Challenge: Mother Russia rules the waves while Britannia is a land power

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make Russia the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic and England/Britain the dominant military power in Europe by 1850 with a POD no earlier than 1550.
 
I think you would need a much earlier POD.

Perhaps for our "Russia" you have a much smaller and more baltic-bases Novogrod who rules over the modern day Baltic States and Finland, while the south is kept in check by economic imperialism as they keep the decaying mongols propped up only because they pose no threat to their flank, making them a naval power.

As for England you probably need a Hundred Years War POD, but then its just the English on the French Throne more then England Anglicizing French Territory.
 
I think you would need a much earlier POD.

Perhaps for our "Russia" you have a much smaller and more baltic-bases Novogrod who rules over the modern day Baltic States and Finland, while the south is kept in check by economic imperialism as they keep the decaying mongols propped up only because they pose no threat to their flank, making them a naval power.

As for England you probably need a Hundred Years War POD, but then its just the English on the French Throne more then England Anglicizing French Territory.

In 1550 Russia had a Baltic coastline and was some years shy of invading Livonia; the conquest of Siberia was decades away and the Tatars still controlled the middle and lower Volga. A Moscow-led Polish-Lithuanian-Russian personal union, which was for a long time a possibility, would further improve its position in the Baltic. As for England, which still held Calais (and, IIRC, was then in the middle of a temporary occupation of Boulogne), the crucial first step would be securing the more important parts of the Netherlands.

After that, it's all a matter of interest. You need to create reasons for Russia to seek naval dominance and for England to build up forces on the Continent.
 
Basically, if the Isles are the most economically important part of England for more than, 50 years perhaps?, they are going to go naval. You just can't stop it. You have to keep England on the peripherary. Unfortunately, with England on the peripherary, the likelyhood of any sort of Brittannia becomes absurdly slim, as even inheriting Scotland just leads to, IMHO, the Isles being granted to a Second Son as less important territory.
 
Unfortunately, with England on the peripherary, the likelyhood of any sort of Brittannia becomes absurdly slim, as even inheriting Scotland just leads to, IMHO, the Isles being granted to a Second Son as less important territory.

As the OP said, I don't necessarily need any Britannia. Scotland can remain separate and Ireland unruly all the way to 1850.
 
Basically, if the Isles are the most economically important part of England for more than, 50 years perhaps?, they are going to go naval. You just can't stop it. You have to keep England on the peripherary. Unfortunately, with England on the peripherary, the likelyhood of any sort of Brittannia becomes absurdly slim, as even inheriting Scotland just leads to, IMHO, the Isles being granted to a Second Son as less important territory.

Yes, they need to be a naval power to be any sort of power. They could be second or third on the water instead of #1 but they would still need to be strong.

The land power issue is then population. Britain could have a force of all crack-shot commandos but it would still be smaller than Russia. In 1850 the British Isles were about 27 million while Russia was about 68 million, I believe. That is a tough population gap to over come. Furthermore, if Russia is the top naval power, that means that they do indeed have a strong industry and science so they can pump out new naval technologies. A side effect of this is going to be that the Russian Army will also be fairly well supplied, at least not lacking in ways it has historically IOTL.
 
I hate to use word impossible but this would be close to it.

Russia will face typical problem of european countries. Whatever you do you'll have neighbours and they'll want to take chunk of your land. or you'll want chunk of their. Hence you'll need big land army and that will drag down any chances of significant naval power (no money for both).

Ditto for England/Britain, only reverse. Being on an island their defences have to be on the sea, plus once colonial empire takes off protecting traffic to and from it becomes paramount.

Now it would be possible for England to get France (HYW?) and develops army to fend of Spanish, Austrian, whatever intentions. Or Normans don't take over and it remains part of Scandinavian group, not continental.

Russia could maybe pull it off if centre is Kiev or something even further south and they avoid being smashed by Mongols. Navy is used to keep nations from southern Black Sea away, be it Byzantium, Turks or whatever. Of course those people could keep Russians bottled up in Black Sea in return and breaking that would require army and we back at square 1.
 
Ditto for England/Britain, only reverse. Being on an island their defences have to be on the sea, plus once colonial empire takes off protecting traffic to and from it becomes paramount.

Now it would be possible for England to get France (HYW?) and develops army to fend of Spanish, Austrian, whatever intentions. Or Normans don't take over and it remains part of Scandinavian group, not continental.

For England to become a landpower it realy needs an important part of mainland Europe, a part large and important enough it must be willing to defend, but not so large and important it would dominate England. All of France would totaly dominate England within a couple of generations (just like England quickly dominated Scotland when a Scotish king became king of England). I believe Normandy alone is still too small, but the Angevin kingdom might already be too large. Someone mentioned the Netherlands, that might work. Maybe if Elizabeth accepts the Dutch offer to become their queen and England focusses on quicking the Spanish out of the Netherlands. That would make England, combined with the Netherlands, a landfocused country. If it later comes into conflict with France, it might keep that focus, while focussing less on colonies (about as much as France OTL maybe).
 
For England to become a landpower it realy needs an important part of mainland Europe, a part large and important enough it must be willing to defend, but not so large and important it would dominate England. All of France would totaly dominate England within a couple of generations (just like England quickly dominated Scotland when a Scotish king became king of England). I believe Normandy alone is still too small, but the Angevin kingdom might already be too large. Someone mentioned the Netherlands, that might work. Maybe if Elizabeth accepts the Dutch offer to become their queen and England focusses on quicking the Spanish out of the Netherlands. That would make England, combined with the Netherlands, a landfocused country. If it later comes into conflict with France, it might keep that focus, while focussing less on colonies (about as much as France OTL maybe).

The Dutch would want a high degree of autonomy at least. And frankly, given the commercial bent and the importance of trade to Amsterdam, that'll probably lead to the opposite scenario- a larger English navy earlier. Holland will want trade with America, India and the China, London will want trade in these areas as well, we get internal competition between Amsterdam, London and possibly Bruges, Antwerp, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh too after a while and depending on butterflies, and this leads to the need for a strong navy to protect and expand trading influences, as OTL. Yes they'll have a land force in Europe, but for the Dutch as well as for Britain, trade=wealth and navy=trade.

What you probably want is for Eleanor of Aquitane not to divorce the King of France, so Henry II marries a dependent of the Duke of Britanny and eventually inherits that Duchy. Then, we have Normandy, Brittany, Anjou and Maine, which is still quite substantial, but probably managable. Of course, I'm really not sure that they can do any better against France with the wealth of Aquitane on the other side, indeed I wouldn't be surprised to see England forced out of France earlier (after all, Bourdeaux was English long after Caen fell).
 
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