@Geri@mastodon.onlineContrary to #Starmer's belief, the longest unbroken alliance the British have held is not with the Americans but is, in fact, with the Portuguese from 1374.
c@Geri@mastodon.online Canada has had several wars with the USA so I believe you are probably correct
@Geri it's just a serious lack of History knowledge. Even if one only starts counting from the Treaty of Windsor (1386) on, or taking into account the suspension between 1580-1640 (when Spain invaded and ruled Portugal), it'd still be the oldest one, decades to hundreds of years before any still existing bilateral UK-US relations were established.
@Geri
@jt_rebelo
not in perfect continuity, I'm afraid. Portugal ships were part of the invencible armada, because between 1580-1640 was ruled by Spain,and England was an enemy of Spain.
In 1889 there was tension between the two countries in Southern Africa. Portugal wanted all the lands between Angola and Moçambique, which clashed with the intention of the British to rule from Cairo to Cape Town.
The alliance returned in WW1, Portugal fought beside Britain and the western allies.
@digfish we have to take it under the Laws of International Treaties at any time those things happened. Between 1580-1640 Portugal still existed, under Spanish rule. You can count a restart on December 1st 1640 (although during those 60 years the anti-Spanish Portuguese and the Bragança house still had British support). From then on, including during the Scramble for Africa and the 1890 British Ultimatum, there were no notes exchanged, no memorandum, the "only" things that happened were a refusal of arbitration by the British, yet, through clashes and battles between Portugal and Great Britain soldiers, disagreement on the Berlin Conference articles definitions (the General Act, the utis possidetis part to be more precise), and treaties signed by Portugal with Germany and France in 1886 to bolster the "Pink/Rose-Coloured Map", no suspension to the 1386 Windsor Treaty was ever decided or communicated between the parties, and it got reaffirmed in 1899 if my memory serves me well (an Anglo-Portuguese declaration on mutual agreements and assurances), and then in 1904 and 1914. The so-called Great Rapprochement happened between 1894 and 1914, so the Anglo-Portuguese relationship would still be the oldest by a few years. As the two countries agree on an unbroken streak between 1373 and today, it's moot.