WI: Danish-British personal union?

Denmark would, if they solidify their control over Baltics (it was something they had earlier but was in a fierce battle with Sweden about which Sweden at the pod was winning), most likely start looking at the Baltic Coast-lands to the east and south, and some of the North Germanic Duchies.

One thing i could see on the colonization front, would be that Norwegian Trappers would take over parts of Hudson bay and spread towards the hypothesized Northwest passage
 
Ah, I see. Well either way, Denmark (via Norway) had had control of Greenland for a long time by that point, and Greenland was still near-useless as either a trading post or military base, so it was near-ignorable for the British.
Control? The 1721 missionary expedition was to make sure the Norse on Greenland had not fallen back into paganism, but instead they found that none of them were left. We of course had a claim to Greenland through Norway, but we didn't have any control until then. Not unless I've been misled at least!

It's true that the Scandinavians often did seem to find failure in even the most promising of positions, you're right - although this kind of hindsight was something that no-one, Danish or British, had at this point, regrettably.
Considering the way things went in OTL, any change seems likely to fall on the side of improving the Danish position. :p Not assured obviously, but with a hit-miss-ratio like Denmark had, it shouldn't hurt to get some inspiration from Britain instead of Germany.

It's still that Denmark be on the front foot in its foreign policy, though. And heck, if the Danes want to screw stuff up and fail to meet their potential, it could even make life a little bit easier for the British. A Denmark that starts to actually dominate the Baltic is a Denmark that will start being unsatisfied with just concentrating on the Baltic, and will want to expand its influence into British areas...
Yeah, the best option for the British would probably be for the Danes to become a counter to the Russians in the north, but never strong enough to actually dominate anything. That way they're more likely to keep their focus in the Baltic instead of deciding that Indo-China would be a nice jewel in the crown.

I do agree with Sian that Denmark would probably focus more on the North German(not Germanic!:mad:) states if its position was strong enough.

That sounds perfectly logical to me. I couldn't speculate on how much it would change their fortunes, though.
Well, a richer Denmark-Norway might retain more of its population? In OTL, both Norwegians and Swedes fled in pretty large numbers to the US, which they might do in smaller numbers here. Certainly the Norwegians, but some of the Swedes passing through Denmark might decide not to risk the Trans-Atlantic journey if conditions in Denmark were good enough.

On the other hand, factory work is pretty terrible compared to getting your own farm in Minnesota.

Getting a touch of modernity injected might also protect against some of the weird anti-modern ideas that infected Denmark in the mid 19th century. Generals deciding that rifles that fire quicker are a dumb idea, because the soldiers will just waste ammunition, is not exactly the road to success.
 

ingemann

Banned
Yeah, I suspect those border changes would satiate Denmark pretty well. In return, Britain gains a loyal ally that's in a much better position than Hannover as you pointed out.

The Danes regaining Scania would be against normal British thinking, but on the other hand, the Danes would now be much more pliable. Perhaps the British could arrange a small transfer of money in return for Denmark waving the toll, and allowing them to build up a naval base to control the access to the Baltic? It's perhaps not as attractive as Gibraltar, but still, pretty nice anyway right?

I wonder if the Danes would be encouraged to focus on colonial ventures, to prevent them from dragging the British into stupid continental wars?

With a Danish British union, there are no reason for the British to be against Denmark gaining Scania, and as for the toll, Denmark are a absolute state, if the king want to remove the toll for British mechants, he will do so.

I doubt Denmark will drag the British into continental wars, Denmark had limited interest in expansion, and only two primary enemies; Gottorp and Sweden, and Gottorp is gone, while Sweden is broken. So the main Danish push, will be to gain control over Hamburg and Bremen, and trying small scale expansion in general in Northern Germany. While the Dutch will be against this, the problem is that even in our history the Dutch was unable to do anything about the Danes after 1720, here their position will be even weaker. The Prussian and Danes may have some diagreement about East Frisia, but again the Prussian and Danish army had similar size until around the Seven Year War, and here Denmark are stronger, and the Prussians will have enough to deal with in Austria..
 
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