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During World Wars I and II, many countries managed to stay neutral, like Spain and Switzerland. Was there any major country (e.g. not a city-state or a micronation) that did the same during the Napoleonic Wars?

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    It would be helpful if you expanded upon what you mean by "major country" beyond just excluding city-states, and micronations.
    – ihtkwot
    Jul 9, 2013 at 4:31

2 Answers 2

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I just performed some Google search that gave me the map of Europe during Napoleonic wars.

Here goes the reproduction from Wikipedia:

enter image description here

See the image in other resolutions here: Europe 1812 map en.png

So, in Europe, in 1812, there were the following countries:

  1. Great Britain - fought
  2. Portugal - fought
  3. Spain - fought
  4. Papal States - fought
  5. Kingdom of Naples - fought
  6. German States - if treated as a whole (Confederation of the Rhine), fought
  7. Austria - fought
  8. Denmark + Norway - fought
  9. Switzerland - fought
  10. Prussia - fought
  11. Sweden - fought
  12. Duchy of Warsaw - fought
  13. Ottoman Empire - fought
  14. Russia - fought
  15. Holland - fought

I think doing just simple googling would help.

Please remember that Napoleonic Wars was not one war and countries (except Great Britain) did not fight in each of them.

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  • Balearic Islands are colored on the European Map - why? They were NOT occupied by Napoleon. Feb 9, 2017 at 13:29
  • @OlePetersen I don't know, it was the very first map I had taken from Google, and this was 4 years ago.
    – Voitcus
    Mar 21, 2017 at 9:54
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No major European country stayed neutral (for the whole time of Napoleonic wars).

The Ottoman Empire (partly placed in Europe, although not traditionally considered a European country) possibly comes closest. But it was by no means the boring Swiss-style neutrality, so I would review the Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, the Russo-Ottoman War of 1806-1812, and the 1807 British naval intervention to get the full story.

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=cG6JC_E1Rf8C&pg=PA269 combined with http://books.google.pl/books?id=h_TguykH1qcC&pg=PA8 to rule out Kingdom of Sardinia; combined with http://books.google.pl/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA223 for Ottoman Empire.

Update: Ottoman Empire was in a war with France until 1802.

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