Obviously, the use of “invasion” in the article cited is a very broad one and intended to generate publicity. However, the main point is still of interest: that Britain has had some military presence in almost every country in the world.
A lot of that can be accounted for by attacks by English privateers all along the coasts of the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.
They bombed Helsinki in WWII.
:smack: The British bombed Petsamo. Sorry, typed without thinking. They declared war.
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
I’d strike Belarus, Kygyrztan, Tajikstan and Uzbekistan off the list of 22, as they were (formally at least) part of the Soviet Union when the UK intervened in the Russian Civil War. Actually this hsows how inconsistent the list is, when else would UK troops have been in Khazakstan for instance?
We might well have messed around with Sweden more recently (though by “special forces” and probably at the behest of Ronald Regun…“… SBS commandos took part in operations along the Swedish coastline during the 80s and 90s. The missions were part of a series of operations designed to trick the Swedes into believing that the Russians were violating their territory…” Did the SBS raid Sweden? - UK Special Forces Rumours
Some may remember the case of the Phantom subs…
The OP specifically excluded clandestine special ops though.
If not the US probably covered most of the globe in the past decade…
What about Portugal?? ISTR that Britain (uk, England, etc) has never invaded Portugal and it remains
The definition used by the researcher in question used current territorial boundaries. I came across this list a few weeks ago; it seemed to hold up against quick scrutiny. For example, both Luxembourg and Monaco were liberated by the USA in WWII, and I could find no source for any British presence in Chad or Burundi during either WWI, WWII or the scramble for Africa. Nor does it seem they penetrated deeply enough into Asia during the Great Game to reach the more inland Stans.
Again, that’s a pretty weird definition of “invasion”. They were invited by the Portuguese. It’s like saying the US invaded Saudi Arabia because we have bases there.
Hmm… trying to sort out if the British ‘invaded Canada’ brings up semantic, political, and historical tricky points. Very briefly, Canada as such didn’t exist until they set it free, but they definitely colonized the land where it is now, and they fought wars here with Native Canadians and the New French.
More comparable to the US invading Normandy in WWII. Portugal had been under the control of a French regime.
It’s already been mentioned that the OP and the list referenced above are using “invasion” in a very broad sense, corresponding to “established a military presence in.” By the definition being used in this thread, there’s no question the Portugal case is included.
I think one could safely include any former British colony or protectorate in the list.
You know, if you Brits get cracking, you could knock out most of the remaining list in a couple of months. Totally doable. Of course, some of it would be just running up the score, not much sport in Andorra, is there. But still, there’s something to be said for collecting the entire set.
