What if Britain Wasn't An Island?

Britain. The island that ruled the waves. Yet what if it had no waves to rule? There was once a time that Britain, and the North Sea didn't exist. Instead it was a single landmass called Doggerland. How would history have changed if Doggerland remained?

Special Thanks to Atlas Pro!

[AlternateHistoryHub]

The lesson here is Tolkien knew what he was talking about.

[harrymorris]

As a Brit I can’t imagine a more horrifying scenario than having a border with the French.

[grisha]

Cody I’ve been subscribed to you for 7 years. When I was a kid you got me interested in history and now I’m a history major in college, so thank you!

[WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

"If there's anything an empire loves, it's nomadic horsemen right on their border."
As a former Wal-Mart employee, I felt that.

[DderwenWyllt]

I'm Welsh and grew up in a Welsh village and I can confirm even in this universe, we are 100% the Shire and 100% Hobbits, my county is literally called Carmarthenshire, which is an Anglicised name for Sir Gaerfyrddin, which in English means "The Shire of Merlins Fortress".

[Faranya]

I'm left intensely curious what this would have meant for the Mongol Empire's push into Europe, with an existing society of historically nomadic horsemen just a little bit farther west...

[dixievfd]

Tolkien definitely considered how geography would affect his kingdoms both when writing the stories that would become the Silmarillion, but also how Numenor and later Arnor and Gondor evolved. He also considered how geography affected Sauron's tactics during both the War of the Last Alliance and the War of the Ring.

[Jackuves]

I can definitely imagine a huge Napoleonic battle on the outskirts of London

[Honeybadger_]

Speaking of LOTR, some believe that Doggerland was Tolkien's inspiration for the land of Beleriand in his mythology, i.e. the setting where many of the events of the Silmarillion take place. Both were originally hospitable and fertile lands inhabited by a variety of different peoples and both were eventually inundated by the sea.

[TAMThomasTAM]

As soon as I saw the map I thought "looks a bit like Middle-Earth"
When you mentioned the horse goddess Eonain, I thought "like Eowyn?"
Then you said the nomadic kingdoms would be like Rohan and I started to realise.
And when you mentioned Gondor, I knew these coincidences were too much.

Looking on Wikipedia, evidence was established of Doggerland in the 1800s. In 1897, when Tolkien was a child, H. G. Wells released "A Story of the Stone Age" that explored the concept of Doggerland. In 1931, six years before "The Hobbit" was released, a trawler hauled up more evidence of societies that had been living in Doggerland five thousand years ago.

Middle-Earth is supposed to be a distant history of our real Earth, a mythology of Britain, set SIX THOUSAND years ago...

Holy shit, Tolkien literally did base Middle-Earth off of Doggerland, that's so cool!

[WynnofThule]

I'd imagine the Bronze age would have been very different. Tin deposits found in Brittany and South West England would obviously not have as easy coastal access, and the much colder temperatures in Central Europe would have made mining in the uplands of France and North German Plain much harder and more treacherous. Then again, Doggerland might have had it's own unique deposits.

[PhoenicksUK]

The whole area of Doggerland being above sea-level asks great questions & Cody does a good job of showing the potentially massive changes. But what if only a rump of Doggerland existed? In places this land is only about 30m below the waves & if only it was a bit higher there would an island the size of Wales sitting between East Yorkshire and Denmark. Who would live there & what implications would that have on the development of England as a nation?

[killgriffinnow]

Part of the reason Britain was so effective at being an Empire was that it had a strong Navy, originally for protection (what with it being an island and vulnerable to attacks by sea), but later on as an extremely useful colonisation tool. So if it weren’t for the fact that Britain were an island there may have been no Empire at all.

[TheBestestKitty]

Cody accidentally discovering that Ice-Age Europe was just Middle Earth is golden.

Just wait, we'll discover elf populations hidden deep somewhere and it'll all come together.

[tequestaorangejuice]

Now do a video on Sundaland! It connected Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines to mainland Asia. I imagine itd be all forests, and the Indian Ocean Silk Road would probably not exist because there wouldnt be a method of going from China to India by sea since the Straights of Malak are now filled with land.

Maybe also talk about Sahul, which connected New Guinea and Tasmania to mainland Australia.

[Canada]

As a Zelda fan I LOVE that Link's horse Epona is named after the Celtic Goddess of Horses, ponies and donkeys.

Also I must point out that the Scots originated in Ireland and came to Scotland after the fall of Roman Britain.

[Patterrz]

Making real Rohan is worth sacrificing the UK for

[STAGgrng]

"It would be like the Balkansand everythingt that it entails" as a Bulgarian im betting that the horse riders will have a lot of fun especially if they don't border a 2000 year old empire.

[jamiejamie]

Sometimes ill go a whole 6 months, maybe even longer without watching these. But I always come back to them, you have a way with words and creativity, im really enjoying writing whilst watching/listening to your videos. You're doing good work sir!

[youngoden]

I love that one of the most consistent things in my life is cody asking the real questions. Good shit brotha