• redd.it/butfzy

“The population ratios are really helpful to explaining France’s capacity to project power. Today, Russia has about 2.5 times France’s population; would be more again if you add Ukraine, the Baltics, etc. Turkey has about a quarter more, but if you add all their north African and Middle Eastern holdings, it would be vastly more (Egypt alone is half again France). Germany has about a quarter more. The UK and Italy are about the same as France.

But then? France had more than the UK and Prussia combined, and more than any single polity other than Russia. Which significantly explains why the question of Continental dominance was so much about Franco-Russian relations”–sihtydaernacuoytihsy