What effect has greece had on your decision to leave euro?

[mattleonard]

Not really laughable as most of the conflicts you wrote about were internal and civil which didn't involve other european countries. Take away those conflicts and there is little left.

 

Yes, if you count fewer than half as "most", but that's certainly not the conventional definition. Obviously by your standards civil and internal wars are OK, and the Napoleonic Wars and Franco-Prussian wars (to name two) were "little".

 

Seriously, if you really are going to keep maintaining this idea that the 19th century was some golden age of European peace, then you'd better start lobbying Hollande to channel his inner Napoleon, and Merkel her inner Bismarck. Maybe she should annexe Alsace-Lorraine, after all, that worked out really well.

[JFKvsNixon]

Yes, if you count fewer than half as "most", but that's certainly not the conventional definition. Obviously by your standards civil and internal wars are OK, and the Napoleonic Wars and Franco-Prussian wars (to name two) were "little".

 

Seriously, if you really are going to keep maintaining this idea that the 19th century was some golden age of European peace, then you'd better start lobbying Hollande to channel his inner Napoleon, and Merkel her inner Bismarck. Maybe she should annexe Alsace-Lorraine, after all, that worked out really well.

 

To be fair to Bismarck, he did settle things down.

[mattleonard]

To be fair to Bismarck, he did settle things down.

 

True in Germany's case at least. It was less fun for the Danes and French though.

[JFKvsNixon]

True in Germany's case at least. It was less fun for the Danes and French though.

 

It was all part of the settling down process. If only little willy followed Bismarck's lead perhaps we'd have been spared the horrors of the 20th Century. It's interesting that I've read that the repatriations under terms of surrender that the Prussians forced France into, is considered to be more harsh than the terms offered to Germany Post WW1.

[L00b]

It's interesting that I've read that the repatriations under terms of surrender that the Prussians forced France into, is considered to be more harsh than the terms offered to Germany Post WW1.

It wasn't, in purely economical terms. But Bismarck presciently saw the annexation of Alsace-Moselle as likely to cement enmity between France and Germany (which it did), and was actually opposed to it. It was the Prussian generals who forced the issue.

[apelike]

Y

 

Seriously, if you really are going to keep maintaining this idea that the 19th century was some golden age of European peace, then you'd better start lobbying Hollande to channel his inner Napoleon, and Merkel her inner Bismarck.

 

I didn't state that it was a golden age of peace only that peace also existed before the EU was formed.

 

And I will state again that there is no substance to the idea that its the formation of the EU that has stopped wars.

 

NATO and its allies have done that.

[mattleonard]

I didn't state that it was a golden age of peace only that peace also existed before the EU was formed.

 

So when you said that "Europe had long periods of peace in the past and also in the 19th century before the two big wars with Germany, and during that time there was no big EU club.", I'm guessing you were thinking of the Pax Romana and intending for us to ignore the whole bit about the 19th Century?

 

---------- Post added 13-07-2015 at 16:32 ----------

 

And I will state again that there is no substance to the idea that its the formation of the EU that has stopped wars.

 

Who said anything about stopping wars? I was merely talking about preventing wars - quite a different thing.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

So what continent do you being to if you're not a European?

Europe is a continent (or most of a continent).

GB is an island- so it's part of no continent.

[mattleonard]

NATO and its allies have done that.

 

I'm pretty sure that I addressed this in response to Alan Hartley. He seemed to think that NATO - and the fact that we're now "grown-ups" mean that war will never break out between European nations. As I said, NATO exists because it suits its members political and ecomonic alignments. As for the whole "grown-up" thing, if grown up means that we have outsourced much of our requirement for raw materials to Africa and Asia, along with the conflict that fulfilling that requirement entails then I suppose we have grown up, but it doesn't really make for a better world, for any of us in the long term.

 

---------- Post added 13-07-2015 at 16:42 ----------

 

Europe is a continent (or most of a continent).

GB is an island- so it's part of no continent.

 

Except that Europe has never simply been defined as a particular landmass, but by other boundaries such as the Urals and by inclusivity of nearby islands. Saying that Britain is not part of Europe is like saying that the Isle of Wight isn't part of the British Isles - or indeed, that much of Greece isn't part of Greece.

 

---------- Post added 13-07-2015 at 16:45 ----------

 

I like visiting Europe, I have friends and family that live in Europe. But I am not myself European.

 

So you won't be taking my advice and burning your European Union passport then?

[JFKvsNixon]

Europe is a continent (or most of a continent).

GB is an island- so it's part of no continent.

 

If an island is on the same part of continental shelf as the rest of the content, then surely it's part of the continent? So how would you judge Denmark then? The mainland part of Denmark in Europe, the islands not?