AHC/WI/TL: Atlantropa gets built post Great War

AHC/WI/TL: Atlantropa gets built post Great War
800px-Atlantropa.jpg


Atlantropia:
That's an artists impression above. The Med, look a bit strange to you? Sardinia a bit big?... OH HOLY BJESUS where's the Adriatic gone? What the!? The Alien Space Bats must have landed!! Quick Hans, we need to leave for the Indies!

During the 1920s Herman Sörgel came up with the idea of damming the Mediterranean Sea at the Straits of Gibraltar with a massive hydroelectric dam designed to produce electrical energy for all of Europe.

This would have worked by lowering the sea level within the Mediterranean by about 200m, and consequently freed up vast tracts of land around the Adriatic, Aegean and North African coasts. In doing so it was hoped that the pressures for 'living space' resources and expansionism could be resolved by using this extra land.



Historically the Atlantropa movement, over the decades before Sorgels death, had four key points:

1. Pacifism, using technology in a peaceful way after the Great War;

2. Pan-European Settlement, seeing the project as a way to unite a war-torn Europe by giving people new lands.

3. European Centric attitudes to North Africa, North Africa was to become settled by white Europeans from France, Spain, Italy etc.

4. Three Economic Blocs, America, Asia and Atlantropa


It was expected that this plan might take a century to fully realise, since coastal communities would have to diversify or move with the slowly receding seas and it would take time for the land to recover from the seas recession. But other than these political issues nothing in the plan really would take ultra modern equipment or technology.

This meant that these huge public works would immediately give massive employment opportunities to returning soldiers from the fronts and a way to regenerate the civilian economies of the nations involved in the war.

The huge HEP Dam, would provide 'limitless' free energy to Europe, allowing the industrialised cities of Europe to rid themselves of coal and oil fired power stations reducing smog and improving clean air for urban populations, as well as stimulate European business in general to go to 'cheap electric'.

Farming could be exported to the North African coasts which would be able to sustain the large industrial scale farming techniques that had been brought about some 20 years earlier but had yet to be fully implemented across Europe, and the favourable climate on a more northerly North African coast would improve crop yields from less severe winters. Then by having the farms export to new North African harbours the produce could be shipped east, or west, or North to Britain Scandinavia at a fraction of the cost of rail travel.

By expanding towards the middle east as well, Turkey and the Newly formed 'Arabia' would become a European link to Asia, and help create a bulwark against the 'Yellow Peril' in Asia, and be a counter force for the Great Powers against Russian imperialism (although it was at the time in the middle of the Russian Civil war that preceded the Soviet Union).

495px-Map_of_the_Atlantrop_Projekt.png




This thread asks the question, what if following the Great War, these ideas are taken with serious credence to implement.

With Italy in particular during the early 1920s championing the idea and concept under Benito Mussolini who sees the scheme with great promise by giving Italy new land in the Adriatic, limiting Austria-Hungarys access to the Med, and with a HEP dam of its own between Sicily and Tunis and a large claim on the new North African coast, the ability to truly be the 'Spiritual Successor' of Rome, and forming the Mare Nostrum. The Bosnians, Croats, Albanians see potential in the scheme that would allow them to make nations out of themselves along the new coast line and be able to recognise their own Slavic nationhood, since they are determined to get their own independence following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary following the Great War.

800px-Dissolution_of_Austria-Hungary.png


The French position is less positive, since for them they have a nation to rebuild, and many young men were lost during the war, so they are less happy about investment in the scheme, or the need to move their Mediterranean cities, and are more determined to put up resistance against Atlantropia.

Britain too is not the most supportive, since Gibraltar has long been their control over the entrance to the Mediterranean and the Dams construction works will no doubt fall in part to Britain if not to build, to police and manage, if they want to keep their strategic hold here. Similarly the Suez canal will need to be extended at great cost, and Italy may have a monopoly on the locks at Sicily if built.

However from the British point of view, if they control the dam at Gibraltar, they control the energy of Europe and have a far more 'physical control' over who uses the naval passage.

Turkey, which has recently become its own independent state following the Turkish War of Independence is in much the same position as Britain. A canal and dam built through the Bosphorus will give them a major HEP plant between the Black Sea and Aegean, which given the fall of their old Empire will help restore some sense of national pride.

The Arabias in general fairly neutral to any of these plans since they for the most part won't be affected, and are in the process of being 'colonialised' by Britain and France.

Germany is in the position of being crippled by the Treaty of Versailles and while it is perceived that the soldiers have returned home victorious the German economic position is destroyed with it recently defaulting on the Papiermark. They perceive the plan as somewhat 'how does this affect us?' point of view, but it doesn't escape German industrialists and politicians that paying the war reparations in terms of industrial production to the project might not be such a bad way of becoming the creditors to the French uninterest in investment.

Spain arguably the greatest stakeholder in the entire scheme apart from Italy due to its position at the gates of the Med. Recently due to internal unrest Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera has come to power in Spain taking over from the old regime in a bloodless coup and has already began a massive program of public works across Spain, which will lead to it having three times its 1920 economic potential within the decade.

Further works in the contract to build the dam, and later the energy rights would make Spain a key player in Europe giving the plan backing.



The biggest question mark hanging over the project is the truely fantastic scale of the project, which makes it satire in the British gentlemen’s clubs when they see cartoons of Mussolini and Rivera holding back the sea, while a British Tommie looks on from a seat on the Rock of Gibraltar.

The first point we need is a point of divergence that gets people talking seriously...
 
I'm no scientist, but this seems like it will have some disastrous effects on the local ecosystem if not the entire world.
 
Not as many as you might think given modern analysis of the concept. However you've got both possitives and negatives to the project, more land for anything desired, more fresh water springs, a massive marrine 'aquarium' for farming fish, 'free energy' to power both Europe and Africa.

On the downside, you have increasing salinity of the med if not mitigated, you have the plate tectonic risks, but they can be almost nullified on risk to the dams by using muliple dams of decreasing height. There is the risk of making western Russia more like the Russian/Mongolian Step. Rainfall will be on average less, but you can also tap the fresh water aquafiers.

However historically one can say it was the vast engineering scale that was too big for a single power at the time, and the political considerations that never made it serious. Not the technical problems associated with it. Mindyou I hope to disscuss the ongoing ecological issues as the project developes.
 
I don't think anyone would really be up to the idea. There are just too many coastal cities that would become worthless without the presence of the sea.
 
I post in 2007 about Atlantropa is build
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=69408

the Plan was to block the Mediterranean Sea with 3 hydroelectric dams at Strait of Gibraltar, Suez and Dardanelles.
and later a fourth dam at Tunis
atlantropasmall.jpg


in second phase was the creation of two artificial Lake in Africa (were Congo and Thad are today)
congolake.jpg


The change of the climate were gigantic, in Temperatur and Rainfall in Europe, Mediterranean and Africa
The Mediterranean Sea became like the Dead Sea
They need the Water from the two artificial Sea for agriculture in New south Mediterranean Land.
and two artificial Sea in Africa would be perfect breeding ground for Malaria Mosquito

as Herman Sörgel make his Plans Publik the Reaction from Countries like France or Italy were Furios, like "what think this Mad German who he is ???"
 
There is a solution to the salinity issue which was noted in a modern study to actually pump vast volumes of water into evaporation beds and then clear away the salt on an industrial scale to store it in old/new mines as a means of saving it for future use and solving the problem.

Since it takes a very long time for the sea to naturally evaporate, the scale of the desalinity program wouldn't be as massive as the dams themselves would be and should have been able to keep pace with natural evaporation.

Another senario was to use the waste HEP from the dam to pump water back out of the med, thus equalising salinity. This again in principle is just as good, but you would have to allow the med to go salty first, and then begin the process...a bit too late for the wildlife.


Cities can be moved, and I think I have a very innovative solution to that reguarding another 'crazy visionary' at the time...

Again the rate of sea recession is very slow and for 2-3 decades exsiting coastal cities could mostly compensate by dreging although the costs for that would be high (but again not insurmountable for the time when compared to expenditures during the war years in OTL).

The Climate Changes again would be big, but they would also be slow, not geologically slow, but slower than global warming has been.
 
I don't think anyone would really be up to the idea. There are just too many coastal cities that would become worthless without the presence of the sea.

I think the only people who would take this on would be The Draka! It's an interesting idea but the cost and ramifications of it make in impractical.
 
I think the only people who would take this on would be The Draka! It's an interesting idea but the cost and ramifications of it make in impractical.
You couldn't build a dam that big, I still don't think you can.
They said the very same things about the Zuiderzee Works which were built in this same time period. For instance the Afsluitdike(sp?) was something line 30km long and 90m wide. Yet that was built as part of the project, in Holand. Not exactly the place that you consider to be a major industrial hotbed eh?

The combined Dams may have totalled only 60km of lenght if built at Gibralter, however they would have had to have been much deeper, with a 2.5km wide base and would have been roughly triangular about 75 cubic kilometers of material (doing an on the fly calculation here). Which off hand is about 1000 times more than the Hoover Dam, but given it is unlikely to be a concrete dam, rather an embankment dam with concreate elements to improve structural integrity. Thus in terms of construction the dams themselves really only are the mass movement of rock and earth from one location to another.

Sound a bit more plausible in terms of construction?

Hong Kong International Airport video (modern day);
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr3RGByg_A4

Panama Canal (1880)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiQU_LiWDL0

Zuiderzee Works (1920s) (dutch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs01iT8w104&feature=related
(different film Eng subtitles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8xjJl6M-Sg

--------------------------------------

UCS map? 'fraid the acyronim isn't that helpyful since it could stand for many different things.
 
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mowque

Banned
They said the very same things about the Zuiderzee Works which were built in this same time period. For instance the Afsluitdike(sp?) was something line 30km long and 90m wide. Yet that was built as part of the project, in Holand. Not exactly the place that you consider to be a major industrial hotbed eh?

Err, when I think "Grade-A waterworks' the Netherlands is EXACTLY what I think of. Gibralter is a whole different kettle of fish, as you explain below.
The combined Dams may have totalled only 60km of lenght if built at Gibralter, however they would have had to have been much deeper, with a 2.5km wide base and would have been roughly triangular about 75 cubic kilometers of material (doing an on the fly calculation here). Which off hand is about 1000 times more than the Hoover Dam, but given it is unlikely to be a concrete dam, rather an embankment dam with concreate elements to improve structural integrity. Thus in terms of construction the dams themselves really only are the mass movement of rock and earth from one location to another.
And Earthen Dam holding back the entire Med. ? Yeah, pull the other one.

EDIT: Sorry, that came out harsher then I meant it to. Really though, it is a highly unlikely plan.
 
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And Earthen Dam holding back the entire Med. ? Yeah, pull the other one.

I think you mean holding back the Atlantic ;). Did you know that Hirakud Dam is about About 26 km long and is the worlds largest dam by size.

Hirakud-Dam-big.jpg


Hey, I'm not the dam expert and it is unlikely that the entire dam would be made soley of compacted earth and rock, but that's what is going to give the dam its gravity weight, since producing such vast quantities of concrete is impractical, and futhermore downright dangerous.

A solely concrete dam will be more vunerable to structural fractures and weaknesses, while a gravity dam with substiantial volume nessitating a true 'land bridge' will not only be 'earthquake proof', it would be fundementally too big to collaspe. Given that the risk of earthquakes in the med is reasonable given the vunerability of all the new lands reclaimed and their future economic potential, you going to convince people much better if you've got a wall thats made of solid rock, than a thin one made of grey concrete and steel.

Indeed it is likely you would see a concrete frontade and internal vertical 'pylons' placed throughout the earthworks to prevent the shift of material and erosion from wave action. But the solid mass of the dam will need to come from spoil material, afterall the dam will be holding back all the oceans of the world...
 
Points of divergence from history are in red. Discussion of them will follow. Actual historic events (if they serve purpose) are in green.



In June, 1918 Herman Sörgel reads about the Zuider Zee works being passed by the Dutch government and from there develops the infancy of the idea for the as then called 'Panropa Projekt' which in an emulation of the Dutch plan to dam off the inland Zuider Zee, Sorgel would see the same idea undertaken on a massive scale at the Straits of Gibraltar.

Having recently published his work Architektur-Ästhetik he puts himself forward to the Dutch Dienst der Zuiderzeewerken for advising and directing the 'architectural art' side of the works in that 'space' as object of architectural design being his speciality, and the Dutch works were very much going to create, new Dutch space, that would need to emulate the Dutch peoples who would later inhabit the new Polders.

He gains a middle position within the works.

By 1920 his advisory work has been mostly completed within the Dutch project, having produced a number of papers on Dutch culture in architecture and how to utilise the future Polder spaces with sympathy to the past, and has recently moved to Amsterdam.

Late 1921 having been writing as consultant and for newspapers and architectural journals he gets recruited into a new Architecture magazine-journal Die Globale Technik. Which is setting itself up as a publication aimed at discussing the biggest construction feats in current civil engineering.

Having worked for the Dutch project and been somewhat influential in the design considerations, he is seen as a perfect writer for this new magazine-journal and indeed in early 1922 he completes an ongoing piece on the status of the Dutch work on the Amsteldiepdijk. Which is later followed in May by a medium piece on hydroelectricity featuring a calculation done by him on how much energy could be provided to various areas of the world if certain rivers are dammed.

Critically a concluding paragraph mentions the idea for a dam across the Straits of Gibraltar.

While it is not taken seriously anywhere, two months later his editor overhears him discussing the idea with a colleague, and having been impressed by the idea of a hydroelectric dam, or 'sea turbines' built in the straits suggests that they do a feature on it for the end of the year.

In the December issue he gets a three page article towards the possibilities of a giant hydroelectric dam, and inspired by his time with the Dutch the reclamation of European lands from the Mediterranean sea.

His editor hopes that because the project would be potentially controversial it will help put Die Globale Technik on the radar by just not commenting on current projects but also looking forward proposing radical schemes that can be taken with a touch of humour for the serious subscriber, but hopefully open up the readership to people interested in industrialism.

The editors idea works and German and Dutch newspapers pick up the article making comments of their own on the one hand criticising such fantasies, but also commending the idea of 'mega projects for Europe' to revive the European spirit following the Great War.

As such, circulationship of Die Globale Technikgrows and the article ends up in the hands of Spanish industrialists who having had time to digest it during the spring and summer of 1923 mean that when de Rivera takes over from the Spanish government in September, and makes his speeches of "modernize[ing] the economy and alleviate the problems of the working class." The crazy idea published in Die Globale Technik gets to the ears of Gen. de Rivera.

This helps him prompt the investments into damming the Duero and the Ebro rivers, and providing new water for irrigation of the land. Indeed Spanish 'economic nationalism' under de Rivera's appointed finance minister allows Spanish industry to boom, by providing investment from public loans to build massive public works allowing unemployment to largely disappear over the next couple of years.


--------------------------------------------------------


1. It is difficult to find a source that directly states when he came up with the idea as later formulated, however the idea was in the common public area although nobody had ever thought of land reclamation on a scale like this before, so perhaps he gets the idea that if the Dutch are will to invest here, and given the other great engineering projects of the Suez and Panama Cannal it now might be the time for such grand engineering works.

2. Somewhat ASB, but not outside the realms of possibility since he doesn't become integral to the Dutch works, instead only taking on a minor role...but one that puts him in contact with the engineers on a practical setting.

3. Makes some sense to move to where your doing work. Non-critical.

4. This pre-empts his historic move to the Baukunst magazine in 1925 by about 3 years, and so his writing towards such a project of Atlantropia comes years earlier and so can have more influence into where the timeline will diverge from ours.
 
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You couldn't build a dam that big, I still don't think you can.

They said the very same things about the Zuiderzee Works which were built in this same time period. For instance the Afsluitdike(sp?) was something line 30km long and 90m wide. Yet that was built as part of the project, in Holand. Not exactly the place that you consider to be a major industrial hotbed eh?

The combined Dams may have totalled only 60km of lenght if built at Gibralter, however they would have had to have been much deeper, with a 2.5km wide base and would have been roughly triangular about 75 cubic kilometers of material (doing an on the fly calculation here). Which off hand is about 1000 times more than the Hoover Dam, but given it is unlikely to be a concrete dam, rather an embankment dam with concreate elements to improve structural integrity. Thus in terms of construction the dams themselves really only are the mass movement of rock and earth from one location to another.

Sound a bit more plausible in terms of construction?


---things.
The problem is only partly the sheer size, although that,s bad enough. The othe problem is the current flow. Youd have to build conduits through the dam, or something, and then block them off once the dam was built.
 
The problem is only partly the sheer size, although that,s bad enough. The othe problem is the current flow. Youd have to build conduits through the dam, or something, and then block them off once the dam was built.

Indeed there is a current flow! At maximum about 1.2m/s net eastwards into the med. But this is in many ways precisely what you would want for a HEP a constant steady current.

Technical challenges, but not anything insurmountable.
 
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