AHC: Have England/UK keep as much continental territory as possible

I think if the English controlled the Netherlands,the English will clearly be the dominant group in this relationship.It's also probably that this relationship might be much more lasting that then one between Austria and Hungary.

It is not a matter of figures but of differences and separation. And sea is a very powerful geographic separator.

So unless England drowns the Netherlands under a 2 million english migrants wave, this is not going to work nor hold. By 1700, the english population was 5 millions, the dutch around 1,7/1,8 million.

Spain could not even keep control of Portugal that was culturally, politically and historically much closer to itself than the Netherlands were to England.
 
That's not necessarily true; travel by sail is generally much faster than travel over land. It was actually faster to take a ship from Dover to Capetown than it was to take a stagecoach from London to Edinburgh, for example, and the English channel is a much more formidable military obstacle than commercial and cultural barrier. If maps were measured by time, like how far one could travel in a day under muscle or sail power, well watered areas, like the vast Yangtze drainage network, the Nile river, and the Mediterranean would be relatively small, while Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, the Appalachian mountains would be immense.

Having England on the Spanish side not only lends their strength to the fight with the rebels, but nullifies or at least diminishes some of Spain's disadvantages. Instead of a major and minor power partnered against Spain, you have the world's superpower aligned with a great power against a tiny emergent confederation. Dutch and English attacks on commerce from the new world would be heavily curtailed, which gives Spain a greater edge over the Dutch, and with each advantage towards the Spanish, their strength outstrips the sum of their parts; more powerful forces are better able to inflict losses on lesser ones, which makes them comparatively even more powerful, thus compounding their ability to defeat their enemies.

If English naval forces in the North Sea could counter the Sea Beggars or deny them refuge in English ports, for example, the Dutch Revolt would have had a much harder time starting out, and the relatively greater tax revenue from the Netherlands could help the King avoid defaulting, thus allowing him to borrow more money at lower interest rates, letting him finance greater military force. If the tercios were paid properly, they might not have mutinied, devastating the country and alienating the people of the Netherlands. This is of course highly theoretical, but even with English support, the Eighty Years War was a close run thing, and Spain+England is dramatically less balanced than Spain vs Netherlands+England.
 
Travel by sail was indeed fast but not intense. Crossing a sea is not the same as crossing a river.
 
Be that as it may, crossing the Channel by sail is far more routine and regular than marching an army from Spain, through Italy and Germany, and into the Netherlands. Simply splitting the costs of the war between Spain and England is going to do a lot to maintain the Crowns' solvency, even in the bad years where Spanish revenue hiccuped.
 
Your challenge is to have the Kingdom of England, or a 'United Kingdom' keep as much continental territory as possible, with any POD after 1300, and before 1800.

Bonus points if it's not (mainly) in France or Northwestern Germany.

IMO, England did "keep as much continental territory as possible", that is, almost none (Gibraltar). After 1300, any English/British territory on the Continental is not going to be defensible.
 
That just seems unimaginative; there are plenty of ways one could make continental territory greater or more defensible. The centralization of the French state was not a given, and if France is kept politically divided, Calais is going to be safer. In the Early Modern Period, the trace italienne is murderously difficult to overcome, so if a weakened France came up against a better fortified Calais, with the Spanish on their heels, the results could have been different. Furthermore, the Electorate/Kingdom of Hannover was held in personal union with the Crown of England, and I doubt the British would have been keen to go to war against the Prussians in 1866 on the side of the Habsburgs, and the Prussians wouldn't just attack a land held by the Most powerful empire in the world before they'd unified the rest of Germany.
 
Your challenge is to have the Kingdom of England, or a 'United Kingdom' keep as much continental territory as possible, with any POD after 1300, and before 1800.

Bonus points if it's not (mainly) in France or Northwestern Germany.

You didn't say WHICH continent.:)

The ARW is headed off, Britain controls all North America north of the Rio Grande (say).

Takes India.

Holds much of Africa.

Colonizes Australia.

That adds up to more continental territory than all Europe...
 
Top