The most optimal borders for Europe
Chungus Maximus
Banned
Ireland being part of Britain makes as much sense as Poland being part of Germany.
Ditto for NI (save perhaps a few areas in the far west) being part of the Republic. Like I said, a united British Isles makes as much (or as little) sense as a united Ireland.
Savoy and Nice were always Occitan outside of the city center, ethnically speaking they make more sense with France. As for Cyprus and Thrace, the former needs to come to an accommodation with the Cypriot Turks and the latter has far too many Turks and (with a PoD back far enough) Bulgarians. Maybe just the Gallipoli region?
Except that most people mentioned above would not want this kind of "justice".
Savoy's traditional language was actually Franco-provençal, though its administrative language (since the XVI century) was French.
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Pretty much the same as now, but France is split into the Duchy of Brittany, Duchy of Normandy, an expanded Duchy of Anjou, County of Toulose, Duchy of Aquitaine, Duchy of Gascony, expanded County of Champagne, expanded County of Provence, and a rump Barony of France. The latter is directly ruled from London.
Except that one has a huge legacy of imperialism and cultural chauvinism during their union and the other doesn’t.
May I respectfully request that you drop this particularly sore subject? "The Troubles" weren't given their name because the Issues involved with the acquisition of Northern Ireland by the Republic or the retention of Ireland by the United Kingdom are easy & painless to resolve, so it seems sensible to agree to disagree on this particular issue rather than pursue it ad nauseum.
Skallagrim
Banned
As many states as possible. Turn everything into Liechtenstein. That's the optimum, because it leads to the most competition between the many states (and fewest impediments to that competition). It will lower the barriers to migration substantially (distance to "another country" is vastly reduced; options to choose from vastly increased; many different political regimes will exist that share your languge and general culture). This will lead many more people to just pack of their bags and move to another country if the government (or anything else) in their current country becomes in too burdensome. The result will be a fierce competition of small states. The ones that offer the best conditions (namely: secure private property rights, rule of law, a free economy, human rights protections, no overly high tax burden and a lack of stifling over-regulation) will rapidly rise and thrive. Countries that are poorly run (no secure property rights, corruption, a planned economy, no human rights protections, overly high taxes and burdensome regulation) will see all economically productive persons and parties emigrate on short notice.
That last bit may sound bad, but it will cause those poorly-run countries to fail, which will force their regimes to either reform or be (inevitably, forcibly) replaced. Within the too-big countries of OTL, most poorly-run regions can thrive parasitically, by guzzling up wealth produced in other regions of the same country. That becomes impossible if all states are micro-states. Then, all those that are mis-governed will face the consequences of their own bad policies. In the long run, the competion of so many different states will force all of them to "be on their best behaviour", lest all economically productive parties abandon them for greener pastures.
Resources, incidentally, hardly matter. Succesful countries are successful because of their sensible policies, not because of their resources. Monaco has fuck-all, but is stinking rich, and Zimbabwe is one of the most resource-rich countries on earth and is dirt-poor. Well-run countries will favour free trade (which is the most efficient system there is, provided both parties in any given exchange subscribe to it). They will be able to trade with each other, offering all sorts of goods and services to each other. Nobody has everything, and everybody has something. (Because "something" doesn't have to be some resource you dig out of the ground; a great education system is a resource in itself, because the people it produces will typically be of great economic value.)
Basically, the biggest countries around should be city-states (with populations in the millions), but ideally, most countries should be much smaller than that, aiming for a population numbering in the tens of thousands. For maximum efficiency, they should all be united in a league of some sort, which ensures free trade and movement between all of them. This is not needed (the well-governed countries will no doubt form such a league of their own accord, since it aids their interests) but it would prevent the occasional "micro-North Korea" that tries to survive its own terrible government by locking the population in.
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HEH, i did my job already, half the thread is an argument about NI.May I respectfully request that you drop this particularly sore subject? "The Troubles" weren't given their name because the Issues involved with the acquisition of Northern Ireland by the Republic or the retention of Ireland by the United Kingdom are easy & painless to resolve, so it seems sensible to agree to disagree on this particular issue rather than pursue it ad nauseum.
May I respectfully request that you drop this particularly sore subject? "The Troubles" weren't given their name because the Issues involved with the acquisition of Northern Ireland by the Republic or the retention of Ireland by the United Kingdom are easy & painless to resolve, so it seems sensible to agree to disagree on this particular issue rather than pursue it ad nauseum.
Agreed.
May I respectfully request that you drop this particularly sore subject? "The Troubles" weren't given their name because the Issues involved with the acquisition of Northern Ireland by the Republic or the retention of Ireland by the United Kingdom are easy & painless to resolve, so it seems sensible to agree to disagree on this particular issue rather than pursue it ad nauseum.
Suits me.
I think I played way too many Ottoman Empire campaigns in Empire Total War... it must be unhealthy/addictive
More seriously, I believe that the optimal configuration of countries should be based on natural frontiers like mountains and rivers and that each country should give power to its regions to run things locally. The big states can then form a league and allow trade and movement between them for max efficiency.
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Why make them a linguistic minority at all, if you're aiming for "justice for all peoples"?
Mind, the Belgians fought a war to be independent of the Netherlands and it's not like Belgium is at risk of fracturing along linguistic lines. Splitting the country like that cuts apart families and economies (kinda dooms Walloon industries to take a backseat to French industrial interests, since they go from a vital part of one country to just another component of a much larger entity), which isn't exactly justice for the Belgian peoples.
Same thing for Luxembourg, with its own identity and rather healthy independent economy that would likewise take a backseat to larger German interests if integrated into Germany.
Aside from that, Germany getting all those lands had the minor issue of jacking Germany up to the point no nearby power could compete with them. Prussia controlling Poland's access to the sea had historically crippled Poland's economy and Germany could've easily done the same. And, besides, the people of Alsace-Lorraine didn't want to be part of Germany back when they were initially annexed by the German Empire. Where was their justice?
Also, one major issue with those claims is that countries tend to not stop at just their claims based on linguistics or ethnic lines but rather whatever they can get ahold of, otherwise Poland wouldn't have had nearly such a hard time historically. And then there's the whole mess that is the Balkans and Eastern Europe, where you could make arguments for partitioning it up in any way you please, which isn't really just.
Plus, there's the issue of most border regions not being exactly homogenous and the only way to achieve homogeneity is by...unsavory methods. Which, again, not just for the peoples of those lands.