In a public speech, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned Russia not to underestimate Britain, "The history books are full of the cost of belittling this small island!" "Let's not care how Putin reacted to Wallace's warnings, let's see if in history, countries that despise Britain have paid a price.
01 One
Since the rise of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, Europe's trade routes to Asia have been cut off, and Portugal and Spain on the Iberian Peninsula have been actively exploring overseas in search of spices and gold. Thanks to great geographical discoveries, both Portugal and Spain grew into the first colonial empires.
In order to reconcile the contradictions between the two countries, on June 7, 1494, the two countries divided the earth by the papal meridian. Spain was stronger than Portugal, and in the competition for colonies, it came to the top, occupying all of Latin America except Brazil, as well as the Philippines, and other places, with colonies all over the world. So much so that King Carlos I of Spain proudly said: "In the territory of the Fallen, the sun never sets", and Spain became the world's first empire where the sun never sets.
Spain enslaved Indians in the colonies, developed farming, animal husbandry and mining, and accumulated great wealth. During the three hundred years of invasion of Latin America, 2.5 million kilograms of gold and 100 million kilograms of silver were shipped, accounting for 83% of the world's gold and silver production.
With its strong national strength, Spain's ambitions gradually expanded, and it was ready to use force to dominate Europe. Thus, it fought France on land and at sea, it was challenged by the newly rising Britain.
Compared with Spain, the United Kingdom is a rising star, an island nation located in the North Sea. In 1558, Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne, determined to make England strong. At that time, the British watched as Spanish treasure ships sailed from the Atlantic side one by one, and the hungry Hala came out. Thus, the adventurous and belligerent genes lurking in the blood of the Anglo-Saxon peoples were revealed, and they all transformed into pirates and frantically plundered Spanish ships.
It is reasonable to say that a country is rich in pirates, which is a shame for the country, but the British are not ashamed but proud, and Queen Elizabeth I even encouraged this behavior, and also issued officially authorized privateering licenses to those jiangyang thieves. In this way, the pirates were transformed into legitimate royal pirates.
The most famous of this group of royal pirates is Francis Drake. In 1571, he led pirate ships to plunder Spanish Caribbean possessions, bringing back a fortune of 66,000 pounds. In 1577, Drake bypassed the Strait of Magellan and plundered the west coast of the Americas, obtaining numerous gold and silver treasures.
This kind of open-fire plundering behavior can not be tolerated by anyone, and what country Spain was at that time was an indisputable super-maritime power, similar to the United States today. Spain looked, well, a little Britain, actually dared to move the soil on the head of the age, did not want to live? Spain immediately sent a powerful armada, ready to destroy little Britain, and by the way, snatched back the beautiful queen who did not know how to lift and was a lady of the press.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada, which had about 130 ships, 8,000 soldiers, and 18,000 sailors, was killed by the British. The British fleet was much smaller, and pirates accounted for a significant proportion. But the British did not shy away from the stage, using appropriate tactics to defeat the Armada and force it to sail north, eventually encountering a storm in the waters near Scotland, suffering heavy losses.
After that, the invincible Spanish Empire collapsed, and Britain began to embark on the road to great power. The gap between the two countries also widened, and in 1704, Gibraltar, the southernmost traffic choke of Spain, was occupied by the British and remained a British colony until now.
02 贰
After the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Britain completely abandoned its watch over the european territory and became a little isolated and closed. After the british destroyed Spain's maritime hegemony, on the one hand, they actively participated in European affairs, promoted balance-of-power diplomacy, and acted as a European churning stick, on the other hand, they actively colonized overseas and competed with the great powers for colonies.
From 1652 to 1673, The British defeated the sea coachman through three Anglo-Dutch wars. Now Britain's opponent is only France.
France is a land and sea power, it not only seeks hegemony in Europe, but also competes with Britain for colonial hegemony on a world scale. Irreconcilable contradictions led to the outbreak of the Second Hundred Years' War between Britain and France. The war began to be fought intermittently from 1689, and by the end of the famous Seven Years' War in 1763, Britain had won an overwhelming victory, seizing most of North America and India, and establishing the First British Empire.
But by the end of the 18th century, France first experienced the baptism of the Great Revolution, and then the military monster Jay Napoleon turned out to be a success, repeatedly defeating the Anti-French alliance organized by the European feudal lords and the British at sea, and most of the continent fell into Napoleon's hands. As Napoleon's Empire expanded infinitely in Europe, defeating Britain became Napoleon's ultimate goal.
Thus, napoleon forced The European countries to impose a continental blockade in an attempt to starve England to death; on the other hand, he built his great navy as emperor in an attempt to invade England with his invincible talent.
But Napoleon ignored the point that the navy is no better than the army, and it is difficult for the navy to form combat effectiveness without the accumulation of tens or hundreds of years, and the so-called century-old navy is this truth. France, due to its characteristics of dual land and sea, is doomed to its strategic center of gravity and resource allocation, and cannot all be concentrated on the navy, which is in great contrast with the United Kingdom, which is a naval state.
On 21 October 1805, the Royal Navy and the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet met off the coast of Cape Trafalgar, Spain. As a result of the war, the British commander Nelson was killed, 458 killed, 1246 wounded, and none of the warships were lost; the French-Spanish combined fleet was killed 3243, 2538 wounded, and about 7000 captured, the commander Villeneuve was captured, and 18 battleships were captured on the spot.
The Battle of Trafalgar also heralded the final outcome of the Anglo-French struggle for hegemony. Since britain could not be defeated at sea, the British continued to transfuse blood to the continental countries and formed anti-French alliances again and again. Finally, at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon was defeated by the British, and France lost its right to dominate Europe.
033
Now it looks like America is, but in the early 19th century, it was as fragile as a chick that had just come out of its shell. In 1783, Britain was really choked by this group of hillbillys, did not want to play, and let the United States become independent. Who would have thought that in 1812, the Americans would actually kick their noses in the face and try to take advantage of Britain's deep involvement in the Napoleonic Wars in a vain attempt to annex Canada.
Canada, a British colony, was sparsely populated and lax in its defenses, and the United States felt it was easy to expand north. And it is expected that the residents of Canada will be regarded as liberators as soon as they see the U.S. army, eating pot pulp and waiting for the king.
The Americans, longing for a bright future, officially declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812. In the beginning, the British regular army in Canada was only 5,004 men, supplemented by a small number of Canadian militia. Even so, the hastily assembled American army did not achieve the predetermined results, and at first achieved some victories, but the British army, which had slowed down, immediately retaliated. On August 24, 1814, the British army captured Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and burned the White House, the official residence of the president, known as the "Great Fire of Washington".
Through this war, the United States also completely understood a truth, Canada and themselves are not the same heart, the original plan failed. Moreover, most of the American soldiers are volunteers, the combat effectiveness is insufficient, the enthusiasm of the people for the war is not high, and the war is going to be chicken ribbed.
In the end, both sides fought more and more weakly, and finally shook hands and made peace.
04 Wanton
Now when people mention Russia, their eyes immediately shine, thinking that as long as Russia is shocked, the United States, Britain, France, and Japan will have to clip their tails and flee for their lives. In the early nineteenth century, Tsarist Russia almost did just that. After the victory over Napoleon, the Russian Tsar Alexander I, who regarded himself as the savior of Europe, gathered Prussia and Austria to form the infamous Holy Alliance with the super strength of the army, interfering in the internal affairs of other countries everywhere. For this reason, Russia is known as the "Gendarmerie of Europe".
In the 1820s, the Holy League suppressed the Italian and Spanish revolutions. He also tried to interfere with the independence movement in Latin America, so that the American boss, the United States, was allergic and had to throw out the "Monroe Doctrine".
In 1848, when the Revolution took place in Europe, Russia could not sit still as the revolutionary tide in Hungary rose in Austria. Tsar Nicholas I immediately sent 140,000 Russian troops to invade Hungary, suppressing the revolutionaries, and even the famous Hungarian poet Petofi was sacrificed under the cossack saber. With The intervention of Russia, the revolutionary fires of the European countries were extinguished.
At this time, Russia had no opponent in mind. In the face of his own dazzling combination of fists, didn't the sea overlord Britain not even fart a little? The next step is to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the thinning mountains, dismember Turkey, occupy the Turkish Strait, drink the Mediterranean Sea, and dominate the world.
Because of the Holy Land, France and Russia had a vendetta, while Britain was ambiguous. Britain, out of its usual offshore balancing strategy and not wanting Russia to dominate, gradually sided with France and Turkey.
On October 16, 1853, the Crimean War broke out, a war between Russia and the Allies (Britain, France, Turkey, and the Kingdom of Sardinia) for dominion in the Near East.
Because the war was fought mainly in Russia, based on past experience, the Tsar thought he was sure of victory, but the outcome of the war made the Tsar's face "crack". In the face of the technological superiority of the Anglo-French coalition forces, the backward Russian army was vulnerable. On September 8, 1855, with the fall of the fortress of Sevastopol, Russia was completely defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Paris, which was humiliating. Russia lost its hegemony in Europe, wiped out the fruits of a century of expansion in Europe, and finally even the old Tsar committed suicide in depression.
One of the reasons for Russia's defeat in the Crimean War was that its self-confidence was overblown and its appetite was too large, which aroused the resentment and jealousy of the rest of Europe. Not self-measured in one dozen, isn't this the rhythm of death?
05 Wu
There are many countries that have historically despised Britain and suffered great losses. Germany is a living example. It believes that Britain is downhill, it is not enough to be afraid, and it wants to rely on its own strength in the field of science and technology and the economy, and use iron-blooded policies to push Britain's global hegemony in order to seek to obtain "territory under the sun", so it launched two world wars. The results all failed, and the defeat became worse and worse every time.
Haven't we in China also suffered the losses of little Britain? At the time of the Opium War, we all thought that Yingyi was just a small country with a projectile, and it was effortless to defeat it. Even Lin Zexu believes that foreigners can't do without rhubarb and tea, otherwise even can't be pulled down, as long as we prohibit the sale of these two things to foreigners, foreigners have to choke to death, and Daqing will be able to win.
What is even more exaggerated is that they can attack Yingyi with the filth inside the woman's drowning apparatus, and they can instantly become invisible. As a result, don't say it, say more is tears!
In 1982, Argentine President Galtieri occupied the disputed Falklands in order to divert public attention. He had always believed that Britain would not go to great lengths for a bunch of small islands, and that even if a fight broke out, Argentina, which was fighting on its doorstep, would not lose. As a result, to his surprise, the British not only quickly sent troops, but also won the battle. In the end, President Galtieri had to step down.
06 Lu
By the mid-to-late 19th century, Britain's national power had reached its peak. In the 20th century, through the First World War, Britain gained a large number of German colonies, with a land area of 33.67 million square kilometers, about 24.75% of the world's total land area.
Spreading from the British Isles to Hong Kong, the Gambia, Newfoundland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Malaya, Myanmar, India, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Malta, Singapore and countless islands, the British Empire is found in 24 time zones on Earth.
Some people have even counted that at different times, Britain has invaded almost 90% of the countries on the planet, and only 22 countries have not been infected by Britain.
The 22 countries are: Andorra, Belarus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Sweden and the Vatican in Europe, Bolivia, Guatemala and Paraguay in Latin America, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and democratic republic of Sao Tome and Principe in Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia in Asia and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.
07 Conclusion
To sum up, Wallace's words are correct, Britain's ancestors are indeed very good, and history has indeed defeated many countries that underestimate it. But history is history, reality is reality, and your greatness in history does not necessarily mean that you are strong now. Now britain, if it is one-on-one, it will definitely not be able to do Russia. But then again, the British are also very shrewd, it will not pick you up, it will always rely on the NATO system to grind its lips, say a few harsh words fox fake tiger power.
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