DBAHC/WI: “Germania rules the waves”

Basically, your challenge is to prevent Germany from being the dominant naval power from the 15th into the early 20th century, thereby preventing the trope that “Germania rules the waves” as it is commonly said here on AH dot com. Also, what other country could have ruled the waves? Is France or Russia possible? Maybe Scotland or Ireland? How different would the world look with another one of the countries in Europe ruling the waves?
 
Basically, your challenge is to prevent Germany from being the dominant naval power from the 15th into the early 20th century, thereby preventing the trope that “Germania rules the waves” as it is commonly said here on AH dot com. Also, what other country could have ruled the waves? Is France or Russia possible? Maybe Scotland or Ireland? How different would the world look with another one of the countries in Europe ruling the waves?
LOL, it's pretty clear that the tradition and dominance of the Hansa created the basis for the colonial and trading empire of the early modern era, I think you would need at the very least to remove the Hansa because the second it was created and solidified, the situation in Northern Europe became to skewed in favour of them and the demographic base of the HRE/Germany.

If the Germans fail I think the Iberians would substitute them, possibly the French, although considering the relatively smaller success of the later on the seas, compared to size, makes me think it would be quite hard.

England seems an interesting substitute, their colonial empire wasn't the biggest, but it wasn't the smallest either, the problem I find is the one demographics, can a England sustain bigger colonial empires by itself?
 
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Germany was formed by the Hanseatic league, its nature was therefore from the beginning his naval force,even after their enlargement in the German lands they still based their power in their naval force .

During the XVth century the Hanseatic League nearly disappeared and suffered a huge decline if you avoid the succesfull come back of Lubeck and their naval succes that allowed to reformed the Hanseatic league and started the creation of Germany, without these succes our actual Germany will never existed however another power could have formed this country.

So you could let an other country formed Germany but with the Hanseatic league they will still have a huge naval power so for me the best solution would have to see the hanseatic league abandon the Baltic Sea and focus on the Germans territories.

After in my opinion without the hanseatic success England could have became a rule the waves country but not Russia and France.

England is not a famous country, IOTL they didn't exist anymore but they get a lot of good point to became a dominant naval power
In the XVth century their country was based on a island (even if the island was shared with Scotalnd), their capital was based in a important trade node, an important commercial elite began to emerge, they were already a naval power, ... but after the sack of London by the Hanseatic league and the treaties they were obliged to sign with them they started to decline and couldn't survive against all the invasion lead by the Scottish and the French after the lose of Irland it was over for them. Nowadays their country is balkanized between Scotland, France the hanseatic league and few independant territories but it could have became a powerful country.

France and Russia could have became importants naval power without the hanseatic league, For example, Russia could have had access to the Baltic without the hanseatic league and then Germany that protect Novgorod against the Russians but Russia is an huge country whose history is based on terrestrial conquest, they can not maintain their huge armies and a huge navy in the same time.

For France the presence of a powerful naval opponent (England) could have triggered them to get a powerfull navy, and without the hanseatic league that get friendly relation with them and protected their ship in the northern and baltic sea following their numerous commercial agreements, they could have developped a mighty naval force, but France is surrounded by powerfull ennemy and like russians french will always prefered their armies over their navy and without the hanseatic league, the situation would be worse because they will lack of allies and will still have England as rival.

Else you could have the Iberians powers merged and formed a powerfull country, nowadays they still rule a good part of the South Atlantic Ocean.
 
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LOL, it's pretty clear that the tradition and dominance of the Hansa created the basis for the colonial and trading empire of the early modern era, I think you would need at the very least to remove the Hansa because the second it was created and solidified, the situation in Northern Europe became to skewed in favour of them and the demographic base of the HRE/Germany.

If the Germans fail I think the Iberians would substitute them, possibly the French, although considering the relatively smaller success of the later on the seas, compared to size, makes me think it would be quite hard.

England seems an interesting substitute, their colonial empire wasn't the biggest, but it wasn't the smallest either, the problem I find is the one demographics, can a England sustain bigger colonial empires by itself?

England’s chances of becoming a great empire were destroyed after the Peasants’ Rebellion successfully overthrew the monarchy. Yes, they did have a republic 500 years before anyone else, but they were too disunited to truly become a great power.
 
I'd look towards a historic rival of the Hansa, which as everyone has says formed the basis of German naval power. The Nordic countries. Wait, hear me out. I know Norway-Sweden was all but Germany's brother since the 17th century, but that wasn't always so.

The Treaty of Stralsund and the subsequent election of Albert IV of Mecklenburg as King of Denmark was a turning point. Denmark would be under German political and economic control till the 19th century nationalist movements. While King Olaf IV of Norway reclaimed Sweden from the Mecklenburgs and proved a long term opponent of the Hansa for decades as he pressed his claim to the Danish throne, the Hansa was too strong at that point. With their economic power being used to elect their puppets to the throne of Denmark, they controlled the Sound. That meant they controlled the entrance to the Baltic, especially once they properly fortified it. Once they destroyed the Swedish ships and similarly puppetized the Teutonic States through economic aid after Grunwald, they were truly the only power of import in the Baltic. Neither Norway-Sweden nor the Dutch could challenge that. By that point it was inevitable that they grew to be a major naval power.

If Olaf IV managed to be elected to the Danish throne instead of Albert, maybe if Queen Margaret didn't die from plague before her father's death, he could have put an end to the Hanseatic League as such a power. With Denmark, Norway-Sweden wouldn't have been so outmatched demographically compared to Germany and the Hansa wouldn't have the Sound to control the Baltic. While Norway-Sweden did pretty damn well once definitively locked out of the Baltic by the 16th century, creating arguably the largest colonial empire in proportion to its small population, that very focus meant it didn't have the resources to continue devoting towards fighting Germany. The ability of Germany to land its armies in Skaneland and march north necessitated Norway-Sweden to ally to Germany if it wanted to keep its colonial empire.

So yeah. The Hansa's control of the Sound was crucial. Without that, it could never simply close down the Baltic to economic competitors like it did. The Baltic truly became a German lake, which led to the trend for political and economic power in Germany to migrate north towards the Hansa lands. If however Denmark and the Sound went to King Olaf, an enemy of the Hansa, all of this could have been prevented.
 
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Basically, your challenge is to prevent Germany from being the dominant naval power from the 15th into the early 20th century, thereby preventing the trope that “Germania rules the waves” as it is commonly said here on AH dot com. Also, what other country could have ruled the waves? Is France or Russia possible? Maybe Scotland or Ireland? How different would the world look with another one of the countries in Europe ruling the waves?

The whole idea is slightly too much on a fantastic side even for the AH but let's try....

Probably the critical POD would be Wallenstein's dismissal somewhere around 1630 in an unlikely scenario of Emperor Ferdinand II caving to the demands of the German electors. Who, in his right mind would dismiss his most successful general and creator of a powerful imperial navy (which just helped to capture Stralsund and forced Denmark to beg for peace) in an exchange of a vague promise to vote for his son in the next imperial elections? To start with, it is not like Ferdinand was already dying and then an assumption that Ferdinand was too stupid to figure out that with 80 - 100,000 of his troops occupying Germany, the chances of electors NOT voting for his son are quite low.

But if we chose to ignore all these glaring improbabilities, then you are getting your scenario:

1. Wallenstein, "Admiral of the North and Baltic Seas" and supreme commander of the imperial armiesis dismissed.
2. Imperial help to the Commonwealth did not happen and Gustav Adolph is victorious with Livonia in his possession.
3. Imperial Navy keeps rotting in Wismar and Rostock (in the former Wallenstein's Duchies of Mecklenburg which he left after dismissal).
4. Command of the Imperial army is transferred to Tilly.
5. With the Imperial navy being inactive, Gustav Adolph lands in the Northern Germany and one of the 1st thing he does is destruction of the surviving imperial ships (formally done by the dukes of Mecklenburg whom he restored).
6. A much longer war with a possibility of escalation from an obscure regional conflict all the way to a major European War with the bizarre combinations of its participants. Can you imagine it is continuing for, say, 30 years (the 1st unrealistic number that came to my mind) with, say, Catholic France siding with a Protestant Sweden to fight against the Catholic Hapsburgs? What would be the chances for such a nonsense?
7. Among the numerous domino effects will be a much later unification of Germany by the Hapsburgs (somewhere in the late XIX).

To answer your question, about an early extermination of the imperial navy and potential candidates to the naval domination:

(a) The Netherlands - well, of course, they had the merchant and fishing fleet but they are tiny and why do they need a navy? To help catching more herring?

(b) Britain (of course, I'm just kidding: probability is just a notch or two higher than for Curland) - building a powerful navy just based on the dwindling incomes from selling a low quality wool, really?

(c) France, of course, would be a reasonably serious candidate but its national addiction to the civil wars and revolutions, which started in the mid-XVII (War of the Red Heels, the 1st of the "Fashion Wars" conducted by Louis XIV) and ended only in the early XX with so-called "2nd Restaurant War" (the French were always taking their cuisine quite seriously and China refusal to open then chain of the French restaurants resulted in a nasty affair in which unknown numbers of Chinese had been killed, local production of the noodles was completely destroyed and defeated Chinese government was forced to outlaw usage of the chopsticks) closely followed by "Little Black Dress" coup (which guaranteed French domination of the fashions world) that brought to power Chanel dynasty and finally stabilize the country, did not leave France with too much time or energy for pursuing the follies like "the waves domination". Really, why do you need rule over the waves (so you are ruling them and what you are getting as a reward? A fish?) when you are ruling the eating places and boutiques all over the world? Well, of course having a navy proved to be useful in the 2nd Restaurant War but this was just a useful tool built for this specific occasion and rarely used afterwards.

(d) Russia would do it if not its problem with the "waves": it is rather difficult to dominate them while having access only to the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Caspian Sea. Arctic waters are under ice most of the year and until construction of the powerful icebreakers in mid-XX (out of your time frame) not very useful in the terms of a navigation. Pacific coast is much better but it was practically undeveloped until the late XIX. Of course, there was a victory of a newly built Russian navy over the newly built Japanese navy during the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-5 but you probably agree that a naval victory at La Pérouse Strait and even following Russian occupation of Hokkaido hardly amount to the "rule of the waves". IIRC, in the XVIII century there was a bizarre project of creating a fleet on the Baltic Sea with its base on the Swedish territory. Sweden (always friendly to Russia after Peace of Stolbovo) would give a permission to build a village on its cost (called "Potemkin village" after the author of project) and the Russian warships built on the Swedish wharves would use it as an official base. The whole project was just a "prestige" thingy and had been abandoned in a favor of conquest of Manchuria.

(e) Scotland is a little bit of a surprising item on your list. Of course, it completely broke union with England during the ECW (execution of one Scottish monarch could be tolerated as a misunderstanding but two amounted to an evil pattern) and even built a beautiful wall along the border to stop the English immigration. Without being burdened by a need to support that big backward territory on the south, they had enough money for a naval buildup. However, they did not need a powerful navy to enforce exports of the scotch upon the rest of the civilized world: everybody was and is buying it quite willingly. With their reputation for being stingy .... oops ... frugal, why would they waste money on something absolutely unnecessary?

(f) Ireland. IIRC, it was occupied by the Brits until the end of your time frame and since then they keep celebrating their liberation (or did they already stop?)

(g) Denmark had, for a while, a powerful navy but most of it was destroyed by Wallenstein and the rest sunk by the Swedes.

(h) Sweden would be a potential candidate but they never were truly interested in anything but getting their custom dues from the grain trade through the Baltic ports.
 
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