The UK keeps Helgoland

Andrei

In OTL , the UK traded Helgoland for Zanzibar in the late XIXth century.
If Britain had kept Helgoland , could this have influenced the course of the two world wars ( more effective blockade , less efective German U-boats ) ?
 

SteveW

An alternative POD would have Heligoland as a British mandate after WW1.

I agree with you on this though. I think the Germans would have taken it in the First World War, unless Britain seriously fortified it.

Through the Thirties, it would have become a magnet for dissidents, and almost certainly you would have seen Brecht head there, for example (much as Victor Hugo fled to Jersey to escape Napoleon III).

And when the Second World War started- well, being able to bomb Germany (especially Hamburg) on the 3rd September 1939 would have been an incredible advantage, and might well have been able to be used to start an earlier campaign against German industry and railways, slowing down German mobilisation against France, Belgium and Holland.

Maybe even the surviving aircraft of the Danish military could have escaped there.
 

Tyr

I doubt Germany would have taken it, its more likely it would have been damaged beyond use by the German navy in the same way the Brits did IOTL. Really not that significiant though if we're on about a POD this far back we won't get WW1 anyway.
 

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
Andrei said:
In OTL , the UK traded Helgoland for Zanzibar in the late XIXth century.
If Britain had kept Helgoland , could this have influenced the course of the two world wars ( more effective blockade , less efective German U-boats ) ?
Click to expand...

I thought it had something to do with the division of Zanzibar's coastal possessions and the Caprivi Strip.

The POD is very achievable. A lot of Germans actually felt screwed by the deal.
 

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
Leej said:
I doubt Germany would have taken it, its more likely it would have been damaged beyond use by the German navy in the same way the Brits did IOTL. Really not that significiant though if we're on about a POD this far back we won't get WW1 anyway.
Click to expand...

Well some big war is probably coming, but without Helgoland going to Germany the naval arms race might be avoided (or butterflied away, you never know how little details can change cabinets), so we could have Great Britain on the other side.
 

sikitu

A British Helgoland would definitely change Germany's naval strategy in WW1, because it would be a constant threat to the German fleet. I would expect the British to fortify it heavily and to lay mines as well. However, it is doubtful if the island could be held against a German assault, unless the RN assisted in force - and this would mean to drop the strategy of a long range blockade that proved so successful.

In a WW2 scenario, Helgoland is far less useful. It is a pretty small island and you will have trouble to put any runway for WW2 bombers on it.
 

birdy

if history proceeded more or less as normal-then come the fall of france-britain may consider it indefensible or a waste of resources like the channel islands and abandon it.
 

Wendell

Wait, maybe We have everythig else more or less go as it did until World War I, but this time around, the Kaiser uses his navy....
 
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