AHC: Scandinavia Wank

How can Scandinavia become the dominant power in Europe until at least the late Middle Ages following a post-600 POD?
 
How can Scandinavia become the dominant power in Europe until at least the late Middle Ages following a post-600 POD?

Scandinavia wasn't united until the late 1300s and even then it only lasted just over a century, so it's going to be hard to have it be the dominant power.

If you mean how can you have a Scandinavian state such as Norway dominate Europe, then I'd say the best thing would be to have Cnut's Empire survive for a start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Empire
 
Scandinavia has a much lower tax base than the rest of Europe. It's climate means less agricultural output. It also lacks abdundant mineral resources that could compensate for that. In other words, it is poor. That is why the Vikings went to conquer other lands. Lastly, since Scandinavia was outside the Classical realm, it doesn't have the cultural institutions that would allow it to punch above its weight - it needs to inherit them from elsewhere. Scandinavia can't inherit that until strong states arise in Germany to pull it into the medieval Christian sphere.

Even if we assume all of Scandinavia becomes united and quickly develops strong institutions that counteracts its relative poverty to other European regions, it has a lot of competitors. So not only do you need Scandinavia united, you need to severely disrupt England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, and Novgorod/Muscovy for an extended period of time. Otherwise, one or more of those rival states will have access to greater resources and eventually supplant Scandinavia.

At best, Scandinavia could briefly dominate a Europe that has experienced a catastrophe that broke most of its rivals before it falls into its natural place as a second tier power. Essentially, this is what happened to Sweden who came into brief major power status during a series of calamties that wrecked most of the other major powers in the 17th century, but it quickly was knocked back down by the early 18th century.

Perhaps an earlier Kalmar Union combined with a more disastrous Mongol invasion of Europe in the 1240s.
 
Scandinavia has a much lower tax base than the rest of Europe. It's climate means less agricultural output. It also lacks abdundant mineral resources that could compensate for that. In other words, it is poor.

That's not entirely correct. While Scandinavian agricultural land was very marginal the region was (and is) rich in mineral resources like iron, timber, and a lot of aquaculture potential. The problems were the poor agricultural land, the short growing season, and as a consequence a very thinly populated region. These factors all mean that the best a united Scandinavia could hope for would be to rise as a major maritime power and dominate through commerce rather than sheer military might or other more traditional methods. Commercially speaking they have the problems of that their main trade routes in the Viking Age across Russia will quickly fall out of their control and they're a bit far removed from the major trade routes that made the Low Countries and Italy quite wealthy so you'd need some kind of major upset or a very forward thinking program of colonization aimed at establishing outposts at strategic trade points like the Cape of Good Hope.
 

Alkahest

Banned
The main problem is that Denmark and Sweden, the two kingdoms in Scandinavia capable of projecting any kind of power, will always have different concerns. Sweden wants to trade timber and iron with Germans while keeping the Russians out of Finland, Denmark wants to control Baltic trade and possibly keep the Germans out of Jylland. Sweden and Denmark will (almost) always have different friends and enemies. Any Scandinavia-wank must overcome that hurdle. Not saying it's impossible, just hard.
 
Ok, I'll take a stab at it. (WARNING, i'm not sure how logical a lot of this is seeing as this period is not my area of expertise but here goes.). Gustavous Adolphus survives Lutzen. He manages to convince France that the Hapsburg are getting way to powerful and thus he needs Frances support. France in doing so shifts the balance of the 30 years war firmly to the protestant side earlier than normal. With large parts of Germany occupied by France, Sweden turns on Denmark despite them nominally being on the same side moving up the peninsular from the south. Denmark quickly collapse's and as part of a peace deal offers a personal union with Sweden. This would take the form of a marriage between his eldest son and Gustavous's daughter. Despite the genders Sweden would be the leader of the union. From here i don't exactly have the details worked out but the general gist is this. Newly formed Uber Sweden (not yet called Scandinavia but it has all the constituent parts so shush). Anyway after this the country pulls out of the big war as it seems that France is catching on and spends most of its time bashing the decaying Kingdom Poland and getting land concessions from them. This gives Scandinavia one thing its always lacked PEOPLE. As for why its so dominant well look at its neighbours Russia is unlikely to be able to take anything even under Peter rendering Russia a non threat, Poland is too weak, Germany is to divided and no everyone else doesn't't care (Britain UP et.) or has no way to project power at them easily in the short term (France, Austria). The POD is probably too late but this is just my 2c's
 
The best things I can think of in this case is a different development of the Kalmar Union or have Sweden conquer all of Denmark-Norway during the 30YW. It might also help if either those two states have a presence in North America.
 
Danish victory in Battle of Lena might de facto have sent both Geatlands (or at least parts of them) into the danish sphere of influence ... specially given that Sweden in no way were solidified, but merely three crowns that often was placed on same head (or if completing, warring each other for who gets top of the heap)
 
A POD at, or not too long after 600 means Scandinavia does not neccessarily coalescence into the three kingdoms we think of as Scandinavia.

The various petty kings and jarls could end up single kingdom rather than three.

Norway made strong bids for England, and Sweden alone managed to fight the much larger but less coordinated Russia on its own. A single realm, controlling the Baltic trade would be far stronger.

Also, the area known as Scandinavia could be considerably larger as the high middle ages roll around. Large and fertile areas of Baltic coastline could be Scandinavian. Riga was the biggest city in Sweden for centuries.
 

katchen

Banned
A POD at, or not too long after 600 means Scandinavia does not neccessarily coalescence into the three kingdoms we think of as Scandinavia.

The various petty kings and jarls could end up single kingdom rather than three.

Norway made strong bids for England, and Sweden alone managed to fight the much larger but less coordinated Russia on its own. A single realm, controlling the Baltic trade would be far stronger.

Also, the area known as Scandinavia could be considerably larger as the high middle ages roll around. Large and fertile areas of Baltic coastline could be Scandinavian. Riga was the biggest city in Sweden for centuries.
More importantly than Riga, somehow keep Novgorod Swedish or at least Finnish! Keep the Slavs out! Hang onto the route to the Volga and keep Sudzalia speaking Finnic. If anyone dominates Mariel and Mordovia and Udmurtia, and Komia -Bjarmia-Permia let it be the Swedes up to the Urals and across to Ugria, the Ob Basin, where the Khanty and Mansi also speak Finno-Uralic. All of this area can be part of Scandinavia or to shorten it, Scania, especially if you want to start pre-high Middle Ages.
A trade route across the high Arctic by sea (look up en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_River_Routes‎ up the Ob and Irtysh to Kara Khitai and Uighur and up the Yensei to Goturk and even up the Lower Tunguska to the Lena and it's tributaries to the Pacific Ocean, picking up furs along the way and Fujiwara Period Japan thence to Lin-an, , Southern Song and even farther to Mahajapit and the Moluccas, bringing back precious nutmeg to Norway (and by the high Middle Ages, perhaps bringing back samurai would make Norway, Nidaros in particular, a trading region the equal in wealth and culture of Italy (but a very different culture) Its been discussed before at www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=275415‎ Vikings in the Orient
 
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