So who DIDN'T the Brits invade?

[rcjordan]

Turns out it's a short list

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

US: there's a Southern colloquialism that seems to apply; "we heired it honest."

[Rupert]

The list is incorrect.  I invaded Andorra in 1986.

although the Americans had a later start and have been working hard on it in the twentieth century.

I guess that's the Brits fault too.  When colonials Run amok

[rcjordan]

Louise and I went to Andorra on the way to the Barcelona meetup.  Odd place, but we liked it a lot ....you could smell the money. Made me feel very pedestrian/poor. So, yeah, good candidate for invasion by the jealous hordes.

[littleman]

To be fair, a map with the list of countries the US has had military action with would be quite extensive too.
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

[mick g]

we would invade the US too but it owes too much money

[rcjordan]

Be careful Mick, we have secret weaponry powered by high fructose corn syrup.  We've already placed distribution nodes in the UK ...results are promising.

[mick g]

[ukgimp]

We were a horrible nation. We took what we wanted with the use of flags (credit Eddie Izzard)

[dogboy]

>We were a horrible nation.

The Attorney General Sir Edward Coke told the court that each of the condemned would be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. They were to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air".
               - on the trial and execution Guy Fawkes for his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot 407years ago, today

That's one way to keep them in line:)

[rcjordan]

>took what we wanted

For a piss-ant sized island, you guys did pretty well. I never could figure where you got the manpower to manage the empire. Yeah, I know you had firepower with your navy but still.

[Brad]

>manage the empire

Primogeniture, aristocracy always had younger sons that would not inherit so went off to seek their fortune expanding the Empire.  It worked.  That and England industrialized about 100 years before anybody else.

[buckworks]

went off to seek their fortune

Around here (Canadian prairies), aristocratic young Brits who came to try their hand at homesteading and farming were called "remittance men" because few of them could have survived without their allowances from home.

It was a common pattern for them to claim a homestead (usually a quarter section), do the bare minimum of work that would meet the requirements to assume full ownership, then sell it and move to a city someplace.

[rcjordan]

>younger sons

It takes more than a few Rogers Of The Raj to fill a bureaucracy that large and that's not counting troops & seamen.

(My favorite R Yarn was Murder At Moorstone Manor, btw.)

[Brad]

>younger sons

It takes more than a few Rogers Of The Raj to fill a bureaucracy that large and that's not counting troops & seamen.

(My favorite R Yarn was Murder At Moorstone Manor, btw.)

There was a lot of begeting going on.   

[BoL]

>manage the empire

Guns & cannons done the managing ;o)