Big Countries That Became Smaller

Countries, some are big, some are small and most of them throughout history have changed size as they conquered and or lost territories from their neighbors. Therefore we have had countries with great dimensions which eventually lost part of their territories becoming small or at least smaller. Now, I'm not going to talk about colonial empires like the Portuguese, Spanish, British, or French, but I might mention a couple regular empires. So for instance, when it comes to the French, I won't mention their loss of land in the Americas or Africa, but I will talk about their continental European empire. I'm also not giving much importance to continuity, which you'll see in this first example starting with the one on the thumbnail, Mongolia. Now, while today's Mongolia hasn't existed continuously since the times of the Mongol Empire, I think it is acceptable to say that they are in part their cultural descendants. The Mongol Empire existed from 12 O 6 to 1368 and emerging from Mongolia it stretched all the way to Korea, Southern China, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, even having some vassal states in North Russia. It was the second largest empire in history, behind only the British Empire, and it was the largest contiguous land empire ever. Now one can argue that there was little to none administrative rule over this land and the Mongols control was simply imposed through tribute and vassalization of local warlords who were placed by the Mongols to rule certain areas or who were subjugated by the hordes by conquest. But still it was enormous. However, like all empires, it didn't last forever. In their early days they suffered almost no defeats, and even when they did for whatever reason, they would then return with a better general and a larger force to avenge their loss through victory. But eventually they started not to. The Battle of Ayn Jalut in Galilee in 1260 marked the first time that the Mongols did not return to immediately avenge defeat due to the death of their Khan and other internal conflicts. These types of internal issues eventually led to the separation of the empire into four separate canats, the Shagatai, the Golden Horde, the Ilkanat, and the Yuan dynasty, who controlled Mongolia. In 1368 the Han Chinese Ming dynasty took over the Mongol capital and the Janges, rulers of the Yuan, retreated to the Mongolian homeland and continue to rule from there. And so Mongolia was reduced to what it is today. Next Turkey. Here we also have the evolution from an empire to a modern state. The Ottomans came from the east, conquering Anatolia, then they crossed into Europe and conquered part of the Balkans, stretching as far as Austria and Hungary, then also conquering parts of the Middle East and North Africa, stretching almost as far as Morocco. The empire lasted a long time, from 1299 to 1922, but then after the end of World War One, since the Ottoman had sided with the defeated Central Powers, the empire collapsed and yell at forces picked apart its territories, dividing them mostly between Great Britain and France. Although there had already been previous issues before and during the war, they were struggling with internal dissent, especially with the Arab Revolt. There was also large resistance from the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. After the dissolution of the Empire, the Turkish War of Independence led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland, where they remain today, still a large country, but vastly reduced when compared to their imperial ancestors. Another example is France. In case you didn't know, the icon of the Channel is modeled after Napoleon, and it was precisely during Napoleon's time that France saw its biggest continental expansion, the First French Empire, which existed from eighteen O 1 to 1814. It's always hard to determine how to measure territory size because in the case of all empires, the Mongols, the Ottomans and the French vessel states were commonly used. So in reality they didn't directly control certain areas, but since they controlled controllers I guess it's fair to say it was indirectly their territory as well. With the rise of Napoleon, France began exerting its military superiority in Europe. At the time, a series of conquests known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars extended French influence to much of Western Europe, even as far as Poland. And at its height in 1812, the French Empire had 130 departments and ruled over 90 million subjects. We can see it in the map. France stretched its direct rule into modern Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Catalonia and parts of the Balkans, and its subjects and vassals were even more Spain, Italy, German States and even Poland. Eventually Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, and throughout the following years their power in Europe diminished a lot and their control became reduced to pretty much the France we know today, although still counting with our colonial empire which was only ended about a century later. Then we have Armenia. Modern Armenia is reasonably small, but previous versions of the Armenian state were larger. We have to travel further back in time for this one that a Kingdom of Armenia which existed from 331 BC to 428 AD. The Kingdom. It was much larger than the current state. It reached its peak under the Greenwich the Great in 69 BC. Now this map includes vassals too, but look at the size of it. It expands into the Caucus, Greater Armenia, parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and even all the way down into Jerusalem. Apparently the Kingdom was very much caught between the conflicts of the Romans and the Parthians. It even became a province of the Roman Empire for a brief period. Eventually, it became a client state or of both the Romans and apportions on and off between the two and their successors. A fun fact is that in 301 DD, that is the third proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of Armenia, making it the first state in the world to officially embrace Christianity as its religion. During the Byzantine Persian Wars, Armenia was partitioned between the two sides. Byzantine Armenia was eventually incorporated into the empire, and Persian Armenia paved the way to the territory of the current state, although in Southeast Asia. Brunei Brunei is considerably small these days, occupying a small portion of the north of the island of Borneo. However, its previous control and reach over the island was much larger. From 1368 to 1888. The Empire of Brunei exist and their control was tremendous, reaching its peak in the 15th century. We can see it in this map. They controlled at least all the coastal regions of Borneo, a lot of the surrounding smaller islands, and even stretching it is some small parts of the Philippines. However, by the end of the 17th century, Brunei entered a period of decline brought on by internal issues over royal succession and colonial expansion of the European powers. The Empire lost much of its territory due to the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines, the Dutch in southern Borneo, and the British and other surrounding regions. Eventually it became a British protectorate before recovering independence and a small portion of land that they maintained as their own until today. Returning to Europe, Lithuania. Even if we set aside the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was very big, Lithuania itself was also gigantic. At a certain point, from 12:36 to 1795, it existed as the Grand Dutchie of Lithuania, including what is now Belarus and parts of Ukraine. Latvia, Poland and Russia at its greatest extent. In the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe. It eventually evolved into the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, was invaded by Russia in 1792, then being partitioned between neighboring states, the Russian Empire itself, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria all the way in North America, Mexico one support of New Spain. In 1821, Mexico became independent as the Mexican Empire, the only former colony of the Spanish to establish a monarchy upon independence. And its size was absolutely enormous, occupying current day Mexico, but a significant actually almost total part of Central America, stretching from the border with Panama in the South to the current U.S. states of California and Nevada. But this large empire didn't last too long. It transformed itself into a Republic two years later, and in that moment it lost Central America. In 1836, Texas declared independence. Nine years later it joined the US, something Mexico didn't accept, which triggered the Mexican American War. Mexico was defeated, and so the Treaty of Guadalupe was signed, in which the Mexican session took place. Mexico agreed, as compensation for losing the war, to give away a significant part of its territory to the US. California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. It's still a big country, but not as big as it once was. Moving southwards in South America. Bolivia, which was also a little bigger than it currently is. Bolivia's initial boundaries included territories which now belong to many of its neighbors. Throughout their early existence, they ceded these lands for a number of reasons. The first was the session of two territories, one in the north and another in the east, to Brazil in 1867. In 1893, they lost part of their southern land to Argentina in a border dispute, and in 1903 Brazil took a bit more of the north after the War of the Act, where they fought over a territory rich in rubber and gold, with Brazil emerging victorious a year later. In 1904, they lost their access to the Pacific Ocean, becoming a landlocked country as Chile took this area in red through their victory in the War of the Pacific. And finally, they lost a big chunk of land in the southeast to Paraguay, which apparently makes up more than half of Paraguay's current territory. Back to Europe, Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the last remaining Grand Dutchie in the world, and it's a pretty small country bordering France, Belgium and Germany. But throughout its history it was at times a little bigger. At its peak it had around 10,000 square kilometers, but through three partitions at different times it became reduced to its current 2500 square kilometers and these three partitions were precisely 2 its three neighbors, although in Germany's case it was still Prussia at the time. The first partition was in 1659 when Luxembourg was in a personal union with Spain. France was at war with the Spanish and the treaty that brought peace had France received 3 fortresses from Luxembourg as well as their surrounding territory. The 2nd partition was because of the French Revolutionary rewards. In 1795, France annexed Luxembourg entirely, but when Napoleon was defeated, independence was restored. However, the Germans claimed the fortress of Bitburg and so they took part of it as well. The third partition was the largest through the 1839 Treaty of London. It has to do with Belgium's independence from the Dutch. At the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution, most Luxembourgers joined the Belgian rebels and took control of most of the Grand Dutchie of Luxembourg. Eventually they independent, but lost a great deal of land to the Belgians and finally for this video, Hungary. Today Hungary is a medium sized country in Central Europe, but like all these previous examples it was at a certain time much larger. Hungary has existed as a state in many different forms, from a number of Dutchies to a principality, then a Kingdom, then a Republic, in the meanwhile also being part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. And at some of these points in history it occupied and ruled over a much larger territory than it does now. I'll try to simplify it as much as possible. From what I understand, the peak territorial extension of Hungary was just before World War One in 1914, when they ruled a pretty large territory within Austria Hungary. However, with their defeat in the war, the Treaty of Trianon took place and they lost a lot of land apart, went to Austria, Czechoslovakia, took what is now Slovakia and a bit of Ukraine. Yugoslavia took the South, which is now part of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, and Romania took Transylvania and some other areas. They recovered some of it during the Second World War with their alignment with the Axis, southern Slovakia, parts of Yugoslavia, and Transylvania. But after the war ended, their territory was once again reduced to what it had been in 1920 as it remains today. In this propaganda poster criticizing the territorial lost after Trianon, we can see them attempting to show other countries the extents of the territory they lost in comparison to theirs. So those are a few of the greatest territorial losses that took place in history. There are many more, and I didn't include all of them because otherwise the video would be too long. In fact, it was probably long as it is. So if you stuck around all this time, thank you. If you have any other examples of territorial losses that you would like to see me talk about in a possible Part 2 of this video, leave a comment below. Thanks so much for watching. Subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for more general knowledge.