What if Greece after 1821 had fully focused on the creation of a colonial empire akin to Belgium or Portugal?

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MrKorakis@reddit

I don't know what you are high on but it sounds fun. :)

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Terrible-Praline7938@reddit

Because when you come out of 500 yrs of slavery you got money for that shit😆

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Ujemegaz@reddit

The seats were already taken i guess.

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

The Berlin congress only happened in 1878

57 years to jump on the bandwagon

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The country just got its independence and you want to make them a colonial empire😂. Unlike Greece,every single colonial power had centuries long continuous bureaucracies and had huge populations and economies because navies are super expensive. Where are they going to colonize anyway? Their north,south,east was Ottoman,west was Italian mainland.

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Medium_Fly_5461@reddit

Where are they going to colonize anyway? Their north,south,east was Ottoman,west was Italian mainland.

I mean none of the colonial powers really went colonising their neighbours they looked further away, not that this prompt makes any sense regardless

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

Belgium?

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Few-Interview-1996@reddit

Far richer.

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SnooLentils726@reddit

They have access to open seas and pretty valuable for Britain similar to Netherlands.Britain returned Netherlands all of their colonies except South Africa after defeat of Napoleon.Greece wasnt important for Britain because they wanted a strong Ottoman empire against growing Russian threat.

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Ujemegaz@reddit

Italy and Germany tried desperately to become colonial empires, but were not that succesful, and they were industrial powerhouses.

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

Germany would’ve been successful had they not lost both world wars

Which Greece won btw

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casual_philosopher02@reddit

Colonialism occurred way before the world wars.... We also fought many more wars for land in the meantime

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Ujemegaz@reddit

Won how? Is Haghia Sophia Greek 🤣

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

Greece was on the winning side of both world wars Which

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alpidzonka@reddit

You can't build a colonial empire without ocean ports. Even if the great powers gave Greece, idk, Western Sahara or something, it could only reach it through Gibraltar. Meaning, ultimately, it would depend on the good will of the British.

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chrstianelson@reddit

How would they have funded it and projected power to those places?

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

The same way they funded the Balkan wars for instance

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Iapetus404@reddit

Greece take loans from the British for cause...it was not free money

and people fight with they own hunting weapons and swords to free Greek land and Greek people.

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chrstianelson@reddit

It was mainly Russia and France that funded the Balkan Wars, with ample encouragement by the United Kingdom.

You think they would've welcomed a competition?

You think the technological, monetary and manpower cost of waging a decades long colonisation campaign against already established colonial powers like Great Britain, Spain, Netherlands and France was something a country with no force projection capabilities, no overseas logistical infrastrue, no industrial base, no natural resources and not enough land with a population of only 750,000 could achieve?

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

They allowed Portugal to keep their African colonies in 1878 despite them not being industrialized either

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chrstianelson@reddit

Portugal was already a colonial power and a long time British ally. Letting Portugal keep their colonial territories worked to the interests of Great Britain as it provided a buffer against France and Spain.

Portugal was also financially dependent on Great Britain and effectively acted like a British protectorate.

That's why every time another European power aimed to take over Portuguese is territories in Africa, the British stopped them.

In other words, they allowed Portugal to retain its colonies because it was in the interest of Britain to do so.

How would giving Greece a colony have been useful?

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

In the same way as Portugal then

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chrstianelson@reddit

Well then Greece should have gained their independence 400 years earlier, somehow secure long term passage to the oceans by going through the Ottoman, Italian, French and Spanish navies (Ottoman Navy alone was the most powerful naval power at the time) and established colonies in the 15th century.

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SE_prof@reddit

It is possible but challenging. You need to remove landowners and rush colonialism. You will also need to eradicate malaria, but you'll need to spam universities for that. Wait... What sub is this???

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GeneviliousPaladinus@reddit

Victoria 3 fandom evidently.

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baxulax@reddit

Next thread: What if Greece competed in the space race and got to the moon in the ‘60s?

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EternalPrince54@reddit

What if Georgios Papadopoulos was born in Texas ???? 😂

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bTwentyTwo@reddit

What if Greece never won the Euros in 2004, Eurobasket in 2005 and Eurovision 2005?

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Self-Bitter@reddit

Greece was devastated and poor after when it became independent

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thanasis87kav@reddit

Why not start building a rocket to colonise the moon?

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EternalPrince54@reddit

Big If. Why do that? A what? A state comprising of a handful of islands, Peloponnese and Central Greece(Roumeli) that at the same time had a foreign imposed prince/king and also the vast majority of the greek nation living outside its borders would seriously consider going and making a collonial 'empire'? Passing through the Ottoman Waters? With whose blessing? The colonial powers that were its benefactors and major Colonial powers???

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8NkB8@reddit

Impossible. Greece was hobbled and had suffered major losses. The Peloponnese lost 25% of its prewar population during the war and many towns and villages were devastated, while some islands were even worse. There was no industry and much of the country was completely backward.

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SOHONEYSAME@reddit

"ignored claims"

Greece would look like this.

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crivycouriac@reddit (OP)

Would be worth the trade-off for having your language spoken by at least 100 million individuals

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SOHONEYSAME@reddit

for one,

my home would literally be under occupation, lol... (I think that's more important).

but, even objectively, would a potential "linguistic impact" offer significant advantages?

I'm not sure.

Greece would probably have more influence in places like southern Africa/south America, or whatever region was colonized.

which r irrelevant, geo-politically, for modern Greece.

what's Portugal "gain" for instance?

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casual_philosopher02@reddit

Because you don't go from having nothing to being a coloniser.... We needed the funds to have the country industrialised, rebuild bridges, create bureaucracy...

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FantasticQuartet@reddit

Portugal had access to the Atlantic ocean, as well as decades of freedom to build naval forces and industry.

Belgium is a special case, as it didn't the Congo through military conquest, but because its king purchased the land for his private use, with the blessings of the European powers who wanted a buffer zone in Africa.

Greece was "trapped" in the Eastern Mediterranean, surrounded by the Ottomans north, east and south. There was never really an option for expansion other than war with the Ottomans. That's exactly what Italy did when it acquired Libya.

So it made sense that if you're going to fight the Ottomans, you should fight for the areas where the local population wants to join your country.

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ZestycloseHat4990@reddit

The creation of the modern greek state was indirectly inflicted by western ambitions and intervention in order to weeken the ottomans in order to get their colonies. If the westerners that helped the revolution could beat the ottomans then they would do that to greeks who wanted to expand into their own future clay. Plus greece was poor, small and industrial output was zero.

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Few-Pound-7236@reddit

The British would have never allowed democracy in Greece because of the effect it would have on all the other colonized nations. The Greeks fought independence but didn't really get it, they traded a sultan for a British controlled royal family and the British were far more competent. They did that to a lot of okaces such as not allowing democracy in Cyprus after WWII because the Brits knew they would not be able to control the government. One of the major events that triggered the British was a coup in Greece to get rid of the royal family who owned and ran all the infrastructure in the country.

The Bavarian Kings and the British intermarried many times, they were related to each other as were many other heads of states in Europe and they would regularly go on vacation in Greece. The point of this is to tell you that any foreign land that Greece would get would really just be owned by the British indirectly. The prime minister's of Greece and the Kings forced upon Greece almost had five civil wars since 1821.