Quote:
Originally Posted by Marienburg
When England was finally united, however, how many times was England conquered by foreign entities? Once. Once in over a thousand years and not once in the last 900 years
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I'm splitting hairs here, so apologies.
French troops landed in England in the 13th century during one of the Baronial rebellions.
The English coastal town of Winchelsea was regularly raided by the French during the Hundred Years War. Other coastal towns were raided by the Spanish during the 16th century.
French troops built a fort on Inchkeith island in Scotland's Firth of Forth in the 16th century, in an attempt to besiege Edinburgh.
French troops occupied Eilean Donan castle in the Highlands in 1715 in support of the Jacobites, until chased out by the Navy.
French troops landed at Fishguard in Wales(?) in 1798, but were defeated.
Britain might not have been successfully conquered since 1066, but it wasn't through lack of trying. The Royal Navy was the significant factor in preventing this after 1700-ish, but air power relegated this strength to the history books by 1940.
At one point in 1940, the RAF was under orders to drench invasion beaches with Mustard Gas if the Germans landed; several of the airfields where the stuff was stored can still be visited. Would this have been regarded as a 'war crime' if it had happened? Could the real reason why Hitler never ordered the use of gas be due to having knowledge of this plan, rather than his own memories from the Great War?