>relatively big country
>isolated, easily defensible, but still in a great position for trade
>populous
>good amount of natural resources
>good climate
>colonized Americas and extracted vast amounts of wealth
>European
>Christian
How is Spain so fucking irrelevant since late 18th century?
How did they fuck it up so hard? Contemporary Spain is as influential as Greece, and it's mind boggling.
you say that like it's a bad thing
>almost as wealthy as france, uk, germany
>without all the problems those countries face
id say it's a fair trade off
Inflation from South American silver mines and Nappys invasion
Spain is in no way as wealthy as those countries. A while ago they had like 20% unemployment for god's sake.
Because they were governed by Spaniards.
>colonized Americas and extracted vast amounts of wealth
this wasn't a good for them or for Portugal
meant to quote OP
The fact that they never succeeded in annexing Portugal is downright embarrassing.
why would they?
Brainlet.
it's not like they have not tried
bonus Spanish incompetence
>dé-mos
Who the fuck wrote this?
Anyway, yes, Spain was mostly bad at war. But irrelevance in history means little. Its colonies became independent nations, they had their internal conflicts and they did not participate in the world wars, but it's not like they're a destitute country in misery or anything.
Es porque los españoles son perezosos.
>Spain was mostly bad at war
Spain dominated on the battlefield during entire XV and first half of XVI century for fucks sake. Does anyone know history on this board?
*inflates economy in your path*
The habsburgs where mistakes
They should have kept castillans on the throne
>Veeky Forums
>not /int/ without flags
How did Spain go from Franco to what it has now? Portugal suffered a communist coup but they didn't and still turned out the same
Two of your assumptions are wrong. Spain is not populous nor is it resource rich. It was even less so historically
I wish Hiromoot made this board use flags
>1 and a half century
>compared to several centuries of ass licking to ahmed and later pierre
>even got destoyed by fucking pre-ww2 america
What resources does Spain lack? It's got good amount of coal and iron, what else do you need for industrialization?
>it's not populous
50 million people. That's pretty populous.
In 1600 they had some 8 million in Spain proper. 10 million in 1800, same as UK.
>compared to several centuries of ass licking to ahmed and later pierre
But that's bullshit, they mostly wrecked Muslims since 12th century onward.
>pierre
They got fucked up by Napoleon but that's it. Spain was still a great power in 18th century.
>even got destoyed by fucking pre-ww2 america
They didn't ''get destroyed'', they lost their colonies. America was a great power at the end of 19th century, it just wasn't formal and they didn't have a huge army, but they were still a great power de facto.
Not him, but IIRC, Spain had a lot of gold supplies through out the Peninsula but Charles V and the Republicans threw it away
Inflation
Low population (1/3rd compared to France)
Has been invaded several times (5 times in the 19th century alone)
Also Napoleonic wars destroyed the country
>It's got good amount of coal
>coal
>spanish coal
Go and industrialize with Spanish coal
Someone will wait for you.
>population
Oh, I see you are trolling.
t.juan
>But that's bullshit, they mostly wrecked Muslims since 12th century onward
so we're ignoring all that time before that? lol muslims also won major battles (sagrajos, alarcos)
>They got fucked up by Napoleon but that's it. Spain was still a great power in 18th century.
it was declining hard.
>They didn't ''get destroyed'', they lost their colonies. America was a great power at the end of 19th century, it just wasn't formal and they didn't have a huge army, but they were still a great power de facto.
they lost their empire in the carribean and asia. america also beat out a major european country.
What's wrong with Spanish coal?
>>populous
>>good amount of natural resources
Literally the opposite. The only place in western europe without any good coal or navigable rivers
>got good amount of coal and iron,
Spanish coal is literal garbage. The coal mines had never been profitable
It is the eqyivalent to Venezuelan oil. Hard to extract and very hard to get pure coke from it
It seems that when Portugal finally found its independence, in the XVII Century, the KIng of Spain, when informed, said "Thank God for that"... ultimately Portugal would have always been a burden for Spain.
>10 million in 1800, same as UK.
You can fit 3 UKs in Spain brainlet. Low population density+second most montanious country in all of Europe+0 navigable rivers= really hard to develop trade and advanced agriculture. France and Germany are totally flat and surrounded with navigable rivers. The UK is an island nation with extremelly good arable land. Spain literally has the hardest geopolitical situation in all of western Europe. Only the Austrian empire was so fucked up geopilitically between the XVII-XVIII centuries
>they never succeeded in annexing Portugal
Portugal was annexed during 80 years
>using roman numerals
truly a fedoralard
>Spain was mostly bad at war.
It literally is the country with the best military record in Europe
>muslims also won major battles
>Napoleon lost at Bassano
>Therefor the grand armee and Napoleon were absolute shit
Your argument is so fucking stupid
Mediterraneans are just dumber people in general.
That user probably meant conquest rather than annexation.
Everyone has their economic downturns.
Then you'd have a bunch of Portuguese hueing up the play and no one wants that.
>Mostly bad at war
>Best european military record
Choose one
t.Snownigger
spain just kept getting hit by crisises and didnt get the time to recover from them.
Also they lost all thier important coloniess more than a century earlier then the rest of europe.
>why empires fell?
What is it with Americans being obssessed with this? At least once a fucking week, either here or on /int/, someone asks why an empire/state didn't manage to last for eternity. Worse, they'll make fun of former great powers as if it'll never happen to them, like the US is anything more than just another empire that rose, is having its heyday, and will eventually become just another country like Britain, Portugal or Spain.
i know i should ignore posts like this but this is so retarded it looks like it's made by a 13 year old...
In romance languages the centuries are written with roman numerals, you barbarian
Its large colonial empire prevented internal development in the pace of the other European states.
This
>it's muh american boogie man
Small correction: 60 years.
Spain deserves all it got for its caste autism. Had they not created a caste system where criollos stand under peninsulares, or a caste system at all, they would still have multiple holdings in America.
>colonized Americas and extracted vast amounts of wealth
>have shit tier domestic product compared to northern europe and funnel all colonized silver/gold straight to the anglo/dutch in order to buy everything you use
There is no need for this board to become cancer.
Internal division between regional identities and cultures
It’s hard to become a world power when half your regions want to become independent
You got it backwards.
Most nationalist movements in spain (Sabino Arana, la Renaixença, el Rexurdimento, the Carlists wars) appear in the second half of the 19th century.
Spaniards are lazy retards
When the biggest things your country is known for are taking naps and torturing bulls you think they'd have some issues
>The fact that they never succeeded in annexing Portugal is downright embarrassing.
spaniard here, here are the three most well known national problem since the fuking muslims went to hell
1º the eternal pirate
2º the eternal pierre
3º the eternal spaniard as a ruler: most of us cant fucking rule or be ruled for one reason, we call it the picaresca española, which means that any spaniard, if can take advantage of the situation for his own good, he will take it, if there is a hole in the system we will exploit it, if we can earn enought money of for a living doing the less work possible, we will work less
Thats why not even the saboya could rule us, the ones that fucking unified italy couldnt do jack shit here
Also bonus points: Kicking all the jews, the economical elite from the country before the discovery of america, thats why our economy went downhill
You need a high IQ to be an important country in the 19-20-21st century and beyond, you need scientists, intelligent mathematicians, something Iberians or Middle Essterners don’t have the genes for on average, they might do fine in the early times at creating civilization but in the late game they fall short
>thats why our economy went downhill
The economy went downhill because the fucking habsburgs wasted all the money of Castille and Aragon in stupid wars in central and north Europe that didn't have any repercussion in Spain.
Portugal is a wasteland worse than Andalusia, and Spain don't really need another Andalusia.
>relatively big country
very mountainous
>populous
has fewer people than Italy or the UK
>good climate
try going out at 3 pm any summer day in the south or center of the peninsula
>colonized Americas and extracted vast amounts of wealth
also that
>Kicking all the jews, the economical elite
>t. a fucking retard
After the expulsion of jews the country become the most powerful country in Europe.
>good climate
Spain is a big desert (lmao at cherry picked photos of dry as fuck shrubbery), and they don't even have oil. Try naming some desert countries that are well off and relevant.
Spain was keeping its colonies in 1640-1790 only because of global rivalry of France and Britain.
France was dunked during 1789-1815, so Britain got free hands and "liberated" Latin America with Bolivar and other mercenaries-spies.
>relatively big country
Same with Germany, for a hot minute. It turned out to be a bad idea, or at least a symptom of a bigger bad idea. Jews were also among the best educated in Spain -- normal for an economic elite, I guess -- and that may have had something to do with a profusion of bad ideas. It would seem that this caught up to Spain much much later than it did with Germany, though. Maybe because they shortly found free gold in lands conveniently populated by slaves?
Although I have read that the diaspora did much to spread Spanish language and culture, possibly more than any other one event until the colonization of America. As far as I know it was the single greatest mass emigration in Spanish/Iberian history.
>Spain is a big desert
W-we didnt w-want Portugal anyway. You are shit fighters, deal with it.
>populous
Spain has always been outpopulated by Brits, Frogs and Krauts, that's one of the reasons for its fall.
>good amount of natural resources
Meh, some uncommon metals and what else? We are facing a high rate of deforestation and lose of water by the way.
>European
Just geographically.
>Christian
A drawback.
>shit fighters
History isn't a film, and Spain never really tried to conquer Portugal btw.
Fuck off andalusia has the biggest economic potelcial after catalonia
it is true tho
guess which one is spain and portugal
spain is as european as italy or france
also guess who could import more black to the north?
Corruption, foreign wars and the never ending civil war then, socialism now.
Fuck off mutt.
Their political structure has always been tenuous. Golden Age Spain (16th-17th centuries) can more accurately be termed "Castile" since this was the one kingdom of several that came to dominate the rest. They did extract massive amounts of wealth but utilized it poorly, hence a later reliance on foreign loans. You mentioned the prevalence of the Catholic Church- this had a heavily conservative influence on the way their social and political system remained ordered as power was concentrated in the hands of a landholding aristocracy with an underclass of peasantry and artisans. The deep roots of the Church and this system positioned them poorly to adjust to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Their fractious political situation also never allowed them to develop a national identity akin to France, Britain, or Germany. This was only exacerbated by the controversies over who the legitimate ruler of Spain was (Carlism and the like) and the resilience of their semi-feudalist system into the modern era.
Only 40.000 jews left. The rest just converted.
>andalucia has economic potential
Hahahahahahaha
>Aragon
Contributed jack shit to the royal treasury. Naples or Flanders contributed more than Aragon,Valencia,Mallorca and Catalonia combined
>This is the product of Spanish education system
Britain always failed in its 1v1 wars against Spain. They never had the power to defeat Spain militarily. Only a massive change in ideals and Riego made possible the independence of its colonies
That's a shitload of people to pack up in one wave. From what I've read there's no real consensus on what the actual number was.
>Uses Roman numericals
>Retarded opinion
Checks out
>economic potelcial
> catalonia
It only has industry because the bourbons gave them a bunch of priviledges in the XVIII due its proximity with France. Their land is mountanious and shit and relies on food imports from the rest of the country. Geographically the regions with the highest potential in Spain are Valencia and the Guadiana basin that have multiple rivers,rich agriculture and easy access to the sea
Most jews converted. 40,000 is not a huge diaspora. More people would be kicked in the morisco expulsions,more Spaniards would die in the italian wars and more people emigrated to America between 1492 -1520. The expulsion of the jews has been widely exagerated
Yeah, and while while ago they had leas unemployment than most of the countries of yurop.
Anyway:
> Populous
> Well located
> Good amount of resources.
And they fucked up in XIX century, missing their empire, the Industrial Revolution, and the enlighment.
> only region in Spain with a navigable river
>Shitloads of coast
>A lot of arable land for niche products like oil,citrics or saffron
> Mineral rich region (iron,gold,copper,etc)
>Huge energetic potential (wind+solar+uranium)
>Straight of Gibraltar
Andalucia is the only region in the Spanish peninsula with geopolitical value. The country would have been much better off if the capitable had been set in Seville
>Fuck off andalusia has the biggest economic potelcial after catalonia
Ofc, but no from 14:00 to 17:00, that's siesta time, now seriusly if we improve our south border instead of the north, they could have just by population the potential, but Cadiz is shit since the mid XVIII, and from Tarifa to Cabo de Gata we could have industry for all these andalusians, but they have tourism instead, wich gives more quick money, mostly to the people in charge, and worst employment
>The expulsion of the jews has been widely exagerated
I believe that and I know most Jews converted, if only nominally. Nevertheless, the expulsion extended the cultural influence of Spain in the region, even as far as Eastern Europe, which is the point I was making -- that while it was obviously a wrong thing to do, it may have even accorded Spain some kind of benefit by exporting its language and customs.
It´s the mock Spain Day again?
>Populous
>> Well located
Spain has a shitty geopolitical situation. It is a very sparcely populated country with some big population hubs surrounded by empty fields. The country is so mountanious that a viable railroad system was hardly possible in the XIX century and it has no navigable rivers outside of a little stretch in the Guadiana,making the development of an export manufacturing economy impossible until the XX century and even today transportation costs are still high due the lack of navigable rivers. Only the Austrian empire had a worse geopolitical situation amongst the big powers in the XVIII century
Sephardic jews had their little colony in Thessalonika and later on some stablish themselve in Rotterdam and London. They had some influence in NA but outside of that they were mostly a non factor. Spain just a really small population and the problem of transportation as it's production center (Castile) had no navigable rivers. The fact that Spain becaming an hegemonic power is more surprising than it just failing
France wrecked them hard
Rocroi put a end to their European dominance, and then Napoleon finished them off
>11 days
>Rocroi put a end to their European dominance
The French lost 3 bigger battles consecutively against the Spanish army after Rocroi,Rocroi was just used by Mazarin to convince the king to not withdraw from the war in which the French army was performing really poorly. It was the Catalan,Portuguese and Napolitan revolts what ended up axfixiating the Spanish treasury.
>Britain always failed in its 1v1 wars against Spain.
Britain never won any 1vs1 war against anyone desu
Hell, I'm not even sure they ever fought one at all
Soloing other countries is brainlet-tier. The Patrician's Choice has always been coalitions and allies.
its really easy. all their great productive people went colonizing
Not entirely wrong tho im spanish