The only Countries Great Britain has not invaded

[Ichingcarpenter]

Last edited Mon Nov 5, 2012, 01:41 AM - Edit history (1)

A total of 22 ... from the telegraph.


Found the article

A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe.
The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the BritishThe analysis is contained in a new book, All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To.
Stuart Laycock, the author, has worked his way around the globe, through each country alphabetically, researching its history to establish whether, at any point, they have experienced an incursion by Britain.

The remainder have been included because the British were found to have achieved some sort of military presence in the territory – however transitory – either through force, the threat of force, negotiation or payment.
Incursions by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers have also been included, provided they were operating with the approval of their government.


So, many countries which once formed part of the Spanish empire and seem to have little historical connection with the UK, such as Costa Rica, Ecuador and El Salvador, make the list because of the repeated raids they suffered from state-sanctioned British sailors.

Among some of the perhaps surprising entries on the list are:
* Cuba, where in 1741, a force under Admiral Edward Vernon stormed ashore at Guantánamo Bay. He renamed it Cumberland Bay, before being forced to withdraw in the face of hostile locals and an outbreak of disease among his men. Twenty one years later, Havana and a large part of the island fell to the British after a bloody siege, only to be handed back to the Spanish in 1763, along with another unlikely British possession, the Philippines, in exchange for Florida and Minorca.


*Iceland, invaded in 1940 by the British after the neutral nation refused to enter the war on the Allies side. The invasion force, of 745 marines, met with strong protest from the Iceland government, but no resistance.

* Vietnam, which has experienced repeated incursions by the British since the seventeenth century. The most recent – from 1945 to 1946 – saw the British fight a campaign for control of the country against communists, in a war that has been overshadowed by later conflicts involving first the French and then Americans.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.htmlIt is thought to be the first time such a list has been compiled.

[HipChick]

1. Well...a fat lot of good it did the brits

[Ichingcarpenter]

29. Found the article its now in the OP n/t

[rug]

2. The MIC has a lot of ground to make up.

[Anthony McCarthy]

3. And yet some ask why I'm not an anglophile.

Screw the BBC.

[grantcart]

4. They did not invade Siam or Thailand

Also I wouldn't put Indonesia on the list either.

How do they include Japan?

England invaded Mexico?

Cuba?

Really?

[MADem]

7. Yes, I question their use of the term "invaded." nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Hey, I guess the brits were bragging then

I think they include the sacking and invading of Colonial Ports in mexico and other spanish colonial holdings.

I do think they had troops stationed in the occupation of Japan, so yes that is invading.

Indonesia history goes way back.

[DevonRex]

16. Perhaps this was the rock & roll British Invasion?

[Posteritatis]

24. These sorts of things usually involve some really creative stretches

They probably include Japan because of postwar occupation, with the other southeast Asian countries as part of the war. I'd hardly consider any of those "invasion" in the sense that the person making the graph was probably trying to push.

Britain was involved in conflicts in Mexico, though generally on the Mexican side against France if I recall, and Cuba would have been a case of "the English had a settlement there at some point in the last five hundred years."

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Here's the source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

'Attacked' is really what it is about:

The remainder have been included because the British were found to have achieved some sort of military presence in the territory – however transitory – either through force, the threat of force, negotiation or payment.

Incursions by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers have also been included, provided they were operating with the approval of their government.

Thailand: The RAF bombed Bangkok during WW2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Bangkok_in_World_War_II

Indonesia: Big time. Britain held Java for a few years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Java_%281811%29

Japan: I would imagine some British troops were on there, post-war, and invasion as part of an alliance probably counts.

Mexico: The start of the French invasion - Britain was involved: http://www.rd.com/advice/what-is-cinco-de-mayo/

Cuba is detailed in the article.

[grantcart]

28. There is a huge difference between dropping a few bombs and invading a country.

But they were looking for a sensational headline and they got it.

Thailand is one of the few countries that have never been occupied. The Burmese sacked Auddya but left.

On the eve of the invasion by Japan they signed the Axis power alliance and the next day the embassy in Washington DC derecognized the government in Bangkok and signed with the Allies.

The two parrallel governments gave a the Japanese what they wanted, a land route to Burma, and gave the Americans what they wanted, assistance in landing OSS people in Thailand to attack the Japanese in Burma.

With the Japanese defeated the shadow government in Washington barely had time to make it back to Bangkok. The existing government packed up and went into hiding and the new government was set up just in the nick of time to set up a grand welcoming parade for Mountbatten and the other astonished Brits who thought they had fought the Thais the whole time only to find that suddenly they were allies.

The Thais successfully fought on both sides of WWII and by such manuevering and some benefits of geography avoided occupation.

Only one of a couple countries to be able to make that claim.

[flamingdem]

5. The USA inherited this trait from the Mother Country

Rule BritAmerica

[leveymg]

13. Britain styled itself on Rome/Greece. We copied the UK. Who will learn from us?

Will we?

[undeterred]

6. Well. I'm not worried about this today.

Obama will stop them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. We have bases in 63 counties

Damn right we can stop them....LOL

Anyway on to tuesday ........just passing the time.

[undeterred]

12. Prince Harry likes us.

We gave him a good time in Vegas.

[EX500rider]

8. When did they invade Costa Rica? n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Colonial times n/t

[EX500rider]

27. "Colonial times"?

Last edited Sun Nov 4, 2012, 08:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Costa Rica got her independence in 1821, and has not had a British invasion.

Pre-independence counts as war against Spain, not Costa Rica.

[Terra Alta]

14. When did Great Britain invade Switzerland?? nt

[War Horse]

15. As long as folks are actually responding to this...

When did they invade Norway? Or Finland?

In the case of Norway they had contingency plans, but the Germans beat them to it...

[TheMightyFavog]

18. Norway was WWII, I think...

And the RAF Did raid a few Finnish positions to help out the Soviets.

[War Horse]

19. The Brits invaded Norway during WW2?

They had contingency plans in place, sure, as they wanted to beat the Germans to it...

[whistler162]

21. Turned into a real clusterF*CK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/norway_campaign_01.shtml

[War Horse]

25. The case could be made that the Brits "hit and ran"

It certainly felt that way to the people in Narvik at the time, as well as the Norwegian, French and Serbian forces there who had the Germans on the retreat. In hindsight that's not a fair verdict at all, though.

Anyhoo, my initial point was addressing the OPs rather absolutist claim, not engaging in WW 2 minutiae .

[Cirque du So-What]

17. Who needs the British Empire

when you have multinational corporations to pick up the slack? No longer necessary to install governors, viceroys or puppet regimes...just run things through accountants & marketers from halfway around the world.

[yardwork]

22. Bingo.

[dawg]

20. Good old Mum!

What a jolly feisty bird she was in her younger days. Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?

[A HERETIC I AM]

23. That's because at the time they invaded, none of those countries had flags.

[JackRiddler]

30. Is this assertion serious?

Russia had a flag.

[A HERETIC I AM]

33. No, hence the Eddie Izzard video

[JackRiddler]

31. Prompts reconsideration of the "Pax Britannica," no?

Actually, the most demented phrase ever has got to be "The Great Game."

[quinnox]

32. WE (as a country) inherited their "get up and go" didn't we

we have bases all over the globe, and act like we have a stick up our asses most of the time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. You would think that a British Invasion

even in passing, would be somewhere in the Colegio de Mexico Historia General de Mexico. It is on my shelf, since I could not remember that from any of my history courses, and I checked.

Now France. yup, prominent. Also the story has been removed at the link.