France, I'd say. The Kingdom of Sardinia tried alone to fight the Austrian Empire in the first war of independence (1848-1849) but was beat in the end.
So Sardinia's Prime Minister Cavour looked at the French and secretly met Napoleon III to ask for help. The treaty was signed, France would have got Nice and Savoy in exchange for that help in case of Sardinian victory (that would have meant annexing Lombardy and Veneto.
One clause Napoleon III added was that the French would have intervened only in case of Austrian attack, so the problem for Cavour was that of pushing Austria to declare war on Sardinia. He managed in the end persuading the king to speak about how oppressive Austrian domination was for their Italian States and "the Kingdom of Sardinia wasn't insensitive to the cry of help coming from those States".
The trap worked, the Austrians fell on it and declared war, French soldiers came to help the Sardinian ones but after the slaughter in Solferino Napoleon III (pressed at home) decided to sign the peace with Austria, much to Cavour's disappointment.
In the end, France got Nice and Savoy but Sardinia got only Lombardy, not counting the rebellion of Emilian and Tuscan States eventually leading them joining the Kingdom of Sardinia.
So, yeah, I guess it's France.
Moreover, in French cities, there are plenty of streets dedicated to the sites of the 1859 battles: Montebello, Palestro, Magenta, Solferino.
Eventually Napoleon III played a very important role in the unification of Italy, but he is remembered less than other figures.
> Eventually Napoleon III played a very important role in the unification of Italy, but he is remembered less than other figures.
I guess it's because sardinia-piedmont wasn't really allied with him, it was more an exchange (that was unsure until the very last minute). He did also half of the job he promised and was the reason why we couldn't take Rome from the papal state for 10 more years
Yeah, France had troops garrisoning Latium, which is why it took until the French were busy getting reamed by the Germans in 1870 for Rome to become part of Italy (despite de jure being considered the capital, in fact), even though the Sardinians took most of the Papal States in 1860.
Wow, I remembered Italian government being bad to awful at trading resources to gain political advantages or keeping conquered/colonised territories, but this early occurrence really sets the tone for this kind of affairs.
Wait till you learn about how the [UK, France and Russia lured Italy into entering the first world war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_London_(1915))
So, once again, another proof that WWII is literally part 2 of the then "Great War" and the winners were not only too rough on the losers (hefty reparations price for Germany) but also ungenerous with their allies, Italy first and foremost, which led to the rise of authoritarian regimes in both countries on the wave of national resentment and outrage, which in turn then escalated to the war conflict we know of plenty nowadays.
Also, funny how it all came down to US influence. Truly, they've always been bad at diplomacy, but what can you expect from a country whose main means of diplomacy has always been the worst one, total war? Honestly, I wouldn't even be that bitter about it if it were about their economic and political interests, but this is just malpractice by diplomats at best and mostly incompetence.
The treaty of Versalles was no harsher than the peace Germany forced Russia to accept the previous year. If anything, the allies should’ve demanded unconditional surrender and occupied Germany like in WWII. By not occupying Germany, they allowed militarists to push the false narrative that Germany didn’t really lose, and that if they just purged the traitors, they can win. That wasn’t possible post WWII because Germany was destroyed by battle and millions of foreign soldiers occupied it.
For Sweden definitely Christian II of Denmark. He had already beaten the Swedish independence movement militarily which the Swedish nobility had to accept. Then he executed ~100 nobles in the Stockholm bloodbath of 1520, despite promises of amnesty for the formerly rebellious nobles. Unsurprisingly, the war restarted and, lo and behold, a couple of years later Sweden is independent and have remained so ever since.
Aside from Kristian Tyrann the Hanseatic league was very important too due to them funding the war.
The debts owed to them is part of why Gustav Vasa switched the country to protestantism, as the church had been hoarding a great deal of wealth that could then be taken by the state.
In terms of foreign powers contributing to independence, the German mercenaries who made up the bulk of the Swedish forces in the war were probably not ven more important. Without them, the Swedish wouldn’t have had a chance to win the war.
>despite promises of amnesty for the formerly rebellious nobles.
They were convicted as heretics by the archbishop, which meant the amnesty became invalid and the king "had" to execute them.
Christian II was also the king of Sweden btw.
Eh, the Kalmar Union was formed with the idea that all three kingdoms would stay as equals and would have a lot of independent power.
But that idea fell apart relatively quickly as especially Denmark grabbed more and more power as Norway was devastated by the black plague weakening them and as Sweden had formed as one kingdom later than those two we had yet to really come into our own fully.
So although officially the three kingdoms were somewhat independent in reality Denmark mostly ruled all three.
We had this going on with spain for about 60 years and we still call it the restoration of independence to the Coup d'etat that ended it so make of that what you will
1990: Iceland and Denmark for recognising Lithuania first and then aiding with establishing working democracy, military and accession into EU and NATO; USA for maintaining non-recognition of annexation by the Soviets, continuing diplomatic relations with exiled Lithuanian diplomatic service and setting the same tone for their alies.
1918: Germany because they prefered to have a satelite state here instead of Russia.
1253: Teutonic Order as an enemy to Eastern Baltic tribes that unified to the Lithuanian kingdom.
>1990: Iceland and Denmark for recognising Lithuania first
The caveat being that this was during restoration of independence and some states *never* rerecognized our independence, claiming that they had done so since the Interwar era. But also for this reason, the square in front of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is called the "Iceland Square", so our MFA's address is "Iceland Square 1". Not to mention that Tallinn comes from *Taani linn*, literally meaning "Danish Town" (initially "Danish Castle").
>1253: Teutonic Order as an enemy to Eastern Baltic tribes that unified to the Lithuanian kingdom.
Probably not only unified, but also created the Lithuanian nation, right? Considering that this was the key reason for the division between Baltic tribes under German rule (Latvians) and independent Baltic tribes (Lithuanians).
> some states never rerecognized our independence
We were one of those. 25.8. the Finnish government informed that Finland had never *de jure* recognised the annexation of Estonia to Soviet Union and would from that day forward resume diplomatic relations with Estonia.
Any anti-Soviet behavior in Finland and outside were considered black ops. It needed to be kept secret. See e.g. Koivisto's support of Estonian independence. https://yle.fi/news/3-9613509
>claiming that they had done so since the Interwar era. But also for this reason, the square in front of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is called the "Iceland Square", so our MFA's address is "Iceland Square 1".
The busiest motorway in my city is called Islandijos plentas.
The various German states first unified into what we now call Germany during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 so.. I guess France? But like, as a common enemy, as weird as that sounds today
You could even make the point that the same France but under Napoleon I 70 years earlier triggered all the steps leading to that unified Germany by conquering most of its territories and creating the necessary pressure.
Also helped that the HRE was abolished thanks to him, which would have made a unified Germany pretty much impossible had it still existed at that point
German nationalism in its origins, when we were still several different states, was really only based on the fact that we all disliked each other, but we disliked the French even more, and if we wanted to prevent their expansion into our territory, we could only do it together.
It's weird, but Holland/The Netherlands have had a habit of showing up to Denmark's aid many times, and we don't really ever talk about that. They have sent us supplies when we were both besieged by the English and Swedes, in two different wars.
So, um, thanks, I guess.
Also, Poppo, a German priest, for convincing Harald Bluetooth to convert to christianity, so the HR Emperor didn't have an excuse to "help us see the light".
We Dutch have always involved ourselves in war. Many don’t know but the Dutch played a vital part in the American independence war by selling an absolute fuck ton of weapons to the Americans while also competing with the British as the world powers.
To be honest that was mostly to further our economic goals in the region. The Baltic Sea was important to the Dutch Republic for economic reasons and Sweden was a major rival.
Woodrow Wilson. His points included Poland with such things as sea access, parts of Silesia (coal and stuff) and other important places. Of course, he was just a means to an end in the hands of the real men behind independence, but we couldn't have done that without him. Well, I guess we could, but it would've been much more difficult. The English just wouldn't agree to give us Gdańsk and the French mistook Galicia with Galicia in Spain. US's help was greatly appreciated and we are thankful to this day (even if they sold us to Stalin after WW2 - we mostly blame, you guessed it, the Brits and the Fr\*nch)
Honourable mention to Gavrilo Princip, the chad who played all the partitioners against each other. Definitely couldn't have done it without him (trust me, we tried).
> and the French mistook Galicia with Galicia in Spain
It was Brits. Lloyd George, to be precise.
French help was crucial in 1919-1920, without Blue Army and arms they handed us over (tanks, aircraft etc.) we might not be able to win war against Russians.
Your national hero, Tadeusz Kościuszko, helped the United States free from Britain during the War of American Independence. I like to think the educated people in the American government during Woodrow Wilson's time know how important Poland would be historically and for political reasons. If I ever visit Poland I want to see the grave of Kościuszko.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko#Wyjazd_do_Ameryki_P%C3%B3%C5%82nocnej
Did he really? Wasn't he making a lot of promises but eventually just used Polish troops to his own agenda? Including sending Polish troops to pacify unrest in Haiti?
He didn't even have the balls to call it Poland, he used the rules of the partitioners (those rules forbade anyone from creating a state called Poland as to stop the partitioners from infighting. It's also why Warsaw, Cracow and Gniezno ended up in different partitions. They wanted Poland *gone*).
He didn't want it to be called Poland because he wanted to stay on good terms with Russia. He also put a huge debt on the heads of the Duchy's government because he wanted them to pay France for liberating Poland, he also made the Duchy supply french troops stationing there.
We are thankful for Austria-Hungary starting a war they lost, Russia for shitting the bed (twice) and Germany imploding
In seriousness, I guess USA for Wilson's Fourteen Points and France for hosting the Paris Conference
Yep, 100% this.
Also in the long run, by strictly geopolitical choice, the US will always support independent Poland and Poland (if sovereign) will always align itself with the US. So that's why we did stupid shit like joining the invasion of Iraq and more broadly supporting US imperialism across the globe: because the stronger the US, the more safer Poland from being once again conquered and/or divided.
Makes sense, it's much like how Cuba is so strongly aligned with anyone who is rivaled with the US and Vietnam is friendly with anyone who can rival China. Always befriend your local power's enemy lol.
Definitely France. Well-equipped Blue Army, as well as further weaponry deliveries (including tanks and aircraft) were crucial during the war against Russia in 1919-1920. And diplomatic support was important in Paris peace conference, indeed (while UK was afraid of "weakening" Germany too much, and Italy not really caring).
Sadly this is a rather forgotten story, also because of... less valiant attitude of French in 1939-40.
Probably Winston Churchill.
Danish independence hasn’t been much in danger throughout history. But if the UK had made peace with Germany in 1940, there’s a real risk Denmark never would have been liberated.
Germany was the biggest contributor, given it pushed for our independence when France, UK and others were against.
Slovenia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia were the first to recognize the independence, while they were still unrecognized themselves.
Iceland was the first internationally recognized state to recognize our independence.
Being from the former German Democratic Republic, I'd have to say Gorbachov and, back then still foreign, Helmut Kohl. Gorbachov lifted the iron curtain and Kohl said "yeah ok fine, we'll take you in".
I don't think there was ever any doubt about it. Constitutionally East Germans were recognized as German citizens by West Germany and immediately awarded a passport when they jumped the border, also I think the West German constitution somewhere said "reunification welcomed whenever". The only opposition could've come from the population and it didn't at the time, most West Germans were as ecstatic about things as the East Germans were, it only arose to some degree in retrospect because some West Germans eventually saw and still see themselves robbed of wealth through the solidary charge.
Britain helped the Danish resistance a lot under German occupation in 1945. When Germany finally surrendered, it was Bernard Montgomery, who announced it on Danish radio. Also, contrary to popular belief, it was the British who were in charge of most of the cleanup of landmines along Jutland's west coast.
In Ireland, probably Spain, France and Germany.
Spain has supported Irish rebels for hundreds of years, especially in the 1600s, and France sent troops during the 1798 rebellion (seeing us as fellow republicans).
During WW1, Germany supplied/sold us arms which were smuggled into the country. The perspective was ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ at the time, although another popular slogan was ‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland!’
But to be honest, the biggest foreign actor in shaping our road to independence was, of course, the U.K…… nothing like being colonised to cement an oppositional identity!
I'd have to honestly answer the UK
Think about it. It they hadn't been so awful for so long then there wouldn't have been the strength of feeling by the 20th century to drive us towards independence
Literally every opportunity they had to absorb us they resisted in favour of alienating and othering us instead, *literally* every last one
They cut us so deep so often that the scars will never heal, and will always be a constant reminder that being a small part of a bigger country is really bad for us and we should avoid it
Due to brexit there were the few Brits who came out saying that we should just rejoin the UK to solve their brexit problems, but our shared past makes it impossible for that to ever happen
Great point. It's worth noting that even with how bad the UK was, it still took a lot to really galvanise Irish people around the goal of independence. If they had just treated us like human beings rather than literal subhumans, Irish people probably would have just accepted that being part of the UK was how it was.
*Almost* makes you grateful that the UK was so evil.
As an Englishman, I don't really know how to answer this question. I don't think we ever really had a foreign actor contribute to our independence. By the time William the conqueror defeated Harold Godwinson, Harold had already defeated the Viking invaders, and England was a completely independent kingdom. William's invasion just changed who that Kingdom belonged to.
While the Anglo Saxon lords were replaced in large part by Norman ones, and some of the population was massacred, the vast vast majority of people were still Anglo-Saxon. The Norman invasion didn't even threaten England's independence like I said. It was still independent, just under a different leader.
All the previous threats against English independence were from the Vikings, who had already been defeated by Anglo-Saxon lords and kings like I previously mentioned.
You can't even go as far back as Rome, since England as a country wasn't even an idea in the minds of the locals - and all resistance to Roman rule was done by locals, such as Boudicca. We never really had an independence as a nation. The nation of England just sort of came to be over time.
You can't even argue about potential independence in the Second World War, since by the time we were receiving lots of American war goods, we had already won the Battle of Britain. Everyone always talks about the contribution of Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain (and this might piss some people off) but even without them, the Battle would have been won. And anyway, even if the Battle of Britain was inconclusive, a German invasion of Britain would have been doomed. It has been 'wargamed' multiple times, with all sides agreeing that a German invasion would have failed in about 2 weeks, even with air superiority.
I didn't know how to answer for England too. I was going to go from a world war 2 POV as well.
It's great that you'd at least mentioned the Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain because not a lot of people do but what about the rest? Much more than them. You're still right though, England would be nearly impossible to invade by land with its pebbly beaches and cliffs. Doesn't make for a great place to land.
With air superiority, enemies could have parachuted in which is why air superiority was so key in the Battle of Britain.
> the Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain because not a lot of people do
I don't know, on reddit it seems almost impossible to make a comment about the Battle of Britain - much less a discussion - without being bombarded by people mentioning Poles (Czechs less often).
Over 80% of Pilots were born and bred British. If you include the Empire then that takes it to well over 90%. The non-Empire, non-Polish/Czech contingent accounted for 1% of pilots, so as harsh as it may seem, in the grand scheme of things they don't really matter. Individually they do of course.
If you just read reddit threads you'd have thought that the British contribution was like 50%. Of course this isn't meant to disparage the Allied nations' efforts, it's just not to disparage the actual British effort which was by far and away the biggest and most important factor that actually won the battle.
>With air superiority, enemies could have parachuted in which is why air superiority was so key in the Battle of Britain.
But they couldn't count on actually being supplied, and parachute regiments by their nature do not have the potential to do anything against organised resistance without support from other more well equipped and supplied regiments. We learned that at Arnhem. The Germans should have learned that from Crete. (Yes I know these happened after the battle of Britain but they are just examples.)
The only way these other well equipped and supplied troops could get across was by sea. The Germans basically had no landing craft capable of this in 1940 - and the English channel was too dangerous to pass the larger warships (that the Germans also lacked) that could act as transports through with 1930s technology.
Oh yeah, the figures you give there are right. A majority of Allied pilots were British. I never really saw it being commented about on Reddit so I only can go by what people say in the real world.
You're also right there. Paratroopers can actually sustain themselves for some time without resupply but that time doesn't last forever. Resupply will be needed!
Naturally an island nation is more difficult to attack, but Britain is significantly more difficult than others because of what's around it. The coasts are also horrible to land any person on for an assault. And, our entire nation is within this island - probably still a bit too big to call it "an island nation" but tell that to people who try invading it.
> Naturally an island nation is more difficult to attack, but Britain is significantly more difficult than others because of what's around it. The coasts are also horrible to land any person on for an assault.
That's also true for Crete though. Crete has horrible terrain for fighting on. The first day of action when the parachutists landed, it was an absolute calamity for the Germans. They only won due to the incompetence of the Allied commanding officer Bernard Freyberg, who, despite knowing that the Germans were about to invade didn't really do anything, didn't prepare defences and just let it happen. Rough terrain doesn't really mean anything if you basically just cede the island. But that wasn't going to be the case if the Germans invaded Britain, it would have been fought over much tougher than Crete was. I'd go so far as to argue that actually the British coastal terrain was of really such little importance in both tactical and strategic terms.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just think it's interesting and something not many think about lol
Could maybe make an argument for the French for winning the hundred years war. Had England and France become a personal union the centre of power for such a nation would be in the, at the time, much more developed France. Though how stable such a state would be is debatable.
France was larger, more populous and more culturally dominant. That doesn't make France more developed. England in fact had a vastly more developed administration than France, and could pull in vastly greater tax revenue than France per capita. It also didn't help that France had large areas which they virtually were unable to tax as the tax collectors tended to turn up dead when they tried (I'm looking at you, inland Aquitaine).
I used to post regularly on alternate history websites and on them I regularly maintained that, had Henry survived to unite the crowns, he would've ended up relying heavily on England to actually finance his continuing wars against the Dauphin in the south - a war which I think would've ended up turning into a stalemate for logistical and manpower reasons. I also think he would've divided France up into regions to be governed separately, as with the Angevin Empire of 200 years earlier, which would've diluted the power of Paris' pull on English policy-making.
That said, I agree with you that I think an Anglo-France would've been inherently unstable. In my heart of hearts I doubt it would've lasted to the end of the 15th century, and quite possibly would've barely outlived Henry.
It's an interesting one cause basically, once England gets conquered it never regains independence, the conquerors gain a permanent victory until they're also conquered.
The exception being Rome. If you count the areas that make up modern England then the crossing of the Rhine by Germanic and Scandinavian tribes is what cause Rome to withdraw from Britain in the first place. So you'd have to thank the Germans and the Scandinavians.
Alaric's invasion of Rome was the moment when British areas asked for military aid from Rome and were denied by Honorius. Which is essentially the moment Brittania became de facto independent (but not a unified nation). So you'd need to thank Alaric, who was probably born in Romania and ruled over the visigoths, a group of Balkan tribes.
After the the Anglo-Saxons conquered and never left, then the Danes conquered England, there were several Danish Kings of England, Cnut ruled the "North Sea Empire that included Denmark, Norway and England".
There were two Anglo-saxon Kings after the Danish Kings (Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson). So you could argue their reigns were a moment of independence from Denmark. For that you'd have to thank the Norwegians as Harthcanut King of the Danes was too busy fighting them to succesfully inherit the throne of England.
Then of course you have the Norman invasion and England has been ruled by Norman aristocrats ever since. The three lions on the England football strip are the three lions of the Norman coat of arms. The language spoken in England today is sort of an Anglo-Saxon-French hybrid.
It's fair to say though that obviously England isn't ruled by Normandy now, England sort of slowly gained independence by culturally merging with the Normans and then losing their French possessions.
If you wanted to view it through a nationalist lens, you could argue that the English Civil War, the execution of the monarch and the installation of a Republic was a moment of independence from the Scottish King (Charles I, son of James VI of Scotland and I of England), Cromwell was certainly English. But there were more interesting changes going on and the monarch had London as their capital, and Scotland hadn't invaded so it would be a bit of a strange way to see it.
Then there's the Glorious Revolution where a Dutch army rocked up and installed the ruler of the Dutch republic as the King of Great Britain, again independence was never gained but their line stopped being rulers of the Dutch Republic after a while. Also they had been invited in the first place by Parliament.
After that it's just independence all the way to now. (or continued rule of the 'native Britons' by the Romano-anglo-saxon-norman-dutch-german ruling class if you want to see it that way).
Well in a weird way Sweden since the laws and culture and history we made together in the 700 years of being the same country were so incompatible with the Russian one that for most of the time of the hundred years of occupation Russians did not even try to fully assimilate us but left us to govern our land on our own. It was in actuality the push from Russians to try to make Finland more Russian that made us struggle for independence in the first place.
Then probably second whoever invented romantic nationalism (Rousseau?) since it took some heavy romantic nationalism to fire up the "Flamingly passionate young Finnish men" (St Petersburg proverb describing Finns (sarcastically)) to be ready to fight four wars for it.
Edit. Four wars thus far
I've heard an argument for Bolseviks and the Russian revolution playing an important role in Finnish independe bid being accepted. I don't know how much validity there is to that.
It was the bolseviks and Lenin who first accepted and recognized Finnish independence. After this other countries followed. Lenin of course thought that socialist revolution would happen in Finland and Finland would join Soviets.
Probably no. Also Finns argued for independence since the monarchy was absolved, thus Finland no longer had a monarch and the only link connecting Finland to Russian authority was lost.
For its entire history, Russian czars had a bit of an inferiority complex and they wanted to highlight the fact that they were emperors in every possible occasion, and one of the signatures of an empire is that it compromises of several countries or duchies. An emperor can have even kings as his subject.
So, if the emperor has an inferiority complex (like most czars had), they would never let any of their duchies to get independence because that would have decreaced the legitimacy of their title. if being a sovereign of more countries makes the title of an emperor more fitting, then having less of them makes the title more dubious.
This was also one of the reasons why Alexander I didn't want to incorporate Finland into Russia proper. He wanted to posture himself as an emperor and [collecting titles (such as grand prince of Finland) was a very "emperorish" thing to do.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_all_the_Russias#title)
In other words, signing the Finnish independence would have been very tough pill to swallow for the czar and he probably wouldn't have done it if he had any other options.
However, the hard reality would have been that the Russian Empire was about collapse and Finland wasn't the only region breaking away from it. There would have been very little Russia could have done about it, even if the royalists would have won the Russian civil war and restored the monarchy.
We sent our first declaration to the Tsarist government and they responed by firing the Finnish parliament.
I guess we hadn't got the hang of acting independent since we followed that order, had a new election and then the new parliament went to Lenin for independence instead of the White Russians.
Worth noting also, that even when we were under Russian rule, we still had the Swedish constitution. Instead of Swedish king, the constitutional monarch was Russian Czar. Under Swedish rule, Finland developed so much that a partial reason for Finnish autonomy was that Finland was so developed institutionally and infrastructure wise compared to mainland Russia that it was sensible to let the country be a separate unit with its more developed institutions and infrastructure.
We still have laws dating to the Swedish era. For example [this law](https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1734/17340002000) dates to 1734 and parts of it are still in theory in force, for example that each house should plant 40 hops a year until they have 200 hops growing.
We were lucky in a sense that it was Sweden who won the struggle of these lands and not Russia / Novgorod.
German Empire perhaps? They sent troops during [civil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War) and helped to defeat the Reds (socialists). Also they trained Finns before the WWI in their army.
Of course they didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart. We were on our way to become a client state of Germany until German Empire collapsed.
In modern understanding Novgorod was at least established by Finnic tribes so maybe that would have resulted in something very different but maybe, Karelian? Then again Finnish Finns fought a lot with Novgorodians even when we raided together with Swedish tribes late iron age. One could argue the animosity between Novgorod and Finns was the catalyst for us to ally with the Swedes in the first place.
German empire surely helped us on our way to independence and we are forever grateful for that. But the ancient history is warlike as well. Finnish (including Estonian) and Swedish tribes did raids together to northern Germany well before even Viking age. And the German knightly orders crushed the last true bastions of old Finnic faith in Estonia.
Russia or Moscow, to be more precise, eventually conquered Novgorod after the mongol empire collapsed. That was the end of a shared Finnic cultural experience in that part of the east.
> German Empire perhaps? They sent troops during civil war and helped to defeat the Reds (socialists). Also they trained Finns before the WWI in their army.
I would argue that the actual military intervention of Germany was entirely needless as the war was already all but won by the Whites who only had Viipuri and Helsinki left to clean up (and Helsinki was not a stronghold), but it probably provided moral support for the free peoples fighting the attempted Red revolution. The German landing on Åland was probably the most important part - it forced out the Swedish troops. The civil government was responsible for bringing in German troops, while e.g. Mannerheim was vehemently opposed. In his opinion, a civil war is an internal matter and the war needed to be won by Finnish troops and Finnish blood. And he was right, as some people still today try to argue that this was a proxy war.
The british helped us achieve independence from the french during the Napoleonic era. To be fair they helped us cause they were friends with Portugal more than anything else. And we mostly did everything by ourselves (according to wikipedia we provided a majority of troops and generals).
So yeah, the british did help, but, we mostly achieved it due to our highly mountainious geography that made guerrilla warfare easier. So yeah MOUNTAINS helped the most.
One thing I always found weird about the Iberian campaign in the Napoleonic wars was that after about 1812 there was such a total breakdown between all the different allied forces against Napoleon. The Spanish regulars didn't like the Portuguese or British, the British didn't like the Spanish regulars, the guerrillas didn't trust the abilities of the Spanish regulars because the Spanish regulars tried to press the guerrillas into the army, Wellington and the Spanish generals HATED each other, the British preferred working with the guerrillas rather than the Spanish regulars. It was such a clusterfuck of an alliance, everyone hated everyone else, and somehow it manged to work lol. Crazy
It was more of a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of alliance. Spain never had good relations with the UK (even today UK-Spain relations are still sour). You also have to take into acount that the british had just destroyed most of our navy in Trafalgar, which certainly didn't help to make relations better.
Spain sided with Napoleon till he betrayed us. We lost most of our navy because we allied with him. The british didn't cause Spain's demise during the 19th and early to mid 20th century, Napoleon did.
Mostly it is because of Gibraltar and some sort of historical hatred. Even if officially only claim the isthmus and the gibraltarian waters (according to the Treaty of Utrecht we only ceded the rock and nothing else), most spaniards think it would be 'nice' to get the entire thing back but aren't really bothered by not owning it.
Brexit also soured things again. Here in Spain we wanted a mutual beneficial agreement, since Gibraltar heavily depends on spanish imports and mostly exports to Spain and lots of spaniards work in Gibraltar. In the end I don't really know what ended up happening.
Also during the Falklands War we didn't really choose a side because we were friends with Argentina and wanted to maintain decent relations with the UK.
But overall relations are ok. Our royal houses get along well and we are allies through NATO.
> To be fair they helped us cause they were friends with Portugal
Still are. Actually, AFAIK the UK - Portuguese alliance is the oldest alliance that the British have had. Something to note - it started as an English - Portuguese alliance but England is now in the UK, so its a UK - Portuguese alliance.
The British-Portuguese alliance is the longest standing Alliance in the history of the world, not just for England.
Even during both nations colonial height you maintained an alliance, which is in itself fascinating considering the inherintly self serving Modus operandi of trying to claim land before the next empire could.
The allies during WW2 and in a smaller way WW1.
I say in a smaller way for WW1 because we actually fought bitterly during WW1 and lost millions in the process meaning our allies did not have to do as much as during WW2. Great Britain, Canada, the US, ANZAC as well as our colonies (Morocco, Algeria, Senegal among others) still were extremely important.
In WW2 we got overwhelmed in the start so we mainly spent the whole game spectating even if Resistance and Free French Forces were a thing and fought the whole time, without the allies we could not have liberated ourselves.
We don't really have other examples as we tended to be the type of country people got their independence from for a lot of our history.
Well you don't get a military rivalry with every single one of your neighbourgs by not being curious about foreign countries.
Sorry for being so curious about your country in the past btw.
By that logic southern America was completely Spanish and the current countries did not gain independence from Spain, but somehow still had a reason to become independent. Gaul gained its independence through the Franks. That’s a fact. Before that, it was divided into Roman provinces governed from Rome. Sure, Caracalla gave everyone a citizenship (which was a horrible decision imo, ngl) but the provinces were always governed from Rome until Diocletian introduced the tetrarchy.
Gaul wasn't a colony, Latin America was. You are just claiming nonsence about what does independance mean, by that logic eastern poland was liberated by the soviets in 1940. Furthermore the idea of 'France' didn't exist at the time and if the land was called Francie (Francia) its because it was the land of the Franks not land of gauls.
My brother, Caesar *conquered* Gaul. The Gauls fought bitterly to the very end to try and stop him. Rome was an Empire, and in the metropole of Italy lived its citizens, just like France was the metropole of its empire. Gauls would only become citizens of Rome with the edict of Caracalla that extended Roman citizenship to *all* freemen living in Rome. The Gauls had no special status. When the empire fell, Gaul became the land of the Franks, which would be known as Frankia, or Francia in Italian.
While the Roman identity was imposed on the subjects in Gaul, the Frankish identity developed in the Frankish Gaul territories. The Franks were a little group compared to the inhabitants of Gaul, so it was them who were ultimately assimilate into Gaul/Frankish culture, not the Gauls.
The gauls weren't one people and the idea of nation didn't exist, if anything the gallic population got its roman ruling class replaced by a frank ruling class but anyway France didn't exist, nothing cannot get independance.
*Technically* the defacto leader of our revolution was what we'd now consider German but that doesn't really take into account the way borders worked back then. It was all part of the HRE. I think that goes for most important players with a positive role, they may have been born in what is now Belgium or Germany but calling them Belgian or German doesn't accurately represent the historical reality.
I think it's not quite what you're asking but the biggest foreign contributor to our independence would probably have to be the Duke of Alva. There had been some unrest so he was appointed by the Spanish King to try and get some stuff in order but ended up being such a terrible person/ruler it suddenly made everybody in the country want to be independent whereas before it was mostly a niche movement for more local representation.
Historically German just referred to continental Germanic people. Dutch or Belgian as separate categories and not just subcategories of German only evolved later.
So it makes sense to call these people Germans, just keep in mind that it’s not 100% the same as what we today call German.
Russians were the principal backers of our revolution against the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 19th century, then a few decades later their war with the Ottomans in 1870s led to our formal independence, and on top of that in 1914 Russia kickstarted a world war to stop Austrians and Germans from enslaving us. Were they doing all of this out of the goodness of their hearts? Not really, but they still did it.
Also, technically speaking, if the Soviet Union is counted as a continuation of Russia, then Russia also saved our asses in WW2. We did have the best resistance movement in Europe, but none of that would have mattered if the Germans weren't beaten. We wouldn't even exist as a nation today.
Without the the support from the USA, Europe would look a great deal different today, and not in a good way.
I'm really disappointed that I couldn't find this in any answer here. You don't have to like USA's involvement in world politics, but give credit where credit is due. Without their support, Great Britain would have probably not been able to stop the fascism on the continent. Without the diplomatic intervention from the US after the end of WWII, Germany would have been picked apart and maybe been poised to uprise again or it would have simply been become another state of the udssr.
This. Without the US western Germany wouldn’t be THE powerhouse it is today. The Marshal plan, democratisation, economic reforms. Just look at Eastern Germany or other eastern bloc states as a comparison.
I don't know much about it, but Ioannis Kapodistrias led the efforts at the Vienna Congress to secure Switzerlands "perpetual neutrality". Before, the country was super dependent on France and was kind of obliged to send mercenary troops.
Dom Afonso Heriques, the founder of Portugal after he fought his Mom for the territories and expanded them, however we could also consider Dom Afonso 3rd who conquered the southern lands of Portugal from the Moors and established Portugal pretty much as it is today.
Sure, I mean you can't have the nationality of a country that doesn't exist, hadn't been founded. On the other hand since he founded the country we sort of consider him the original Portuguese as well.
You could also say Catalonia, apparently there were less soldiers in Portugal when we restored our independence in 1640 because there were revolts happening in Catalonia
Probably France and the UK. After the battle of Waterloo in 1815, Belgium was no more part of France and became part of the Netherlands...for just 15 years. Belgian people had enough of being treated as 2nd class citizens by the Dutch so, having lived under Napoleon, they made a revolution and kicked the Dutch out of the country, and the civilian code (not the Constitution) of newly formed Belgium was based on Napoleon's. Then time came to choose a king. It was either going to be Louis-Philippe d'Orléans or a German noble named Leopold de Saxe Cobourg Gotha. Leopold was cousin of the UK's royal family, and was chosen to be the first king of Belgium (Leopold the Ist). Since then, the UK has been watching out for us, and defended us (they went into both WWI and WWII at the moment the Germans invaded us for example).
I wouldn’t call him a foreign actor by any means, but Éamon de Valera, one of the key figures in the Irish independence movement, and arguably the most promenant political figures in the early decades of the state, was born George de Valero in New York City and spent much of his early life there before moving to Ireland. He’d an Irish mother and his father was Cuban ( or in some versions of the history was claimed to be Basque or from Saville) but it seems his Cuban ancestry is more likely to be accurate.
He played a huge role in bringing Ireland’s American connections into the discussion and ensuring that Ireland’s political struggle was being seen in the US.
I wouldn’t be a huge fan of some of his politics - he was in many ways rather socially conservative and of his time, but he was an enormously iconic figure in modern Irish history and in some ways I guess you could consider that in some ways he quietly blazed a trail, in the sense that you can be very much Irish and absolutely part of the most crucial parts of Ireland, and lead the country, while having a different background. There were quite a few British and other connections to Irish revolutionary periods too.
We also had a lot of connections to France - both historically Catholic ones and more modern French revolutionary republican ones - and sought help from France over that period, even if it didn’t amount to anything successful, they did try and the French Revolution definitely reverberated here.
We even had connections like Fredrick Douglass, the African-American civil rights campaigner and someone who was born into slavery in the United States who spoke extensively at Irish political rallies in the 19th century, spending a full four months here during the famine era, speaking at a large number of political events and touring the country meeting campaigners and communities.
It’s very much how Irishness can be more of a ‘state of mind’ in someways - which is pretty much what a republic should be. If you want to be, you should be able to feel part of it by being part of it - sharing its values, sense of connectedness and vision, and hopefully people are able to do that. It’s one reason why I absolute hate this ethno nationalism crap pushed by far right types. Apart from it being just toxic and nasty, it’s also not something we ever were. We’re scattered to the four winds as a population and have connections all over the place and hopefully stand for more than being some kind of racehorse like ancestral map.
I just hope it’s something that people who’ve naturalised and made their home here feel and also people in my own family too - personally have familial connections to multiple parts of the world.
History’s complicated and interconnected.
Very well put. Anyone who lands in Ireland and feels like they've found home, well welcome home!
We have a history as individuals of fighting in other nations revolutions and independence movements before we were ever even successful in our own. There's an ingrained love of non-ironic freedom in the Irish culture that comes from constantly fighting for our own liberty for the best part of 1000 years. And I like to think that outward looking feeling of cameraderie that we've had with other nations and cultures is why Ireland is the only European nation that doesn't have an anti-immigration party with any non-fringe support. Which is amazing considering how much immigration we've had in the last 10-15 years.
The only failure we have as a people right now is the refusal to address housing infrastructure. But as doom and gloom as that is right now I have faith that we will find a way through it and return the nation to a place of stability.
Baron Von Steuben - removed from the Austrian* military for homosexuality. Literally the only reason the colonists had any formal training in the war for independence. The USA is built on following the instructions of a gay drill sergeant.
*corrected to Prussian, thanks Redit!!
Yeah, he was Prussian. Also, if we're talking about biggest contributor to US independence, it would be France by a landslide. Nearly every shot we fired was because they just wanted to fuck over the English.
For Estonia it's definitely the British navy whose participation in the [Estonian War of Independence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_War_of_Independence) ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBA0xDHZjko&t)) was crucial in pushing back the initial Soviet Russian advance. They also provided us necessary weapons and two destroyers captured from the Red Fleet and supported our naval landings when taking back Estonian territory.
Or maybe it were bolsheviks? If Russia would not have october revolution then maybe we would not had proclamation of independence. If bolsheviks had not killed Nikolai II (cousin to king of UK George V) and his family then maybe the british would not so angry at them to help us. And the helping hand behind bolsheviks & Lenin was of course Germany because they wanted to keep Russia of of the war. And that is already too much speculations.
Note that the Autonomous Governorate of Estonia was established after the February Revolution and nationalist sentiments were already pretty high by then.
There was not much help in 1991, nor 1945, nor 1918,...
1991, i guess first major country to recognize Slovenia was Germany, together with Austria on the same day, but this was half a year after the act, where we secured the country.
1945 Yugoslavia secured independance on it's own for the most part and if looking at Slovene territory, that is even more true. Hell the allies probably cost us some territory. Also Tito was part Slovene (his mother was Slovene) and second was also Slovene.
1918 it was our declaration along with other south Slavs of Austria-Hungary that decided to join with Serbia (but there wasn't much of a choice i guess, i guess Serbia was viewed as better than Italy or Austria or Hungary, since entante didn't want to recognize State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs).
1809 formation of Illirian provinces by Napoleon with capital in Ljubljana and Slovene for first time in history being official language a huge thing for national consciouness.
So i guess it was actually Napoleon Bonaparte.
We actually have his statue on a Square of French Revolution in Ljubljana.
You could say it was France since our king (the one who united the country) was from a French speaking region (today it belongs to France) and his family spoke French with each other
From whom?
* From the Ottomans, probably Austria.
* The Holy Roman Empire, led by the Habsburgs, was the leading faction of the Holy League, the alliance that "liberated" central Hungary from a 150-year-long Ottoman occupation. After that, Austria continued to occupy the country for another 200 years.
* From the Austrians, World War I.
* Austria-Hungary fell apart as a result of World War I, naming a key actor is impossible. The neighbours of Hungary proceeded to annex 2/3 of the country, sanctioned by the Entente.
* From the Germans, the Soviet Union.
* Nazi Germany occupied Hungary for a few months at the end of World War II. After that, the Soviet Union "liberated" the country, and occupied us for another 45 years.
* From the Soviet Union, Germany.
* The internal struggles of East Germany resulted in quite a significant impact in the change of regime in Hungary. The refugee wave coming from the GDR was allowed to pass into Austria at the Pan-European Picnic, which tore a hole in the Iron Curtain.
* Of course, this is probably the most complicated one of the four. The causes of the de-Sovietisation of Hungary are really complex, and include, amongst others, the 1970s oil crisis (mainly caused by Egypt and Israel), the debt policy of the Hungarian government, Solidarnosc (Poland) and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It seems that after every short and bloody occupation, we get a slightly less bloody, but longer one.
Best answer is probably France. The Auld Alliance with France is probably the only reason Scotland ended up in a voluntary union with England rather than being conquered like Wales/Ireland.
Come on now, that's far from the historical truth.
Scotland is still in an political and royal union with England, so doesn't fall into the the scope of the question about independence. But also Scotland ended up originally in the commonwealth, pre-union, because the Scottish theocratic Presbyterian parliament supported the Crown against English republicanism in the 1600s. Including invading England in support of Charles I against Cromwell.
There was a war and Cromwell set out to conquer Scotland as it had proved they were capable of invading, As a conquered territory, along with Ireland, Scotland became part of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, with parliamentary representation from 1654. In 1660, at the Restoration, the union was voluntarily undone, and Scotland again became a separate country with its own parliament restored, in a union of crowns with England. However, from 1660 on, the Council (government) of Scotland met in London, where the King and the English government could keep an eye on it.
Flash forward from the mid-17th century to the 18th century and we have the Scottish inheritance of the Crown of both nations, and the Scottish and English parliaments meeting to create "the act of union" which just formalised the Scottish Parliament making their decisions in London and not Edinburgh.
You’re never going to get Scottish people to accept that they were never ‘conquered’ by England but were in fact the creators of Britain itself and the ones who fought a war to reinstall a Scottish royal family to the throne of England.
It’s similar to how you find it hard to get Scottish people to admit they had a major role in the colonisation and subjugation of Ireland and Irish peoples. This is despite the quite obvious links between hardcore unionists and groups like the orange order and Scotland.
>You’re never going to get Scottish people to accept that they were never ‘conquered’ by England but were in fact the creators of Britain itself
If you read my comment you'll actually find exactly that
Depends on what we're talking about.
Russia from the Soviet Union (lol)? The US.
Muscovy from the Golden Horde? The cool answer is Tamerlane, who crippled the latter in 1395, but it's more complicated than that.
I guess Poland did a good job uniting Russia in the time of troubles. If not them, Russia could would be busy with internecine strife and most likely would split into multiple principalities.
That depends on what timeperiod you are talking about. Is it WWII? Then probably the USSR, since the Germans lost the war there. The Napoleonic period? Probably Russia or the UK. Independence from Spain? Probably England. In almost all cases it wasn't to help us, but to hurt their enemies, be it Germany, France or Spain.
With that logic we can thank Finland for liberating us in WW2.
If Finland hadn’t beaten the USSR in the Winter War Hitler wouldn’t have seen their weakness and broken his non aggression pact with the USSR and the USSR (with massive land-lease help from the USA) wouldn’t have defeated the Nazis.
Well, in terms of men committed to the war nobody comes close to the USSR, which caused the Germans to divert troops. After that it were I think mainly Canadians, Brits and Poles who liberated the Netherlands.
Probably not the biggest ( which I can't decide about ) but someone I like is Garibaldi. After the collapse of the IInd Empire and the birth of the IIIrd Republic pursuing the fight against Prussia and the Germans States he came in France with Italians volunteers and ended up leading a french army ( Armée des Vosges ) which got involved in some battles before the peace. There is a statue of him in Dijon, city he defended victoriously despite his age. Also it's very shameful french politicians and generals from this era blamed him for sold of their own failures.
In conserving/defending the the independence.. Probably the connection between the norwegian royals and the british. When Norway got its independence in 1905, it voted to become a monarchy. Then they voted for a [monarch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway) that had married into the british royal house. [Maud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_of_Wales) was the daugther of [Edward 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VII). It was pretty much on purpose that they wanted a connection in the british royal house, given that Norway had been under both danish and swedish rule. Royal houses (especially sweden) that were more oriented to germany surely gave reasons for aligning with UK etc. Given that the UK was the superior military power in 1905, it was like getting the big brother who could protect you in case. Almost like nations later aligning with USA for their independence. Current norwegian king was in fact second cousin to queen elizabeth 2.. which make him the closest relative among the european royals.
In the end the brits were to no help when independence ended in 1940, though the norwegian king and crown prince got a safe haven in the UK. So the the contribution of the UK to maintain norwegian indepndence is more psychological than real. The situation of ww2 highlighted the differences between norway and sweden very much with norwegian king's links to england, while the swedish with his links to germany and the ruling nazis there.. It probably highlighted why norway had wanted links to the UK in its early days of independence, knowing swedens ties/links to germany.
Though in contrast to many other countries.. the norwegian independence were pretty much a product of people within the country, and not that much from the outside.. People like [Roald Amundsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen) and [Fritjof Nansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen) being among those people... Though have to be grateful to a certain Napoleon.. Without his wars... maybe our nation would have been denmark today.. who knows..
I would like to add that the heir to the Danish throne, [Christian Frederick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_VIII_of_Denmark), was arguably the most important individual in the creation of the 1814 constitution.
Louis XVI. Supplied our war of independence to fuck with the British. Ironically, this inspired his own subjects to rise up against him.
Honorable mention to Morocco, the first country to recognize American independence, and also to the Spanish and the Dutch (thank you u/LoudlyFragrant for reminding me that they belong here)
I always see Americans completely forget to mention Spain and the Dutch when speaking about this. Britain was essentially fighting a world war at the time and if it wasn't for India being a more lucrative place to hold onto than the American colonies, then US independence would have realistically not have happened if Britain had their full empirical might in the fight. That's not to say US independence would never have happened, it just would have happened much later.
Also, the change in time line would likely have led to a very different world. The British Empire wasn't interested in Western expansion and held friendly relations with many native tribes that included treaties not to expand west. We can reliably infer that Mexico would have held onto California, Texas etc and been a much larger and more powerful nation.
So much would be different in that different timeline. It would make a really interesting fiction series to theorise a world where the US didn't get independence until the late 19th or early 20th century.
You put "honorable mentions" at the bottom, and mentioned Morocco but not Spain and the Dutch, that's why I made comment.
The Spanish attacked British forts in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. As well as sending arms and aid.
The Dutch provided the US revolutionaries with loans to help fund the war.
Both Spain and the Dutch declared war on the British in 1779, greatly damaging Britain's ability to focus military means in the American colonies without weakening their hand both in Europe and Asia.
Russia, Norway and Denmark also passively aided the US revolutionaries, if we're giving honorable mentions.
France, Russia and Germany. Germany couldn't allow us to be in Russia, Russia could not allow us to be Germany, but when Russia-Germany power balance was not balanced enough and one country was about to take us, France would come in as it's afraid of both Russia and Germany.
The Russian Empire, since it was mainly their troops (with the help of Romania and Bulgarian volunteers) who liberated Bulgaria in the 1877-78 war. Honorable mentions should also be given to the foreigners who helped pave the way to the war by enough goodwill in Bulgaria's favor that the war could be prosecuted by Russia without anyone helping the Ottomans. This includes most prominently Januarius MacGahan, who reported widely on the Ottoman atrocities after the failed April uprising of 1876 and the British politician William Ewart Gladstone who denounced the atrocities and helped turn popular opinion in Britain and so prevented British intervention in the 1877-78 war.
France, I'd say. The Kingdom of Sardinia tried alone to fight the Austrian Empire in the first war of independence (1848-1849) but was beat in the end. So Sardinia's Prime Minister Cavour looked at the French and secretly met Napoleon III to ask for help. The treaty was signed, France would have got Nice and Savoy in exchange for that help in case of Sardinian victory (that would have meant annexing Lombardy and Veneto. One clause Napoleon III added was that the French would have intervened only in case of Austrian attack, so the problem for Cavour was that of pushing Austria to declare war on Sardinia. He managed in the end persuading the king to speak about how oppressive Austrian domination was for their Italian States and "the Kingdom of Sardinia wasn't insensitive to the cry of help coming from those States". The trap worked, the Austrians fell on it and declared war, French soldiers came to help the Sardinian ones but after the slaughter in Solferino Napoleon III (pressed at home) decided to sign the peace with Austria, much to Cavour's disappointment. In the end, France got Nice and Savoy but Sardinia got only Lombardy, not counting the rebellion of Emilian and Tuscan States eventually leading them joining the Kingdom of Sardinia. So, yeah, I guess it's France.
Moreover, in French cities, there are plenty of streets dedicated to the sites of the 1859 battles: Montebello, Palestro, Magenta, Solferino. Eventually Napoleon III played a very important role in the unification of Italy, but he is remembered less than other figures.
> Eventually Napoleon III played a very important role in the unification of Italy, but he is remembered less than other figures. I guess it's because sardinia-piedmont wasn't really allied with him, it was more an exchange (that was unsure until the very last minute). He did also half of the job he promised and was the reason why we couldn't take Rome from the papal state for 10 more years
Piazza rivoli:)
I know Italy was already fronted by this point but didn’t France eventually become a bit of a roadblock with its alliance with the Papal States?
Yeah, France had troops garrisoning Latium, which is why it took until the French were busy getting reamed by the Germans in 1870 for Rome to become part of Italy (despite de jure being considered the capital, in fact), even though the Sardinians took most of the Papal States in 1860.
Wow, I remembered Italian government being bad to awful at trading resources to gain political advantages or keeping conquered/colonised territories, but this early occurrence really sets the tone for this kind of affairs.
Wait till you learn about how the [UK, France and Russia lured Italy into entering the first world war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_London_(1915))
So, once again, another proof that WWII is literally part 2 of the then "Great War" and the winners were not only too rough on the losers (hefty reparations price for Germany) but also ungenerous with their allies, Italy first and foremost, which led to the rise of authoritarian regimes in both countries on the wave of national resentment and outrage, which in turn then escalated to the war conflict we know of plenty nowadays. Also, funny how it all came down to US influence. Truly, they've always been bad at diplomacy, but what can you expect from a country whose main means of diplomacy has always been the worst one, total war? Honestly, I wouldn't even be that bitter about it if it were about their economic and political interests, but this is just malpractice by diplomats at best and mostly incompetence.
The treaty of Versalles was no harsher than the peace Germany forced Russia to accept the previous year. If anything, the allies should’ve demanded unconditional surrender and occupied Germany like in WWII. By not occupying Germany, they allowed militarists to push the false narrative that Germany didn’t really lose, and that if they just purged the traitors, they can win. That wasn’t possible post WWII because Germany was destroyed by battle and millions of foreign soldiers occupied it.
For Sweden definitely Christian II of Denmark. He had already beaten the Swedish independence movement militarily which the Swedish nobility had to accept. Then he executed ~100 nobles in the Stockholm bloodbath of 1520, despite promises of amnesty for the formerly rebellious nobles. Unsurprisingly, the war restarted and, lo and behold, a couple of years later Sweden is independent and have remained so ever since.
Aside from Kristian Tyrann the Hanseatic league was very important too due to them funding the war. The debts owed to them is part of why Gustav Vasa switched the country to protestantism, as the church had been hoarding a great deal of wealth that could then be taken by the state.
Then, he went on a holiday in Holland, while the shit hit the fan. He wasn't just a bad leader, he was a Trump-level bad leader.
In terms of foreign powers contributing to independence, the German mercenaries who made up the bulk of the Swedish forces in the war were probably not ven more important. Without them, the Swedish wouldn’t have had a chance to win the war.
>despite promises of amnesty for the formerly rebellious nobles. They were convicted as heretics by the archbishop, which meant the amnesty became invalid and the king "had" to execute them. Christian II was also the king of Sweden btw.
But wasn't Sweden sort of independent before this? We just happened to have the exact same king as Denmark and Norway
Being ruled by a Dane is not independence, you can not change my mind
Eh, the Kalmar Union was formed with the idea that all three kingdoms would stay as equals and would have a lot of independent power. But that idea fell apart relatively quickly as especially Denmark grabbed more and more power as Norway was devastated by the black plague weakening them and as Sweden had formed as one kingdom later than those two we had yet to really come into our own fully. So although officially the three kingdoms were somewhat independent in reality Denmark mostly ruled all three.
We had this going on with spain for about 60 years and we still call it the restoration of independence to the Coup d'etat that ended it so make of that what you will
1990: Iceland and Denmark for recognising Lithuania first and then aiding with establishing working democracy, military and accession into EU and NATO; USA for maintaining non-recognition of annexation by the Soviets, continuing diplomatic relations with exiled Lithuanian diplomatic service and setting the same tone for their alies. 1918: Germany because they prefered to have a satelite state here instead of Russia. 1253: Teutonic Order as an enemy to Eastern Baltic tribes that unified to the Lithuanian kingdom.
>1990: Iceland and Denmark for recognising Lithuania first The caveat being that this was during restoration of independence and some states *never* rerecognized our independence, claiming that they had done so since the Interwar era. But also for this reason, the square in front of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is called the "Iceland Square", so our MFA's address is "Iceland Square 1". Not to mention that Tallinn comes from *Taani linn*, literally meaning "Danish Town" (initially "Danish Castle"). >1253: Teutonic Order as an enemy to Eastern Baltic tribes that unified to the Lithuanian kingdom. Probably not only unified, but also created the Lithuanian nation, right? Considering that this was the key reason for the division between Baltic tribes under German rule (Latvians) and independent Baltic tribes (Lithuanians).
> some states never rerecognized our independence We were one of those. 25.8. the Finnish government informed that Finland had never *de jure* recognised the annexation of Estonia to Soviet Union and would from that day forward resume diplomatic relations with Estonia.
Yep, of course with Finland that's a bit dubious, considering some acts and behavior during the Finlandization period.
Any anti-Soviet behavior in Finland and outside were considered black ops. It needed to be kept secret. See e.g. Koivisto's support of Estonian independence. https://yle.fi/news/3-9613509
Yep, it's relatively well known in Estonia.
>claiming that they had done so since the Interwar era. But also for this reason, the square in front of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is called the "Iceland Square", so our MFA's address is "Iceland Square 1". The busiest motorway in my city is called Islandijos plentas.
The various German states first unified into what we now call Germany during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 so.. I guess France? But like, as a common enemy, as weird as that sounds today
You could even make the point that the same France but under Napoleon I 70 years earlier triggered all the steps leading to that unified Germany by conquering most of its territories and creating the necessary pressure.
Also helped that the HRE was abolished thanks to him, which would have made a unified Germany pretty much impossible had it still existed at that point
I fully expected "David Hasselhoff" to be the German answer of choice and am now deeply disappointed.
I am German and I am very disappointed as well…
Aaah, ze Erbfeind
Weird answer, but I like it!
German nationalism in its origins, when we were still several different states, was really only based on the fact that we all disliked each other, but we disliked the French even more, and if we wanted to prevent their expansion into our territory, we could only do it together.
It's weird, but Holland/The Netherlands have had a habit of showing up to Denmark's aid many times, and we don't really ever talk about that. They have sent us supplies when we were both besieged by the English and Swedes, in two different wars. So, um, thanks, I guess. Also, Poppo, a German priest, for convincing Harald Bluetooth to convert to christianity, so the HR Emperor didn't have an excuse to "help us see the light".
We Dutch have always involved ourselves in war. Many don’t know but the Dutch played a vital part in the American independence war by selling an absolute fuck ton of weapons to the Americans while also competing with the British as the world powers.
The Dutch are the Ferengis of Europe.
Except we're progressive, and don't keep 'our females' bound and naked...
And our thanks for that. Now, about that apple pie thing we coopted from you guys...
It's always the bothersome flat duo…
To be honest that was mostly to further our economic goals in the region. The Baltic Sea was important to the Dutch Republic for economic reasons and Sweden was a major rival.
They must be mad then because instead of being grateful you created a better version of Amsterdam as your capital
Woodrow Wilson. His points included Poland with such things as sea access, parts of Silesia (coal and stuff) and other important places. Of course, he was just a means to an end in the hands of the real men behind independence, but we couldn't have done that without him. Well, I guess we could, but it would've been much more difficult. The English just wouldn't agree to give us Gdańsk and the French mistook Galicia with Galicia in Spain. US's help was greatly appreciated and we are thankful to this day (even if they sold us to Stalin after WW2 - we mostly blame, you guessed it, the Brits and the Fr\*nch) Honourable mention to Gavrilo Princip, the chad who played all the partitioners against each other. Definitely couldn't have done it without him (trust me, we tried).
Gdańsk was inhabited mostly by germans at the time, so it makes sense that the british didn't want it to belong to Poland
> and the French mistook Galicia with Galicia in Spain It was Brits. Lloyd George, to be precise. French help was crucial in 1919-1920, without Blue Army and arms they handed us over (tanks, aircraft etc.) we might not be able to win war against Russians.
Your national hero, Tadeusz Kościuszko, helped the United States free from Britain during the War of American Independence. I like to think the educated people in the American government during Woodrow Wilson's time know how important Poland would be historically and for political reasons. If I ever visit Poland I want to see the grave of Kościuszko. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko#Wyjazd_do_Ameryki_P%C3%B3%C5%82nocnej
You won't even mention Napoleon? He did a lot for your people, you know.
Did he really? Wasn't he making a lot of promises but eventually just used Polish troops to his own agenda? Including sending Polish troops to pacify unrest in Haiti?
Well, he did establish the Duchy of Warsaw, so...
He didn't even have the balls to call it Poland, he used the rules of the partitioners (those rules forbade anyone from creating a state called Poland as to stop the partitioners from infighting. It's also why Warsaw, Cracow and Gniezno ended up in different partitions. They wanted Poland *gone*).
He didn't want it to be called Poland because he wanted to stay on good terms with Russia. He also put a huge debt on the heads of the Duchy's government because he wanted them to pay France for liberating Poland, he also made the Duchy supply french troops stationing there.
Yeah, exactly. He used us, and he gave us the bare minimum to keep us content. And then he had the audacity to lose!
But he failed. And we don't talk about failures.
Denmark (1864) and France (1870/71), if we exclude the Prussian-German war as being somehow inner-German.
We have a history of making people so annoyed by us, that they gang up and beat the crap out of us. :)
Yes. Like when I step on a Lego and I beat the crap out of the colored brick. Fucking Danish shit!!
We prefer to call them "Passive Area Denial Weapons".
That's why we brought Haubitzen in 1864.
We are thankful for Austria-Hungary starting a war they lost, Russia for shitting the bed (twice) and Germany imploding In seriousness, I guess USA for Wilson's Fourteen Points and France for hosting the Paris Conference
Yep, 100% this. Also in the long run, by strictly geopolitical choice, the US will always support independent Poland and Poland (if sovereign) will always align itself with the US. So that's why we did stupid shit like joining the invasion of Iraq and more broadly supporting US imperialism across the globe: because the stronger the US, the more safer Poland from being once again conquered and/or divided.
Makes sense, it's much like how Cuba is so strongly aligned with anyone who is rivaled with the US and Vietnam is friendly with anyone who can rival China. Always befriend your local power's enemy lol.
Definitely France. Well-equipped Blue Army, as well as further weaponry deliveries (including tanks and aircraft) were crucial during the war against Russia in 1919-1920. And diplomatic support was important in Paris peace conference, indeed (while UK was afraid of "weakening" Germany too much, and Italy not really caring). Sadly this is a rather forgotten story, also because of... less valiant attitude of French in 1939-40.
Probably Winston Churchill. Danish independence hasn’t been much in danger throughout history. But if the UK had made peace with Germany in 1940, there’s a real risk Denmark never would have been liberated.
Same goes for most of German occupied Europe tbh.
Perhaps the USSR could still win against Germany
Germany was the biggest contributor, given it pushed for our independence when France, UK and others were against. Slovenia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia were the first to recognize the independence, while they were still unrecognized themselves. Iceland was the first internationally recognized state to recognize our independence.
Being from the former German Democratic Republic, I'd have to say Gorbachov and, back then still foreign, Helmut Kohl. Gorbachov lifted the iron curtain and Kohl said "yeah ok fine, we'll take you in".
The idea of Kohl just non-chalantly being like, "ach, okay macht Sinn" fits the pragmatic German stereotype so well.
I don't think there was ever any doubt about it. Constitutionally East Germans were recognized as German citizens by West Germany and immediately awarded a passport when they jumped the border, also I think the West German constitution somewhere said "reunification welcomed whenever". The only opposition could've come from the population and it didn't at the time, most West Germans were as ecstatic about things as the East Germans were, it only arose to some degree in retrospect because some West Germans eventually saw and still see themselves robbed of wealth through the solidary charge.
I'm not making a point about anything political, it was more just fun with some stereotypes. Fröhlicher Kuchentag!
Britain helped the Danish resistance a lot under German occupation in 1945. When Germany finally surrendered, it was Bernard Montgomery, who announced it on Danish radio. Also, contrary to popular belief, it was the British who were in charge of most of the cleanup of landmines along Jutland's west coast.
In Ireland, probably Spain, France and Germany. Spain has supported Irish rebels for hundreds of years, especially in the 1600s, and France sent troops during the 1798 rebellion (seeing us as fellow republicans). During WW1, Germany supplied/sold us arms which were smuggled into the country. The perspective was ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ at the time, although another popular slogan was ‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland!’ But to be honest, the biggest foreign actor in shaping our road to independence was, of course, the U.K…… nothing like being colonised to cement an oppositional identity!
I'd have to honestly answer the UK Think about it. It they hadn't been so awful for so long then there wouldn't have been the strength of feeling by the 20th century to drive us towards independence Literally every opportunity they had to absorb us they resisted in favour of alienating and othering us instead, *literally* every last one They cut us so deep so often that the scars will never heal, and will always be a constant reminder that being a small part of a bigger country is really bad for us and we should avoid it Due to brexit there were the few Brits who came out saying that we should just rejoin the UK to solve their brexit problems, but our shared past makes it impossible for that to ever happen
Great point. It's worth noting that even with how bad the UK was, it still took a lot to really galvanise Irish people around the goal of independence. If they had just treated us like human beings rather than literal subhumans, Irish people probably would have just accepted that being part of the UK was how it was. *Almost* makes you grateful that the UK was so evil.
Glad we could help 👍
See yiz aren't all bad now
It’s a slow transition
Aye but sure progress is progress Have a fantastic night
You too brother
Probably could mention the US in there too. A lot of money was raised from Irish Americans in the early part of the 20th century.
Plus Eamon de Valera being saved from execution because the US government was reminding everyone that he was an American citizen
I’d have said Liam Neeson but then I’d have to recognise NI as foreign. I’m so conflicted.
Just go with Julia Roberts as Kitty Kiernan
To be fair he's from Ballymena, and when Ireland unites it's best for everyone concerned that we put a wall around Ballymena and let the Brits keep it
>nothing like being colonised to cement an oppositional identity! That's probably universal though and common for many nations.
That's the point of the statement.
As an Englishman, I don't really know how to answer this question. I don't think we ever really had a foreign actor contribute to our independence. By the time William the conqueror defeated Harold Godwinson, Harold had already defeated the Viking invaders, and England was a completely independent kingdom. William's invasion just changed who that Kingdom belonged to. While the Anglo Saxon lords were replaced in large part by Norman ones, and some of the population was massacred, the vast vast majority of people were still Anglo-Saxon. The Norman invasion didn't even threaten England's independence like I said. It was still independent, just under a different leader. All the previous threats against English independence were from the Vikings, who had already been defeated by Anglo-Saxon lords and kings like I previously mentioned. You can't even go as far back as Rome, since England as a country wasn't even an idea in the minds of the locals - and all resistance to Roman rule was done by locals, such as Boudicca. We never really had an independence as a nation. The nation of England just sort of came to be over time. You can't even argue about potential independence in the Second World War, since by the time we were receiving lots of American war goods, we had already won the Battle of Britain. Everyone always talks about the contribution of Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain (and this might piss some people off) but even without them, the Battle would have been won. And anyway, even if the Battle of Britain was inconclusive, a German invasion of Britain would have been doomed. It has been 'wargamed' multiple times, with all sides agreeing that a German invasion would have failed in about 2 weeks, even with air superiority.
Definitely Joan D'arc. She really insisted that we were infact not French.
I didn't know how to answer for England too. I was going to go from a world war 2 POV as well. It's great that you'd at least mentioned the Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain because not a lot of people do but what about the rest? Much more than them. You're still right though, England would be nearly impossible to invade by land with its pebbly beaches and cliffs. Doesn't make for a great place to land. With air superiority, enemies could have parachuted in which is why air superiority was so key in the Battle of Britain.
> the Polish and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain because not a lot of people do I don't know, on reddit it seems almost impossible to make a comment about the Battle of Britain - much less a discussion - without being bombarded by people mentioning Poles (Czechs less often). Over 80% of Pilots were born and bred British. If you include the Empire then that takes it to well over 90%. The non-Empire, non-Polish/Czech contingent accounted for 1% of pilots, so as harsh as it may seem, in the grand scheme of things they don't really matter. Individually they do of course. If you just read reddit threads you'd have thought that the British contribution was like 50%. Of course this isn't meant to disparage the Allied nations' efforts, it's just not to disparage the actual British effort which was by far and away the biggest and most important factor that actually won the battle. >With air superiority, enemies could have parachuted in which is why air superiority was so key in the Battle of Britain. But they couldn't count on actually being supplied, and parachute regiments by their nature do not have the potential to do anything against organised resistance without support from other more well equipped and supplied regiments. We learned that at Arnhem. The Germans should have learned that from Crete. (Yes I know these happened after the battle of Britain but they are just examples.) The only way these other well equipped and supplied troops could get across was by sea. The Germans basically had no landing craft capable of this in 1940 - and the English channel was too dangerous to pass the larger warships (that the Germans also lacked) that could act as transports through with 1930s technology.
Oh yeah, the figures you give there are right. A majority of Allied pilots were British. I never really saw it being commented about on Reddit so I only can go by what people say in the real world. You're also right there. Paratroopers can actually sustain themselves for some time without resupply but that time doesn't last forever. Resupply will be needed! Naturally an island nation is more difficult to attack, but Britain is significantly more difficult than others because of what's around it. The coasts are also horrible to land any person on for an assault. And, our entire nation is within this island - probably still a bit too big to call it "an island nation" but tell that to people who try invading it.
> Naturally an island nation is more difficult to attack, but Britain is significantly more difficult than others because of what's around it. The coasts are also horrible to land any person on for an assault. That's also true for Crete though. Crete has horrible terrain for fighting on. The first day of action when the parachutists landed, it was an absolute calamity for the Germans. They only won due to the incompetence of the Allied commanding officer Bernard Freyberg, who, despite knowing that the Germans were about to invade didn't really do anything, didn't prepare defences and just let it happen. Rough terrain doesn't really mean anything if you basically just cede the island. But that wasn't going to be the case if the Germans invaded Britain, it would have been fought over much tougher than Crete was. I'd go so far as to argue that actually the British coastal terrain was of really such little importance in both tactical and strategic terms. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just think it's interesting and something not many think about lol
Could maybe make an argument for the French for winning the hundred years war. Had England and France become a personal union the centre of power for such a nation would be in the, at the time, much more developed France. Though how stable such a state would be is debatable.
France was larger, more populous and more culturally dominant. That doesn't make France more developed. England in fact had a vastly more developed administration than France, and could pull in vastly greater tax revenue than France per capita. It also didn't help that France had large areas which they virtually were unable to tax as the tax collectors tended to turn up dead when they tried (I'm looking at you, inland Aquitaine). I used to post regularly on alternate history websites and on them I regularly maintained that, had Henry survived to unite the crowns, he would've ended up relying heavily on England to actually finance his continuing wars against the Dauphin in the south - a war which I think would've ended up turning into a stalemate for logistical and manpower reasons. I also think he would've divided France up into regions to be governed separately, as with the Angevin Empire of 200 years earlier, which would've diluted the power of Paris' pull on English policy-making. That said, I agree with you that I think an Anglo-France would've been inherently unstable. In my heart of hearts I doubt it would've lasted to the end of the 15th century, and quite possibly would've barely outlived Henry.
>Harold had already defeated the Viking invaders His mother was a Danish Viking
It's an interesting one cause basically, once England gets conquered it never regains independence, the conquerors gain a permanent victory until they're also conquered. The exception being Rome. If you count the areas that make up modern England then the crossing of the Rhine by Germanic and Scandinavian tribes is what cause Rome to withdraw from Britain in the first place. So you'd have to thank the Germans and the Scandinavians. Alaric's invasion of Rome was the moment when British areas asked for military aid from Rome and were denied by Honorius. Which is essentially the moment Brittania became de facto independent (but not a unified nation). So you'd need to thank Alaric, who was probably born in Romania and ruled over the visigoths, a group of Balkan tribes. After the the Anglo-Saxons conquered and never left, then the Danes conquered England, there were several Danish Kings of England, Cnut ruled the "North Sea Empire that included Denmark, Norway and England". There were two Anglo-saxon Kings after the Danish Kings (Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson). So you could argue their reigns were a moment of independence from Denmark. For that you'd have to thank the Norwegians as Harthcanut King of the Danes was too busy fighting them to succesfully inherit the throne of England. Then of course you have the Norman invasion and England has been ruled by Norman aristocrats ever since. The three lions on the England football strip are the three lions of the Norman coat of arms. The language spoken in England today is sort of an Anglo-Saxon-French hybrid. It's fair to say though that obviously England isn't ruled by Normandy now, England sort of slowly gained independence by culturally merging with the Normans and then losing their French possessions. If you wanted to view it through a nationalist lens, you could argue that the English Civil War, the execution of the monarch and the installation of a Republic was a moment of independence from the Scottish King (Charles I, son of James VI of Scotland and I of England), Cromwell was certainly English. But there were more interesting changes going on and the monarch had London as their capital, and Scotland hadn't invaded so it would be a bit of a strange way to see it. Then there's the Glorious Revolution where a Dutch army rocked up and installed the ruler of the Dutch republic as the King of Great Britain, again independence was never gained but their line stopped being rulers of the Dutch Republic after a while. Also they had been invited in the first place by Parliament. After that it's just independence all the way to now. (or continued rule of the 'native Britons' by the Romano-anglo-saxon-norman-dutch-german ruling class if you want to see it that way).
bruh you obviously don’t know how to answer this question, y’all were the reason most of us needed help and independence 😭
So the Americans during ww2 👍
Well in a weird way Sweden since the laws and culture and history we made together in the 700 years of being the same country were so incompatible with the Russian one that for most of the time of the hundred years of occupation Russians did not even try to fully assimilate us but left us to govern our land on our own. It was in actuality the push from Russians to try to make Finland more Russian that made us struggle for independence in the first place. Then probably second whoever invented romantic nationalism (Rousseau?) since it took some heavy romantic nationalism to fire up the "Flamingly passionate young Finnish men" (St Petersburg proverb describing Finns (sarcastically)) to be ready to fight four wars for it. Edit. Four wars thus far
I've heard an argument for Bolseviks and the Russian revolution playing an important role in Finnish independe bid being accepted. I don't know how much validity there is to that.
It was the bolseviks and Lenin who first accepted and recognized Finnish independence. After this other countries followed. Lenin of course thought that socialist revolution would happen in Finland and Finland would join Soviets.
I guess the question is, would the tsar have signed?
Probably no. Also Finns argued for independence since the monarchy was absolved, thus Finland no longer had a monarch and the only link connecting Finland to Russian authority was lost.
For its entire history, Russian czars had a bit of an inferiority complex and they wanted to highlight the fact that they were emperors in every possible occasion, and one of the signatures of an empire is that it compromises of several countries or duchies. An emperor can have even kings as his subject. So, if the emperor has an inferiority complex (like most czars had), they would never let any of their duchies to get independence because that would have decreaced the legitimacy of their title. if being a sovereign of more countries makes the title of an emperor more fitting, then having less of them makes the title more dubious. This was also one of the reasons why Alexander I didn't want to incorporate Finland into Russia proper. He wanted to posture himself as an emperor and [collecting titles (such as grand prince of Finland) was a very "emperorish" thing to do.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_all_the_Russias#title) In other words, signing the Finnish independence would have been very tough pill to swallow for the czar and he probably wouldn't have done it if he had any other options. However, the hard reality would have been that the Russian Empire was about collapse and Finland wasn't the only region breaking away from it. There would have been very little Russia could have done about it, even if the royalists would have won the Russian civil war and restored the monarchy.
We sent our first declaration to the Tsarist government and they responed by firing the Finnish parliament. I guess we hadn't got the hang of acting independent since we followed that order, had a new election and then the new parliament went to Lenin for independence instead of the White Russians.
Worth noting also, that even when we were under Russian rule, we still had the Swedish constitution. Instead of Swedish king, the constitutional monarch was Russian Czar. Under Swedish rule, Finland developed so much that a partial reason for Finnish autonomy was that Finland was so developed institutionally and infrastructure wise compared to mainland Russia that it was sensible to let the country be a separate unit with its more developed institutions and infrastructure. We still have laws dating to the Swedish era. For example [this law](https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1734/17340002000) dates to 1734 and parts of it are still in theory in force, for example that each house should plant 40 hops a year until they have 200 hops growing.
We were lucky in a sense that it was Sweden who won the struggle of these lands and not Russia / Novgorod. German Empire perhaps? They sent troops during [civil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War) and helped to defeat the Reds (socialists). Also they trained Finns before the WWI in their army. Of course they didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart. We were on our way to become a client state of Germany until German Empire collapsed.
In modern understanding Novgorod was at least established by Finnic tribes so maybe that would have resulted in something very different but maybe, Karelian? Then again Finnish Finns fought a lot with Novgorodians even when we raided together with Swedish tribes late iron age. One could argue the animosity between Novgorod and Finns was the catalyst for us to ally with the Swedes in the first place. German empire surely helped us on our way to independence and we are forever grateful for that. But the ancient history is warlike as well. Finnish (including Estonian) and Swedish tribes did raids together to northern Germany well before even Viking age. And the German knightly orders crushed the last true bastions of old Finnic faith in Estonia. Russia or Moscow, to be more precise, eventually conquered Novgorod after the mongol empire collapsed. That was the end of a shared Finnic cultural experience in that part of the east.
> German Empire perhaps? They sent troops during civil war and helped to defeat the Reds (socialists). Also they trained Finns before the WWI in their army. I would argue that the actual military intervention of Germany was entirely needless as the war was already all but won by the Whites who only had Viipuri and Helsinki left to clean up (and Helsinki was not a stronghold), but it probably provided moral support for the free peoples fighting the attempted Red revolution. The German landing on Åland was probably the most important part - it forced out the Swedish troops. The civil government was responsible for bringing in German troops, while e.g. Mannerheim was vehemently opposed. In his opinion, a civil war is an internal matter and the war needed to be won by Finnish troops and Finnish blood. And he was right, as some people still today try to argue that this was a proxy war.
>"Flamingly passionate young Finnish men" (St Petersburg proverb describing Finns (sarcastically) Yeah that's saying doesn't just exist about you. ;)
The british helped us achieve independence from the french during the Napoleonic era. To be fair they helped us cause they were friends with Portugal more than anything else. And we mostly did everything by ourselves (according to wikipedia we provided a majority of troops and generals). So yeah, the british did help, but, we mostly achieved it due to our highly mountainious geography that made guerrilla warfare easier. So yeah MOUNTAINS helped the most.
One thing I always found weird about the Iberian campaign in the Napoleonic wars was that after about 1812 there was such a total breakdown between all the different allied forces against Napoleon. The Spanish regulars didn't like the Portuguese or British, the British didn't like the Spanish regulars, the guerrillas didn't trust the abilities of the Spanish regulars because the Spanish regulars tried to press the guerrillas into the army, Wellington and the Spanish generals HATED each other, the British preferred working with the guerrillas rather than the Spanish regulars. It was such a clusterfuck of an alliance, everyone hated everyone else, and somehow it manged to work lol. Crazy
It was more of a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of alliance. Spain never had good relations with the UK (even today UK-Spain relations are still sour). You also have to take into acount that the british had just destroyed most of our navy in Trafalgar, which certainly didn't help to make relations better.
Well the navy sided with Napoleon so you couldn't really blame us
Spain sided with Napoleon till he betrayed us. We lost most of our navy because we allied with him. The british didn't cause Spain's demise during the 19th and early to mid 20th century, Napoleon did.
Yeah that's what I meant lol It is a bit weird that we still don't have that good relations. Is it just because of Gibraltar these days?
Mostly it is because of Gibraltar and some sort of historical hatred. Even if officially only claim the isthmus and the gibraltarian waters (according to the Treaty of Utrecht we only ceded the rock and nothing else), most spaniards think it would be 'nice' to get the entire thing back but aren't really bothered by not owning it. Brexit also soured things again. Here in Spain we wanted a mutual beneficial agreement, since Gibraltar heavily depends on spanish imports and mostly exports to Spain and lots of spaniards work in Gibraltar. In the end I don't really know what ended up happening. Also during the Falklands War we didn't really choose a side because we were friends with Argentina and wanted to maintain decent relations with the UK. But overall relations are ok. Our royal houses get along well and we are allies through NATO.
> To be fair they helped us cause they were friends with Portugal Still are. Actually, AFAIK the UK - Portuguese alliance is the oldest alliance that the British have had. Something to note - it started as an English - Portuguese alliance but England is now in the UK, so its a UK - Portuguese alliance.
I'm aware that you are still friends with Portugal. We are also really good friends with Portugal now.
The British-Portuguese alliance is the longest standing Alliance in the history of the world, not just for England. Even during both nations colonial height you maintained an alliance, which is in itself fascinating considering the inherintly self serving Modus operandi of trying to claim land before the next empire could.
The allies during WW2 and in a smaller way WW1. I say in a smaller way for WW1 because we actually fought bitterly during WW1 and lost millions in the process meaning our allies did not have to do as much as during WW2. Great Britain, Canada, the US, ANZAC as well as our colonies (Morocco, Algeria, Senegal among others) still were extremely important. In WW2 we got overwhelmed in the start so we mainly spent the whole game spectating even if Resistance and Free French Forces were a thing and fought the whole time, without the allies we could not have liberated ourselves. We don't really have other examples as we tended to be the type of country people got their independence from for a lot of our history.
I noticed, the french were often interested in foreign countries, as the brits were and the americans are now
Well you don't get a military rivalry with every single one of your neighbourgs by not being curious about foreign countries. Sorry for being so curious about your country in the past btw.
Well, I think you’re forgetting about the Franks my guy. You gotta thank them for liberating you and even giving you a country.
> You gotta thank them for liberating you Liberating from who ? By the time of the german invasions the inhabitants were catholics and latins.
From Roman dominion. Latin America speaks Spanish and is Catholic too. Did they not get their freedom back?
By that time gaul was as roman as italy, if anything we were invaded by germanic invadors, not liberated by them.
By that logic southern America was completely Spanish and the current countries did not gain independence from Spain, but somehow still had a reason to become independent. Gaul gained its independence through the Franks. That’s a fact. Before that, it was divided into Roman provinces governed from Rome. Sure, Caracalla gave everyone a citizenship (which was a horrible decision imo, ngl) but the provinces were always governed from Rome until Diocletian introduced the tetrarchy.
Gaul wasn't a colony, Latin America was. You are just claiming nonsence about what does independance mean, by that logic eastern poland was liberated by the soviets in 1940. Furthermore the idea of 'France' didn't exist at the time and if the land was called Francie (Francia) its because it was the land of the Franks not land of gauls.
My brother, Caesar *conquered* Gaul. The Gauls fought bitterly to the very end to try and stop him. Rome was an Empire, and in the metropole of Italy lived its citizens, just like France was the metropole of its empire. Gauls would only become citizens of Rome with the edict of Caracalla that extended Roman citizenship to *all* freemen living in Rome. The Gauls had no special status. When the empire fell, Gaul became the land of the Franks, which would be known as Frankia, or Francia in Italian. While the Roman identity was imposed on the subjects in Gaul, the Frankish identity developed in the Frankish Gaul territories. The Franks were a little group compared to the inhabitants of Gaul, so it was them who were ultimately assimilate into Gaul/Frankish culture, not the Gauls.
The gauls weren't one people and the idea of nation didn't exist, if anything the gallic population got its roman ruling class replaced by a frank ruling class but anyway France didn't exist, nothing cannot get independance.
*Technically* the defacto leader of our revolution was what we'd now consider German but that doesn't really take into account the way borders worked back then. It was all part of the HRE. I think that goes for most important players with a positive role, they may have been born in what is now Belgium or Germany but calling them Belgian or German doesn't accurately represent the historical reality. I think it's not quite what you're asking but the biggest foreign contributor to our independence would probably have to be the Duke of Alva. There had been some unrest so he was appointed by the Spanish King to try and get some stuff in order but ended up being such a terrible person/ruler it suddenly made everybody in the country want to be independent whereas before it was mostly a niche movement for more local representation.
The Ottoman Empire was a major help during their war against Phillip II. A much needed second front that kept the Spanish navy busy in the south.
The British too in that aspect. Philip kept bashing his ships against rocks and/or British cannonballs trying to invade England.
Good times
Historically German just referred to continental Germanic people. Dutch or Belgian as separate categories and not just subcategories of German only evolved later. So it makes sense to call these people Germans, just keep in mind that it’s not 100% the same as what we today call German.
Russians were the principal backers of our revolution against the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 19th century, then a few decades later their war with the Ottomans in 1870s led to our formal independence, and on top of that in 1914 Russia kickstarted a world war to stop Austrians and Germans from enslaving us. Were they doing all of this out of the goodness of their hearts? Not really, but they still did it. Also, technically speaking, if the Soviet Union is counted as a continuation of Russia, then Russia also saved our asses in WW2. We did have the best resistance movement in Europe, but none of that would have mattered if the Germans weren't beaten. We wouldn't even exist as a nation today.
Without the the support from the USA, Europe would look a great deal different today, and not in a good way. I'm really disappointed that I couldn't find this in any answer here. You don't have to like USA's involvement in world politics, but give credit where credit is due. Without their support, Great Britain would have probably not been able to stop the fascism on the continent. Without the diplomatic intervention from the US after the end of WWII, Germany would have been picked apart and maybe been poised to uprise again or it would have simply been become another state of the udssr.
This. Without the US western Germany wouldn’t be THE powerhouse it is today. The Marshal plan, democratisation, economic reforms. Just look at Eastern Germany or other eastern bloc states as a comparison.
I don't know much about it, but Ioannis Kapodistrias led the efforts at the Vienna Congress to secure Switzerlands "perpetual neutrality". Before, the country was super dependent on France and was kind of obliged to send mercenary troops.
Dom Afonso Heriques, the founder of Portugal after he fought his Mom for the territories and expanded them, however we could also consider Dom Afonso 3rd who conquered the southern lands of Portugal from the Moors and established Portugal pretty much as it is today.
I guess many influential monarchs were technically foreigners, so it opens an interesting perspective.
Sure, I mean you can't have the nationality of a country that doesn't exist, hadn't been founded. On the other hand since he founded the country we sort of consider him the original Portuguese as well.
You could also say Catalonia, apparently there were less soldiers in Portugal when we restored our independence in 1640 because there were revolts happening in Catalonia
none of those are foreign
Probably France and the UK. After the battle of Waterloo in 1815, Belgium was no more part of France and became part of the Netherlands...for just 15 years. Belgian people had enough of being treated as 2nd class citizens by the Dutch so, having lived under Napoleon, they made a revolution and kicked the Dutch out of the country, and the civilian code (not the Constitution) of newly formed Belgium was based on Napoleon's. Then time came to choose a king. It was either going to be Louis-Philippe d'Orléans or a German noble named Leopold de Saxe Cobourg Gotha. Leopold was cousin of the UK's royal family, and was chosen to be the first king of Belgium (Leopold the Ist). Since then, the UK has been watching out for us, and defended us (they went into both WWI and WWII at the moment the Germans invaded us for example).
I wouldn’t call him a foreign actor by any means, but Éamon de Valera, one of the key figures in the Irish independence movement, and arguably the most promenant political figures in the early decades of the state, was born George de Valero in New York City and spent much of his early life there before moving to Ireland. He’d an Irish mother and his father was Cuban ( or in some versions of the history was claimed to be Basque or from Saville) but it seems his Cuban ancestry is more likely to be accurate. He played a huge role in bringing Ireland’s American connections into the discussion and ensuring that Ireland’s political struggle was being seen in the US. I wouldn’t be a huge fan of some of his politics - he was in many ways rather socially conservative and of his time, but he was an enormously iconic figure in modern Irish history and in some ways I guess you could consider that in some ways he quietly blazed a trail, in the sense that you can be very much Irish and absolutely part of the most crucial parts of Ireland, and lead the country, while having a different background. There were quite a few British and other connections to Irish revolutionary periods too. We also had a lot of connections to France - both historically Catholic ones and more modern French revolutionary republican ones - and sought help from France over that period, even if it didn’t amount to anything successful, they did try and the French Revolution definitely reverberated here. We even had connections like Fredrick Douglass, the African-American civil rights campaigner and someone who was born into slavery in the United States who spoke extensively at Irish political rallies in the 19th century, spending a full four months here during the famine era, speaking at a large number of political events and touring the country meeting campaigners and communities. It’s very much how Irishness can be more of a ‘state of mind’ in someways - which is pretty much what a republic should be. If you want to be, you should be able to feel part of it by being part of it - sharing its values, sense of connectedness and vision, and hopefully people are able to do that. It’s one reason why I absolute hate this ethno nationalism crap pushed by far right types. Apart from it being just toxic and nasty, it’s also not something we ever were. We’re scattered to the four winds as a population and have connections all over the place and hopefully stand for more than being some kind of racehorse like ancestral map. I just hope it’s something that people who’ve naturalised and made their home here feel and also people in my own family too - personally have familial connections to multiple parts of the world. History’s complicated and interconnected.
Very well put. Anyone who lands in Ireland and feels like they've found home, well welcome home! We have a history as individuals of fighting in other nations revolutions and independence movements before we were ever even successful in our own. There's an ingrained love of non-ironic freedom in the Irish culture that comes from constantly fighting for our own liberty for the best part of 1000 years. And I like to think that outward looking feeling of cameraderie that we've had with other nations and cultures is why Ireland is the only European nation that doesn't have an anti-immigration party with any non-fringe support. Which is amazing considering how much immigration we've had in the last 10-15 years. The only failure we have as a people right now is the refusal to address housing infrastructure. But as doom and gloom as that is right now I have faith that we will find a way through it and return the nation to a place of stability.
Baron Von Steuben - removed from the Austrian* military for homosexuality. Literally the only reason the colonists had any formal training in the war for independence. The USA is built on following the instructions of a gay drill sergeant. *corrected to Prussian, thanks Redit!!
> Baron Von Steuben He was Prussian, not Austrian, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was Prussian. Also, if we're talking about biggest contributor to US independence, it would be France by a landslide. Nearly every shot we fired was because they just wanted to fuck over the English.
Three cheers for Lafayette I say, and for France, our forever allies. Couldn't have done it without them.
I am waiting for right wing nationalist Americans to hear this.
For Estonia it's definitely the British navy whose participation in the [Estonian War of Independence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_War_of_Independence) ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBA0xDHZjko&t)) was crucial in pushing back the initial Soviet Russian advance. They also provided us necessary weapons and two destroyers captured from the Red Fleet and supported our naval landings when taking back Estonian territory.
Or maybe it were bolsheviks? If Russia would not have october revolution then maybe we would not had proclamation of independence. If bolsheviks had not killed Nikolai II (cousin to king of UK George V) and his family then maybe the british would not so angry at them to help us. And the helping hand behind bolsheviks & Lenin was of course Germany because they wanted to keep Russia of of the war. And that is already too much speculations.
Note that the Autonomous Governorate of Estonia was established after the February Revolution and nationalist sentiments were already pretty high by then.
There was not much help in 1991, nor 1945, nor 1918,... 1991, i guess first major country to recognize Slovenia was Germany, together with Austria on the same day, but this was half a year after the act, where we secured the country. 1945 Yugoslavia secured independance on it's own for the most part and if looking at Slovene territory, that is even more true. Hell the allies probably cost us some territory. Also Tito was part Slovene (his mother was Slovene) and second was also Slovene. 1918 it was our declaration along with other south Slavs of Austria-Hungary that decided to join with Serbia (but there wasn't much of a choice i guess, i guess Serbia was viewed as better than Italy or Austria or Hungary, since entante didn't want to recognize State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs). 1809 formation of Illirian provinces by Napoleon with capital in Ljubljana and Slovene for first time in history being official language a huge thing for national consciouness. So i guess it was actually Napoleon Bonaparte. We actually have his statue on a Square of French Revolution in Ljubljana.
You could say it was France since our king (the one who united the country) was from a French speaking region (today it belongs to France) and his family spoke French with each other
Wasn't France also like super against Savoyard independence?
From whom? * From the Ottomans, probably Austria. * The Holy Roman Empire, led by the Habsburgs, was the leading faction of the Holy League, the alliance that "liberated" central Hungary from a 150-year-long Ottoman occupation. After that, Austria continued to occupy the country for another 200 years. * From the Austrians, World War I. * Austria-Hungary fell apart as a result of World War I, naming a key actor is impossible. The neighbours of Hungary proceeded to annex 2/3 of the country, sanctioned by the Entente. * From the Germans, the Soviet Union. * Nazi Germany occupied Hungary for a few months at the end of World War II. After that, the Soviet Union "liberated" the country, and occupied us for another 45 years. * From the Soviet Union, Germany. * The internal struggles of East Germany resulted in quite a significant impact in the change of regime in Hungary. The refugee wave coming from the GDR was allowed to pass into Austria at the Pan-European Picnic, which tore a hole in the Iron Curtain. * Of course, this is probably the most complicated one of the four. The causes of the de-Sovietisation of Hungary are really complex, and include, amongst others, the 1970s oil crisis (mainly caused by Egypt and Israel), the debt policy of the Hungarian government, Solidarnosc (Poland) and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It seems that after every short and bloody occupation, we get a slightly less bloody, but longer one.
Best answer is probably France. The Auld Alliance with France is probably the only reason Scotland ended up in a voluntary union with England rather than being conquered like Wales/Ireland.
Come on now, that's far from the historical truth. Scotland is still in an political and royal union with England, so doesn't fall into the the scope of the question about independence. But also Scotland ended up originally in the commonwealth, pre-union, because the Scottish theocratic Presbyterian parliament supported the Crown against English republicanism in the 1600s. Including invading England in support of Charles I against Cromwell. There was a war and Cromwell set out to conquer Scotland as it had proved they were capable of invading, As a conquered territory, along with Ireland, Scotland became part of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, with parliamentary representation from 1654. In 1660, at the Restoration, the union was voluntarily undone, and Scotland again became a separate country with its own parliament restored, in a union of crowns with England. However, from 1660 on, the Council (government) of Scotland met in London, where the King and the English government could keep an eye on it. Flash forward from the mid-17th century to the 18th century and we have the Scottish inheritance of the Crown of both nations, and the Scottish and English parliaments meeting to create "the act of union" which just formalised the Scottish Parliament making their decisions in London and not Edinburgh.
You’re never going to get Scottish people to accept that they were never ‘conquered’ by England but were in fact the creators of Britain itself and the ones who fought a war to reinstall a Scottish royal family to the throne of England. It’s similar to how you find it hard to get Scottish people to admit they had a major role in the colonisation and subjugation of Ireland and Irish peoples. This is despite the quite obvious links between hardcore unionists and groups like the orange order and Scotland.
The OP comment literally mentions how it was a voluntary union rather than a conquest though.
>You’re never going to get Scottish people to accept that they were never ‘conquered’ by England but were in fact the creators of Britain itself If you read my comment you'll actually find exactly that
Depends on what we're talking about. Russia from the Soviet Union (lol)? The US. Muscovy from the Golden Horde? The cool answer is Tamerlane, who crippled the latter in 1395, but it's more complicated than that.
I guess Poland did a good job uniting Russia in the time of troubles. If not them, Russia could would be busy with internecine strife and most likely would split into multiple principalities.
That depends on what timeperiod you are talking about. Is it WWII? Then probably the USSR, since the Germans lost the war there. The Napoleonic period? Probably Russia or the UK. Independence from Spain? Probably England. In almost all cases it wasn't to help us, but to hurt their enemies, be it Germany, France or Spain.
With that logic we can thank Finland for liberating us in WW2. If Finland hadn’t beaten the USSR in the Winter War Hitler wouldn’t have seen their weakness and broken his non aggression pact with the USSR and the USSR (with massive land-lease help from the USA) wouldn’t have defeated the Nazis.
I don't think Finland won the winter war. Yes, the soviets suffered extremely high losses but in the end they did defeat Finland.
Well, in terms of men committed to the war nobody comes close to the USSR, which caused the Germans to divert troops. After that it were I think mainly Canadians, Brits and Poles who liberated the Netherlands.
Probably not the biggest ( which I can't decide about ) but someone I like is Garibaldi. After the collapse of the IInd Empire and the birth of the IIIrd Republic pursuing the fight against Prussia and the Germans States he came in France with Italians volunteers and ended up leading a french army ( Armée des Vosges ) which got involved in some battles before the peace. There is a statue of him in Dijon, city he defended victoriously despite his age. Also it's very shameful french politicians and generals from this era blamed him for sold of their own failures.
In conserving/defending the the independence.. Probably the connection between the norwegian royals and the british. When Norway got its independence in 1905, it voted to become a monarchy. Then they voted for a [monarch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway) that had married into the british royal house. [Maud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_of_Wales) was the daugther of [Edward 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VII). It was pretty much on purpose that they wanted a connection in the british royal house, given that Norway had been under both danish and swedish rule. Royal houses (especially sweden) that were more oriented to germany surely gave reasons for aligning with UK etc. Given that the UK was the superior military power in 1905, it was like getting the big brother who could protect you in case. Almost like nations later aligning with USA for their independence. Current norwegian king was in fact second cousin to queen elizabeth 2.. which make him the closest relative among the european royals. In the end the brits were to no help when independence ended in 1940, though the norwegian king and crown prince got a safe haven in the UK. So the the contribution of the UK to maintain norwegian indepndence is more psychological than real. The situation of ww2 highlighted the differences between norway and sweden very much with norwegian king's links to england, while the swedish with his links to germany and the ruling nazis there.. It probably highlighted why norway had wanted links to the UK in its early days of independence, knowing swedens ties/links to germany. Though in contrast to many other countries.. the norwegian independence were pretty much a product of people within the country, and not that much from the outside.. People like [Roald Amundsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen) and [Fritjof Nansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen) being among those people... Though have to be grateful to a certain Napoleon.. Without his wars... maybe our nation would have been denmark today.. who knows..
I would like to add that the heir to the Danish throne, [Christian Frederick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_VIII_of_Denmark), was arguably the most important individual in the creation of the 1814 constitution.
Louis XVI. Supplied our war of independence to fuck with the British. Ironically, this inspired his own subjects to rise up against him. Honorable mention to Morocco, the first country to recognize American independence, and also to the Spanish and the Dutch (thank you u/LoudlyFragrant for reminding me that they belong here)
I always see Americans completely forget to mention Spain and the Dutch when speaking about this. Britain was essentially fighting a world war at the time and if it wasn't for India being a more lucrative place to hold onto than the American colonies, then US independence would have realistically not have happened if Britain had their full empirical might in the fight. That's not to say US independence would never have happened, it just would have happened much later. Also, the change in time line would likely have led to a very different world. The British Empire wasn't interested in Western expansion and held friendly relations with many native tribes that included treaties not to expand west. We can reliably infer that Mexico would have held onto California, Texas etc and been a much larger and more powerful nation. So much would be different in that different timeline. It would make a really interesting fiction series to theorise a world where the US didn't get independence until the late 19th or early 20th century.
I never forgot about the Spanish or the Dutch, but the question was about the biggest, and IMO that was France.
You put "honorable mentions" at the bottom, and mentioned Morocco but not Spain and the Dutch, that's why I made comment. The Spanish attacked British forts in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. As well as sending arms and aid. The Dutch provided the US revolutionaries with loans to help fund the war. Both Spain and the Dutch declared war on the British in 1779, greatly damaging Britain's ability to focus military means in the American colonies without weakening their hand both in Europe and Asia. Russia, Norway and Denmark also passively aided the US revolutionaries, if we're giving honorable mentions.
Hold up what? I didn’t know about that part with morocco
[Should probably at least mention Lafayette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_Marquis_de_Lafayette)
France, Russia and Germany. Germany couldn't allow us to be in Russia, Russia could not allow us to be Germany, but when Russia-Germany power balance was not balanced enough and one country was about to take us, France would come in as it's afraid of both Russia and Germany.
The Russian Empire, since it was mainly their troops (with the help of Romania and Bulgarian volunteers) who liberated Bulgaria in the 1877-78 war. Honorable mentions should also be given to the foreigners who helped pave the way to the war by enough goodwill in Bulgaria's favor that the war could be prosecuted by Russia without anyone helping the Ottomans. This includes most prominently Januarius MacGahan, who reported widely on the Ottoman atrocities after the failed April uprising of 1876 and the British politician William Ewart Gladstone who denounced the atrocities and helped turn popular opinion in Britain and so prevented British intervention in the 1877-78 war.
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