Greatest Empire Ever

[OpnSrc]

Does Ancient Eygpt and the pharoahs count?

 

[Jay]

I can't see why not....

 

[Jay]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

Does Ancient Eygpt and the pharoahs count?

That's a great avatar.....one of my fav movies.

 

[Blackleaf]

British Empire - 14.3 million sq. miles [36.7 million sq. kilometres]

Mongol Empire - 11 million square miles [30 million sq. kilometres]

 

[Blackleaf]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

World's 10 greatest empires ever -


1) British Empire.
2)?
3)?
4)?
5)?
6)?
7)?
8)?
9)?
10)?

I like how you have Afghanistan in there when the British got completely annihilated there. Cut down like dogs.

Afghanistan was very much part of the British Empire. Britain invaded it 3 times and it didn't get its independence from Britain until 1919.

 

[Blackleaf]

And to settle things once and for all -


Largest empires (ancient and modern)

British Empire - 36 million km²
Mongol Empire - 35 million km²
Soviet Empire - 22 million km² [1]
Spanish Empire - 19 million km²
Islamic Caliphate - 13 million km²
French Empire - 12 million km²
Manchu Empire - 11 million km²
Portuguese Empire - 10 million km²
Japanese Empire - 7.4 million km²
Persian Empire - 6.2 million km²
Seljuq Empire - 6 million km²
Ming Empire - around 6 million km²
Roman Empire - 5.6 million km²
Ottoman Empire - 5.6 million km²
Macedonian Empire - 5.4 million km²
Almoravid Empire - 3.9 million km²
Mughal Empire - 3.7 million km²
German Empire - 3.6 million km²
Mauryan Empire - 3.6 million km²
Seleucid Empire - 3.4 million km²
Ghaznavid Empire - 2.6 million km²
Khazar Empire - 2.1 million km²


Largest populated empires

British Empire - 570 million
Manchu Empire - 380 million
Mughal Empire - 200 million
Ming Empire - 160 million
Soviet Empire - 160 million
Mongol Empire - 130 million
Japanese Empire - 130 million


Largest modern empires

British Empire - 36 million km²
Soviet Empire - 22 million km²
Spanish Empire - 19 million km²
French Empire - 12 million km²
Manchu Empire - 11 million km²
Portuguese Empire - 10 million km²
Japanese Empire - 7.4 million km²
Ottoman Empire - 5.6 million km²
Mughal Empire - 3.7 million km²
German Empire - 3.6 million km²


wikipedia.org

Britain is the greatest power to have ever existed. Even the "mighty" United States today is nowhere near as powerful and influential as Britain was at the height of its power.

 

[EagleSmack]

Britain never conquered Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, Afghan soldiers slaughtered 16,000 British troops and camp followers the first time they tried to get silly there. It was never a colony.



Boy... did your Red Coats get THUMPED in Concord Mass and all the way back to Boston. What an azz whooping.

 

[Daz_Hockey]

what a typically american response, look, ur war was immaterial, an annoyence, a fly on an elephants back.

Stop going on about it, we probably did get butchered in Afghanistan, there are many monuments too it, recently found by american troops, for godsake why argue this point, Alexander the great had a heck of a lot of trouble with the Afghan's, we sure as hell did, so the point should be made, who the hell, and just how arrogent do the americans think they are in thinking they'll beat them just like that.

And as you may know, quoting our troops strength was never a measure of our force, we were better at sea, besides, we thought of you as our brothers, we didnt want to fight you, we had bigger fish to fry, all the while the french scoffed, and to add insult, they gave you a stupid statue about "liberty"...well I can tell you now, it has nothing to do with liberty it's about "getting one up on the enemy" - as told to me by a frenchman on liberty island

 

[OpnSrc]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

Does Ancient Eygpt and the pharoahs count?

That's a great avatar.....one of my fav movies.

Yeah ...Pink had his own empire... :lol:

 

[Finder]

Wow so many responces I can't read over them. The Western Empire was not destoryed by the vikings. There is not one silver bullet for it's destruction. The Eastern Roman Empire which lasted until the high fed age, was brought down by the Ottoman Empire. But of course the Eastern Roman Empire wasn't the same anymore either by that time and it went threw hundreds of years of decline.

The Vikings never really had an empire as they did not have any real centrial authority. If I were to say the viking civilization then I would chose over that civ, the Celts which ruled almost all of Europe at one point. In fact as an "empire" with one centrial authority the vikings would be very low on my list but would be pretty high as a dominating civ.

Now the Empire..... This is a hard one, Chiness, Roman or Greek/Alexandian it's hard to call. But I've always had a fancy for the Roman Empire though I much prefer the history of the Republic.

 

[Martin Le Acadien]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

come on you were rich, you are rich....you did not beat us, do you honestly think your "puny colony" would have survived Napoleon's roving eye if it wernt for the british empire patrolling the high sea's for 300 years?.

Washington was in it up to his neck with the merchants, they did not want the british in because they were making too much profit themselves, he was no hero.

The poor mases didnt arrive in america till long after we withdrew to the north, oh yes, most of the british population were VERY poor indeed, much poorer than the large land owners with their "pitch forks" lol.

if Britain honestly wanted America bck then, they would have taken it, if it took years they would have done it, the fact is the whole country was split on the issue, I bet they dont teach you about the UK Prime minister William Pitt the younger who died of a heart attack begging the parliment to stop taxing the americas?.

plus, you realise the real first world war was going on France vs. Britain, how the heck are wars paid for eh?, or did you wanna be ruled by the french, oh they were lovely, the fench indo-chinese begged us to stay or the japs too cus the french were so crewl

Read the book "Iron Tears" it is written by a British Author and using England's point of view. In a nut shell the war was UNWINNABLE for England. British troops only controled the area where they were at at that time. When they left the area it was the subjected to Colonial rule. Britain could not subdue all of the colonies and many high ranking figures in Britain said that it was foolish to think that Britain could subdue the colonies.

Britain had to deliver troops and supplies across the Atlantic. That was a long voyage.

The bottom line is that you were defeated militarily and politically. Even the battles that you won were costly. For example after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Gen Gage stated

"If we win anymore battles like this we will lose the war."

Here, here.

Actually, the War went quite badly for the Yanks after 1776 until that victory over the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas Eve 1777 when this demonstrated to the French that some things might be possible. Now mind you gentle readers that the French only wanted to get at the British for their humiliation in 1764. The French king really did not like the idea of Liberty and all that other feel good stuff but an alliance of convience was formed. Supplies to the Rebelous colonies flowed as did letters of credit and money to finance the War.

Now the Spanish Government had a hand in the American Revolution since they controlled New Orleans and most of the Western part of North America. With a weak Independent USA on the East Coast, things might be more "Containable" if Great Britian was driven out of the Eastern Seaboard and a weaker Govt substiuted in its place. The Spanish captured Natchez, Baton Rouge, Manchac on the English side of the Mississippi as well as Pensacola and parts of Florida taken in 1765! British forts in Western British North America came under attack and the Western part of British North America came under Colonial/Spanish rule for a time. Supplies to colonists from New Orleans was considerable and turned the tide in Georgia and Carolinas!

General Cornwallis had been able to stem the battle in the South but when he culd not get supplied from New York (A major supply base) he tried marching North and got stuck on the York Penisula with the French fleet between him and supplies! George Washington captured his Army almost intact and refused to have a prisoner exchange with the British since the capture of 30,000 british Troops constituted a great deal of their manpower in North America at the time! this last major battle in 1781 basically freed the Southern Colonies of British Occupation and allowed the Colonials to concentrate on the North East being New England. This deprivation of manpower hastened the treaty of 1783 which recognized the Independence of the US.

After 1783, a Cold War of Sorts developed between the US and Great Britian in the North West Territories which are now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and even reached down past the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. More on that later.

 

[Haggis McBagpipe]

!! Hey! Martin, good to see you!

 

[Martin Le Acadien]

!! Hey! Martin, good to see you!

Still around, haven't been Katrina'd yet.

 

[Finder]

Also you have to take into consideration the time period of these empirers. Not only how much land it had, or the people it controled. I do not see the British Empire as the end all. For one, they did not control these lands all at the same time and the level of control often didn't go much further then a few miles from a couple of cities in these nations.

Also as far as far as I can tell the British claims to Canada were far less then all of the nation when we were under british rule. You might include PEI, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, halifax, Lower and upper Canada and thats pretty much it. Out west there was very little and north was the Hudsons bay which was not really ruled by the British government. In fact all of Canada which it includes as empire was extremly sparcly populated and exetremly contested at the time of empire by the natives, spainish, french and russians.


Edit:
Plus the soviet empire... was never a empire but a collection of alliances such as the warsaw pact. All of these Republic's had there own government and each had there own trade deals with other nations. True there was some mercantilism towards the ussr. To include the Warsaw pact with the "soviet empire" you would have to include every NATO nation as the American empire.

 

[FiveParadox]

Perhaps instead of considering the British Empire, one could consider the Empire of the Monarchy? In that case, you could consider the entirety of Canada.

 

[Finder]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

Perhaps instead of considering the British Empire, one could consider the Empire of the Monarchy? In that case, you could consider the entirety of Canada.

you mean the Common Wealth?

 

[Martin Le Acadien]

Re: RE: Greatest Empire Ever

Perhaps instead of considering the British Empire, one could consider the Empire of the Monarchy? In that case, you could consider the entirety of Canada.

Hudson Bay Company "owned" most of what is now Western Canada but I would certainly include that under "British Empire".

The Sun never sat on the Union Jack as the story goes.

A French replied, "How true, but that is because God can not trust em in the dark!"

 

[Finder]

Hudson's bay owned much of the land but not much in BC or southern Alberta. Also when you take into account the sparcity of the modern Canadian territory back then, really including Canada which was more less a back water and almost usless to any power at the time, is kind of pointless. In all of Canada during the empire years there was only a few towns of note. When you think of the great empires there were few regions which were sparcly populated. Like in the Roman Empire, almost anywhere the Romans went there was already a large population which they controled one way or another. The British empire on the other hand coming the North America had a relitively small native population and a lot of land which if you consider even modern Canada today is sparcly populated.

I do think the British empire was large and great but does it out shine what the Roman empire did for its period of time?

 

[Daz_Hockey]

I think the point was made earlier, but he's right, things didnt go the US's way until the other countries came in to help out, the problem here stems from America's version of history, as I say, I've spent a fair bit of time in america, they dont really have what most people would call a "world view" still.....how big was the persian empire, that was pretty vast.

oh yeah, just a quirky thing, I went to mount rushmore and would you believe they were selling "know ur president" packs of cards!!...I asked the woman at the desk if they were like the Al-queda deck lol

 

[Pharaoh]

Genghis Khans Mongolian Empire for sure. The Largest Empire ever in the history of the world.
Then I'd have to say Roman Empire.
British Empire.
Persian/Sassanid
Egyptian
Babylon
Soviet Union