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Anonymous
>>25362 >then why does France still share a border with Germany?
France here, there were centuries of war to decide where the border will be. Alsace and Lorraine changed hands several times. In the end we settled the matter by asking the people of Alsace, Sarrebrûcken, etc .. to choose (by vote). Some chose France, others Germany. Today we'll keep our side of the bargain, and won't start a war about it. Since Germany agreed not to have nuclear weapons, they won't start a war, either. So it should be fine. Perhaps, we'll all become "Europeans" one day, so it won't matter anymore.
You may have heard of the military engineer Vauban, who invented the star-shaped fortresses still found around the world today (ultimate form of defense in the era of musket and smoothbore artillery). Well, he also conceived a plan to design France itself as a fortress (called "le pré carré"). Those borders were : 1) English Channel in the NW 2) Atlantic in the W 3) Pyrénnées mountains in the SW 4) Mediterranean in the S 5) Alps in the SE 6) Rhine all the way to the North Sea In other words, using seas, mountains, and the major river as a natural fortification, augmented with real fortresses such as Verdun.
And all the wars fought by France since the Bourbon kings have been planned according to this design. So France was supposed to spread all the way to, say, Nijmegen (called "Nimègue" here, see we already had a name for it).
Nuclear weapons have changed the deal completely however. We don't need the Rhine as a defense anymore - anybody attacking us would lose about 20 of their largest cities. Not a good deal IMO.
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