2020? How would it affect ww1?
Yes, the treaty was signed in 1890. Maybe my not putting the questions in chronological order has made the purpose of this thread confusing.
I was asking if British ownership of Heligoland would have affected WWI and later WWII. I was then assuming that yes it had the potential to affect those conflicts, though not significantly enough to have ended with a Central Powers or Axis victory respectively, and thus Heligoland would remain British in 2020. This would be in contrast to the lands ceded by Germany in return for Heligoland which would later become independent.
With Heligoland in such a strategic place, it would be hard for the Germans in WWI or the Nazis in WWII to ignore, but would Britain expend resources to hold it?
Later, in 2020, what would Heligoland's status be? Would it be a huge military base and sovereign base territory like Akrotiri and Dhekelia? Or a British overseas territory? Or a Crown dependency like Jersey and Guernsey? Or folded into Norfolk or Suffolk?
If one of the latter options, would it have a tourist industry? Private residents? Would there be land reclamation? Would it be being used to generate wind and wave power that could be sold to mainland Europe?
I just find it an interesting topic that could, potentially, have a lot of butterflies much larger than its status as a relatively forgotten footnote of history suggests.
Northstar
en.wikipedia.org
