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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me a bit of when the UK accidentally invaded Spain on a training exercise. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-invade-spa...

> Lord West said: "It wasn't one of the best days in my time. I had a phone call from the military commander saying, 'Sir, I'm afraid something awful's happened.' I thought, 'Goodness me, what?' And he said, 'I'm afraid we've invaded Spain, but we don't think they've noticed.'

> "They charged up the beach in the normal way, being Royal Marines—they're frightfully good soldiers of course, and jolly good at this sort of thing—and confronted a Spanish fisherman who sort of pointed out, 'I think you're on the wrong beach.'

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"Juan Carlos Juarez, the town's mayor, said at the time: "They landed on our coast to confront a supposed enemy with typical commando tactics. But we managed to hold them on the beach.""

I would not have been able to get this out without giggling.

"First Sea Lord" is such a great rank.

One of my favorite.

Swiss soldiers have accidentally crossed into Liechtenstein a few times. Similarly, nobody made a fuss.

the british armed forces are atrocious. i simply cannot fathom how britain controlled so much of the planet at one point

Because the food was so bad and the women were so ugly that they had no choice to but leave

> i simply cannot fathom how britain controlled so much of the planet at one point

Boats, optionally guns.

When you reflect on how easily America became an imperialist crybaby, it can't have been hard for Britain either.

Because they had a good officer corps producing some ridiculous military geniuses in their age of empire. As an example, the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) was a monster who was unstoppable in the military conquest of India. Many other British commanders failed battling Indian states, but he seemed to win just about every battle, at times being both outnumbered and outarmed.

I would go on to say that it wasn't for that man, it is likely the British conquest of India would have been confined to only a limited territory. Indian states were modernizing and militarizing rapidly (relatively for that era), so any delays in conquest would have made India a hard nut to crack.

This was 2002. They are friendly countries, seems like everyone responded appropriately.

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