Not much of a challenge when you're Georgian, just have a more aggressive Russian leadership intervene to "protect" Adjara during the 2004 crisis, leaving only a thin strip of the Black Sea coastline in our hands. In the next conflict, this is connected to Abkhazia under some pretext or other. Russians can be quite creative.
Challenge: Landlock your country
- Thread starter Atterdag
- Start date
This one is fairly easy, just have Ragusa not cede some coastline to the Ottomans to remove their common border with Venice. A weaker Venice would help.
Would it be stretching the stipulations of the OP too much to suggest a scenario where geopolitical or military circumstances have left a country effectively landlocked in the sense that it has no real navy and cannot really effectively trade by sea, even if it still physically possesses a coast?
For instance, take Italy. The country is too narrow and its coastline too long to reasonably suggest any scenario where it becomes completely landlocked... but imagine a scenario where World War II grinds to a stalemate at a point where the Allies have taken the Mediterranean and seized the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, but cannot mount a successful invasion of mainland Italy, much less France. An uneasy but lasting ceasefire eventually takes hold, leaving Mussolini's Italy still in power on the mainland, but shorn of all major outlying islands and overseas colonies and thus entirely dependent on overland economic, military, and political support from Berlin.
For instance, take Italy. The country is too narrow and its coastline too long to reasonably suggest any scenario where it becomes completely landlocked... but imagine a scenario where World War II grinds to a stalemate at a point where the Allies have taken the Mediterranean and seized the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, but cannot mount a successful invasion of mainland Italy, much less France. An uneasy but lasting ceasefire eventually takes hold, leaving Mussolini's Italy still in power on the mainland, but shorn of all major outlying islands and overseas colonies and thus entirely dependent on overland economic, military, and political support from Berlin.
Bolivia had a seacoast before the War of the Pacific. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bolivia#19th_century
Deleted member 92121
You don`t fool me, I know you`re Bolivia in disguise trying to even out the odds. YOU will never have my sea!!!!!
I live in the United States.
Let's say that Spain has a better time of it in its Napoleonic alliance with France. Things go well enough that there's no need for anyone to trade Louisiana for cash, and in the great Anglo-French struggle Iberia is pretty much uncontestedly Continental. The British are generally successful in the Caribbean, though, and eventually invade Florida. The USA, led by the Republicans, at this point decisively joins the Franco-Spanish alliance and, besides dispatching forces to relieve the defenders of Florida, also invades Canada. The British sea power is devastating to the USA's maritime areas (the national capital, in a supposedly temporary move, is shifted from Washington to a less exposed part of Pennsylvania), but the continental campaign is a great success: Quebec and all higher lands fall to America. Britain, however, retains Rupert's Land and the Maritimes. In the south, American arms are no less successful, but there the aim is purely the defense of an ally, and the stars do not align for Florida or New Orleans to be added to the Republic.
An American political consensus emerges whereby the federal government supports internal improvements which, by quirks of geography and politics, mainly connect the West and the North. So popular are these roads and canals in the West that protectionist tariffs in support of Northern industry (at the expense of consumers of such industrial goods) can be passed. And the West is getting bigger: the Viceroyalty of New Spain has downsized by selling off the underdeveloped northern part of Louisiana to the United States, though not the strategically valuable southern part. American slavery has not been able to expand, and as abolitionists gain a following in the North fire-eaters start sounding more reasonable in the South. Everything culminates in a civil war on similar lines to ours, but a few decades earlier. The absent capital gives Maryland (not to mention Delaware) the chance to secede along with the states farther south, and moreover this *Confederacy makes its secession stick.
The late 19th century sees a series of brushfire wars between New Spain and the Union over what we know as the Western United States. The USA never actually annexes New Orleans, instead propping up a satellite state guaranteed to allow trade through on the Mississippi. But the last of these conflicts is merely one front of a massive, industrial worldwide war, of which New Spain is on the winning side and the USA is on the losing. Although the Union does not fall to its enemies, it is forced to withdraw from its sphere of influence, and its disappointed populace turns to radical politics.
The Presidency is allowed copious emergency powers to deal with the violence and disruption stemming from paramilitaries with conflicting ideas on reforming society. This backfires on the establishment when a President hostile to the idea of private capital is elected, though not without myriad voting irregularities. Thus the violence is not ended, merely crystallized into a war between those holding to the legitimacy of the election (largely, the leaders of the states from the Appalachians west) and those denying it (concentrated in New York and New England). International intervention (not coincidentally, by powers with investments in New York) saves New York City from falling under the control of this regime, but does not dislodge it; instead, New York, New Jersey, and the New England states abandon the American project as a new federation.
The borders of North America eventually stabilize there, more or less, with the USA's eastern and southern splinter states not reintegrating under its sovereignty. The one big change in the later 20th century is the awakening of the national (i.e. linguistic) consciousness of Quebec, which results in its own secession. By the present day, the USA has a seaport at Philadelphia, but it is cut off from direct coastline access by the latter-day "Dominion of New England"; north of that is that independent Quebecois state, which abuts the onetime lands of the Hudson's Bay Company, now an independent state stretching from the eponymous body of water to the Rocky Mountains. Adjoining that is the once-disputed Oregon Country, home to a long and convoluted history that does not involve permanent American annexation, but coexistence with its neighbor New Spain, controlling territories that reach all the way to those of the *CSA. And that nation, of course, also extends to the Delaware River.
Let's say that Spain has a better time of it in its Napoleonic alliance with France. Things go well enough that there's no need for anyone to trade Louisiana for cash, and in the great Anglo-French struggle Iberia is pretty much uncontestedly Continental. The British are generally successful in the Caribbean, though, and eventually invade Florida. The USA, led by the Republicans, at this point decisively joins the Franco-Spanish alliance and, besides dispatching forces to relieve the defenders of Florida, also invades Canada. The British sea power is devastating to the USA's maritime areas (the national capital, in a supposedly temporary move, is shifted from Washington to a less exposed part of Pennsylvania), but the continental campaign is a great success: Quebec and all higher lands fall to America. Britain, however, retains Rupert's Land and the Maritimes. In the south, American arms are no less successful, but there the aim is purely the defense of an ally, and the stars do not align for Florida or New Orleans to be added to the Republic.
An American political consensus emerges whereby the federal government supports internal improvements which, by quirks of geography and politics, mainly connect the West and the North. So popular are these roads and canals in the West that protectionist tariffs in support of Northern industry (at the expense of consumers of such industrial goods) can be passed. And the West is getting bigger: the Viceroyalty of New Spain has downsized by selling off the underdeveloped northern part of Louisiana to the United States, though not the strategically valuable southern part. American slavery has not been able to expand, and as abolitionists gain a following in the North fire-eaters start sounding more reasonable in the South. Everything culminates in a civil war on similar lines to ours, but a few decades earlier. The absent capital gives Maryland (not to mention Delaware) the chance to secede along with the states farther south, and moreover this *Confederacy makes its secession stick.
The late 19th century sees a series of brushfire wars between New Spain and the Union over what we know as the Western United States. The USA never actually annexes New Orleans, instead propping up a satellite state guaranteed to allow trade through on the Mississippi. But the last of these conflicts is merely one front of a massive, industrial worldwide war, of which New Spain is on the winning side and the USA is on the losing. Although the Union does not fall to its enemies, it is forced to withdraw from its sphere of influence, and its disappointed populace turns to radical politics.
The Presidency is allowed copious emergency powers to deal with the violence and disruption stemming from paramilitaries with conflicting ideas on reforming society. This backfires on the establishment when a President hostile to the idea of private capital is elected, though not without myriad voting irregularities. Thus the violence is not ended, merely crystallized into a war between those holding to the legitimacy of the election (largely, the leaders of the states from the Appalachians west) and those denying it (concentrated in New York and New England). International intervention (not coincidentally, by powers with investments in New York) saves New York City from falling under the control of this regime, but does not dislodge it; instead, New York, New Jersey, and the New England states abandon the American project as a new federation.
The borders of North America eventually stabilize there, more or less, with the USA's eastern and southern splinter states not reintegrating under its sovereignty. The one big change in the later 20th century is the awakening of the national (i.e. linguistic) consciousness of Quebec, which results in its own secession. By the present day, the USA has a seaport at Philadelphia, but it is cut off from direct coastline access by the latter-day "Dominion of New England"; north of that is that independent Quebecois state, which abuts the onetime lands of the Hudson's Bay Company, now an independent state stretching from the eponymous body of water to the Rocky Mountains. Adjoining that is the once-disputed Oregon Country, home to a long and convoluted history that does not involve permanent American annexation, but coexistence with its neighbor New Spain, controlling territories that reach all the way to those of the *CSA. And that nation, of course, also extends to the Delaware River.
Lost the game
Banned
US invades in 1850s, Cuba secedes with a victorious Confederacy, actual Cubans rebel against Anglo rule in the 1880s and establish a native republic in the highlands where the Confederate army can't reach. Boom. Landlocked.
Here's an idea:
Suppose the Chinese Communists managed to invade Taiwan in the 1950s, but due to international pressure, was only able to hold on to the western half. The eastern half, headed out from Hualien, was able to stave off Communist interference for decades under Chiang.
Fast forward to the 1990s, and a Nativist coup occurred in Taiwan, followed by a Communist counter-coup along the shore. This split the already splintered Taiwan into a rump, landlocked Taiwan (ROC), and a Chinese protectorate of East Taiwan.
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For Argentina, it is not as hard as it may seem:
In 1852, IOTL, the province of Buenos Aires seceded fron the Argentine Confederation and formed a separate State. From 1852 till 1859, when Buenos Aires was defeated at the (second) battle of Cepeda, there were to nations: The State of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Confederation (which included the rest of what was then Argentina, that is, everything except Buenos Aires, Chaco region, most od the Pampas and all of Patagonia). Since Patagonia was then still "Indian" territory, Buenos Aires was the only Province that had a coast on the Atlantic Ocean (although the Confederation could access the sea through the Parana River and the River Plate). If this situation had lasted longer, and Buenos Aires had never joined back the rest of the provinces, and another country (Chile? The UK? France?) had conquered Patagonia, *Argentina would be a landlocked country as OTL Paraguay (which alco can only access the Sea through the Parana and River Plate rivers).
Of course, for this to happen, you need the Autonomist party to win clearly in Buenos Aires in its struggle against the Nationalist party (who wanted Buenos Aires back in the union but as a head of the nation), and to have the Confederation systematically fail to force Buenos Aires to join back...
In 1852, IOTL, the province of Buenos Aires seceded fron the Argentine Confederation and formed a separate State. From 1852 till 1859, when Buenos Aires was defeated at the (second) battle of Cepeda, there were to nations: The State of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Confederation (which included the rest of what was then Argentina, that is, everything except Buenos Aires, Chaco region, most od the Pampas and all of Patagonia). Since Patagonia was then still "Indian" territory, Buenos Aires was the only Province that had a coast on the Atlantic Ocean (although the Confederation could access the sea through the Parana River and the River Plate). If this situation had lasted longer, and Buenos Aires had never joined back the rest of the provinces, and another country (Chile? The UK? France?) had conquered Patagonia, *Argentina would be a landlocked country as OTL Paraguay (which alco can only access the Sea through the Parana and River Plate rivers).
Of course, for this to happen, you need the Autonomist party to win clearly in Buenos Aires in its struggle against the Nationalist party (who wanted Buenos Aires back in the union but as a head of the nation), and to have the Confederation systematically fail to force Buenos Aires to join back...
Not from these places but:
Saudi Arabia limited to the Nejd region. Could easily have happened.
Romania if Bulgaria takes the entire Dobrudja region, which they would liked to have done in WWI.
A version of Russia without a Baltic port, a Black Sea Coast or Vladivostok would be effectively landlocked for most of the year.
Saudi Arabia limited to the Nejd region. Could easily have happened.
Romania if Bulgaria takes the entire Dobrudja region, which they would liked to have done in WWI.
A version of Russia without a Baltic port, a Black Sea Coast or Vladivostok would be effectively landlocked for most of the year.
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I can do this to a lot of different countries :
THE AMERICAS :
Canada : Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Rupert, BC, the Maritimes gain independence separately.
Mexico : Cortes goes independent, Spain seizes the east coast, native states retain the west coast
Brasil : bAlKaNiSaTiOn
Peru : Rump Inca Empire survives in the highlands (or possibly a restored Inca Empire seizes the highlands)
Colombia : (starting from Malê Rising) Alfredo Blanco’s strategy involved invading the northern and western lowlands and then Panama. Say Colombia’s government collapses in the invasion and the tavarista states and Brasil decide to act pre-emptively, propping up a rump state in the Southeast, which ends in a stalemate that results in a peace treaty in which a landlocked tavarista Colombia based in Bogota is created
Ecuador : See the entry on Peru. The landlocked rump Inca Empire extends as far north as Kitu, but the northern are then gains independence
Chile : (starting from Axis of Andes) Peru-Bolivia is more successful, forcing Argentina to give over all of mainland Chile except for mainland Lagos, Aysen and Magellenes and the city of Santiago. Lagos, Aysen and Magellenes are annexed to Argentina and the RMS is made into a tiny puppet city-state. YES, I MANAGED TO LANDLOCK CHILE
THE AMERICAS :
Canada : Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Rupert, BC, the Maritimes gain independence separately.
Mexico : Cortes goes independent, Spain seizes the east coast, native states retain the west coast
Brasil : bAlKaNiSaTiOn
Peru : Rump Inca Empire survives in the highlands (or possibly a restored Inca Empire seizes the highlands)
Colombia : (starting from Malê Rising) Alfredo Blanco’s strategy involved invading the northern and western lowlands and then Panama. Say Colombia’s government collapses in the invasion and the tavarista states and Brasil decide to act pre-emptively, propping up a rump state in the Southeast, which ends in a stalemate that results in a peace treaty in which a landlocked tavarista Colombia based in Bogota is created
Ecuador : See the entry on Peru. The landlocked rump Inca Empire extends as far north as Kitu, but the northern are then gains independence
Chile : (starting from Axis of Andes) Peru-Bolivia is more successful, forcing Argentina to give over all of mainland Chile except for mainland Lagos, Aysen and Magellenes and the city of Santiago. Lagos, Aysen and Magellenes are annexed to Argentina and the RMS is made into a tiny puppet city-state. YES, I MANAGED TO LANDLOCK CHILE
New Zealand: uhhhh
The 2004 Foreshore and Seabed dispute is resolved in favour of the Māori tribes who then collectively pool their holdings and declare independence. This forms the Second United Tribes of New Zealand, an indigenous state which consists of New Zealand's entire coastline by definition. Thus all of former "New Zealand" is now landlocked.
I tried.
The 2004 Foreshore and Seabed dispute is resolved in favour of the Māori tribes who then collectively pool their holdings and declare independence. This forms the Second United Tribes of New Zealand, an indigenous state which consists of New Zealand's entire coastline by definition. Thus all of former "New Zealand" is now landlocked.
I tried.
Britain : LONDON EXIT
France : Happened in EEUSSG
Spain : Castille never completes the reconquista, but finishes it enough to have a capital in Madrid, and England/Portugal/Leon/whatever grabs the northern coast
Italy : Papal States that lack a coastline
Germany : this has been done above
Belgium : bAlKaNiSaTiOn
Slovenia : Malê Rising has this
Croatia : Slovenia or Italy has the Istrian peninsula and Dalmatia is big and independent
Bosnia and Herzegovina : almost OTL
Bulgaria : pretty sure this will happen in Of Rajahs and Hornbills
Romania : is Wallachia
Poland : is Congress Poland
Lithuania :is the former Northwestern Krai Sorry, I was confused by Wikipedia’s map. I meant the Governorate of Wilno.
Russia : St Petersburg is part of Sweden, northern coast of European Russia is Novogorod, Caucases are Ottoman, Caspian coast is Volga Sultanate, east is Sibir?
Ukraine : Russia grabs southern and eastern Ukraine at some point
Kartvelia : Zviadist rebels seize Poti and Adjara separates, resulting in Kartvelia being split into East Kartvelia and West Kartvelia.
France : Happened in EEUSSG
Spain : Castille never completes the reconquista, but finishes it enough to have a capital in Madrid, and England/Portugal/Leon/whatever grabs the northern coast
Italy : Papal States that lack a coastline
Germany : this has been done above
Belgium : bAlKaNiSaTiOn
Slovenia : Malê Rising has this
Croatia : Slovenia or Italy has the Istrian peninsula and Dalmatia is big and independent
Bosnia and Herzegovina : almost OTL
Bulgaria : pretty sure this will happen in Of Rajahs and Hornbills
Romania : is Wallachia
Poland : is Congress Poland
Lithuania :
Russia : St Petersburg is part of Sweden, northern coast of European Russia is Novogorod, Caucases are Ottoman, Caspian coast is Volga Sultanate, east is Sibir?
Ukraine : Russia grabs southern and eastern Ukraine at some point
Kartvelia : Zviadist rebels seize Poti and Adjara separates, resulting in Kartvelia being split into East Kartvelia and West Kartvelia.
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Belgium: Split into Flanders and Wallonia-Brussels. The latter is landlocked despite being the continuator to Belgium.
Slovenia: Have Italy retain more of Istria (e.g. Koper), or a retention of WW1 borders (In any case sans Zara/Zadar, but that's outside the question).
Bosnia and Herzegovina: OTL it is nautically landlocked as the only way for Bosnia to enter international waters from Neum is by crossing Croatian waters. Either have Venice not cede Neum to the Ottoman Empire, or have Croatia retain southern Herzeg-Bosnia, and Bosnia will be physically landlocked.
Lithuania: Have Latvia not cede Palanga to Lithuania, and stop Lithuania either from invading the Memelland in 1923, or the Soviet Union from returning the Memelland to Lithuania in 1945. Also, the Northwestern Krai is more LitBel or mega-Belarus than Lithuania.
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