>biggest population for most of european history
>perfect geographic position
>failed to create a lasting empire
Why? Even Spain did a longer european empire than them
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>biggest population for most of european history
>perfect geographic position
>failed to create a lasting empire
Why? Even Spain did a longer european empire than them
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Christianity
Lack of Scottish influence
Elaborate.
Scots created british empire
Elaborate more
well technically britain was united by a scottish monarch but it'd be a bit dishonest to say the scots created the empire, although the statement "the scots were integral to the british empire" would be completely correct, along with its sister statement "the english were completely integral to the british empire"
Too devided. Those exact factors made French nobles alongside their hyperindividualistic mentality to be too unruly to be ruled and therefore consolidated for Imperial ambitions.
french nobles sucked louis 14s wiener like no noble has sucked wiener before
>Even Spain did a longer european empire than them
Spanish empire lasted longer than any other western european empire, only Germans had a longer lasting empire.
And I'm not taking into consideration that Spain would also claim Aragonese empire in the Mediterranean since spanish hold since 13th century Sicily, Naples, Sardinia and other points in the Mediterranean.
>Spanish empire lasted longer than any other western european empire
Empire acquired through alliances, though.
Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Athens (took later by roaches), Canary Islands, Tanger, Philippines and American continent were took by conquest.
Only Netherlands and possesions in France and North Italy were took by alliances.
By the ther HRE just inherited Charolingian provinces, barely expanded out of Eastern Charolingian regions.
i guess he had the merge of castille and aragon in mind, that was a lot of territory gained through an alliance although it was that, a merge
>only Germans had a longer lasting empire.
What the frick are you smoking.
I think he means the HRE, but that hardly counts IMO, might be a G*rman-American
Humanism-mercantilism killed any french momentum
1789 is the british victory over the french kings
>perfect geographic position
Yeah, being at the crossroad of Spain, Italy, Germany and England is such great position...
Especially when these powers have a habit of allying together against you
Surely they just need to consolidate iberia and they’re pretty fine to expand east?
>failed to create a lasting empire
Is this homie serious?
>failed to create a lasting empire
France still fights for and owns a lot of territory in Africa
More like Africans own a lot of territories in France
>failed to create a lasting empire
France is literally the only European power that still has colonies worth mentioning, not to mention the now independent Francophonie.
>colonies worth mentioning
Like what? Tahiti or something? Are you serious?
Tahiti is just one part of French Polynesia, it's basically a whole quadrant of the Pacific, but there's also New Caledonia and others.
Then there's the West Indies. French Guyana of course, the only European colonial possession left in South America, but also several major Caribbean islands. They also have Reunion and Mayotte around Madagascar.
>it's basically a whole quadrant of the Pacific
That's being a bit generous, whether you're talking geographically or demographically.
If you want to go by size then yeah, Guiana is something but it's in pretty much the worst part of the continent as far as living conditions. One nickname it has from colonial times is "green hell." Siberia would be a much larger colonial possession by comparison. Or Greenland or Svalbard for that matter. I wouldn't say that these remaining colonies stands head and shoulders above the rest, as compared to say the British. If we say these are worth mentioning, which is your right if you wish, then so are quite a few other things.
Ok so it's slightly bigger than Svalbard, my mistake. It's those map projections playing mind games on me again.
You're looking at its European empire, five of six corners of the hexagon were at some point won by conquest and the sixth was given by Italy in exchange for military aid.
And it still dominates West Africa, the "independence" of countries from Senegal to the Republic of the Congo is nominal.
Same reason why Germany didn't conquer Europe even though they were perfectly poised to. Which is that they tried, but the rest of Europe saw what they were doing and formed coalitions to stop them. It seems obvious but you never hear of coalitions of Indian states to stop expanding Empires, so maybe co-operation to stop massive empires ruining progress, as they usually do, gave Europe an advantage.
France was to obsessed over it inches of European gains to look at the big picture. The disregard their American colonies as nothing more then a backwater and never developed it pass a trading outpost, the Spanish and British empires were built on the backs of their colonies, yet the French always insisted on trying to expand in the empire destroying continent that is europe.
French aristocracy had nothing to gain by having large parts of the population depart for the colonies. On the flip side, it made it easier for the French to gain Native allies in North America, as there was less territory dispute.
France is playing the long game. Still has an empire today.
geographic position
>bordered by Spain, Austria (both teamed up for two centuries under a single family), HRE, England (10 kms away at the nearest point)
It's not Germany-tier, but it's still tough when you've got all these fronts at once.