I wonder does ever smaller country conquered big one?

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I wonder does ever smaller country conquered big one?

You have not heard of the British empire, or the Roman empire, or countless other examples? Heck Belgium is tiny compared to its former colonies.

The duke of Normandy (William the Bastard, later known as William the Conquer) conquered England in 1066.
The Mongol Empire, started out as a bunch of nomads on horses and they conquer China and Persia and the not-so-unified steppe peoples and Russians.

Oh, Alexander the Great started as king of Macedonia and he conquered the huge Persian Empire and Egypt.





(both images from wikipedia)

Roman Empire isn't a great example, since many of their territories were gifted to them by other monarchs and/or made the protectorates of smaller territories.

Most of the Italy asked Rome for protection and many of the kings made Rome their heirs leading to the take over of Italy.
Greek states asked to become Roman protectorates due to hating being under Alexander's rule and fearing Persia.

Rome didn't start most of the wars the fought... It was the other side that went after Rome including Judah and Carthage.
Rome eventually grew tired of the wars and annexed these empires to prevent more wars.

Does Japan conquering China during WWII count? If so, fascism with a belief in a God-Emperor and a whole army willing to suicide bomb for the cause (either the cheap stuff or the more expensive like planes) is a heck of a thing. It's probably why ISIS rings a few bells and yeah, they're only 50,000 but if they collect enough serious self-destruct machines they'd be a serious problem. Considering also that we needed to make two major cities in Japan disappear to get that to stop...

Japan never conquered all of China but one province of China.
Though that's not fair since the British and Portuguese already annexed parts of China.
The British burnt down many of China's cities including the imperial capital as part of the Opium Wars, many of the Chinese ports, the Chinese sea lanes and Hong Kong (the British were granted HK in perpetuity) were seceded to the British in order to end the wars for good.

The only reason why the Opium Wars started was due to China making it a crime to sell and hold Opium (which was also illegal in Europe, UK and the most other countries) and the British were making tons of profits selling Opium in China.
When China made it illegal, Westminster demanded that China repeal the law or it would be considered an act of war on Britain and be dealt with as such.

You would be punished severely in the Britain for holding and using Opium let alone selling it.

Portugal also took part of China, which was the province of Macau and the surrounding areas.
Portugal had this in perpetuity as well.

Europe and the U.S. forced China to sign unequal treaties preventing China from enforcing it's laws on Western companies and citizens.

Europe was far worse to China over the years than Japan could even do.

Japan only invaded China to show the West it could compete on the world stage with the West.

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As for Japan during WWII

Tokyo was literally burnt to the ground on the night of March 9th, 1945 where over 100,000 died and over 110,000 were severely injured.

More people died on the night of March 9th, 1945 directly from the fire bombing of Tokyo than from the detonation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (~80,000 directly) and Nagasaki (39,000 - 80,000 directly)

Though more people did die from radiation poisoning over the years than those who died total from the March 9th fire bombing of Tokyo.

The main reason why the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan was to force Stalin's hand in negotiation the end of the war to ensure the U.S. would get it's way. Truman didn't know that Stalin knew of the bombs and had the designs.

The other main reason was to justify the huge cost of building the bombs to the U.S. public (It was the most expensive weapon ever built even to date).

The Emperor of Japan and half of the ministers wanted to end the war, but the military wasn't ready to accept defeat.
The Emperor wanted to officially surrender before the atomic bombs fell, but was facing a coup from the military at the time.

"Quality not quantity", comes to mind.

I was going to use that as an example. Japan conquered huge chunks of China ( which is both physically bigger than, and has ten times the population of Japan).

Japan had industrialized sooner than China, and China was mired in civil war. So Japan could succeed in invading China.

But comparing the Japanese war machine of the Thirties, and Forties,to today's ISIS is whole different subject.

Some Japanese soldiers had suicidal fanaticism similar to that of ISIS.

But ISIS doesnt have a base in an industrialized nation of seventy million people (Japan's population at the time) that can raise an army of millions, and make its own weapons, and build its own fleet of battleships, and aircraft carriers. So it peaches and pears to compare ISIS to Axis Japan, or to Axis Germany. They're obviously "troublesome" but in a different way from Japan under Tojo.

Doesn't get any bigger than:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire



At one point, 1 in 5 human beings lived in the British Empire.

Great Britain approx 89 thousand square miles.
British Empire approx 13 million square miles (roughly 25% of the total land on Earth).

Does that qualify?

Yeah, no joke when they said the sun never set on it.

Almost I would forget that the tiny "Great Britain" conquered quarter of the globe
KUDOS for that

Compare Portugal to the combined areas of Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola. Or that of the Netherlands to the area of the modern republic of Indonesia (which was "the Dutch East Indies" for a long time).

The smaller country would have more incentive and drive to obtain land outside it's borders because it doesn't feel it has enough land or resources so eventually they do have the potential to widen their borders if they become desperate enough. Small countries cannot be underestimated.

If they are given access to fair trade, immigration, and ways to obtain land elsewhere in legal ways, they might be less tempted to invade other's land.