yet they ended up, for a while, as one of the foremost powers on Earth. So the relationship between physical geography and political outcomes is apparently quite complicated.

Yes, I was thinking about that. Open spaces open up possibilities: the victorious people or polity can get very powerful. But...

But generally: being on land Europeans wanted badly and could occupy easily was worse for you than living somewhere marginal or defensible.

...the downside is this: some other people get trampled in the process. The defeated. Being a member of a people bases on large open plains historically carried a lot more wear risk than living "on the edges", and it isn't necessarily a better place, resource- or trade-wise. Even if your people is the one with the upper hand you'd probably get dragged into some other war.

Even something negative like the mountainous of Spain - a major impediment to the centralisation of power throughout much of its history - has positive features like the good defensive conditions it provided for use against figures like Napoleon. Besides, whose to say that centralisation is unambiguously a Good Thing; I live in a comparatively decentralised state - Australia - and shudder at the thought of increasing centralisation, while others elsewhere do just the opposite. Heck, I might not even agree with my own countrymen let alone a foreigner.

Couldn't agree more! I like living in a small country. I even sometimes like it that it keeps having mildly incompetent governments.

And more directly on topic: vast plains and no access to the sea seem like a bad draw. So, the asian steppes should be full of losers. But then again someone from there once managed to conquer the largest land empire ever...
Of course, most of it was just made up of said unfortunate steppe.

 

[innonimatu]

Well here's their problem to my mind: If you're a wealthy place with the makings of a relatively easy life, why, you tend to get invaded. Now, while this might be misfortune for the Egyptians, does it really mean Egypt is unfortunate?

Well, I thing that Egypt was unfortunate just because it had a lot of desert and just a little thin strip of (very wealthy, granted) land. Had its climate been better it would have been one of the world's powerhouses throughout history. Egypt's geographical position, with access to two seas and two continents, sitting at the crossroads of so many trade routes, was excellent.

The equivalent choke point is the Bosphorus to the north, and Constantine was no fool when he moved his capital there.

 

[GoodGame]

Afghanistan is kind of 'hurt' by geography (and war). Land-locked, lots of mountains, semi-arid mostly because of poor irrigation, and little forest.

The main plus is being on a historic overland trade route (the silk road).

 

[TheLastOne36]

You mean the paradox of plenty?

Exactly. Didn't know there was a term for it.

Oddly enough, a Venezuelan is the first man quoted in the wikiarticle.

 

[Winner]

Various places - the Middle East, North Africa, India, the rest of Africa and the Cape, basically depending on where the invaders were coming from.

But Egypt wasn't being invaded because it stood in the way to better places. Maybe one could argue that for the British colonial period, but before that the invaders wanted it because it was, well, wealthy and worth capturing.

Afghanistan is kind of 'hurt' by geography (and war). Land-locked, lots of mountains, semi-arid mostly because of poor irrigation, and little forest.

The main plus is being on a historic overland trade route (the silk road).

Afghanistan reminds me of Arrakis, sans the spice (which brings the question, why the heck are we still fighting for it?)

 

[Masada]

Wasn't 1688 when parliament invited over an army and a Dutch king to take the throne? Does that really constitute a proper invasion? In that case the invading force didn't have to fight anybody!

What Traitorfish said. Also, there was fighting.

Huh, I've never heard of 1326 another invasion of ENG according to wikipedia =O.

Isabella of France and Roger Mortimer's deposition of Edward II involved a landing originating in France.

Meh, I'm not going to count Masada's examples and am going to retreat into the perverse, utopian Victorian view of Fortress England which hasn't been successfully invaded for 944 years. We are a 1,000 year success story

It isn't that far from the truth to be honest. A couple of hundred years is a long time. Hell for Europe there's like only Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and San Marino that can boast not having been invaded during the period 1939 - 1945.

There were also a few minor landings here and there, although England saw very few of them compared to Scotland and Ireland, and I don't know how many could actually be meaningfully called "invasions".

I did use successful for a reason. But I wouldn't go that far. We have Monmouth's Rebellion for instance in 1685. The French effort in 1690. The French efforts in 1719 during the War of the Quadruple Alliance (granted that landed in Scotland). The aforementioned Bonnie Prince. And the French effort in 1759 that failed at Quiberon Bay. There were also a number of foiled or abortive efforts that didn't get off the ground: the Spanish Armada.

What about New Zealand and Japan? They lie on fault lines. I would call that geographicaly unfortunate, but in a slightly different way than the OP intended (I think)

Doesn't bother me. I guess it's a pain in the ass for Christchurch but prior to last year it hadn't ever had a big earthquake. That's why its suffering so hard: old buildings that weren't perceived to need to be earthquake proof tend to fall apart. Also, reclaimed land. For the rest of us: it ain't a big thing. There's also advantages to being on a tectonic plate: volcanic soil and fractured terrain (all those scenic mountains are the result of tectonic forces) for instance.

Possession of raw materials isn't important. Access to them is. You don't need imperial expansion to have access, as Japan's post war economic success demonstrates. Asia suffered from Japan because Japan didn't know that before launching the wars. Which, to be fair, was hardly unique to them at the time.

The Japanese knew that. They tried rather hard in 1939 - 1942 to get the Dutch to sell them oil, rubber, rice and whatever else they needed. That failed though not for want of effort by both parties to avoid a confrontation.

Couldn't agree more! I like living in a small country. I even sometimes like it that it keeps having mildly incompetent governments.

Man a centralised Spain and Portugal is scary. Could you imagine the harm Lisbon and Madrid could have done if you weren't?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Estonia. Full of Marsh and Tundra.

Beautiful country, but terrible start location.

 

[Masada]

Estonia. Full of Marsh and Tundra.

Swedes seem to have liked it.

Also, Russians.

 

[Lone Wolf]

There's tundra in Estonia?

Also, Russians.

That the geographical curse of my country. Even when we manage to conquer some bits of (supposedly) wealthy and progressive Europe, they turn out to be peripheral, largely irrelevant, Eastern European () bits.

 

[Masada]

Invading Poland was a horrible mistake, there's just to many damn Poles

 

[Ajidica]

Afghanistan reminds me of Arrakis, sans the spice (which brings the question, why the heck are we still fighting for it?)

Because the spice oil pipelines must flow be protected.