Do you ever have weird personal feelings of irrendentism?

[retromike22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Irredentism

Have you ever had a strange feeling that the maps of countries are somehow not quite what you would like them to be, and that the borders should be slightly different? I'm not talking about a political belief that the borders should be changed, rather just things that have always stuck out to you as odd.

I'll give a few examples.

1. It has always bothered me that Istanbul is not called Constantinople and furthermore not part of Greece. This is despite the fact that the population transfer after the Greek-Turkish War homogenized most of the population in both regions.

2. I still feel that Poland took too much of Germany's land after WWII. Again, the same situation with the population transfer.

In both cases it would be completely unrealistic and problematic to make these changes, but somehow, for some reason it stands out to me as being incorrect. There's a word for this feeling, but I can't find online, where you have a feeling because of an ancestor's experience, and somehow it got implanted in your unconscious.

[Famous Mortimer]

Kosovo should be part of Albania, because it's the simplest solution.

[ingemann]

There's a lot off border, which in my opinion doesn't look right. But I don't have any big wish for them to change. That doesn't mean that I don't want border changes some places around the world, but those wishes are not based on national megalomania or the wish for pretty border, but purely practical concern or schaudenfreude (like I wish for Yemen to take back their lost territories from the Sauds, itt's purely based on my opinion about the Sauds and their treatment of the locals in the area).

[DC Al Fine]

Canada should invade some Carribbean island so vacationers don't have to go through customs when the escape to warmer climates.

[Boston Bread]

Canada should invade some Carribbean island so vacationers don't have to go through customs when the escape to warmer climates.

Annexing Turks and Caicos has been proposed before. Apparently it's supported by the locals, too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I'll admit part of me is really pissed off about Italy losing Istria (especially in light of the massacres that followed).

I'd be OK with Poland giving back the areas it took from Germany after WW2, if it gets back the areas it lost to USSR. The 1923 borders were awesome.

[retromike22]

Another one is I wish Austria still had access to the Adriatic sea.

[Hydera]

Kalingrad should of been either controlled by the Poles, Lithuanaians or heck even the Germans or the finns. The russians ruined the architecture by building commieblocks. Anybody else would of preserved it better.

Also Spain should just give Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla. Then they won't have to deal as much with people climbing fences.

[Beet]

No, I'd rather see national borders become meaningless than obsess about their minor details.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I feel that Germany was given too much of a rough deal after WW2 when they lost massive swathes of land to Poland. I think that with 70 years of good behaviour, being Europe's largest economy and bailing out the EU, Germany should be able to buy back it's stolen land from Poland.

The only problem with that though is Poland would be way too tiny and not viable as a state. If the USSR did not take so much Polish land east of the Curzon line, then Germany could have kept the land or bought it back later.

[Velasco]

Also Spain should just give Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla. Then they won't have to deal as much with people climbing fences.

No problem with that personally, as long as local population agrees or Britons give up Gibraltar. Double standard is amusing, you see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Irredentism
It has always bothered me that Istanbul is not called Constantinople and furthermore not part of Greece. This is despite the fact that the population transfer after the Greek-Turkish War homogenized most of the population in both regions.

That's weird. Constantinople fell in 1453, long time before the current Greek state was created. Before 1923 and even after (until some 'pogroms' in the 50s) there was a sizable Greek minority in that city, but it has had a Turkish majority for centuries. Nowadays there are about 2 thousand Greeks living there and the population of Istanbul exceeds 12 million. On the other hand, the outcome of the Greek-Turkish war is a clear example of how irredentist dreams usually end in nightmare. In other words, the imprudence of Greek nationalists ended in a bloodbath and with the deportation of their compatriots from Western Anatolia. Look at the former Yugoslavia: Serbian irredentists ultimately achieved that the Krajina was cleaned up of Serbians. 

[ag]

That's weird. Constantinople fell in 1453, long time before the current Greek state was created. Before 1923 and even after (until some 'pogroms' in the 50s) there was a sizable Greek minority in that city, but it has had a Turkish majority for centuries. Nowadays there are about 2 thousand Greeks living there and the population of Istanbul exceeds 12 million. On the other hand, the outcome of the Greek-Turkish war is a clear example of how irredentist dreams usually end in nightmare. In other words, the imprudence of Greek nationalists ended in a bloodbath and with the deportation of their compatriots from Western Anatolia. Look at the former Yugoslavia: Serbian irredentists ultimately achieved that the Krajina was cleaned up of Serbians.  

I, actually, met an Istanbul Greek guy this year (and not even in Istanbul, but in the US). It was almost as staggering, as if I met a live Neanderthal. Or a dodo.

[rob in cal]

   In addition to much of Silesia and Pomerania going back to Germany, how about the northern part of South Tyrol going back to Austria,

[Hash]

Well, Loire-Atlantique is obviously part of Brittany but that's less irredentism than common sense.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is a very odd thread.

[Cranberry]

Another one is I wish Austria still had access to the Adriatic sea.

Oh me too

In addition to much of Silesia and Pomerania going back to Germany, how about the northern part of South Tyrol going back to Austria,

Why just it's northern part? South Tyrol is 70%+ German speaking well until the Southern border, safe for Bozen and a few other industrial towns; and it would make no sense whatsoever to split it somewhere in half (less even if you consider that there is no connection but one 2000 metre mountain pass between its Eastern and Western part other than Bozen).
Now, it would make more sense to split the region Trentino-South Tyrol in half, with its northern part, which is South Tyrol, coming back to Austria (and really, no one but some crazy Italian nationalist could have seriously opposed this until the 70ies), but anyway, today is today, and with autonomy and European idea and all, I'm neither the biggest fan nor the biggest opponent of border redrawing in that case.

[Cory]

I'd be OK with Poland giving back the areas it took from Germany after WW2, if it gets back the areas it lost to USSR. The 1923 borders were awesome.

The Soviets had a more legitimate claim to those lands then Poland ever did, to be fair. The ethnic makeup of the population was mostly Ukrainian and Belorussian IIRC.

[Beezer]

Yes, I wouldn't mind living in a Germany that stretched to Lithuania, complete with intact cities. IMO the best solution after WWI would have been to have allowed the German speaking peoples of Germany and Austria (+ Sudetenland) to unite. Maybe that could have averted the following conflict.

[Cory]

Yes, I wouldn't mind living in a Germany that stretched to Lithuania, complete with intact cities. IMO the best solution after WWI would have been to have allowed the German speaking peoples of Germany and Austria (+ Sudetenland) to unite. Maybe that could have averted the following conflict.

But that would mean France has no chance of being the dominant power in Europe, thus defeating the entire purpose of the Versailles Treaty. The entire thing was a sham from the start.

[Dan the Roman]

Yes, I wouldn't mind living in a Germany that stretched to Lithuania, complete with intact cities. IMO the best solution after WWI would have been to have allowed the German speaking peoples of Germany and Austria (+ Sudetenland) to unite. Maybe that could have averted the following conflict.

But that would mean France has no chance of being the dominant power in Europe, thus defeating the entire purpose of the Versailles Treaty. The entire thing was a sham from the start.

Have you read anything about German war aims? I mean they weren't Nazi, but the plans for the "East" were a near prototype(German princes as monarchs, German settlers with the locals working the land as sharecroppers in the Ukraine/Lithuania/Poland). France crippled economically indefinitely, half of Belgium annexed. The Germans got off incredibly lightly.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I've often thought that New Guinea shouldn't be split, especially along such an arbitrary line.

[Cory]

Have you read anything about German war aims? I mean they weren't Nazi, but the plans for the "East" were a near prototype(German princes as monarchs, German settlers with the locals working the land as sharecroppers in the Ukraine/Lithuania/Poland). France crippled economically indefinitely, half of Belgium annexed. The Germans got off incredibly lightly.

Yes but all of this is beside the point. I was explaining why Beezer's idea of Germany being actually expanded after WWI would never happen.

[H. Ross Peron]

Agree with everyone about the German borders in the east: I vastly prefer the 1937 borders.

I've always found the US-Mexico border rather awkward due to the presence of Baja California which probably should have been annexed considering it was very lightly populated at the time and would have benefited from California's economic and demographic growth.

France should just have kept Oran and its surrounding area as a Ceuta/Melilla like enclave instead of trying to keep all of Algeria until it was too late. The population exchanges doing that would certainly have been less traumatic and extreme.

As an ethnic Korean, it'd be nice to see Korea not only reunite but reclaim Manchuria and the Russian Far East.

On a state level, Michigan's upper peninsula should just be part of Wisconsin. Also it'd have been interesting if the original 13 colonies had been allowed to extend westwards instead of being its own states.

[Knives]

China should be broken up like majorly as should India.

[Simfan34]

Yes. Eritrea is not a country.