Poor map redrawing decisions throughout history.

[Rolf]

Which of the many map-changes do fellow history-lovers believe to be poor choices? asks Rolf. Bonus points for explaining why one believes these to be poor, adds Rolf.

Rolf shall start with a few:

The entire Versailles treaty, but especially giving Alsace-Lorraine to France and the removal of Danzig from German control, states Rolf. Both (and the entire treaty itself) gave Hitler "justified" reasons for starting a war, overall Europe would have definitely been better off had they made Germany a constitutional monarchy instead of an unstable Republic, believes Rolf.

The 1884 Berlin Conference, separating an entire continent of people along arbitrary lines without any considerations for the people that actually inhabited the continent, states Rolf. One of the many reasons why said continent remains a hell hole today, adds Rolf.

Transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950's, states Rolf. After the fall of the USSR, Russia lost direct control of it's Black Sea fleet, not to mention the ethnic Russian majority of Crimea, states Rolf. A strategically horrible option, proclaims Rolf.

Treaty of Trianon, another example of Western European powers drawing arbitrary lines without any considerations for the ethno-linguistic identities of the people living in the region, states Rolf. Around 33% of the Hungarian population was left outside of Hungary's borders due to the treaty, adds Rolf.

Treaty of Tordesillas, Spanish and Portuguese Empires splitting the colonial world between them, states Rolf. While neither Portugal nor Spain knew the entirety of the New World at the time, the treaty basically gave most of the Americas to Spain, explains Rolf.

[The Pat-Man]

Originally Posted by Rolf

Transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950's, states Rolf. After the fall of the USSR, Russia lost direct control of it's Black Sea fleet, not to mention the ethnic Russian majority of Crimea, states Rolf. A strategically horrible option, proclaims Rolf.

lol i love that one.




Whoever drew up the middle east needs to be taken out back and shot. Most of it was drawn up by the brits right?

[whocares]

Someone's taking world history.

[Psych]

Umm... Israel.

For obvious reasons.

[Wolf]

lol, Rolf. You really are a fucking hipster.

[L33tz]

africa

[Rolf]

Originally Posted by Wolf

lol, Rolf. You really are a fucking hipster.

Whitey are not the only ones to blame, but to claim that whitey is innocent is equally ignorant, proclaims Rolf.

Originally Posted by The Pat-Man

Whoever drew up the middle east needs to be taken out back and shot. Most of it was drawn up by the brits right?

Basically European powers drew up the borders for all of the post-Ottoman states without much research beforehand, note why most of those states suck, proclaims Rolf.

[roasted]

Off the top of my head, here are my top 3 (in no particular order):

1. Louisiana Purchase
Bought for 3 cents an acre for some of the most fertile argi-land in the world. It was also bought at a point where America probably wasnt strong enough to forcefully take it from France. Plus the Mississippi River is a natural buffer between america and colonial france

2. Alaska Purchase
2 cents an acre. Some of the best Gold and Oil fields on earth. At that point, Russia had a historical claim to it and didnt face a huge threat to losing it. They basically pawned it off for fractions of its worth. If they held it for a few more years, the worth would have been much higher

3. Anything pertaining the reconstitution of Poland
Poland is the doormat of Europe. If Russia kept it after WWI, they could have used it more effectively as a defensive buffer from Germany in WWII. Nothing would have been lost if Russia occupied Poland and used a scored earth retreat back into Russia during the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa.

[roasted]

That being said, hindsight is 20/20. Who knows what unforeseen complications would arise from any of these decisions playing out differently

[Rolf]

Originally Posted by roasted

Some of the best Gold and Oil fields on earth. At that point, Russia had a historical claim to it and didnt face a huge threat to losing it. They basically pawned it off for fractions of its worth. If they held it for a few more years, the worth would have been much higher

Actually Russia had just lost the Crimean War and did fear a British invasion of hard-to-defend and undermanned Alaska from the far larger colony of British Columbia, notes Rolf. Basically Alexander II sought to make profit off land he thought he would eventually lose anyway, explains Rolf. Still, even if the land had no worth it would have been useful in the Cold War, adds Rolf.

[roasted]

Originally Posted by Rolf

Actually Russia had just lost the Crimean War and did fear a British invasion of hard-to-defend and undermanned Alaska from the far larger colony of British Columbia, notes Rolf. Basically Alexander II sought to make profit off land he thought he would eventually lose anyway, explains Rolf. Still, even if the land had no worth it would have been useful in the Cold War, adds Rolf.

I would agree with part of this. It was hard to defend. But then again, it wasn't exactly easy for the british to launch an offensive from BC. The British would have to contend with many of the same challenges that Russia would (unfortunately Russia didnt have the foresight for the trans-siberan railway at that point).
Both Russia and Britain were facing financial problems (Russia from the Crimean and Britain from colonial problems)
During that era, Britain was already facing rebellion issues in canada. Alaska could have been a whole new can of worms they didnt want (who really knows?). Britain also effectively gave up control of Canada at about the same time as the Alaska Purchase. If Russia could have held out a few years, it would have been very beneficial to them.

[aquabania]

I think what the Louisiana Purchase/ Alaska purchase taught us is that real estate is always a good investment

[Rolf]

Originally Posted by aquabania

I think what the Louisiana Purchase/ Alaska purchase taught us is that real estate is always a good investment

Real estate is definitely a good investment, agrees Rolf. 'Tis one of the main reasons wars are fought, adds Rolf.

[aquabania]

Originally Posted by Rolf

Real estate is definitely a good investment, agrees Rolf. 'Tis one of the main reasons wars are fought, adds Rolf.

Real Estate is also a great band

Real Estate - Suburban Beverage - YouTube

Real Estate - Suburban Beverage - YouTube
Video: click to display

[Cory]

The formation of modern Iraq.

[Dichromate]

The Polish-German border post WW2.
In the end what was done ended up screwing over almost everybody involved.

Stalin (and the allies to an extent) expected that after the war, Germany would end up picking itself up and probably eventually re-arming and coming back for revenge - this didn't happen, and even if the occupation had ended and the country been reunified in the 50s, still wouldn't have happened. The war, the holocaust guilt - everything had a much stronger affect on the German psych than expected.

So in essence:
The Soviet Union drastically reduced the number of German citizens it controlled (since many expellees ended up in the west) and weakened the DDR far more than was necessary. In retrospect, if they'd left Silesia, Pommerania and East-Brandenburg as part of the DDR (or even included the Sudetenland) they'd have had a much stronger Satellite state, VASTLY more viable industrially with Silesia attached. While West Germany was a somewhat intact economic unit, severing Silesia and Stettin from the DDR basically meant a lot of the connections between industries, population centers, ports and whatnot had to be rebuilt from scratch. - Keep in mind the communist states were basically autarkic outside of very specific, planned trades through COMECON, so whereas in the west borders faded away and economies became more integrated over time, this didn't really happen on the other side of the iron curtain.

Keep in mind that it took until the 1970s before the Poles actually resettled Silesia with enough people to get back to the pre-war population - other annexed areas are still fairly underpopulated, so there was a lot of lost production over the years thanks to the annexations.

By the same token, the annexations also made (west)German integration into the west more difficult, because there was the worry, particularly early on that Germany would drag the west into a war to reclaim its lost territories.
There were effectively no diplomatic relations between West Germany and Poland until 1970, where the SDP basically gave up on the issue but it wasn't really accepted by the conservatives until reunification. ~10% or so of the German population is going to hate the Poles forever now (and not just neo-nazi's, the 'Bund der Vertriebenen' is an integral part of the conservative establishment).

The Poles didn't really benefit from the shift of borders, relocating millions of people is a wasteful and expensive endeavor after all, but the nature of what happened meant that there was now literally no chance of ever getting any sort of reparations from Germany

It goes without saying that it was a disaster for Germany (and it was intended to be), but it's hard to really see how anyone benefited.

[Dichromate]

Trianon is difficult because it's impossible to draw a Romanian-Hungarian border that won't leave millions in the wrong country, since Szeklerland is basically an exclave of Hungarians surrounded by largely Romanian populated areas.
It was an economic disaster of course though. The Slovak border on the other hand... fuck. Even now it should still be revised, and probably will be the moment the EU and NATO cease to be a factor. (the EU is fucked, and so's the US and ergo nato, the latter just over a longer time frame)
Even Bratislava aka Pressburg should have remained in either Austria or Hungary based on the demographics at the time.

Alsace-Lorraine was going to France no question though (whether it should have been left as part of France at the Congress of Vienna is a better question), but yeah, Danzig was stupid. The Poles couldn't even use it as a port since it was a city of full of pissed off Germans, so they built Gdynia instead.

[Obbe]

http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_Maps/strange_maps.html

A lot of ancient maps show land masses that were not officially discovered until much later. Poor map redrawing, or aliens? You decide.

[Satyr]

Belgium. Even today, it's still a pile of shit.