Map: North Sea Drainage Project (1930)

[lordroel]

Map: North Sea Drainage Project (1930)

Some 10 millennia ago, during the last Ice Age, so much water was stored in huge polar ice caps that sea levels were 120 m lower than today. The North Sea consequently wasn’t a sea, but a land bridge between Britain and Europe. Geologists call this Doggerland, after the Dogger Bank, the shallowest, largest sand bank in the North Sea today. In all probability, this now sunken land land of once undulating prairie was quite densely inhabited by Stone Age humans. These must have been their hunting grounds, their prey the mammoths whose bones fishermen sometimes still dredge up from the sea floor.

In September 1930, there existed at least one wild plan to reclaim this particular piece of sunken real estate from the seas and increase the size of Europe by linking the British Isles to the Continent. The new one would be called…DOGGERLAND, ore maybe only in the pages of Modern Mechanix, an American magazine (1928-2001) that ran under a variety of titles.



Under the title 'North Sea Drainage Project to Increase Area of Europe', a caption reads:

“If the extensive schemes for the drainage of North Sea are carried out according to the plan illustrated above, which was conceived by a group of eminent English scientists, 100,000 square miles will be added to the overcrowded continents of Europe. The reclaimed land will be walled in with enormous dykes, similar to the Netherland dykes, to protect it from the sea, and the various rivers flowing into the North Sea will have their courses diverted to different outlets by means of canals.”

Conspicuously absent are the scientists’ credentials. The logistics of building a 450-mile-long dyke connecting Norfolk (England) to Jutland (Denmark), rising 90 feet above the sea level, seem daunting enough for our own age, let alone for the 1930s. A similar dyke at the North Sea’s south end, barely 150 miles long, would only leave Antwerp and London with direct sea access, depriving the whole of the Netherlands and much of Germany and Denmark of a coastline.

[stevep]

I didn't know Nazi agents were making preparations for an invasion of Britain that early!

Apart from the huge task of such construction and the inherent danger of all this land being below sea level I can see a couple of other problems.

a) As with the Med project your going to disrupt a hell of a lot of ports, even when things are completed, let alone while its under construction. Including as mentioned the Dutch, who are unlikely to be very happy and the German N Sea ports.

b) What happens to the outflow from minor streams such as the Rhine, Weser and Elbe? They could well provide enough water to keep the area under water, even if there is a massive pumping programme.

[lordroel]

Jul 10, 2017 20:36:38 GMT stevep said:

I didn't know Nazi agents were making preparations for an invasion of Britain that early!

Apart from the huge task of such construction and the inherent danger of all this land being below sea level I can see a couple of other problems.

a) As with the Med project your going to disrupt a hell of a lot of ports, even when things are completed, let alone while its under construction. Including as mentioned the Dutch, who are unlikely to be very happy and the German N Sea ports.

b) What happens to the outflow from minor streams such as the Rhine, Weser and Elbe? They could well provide enough water to keep the area under water, even if there is a massive pumping programme.

Also it would destroy the Netherlands who is a maritime country.

[spanishspy]

Jul 11, 2017 2:48:00 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 10, 2017 20:36:38 GMT stevep said:

I didn't know Nazi agents were making preparations for an invasion of Britain that early!

Apart from the huge task of such construction and the inherent danger of all this land being below sea level I can see a couple of other problems.

a) As with the Med project your going to disrupt a hell of a lot of ports, even when things are completed, let alone while its under construction. Including as mentioned the Dutch, who are unlikely to be very happy and the German N Sea ports.

b) What happens to the outflow from minor streams such as the Rhine, Weser and Elbe? They could well provide enough water to keep the area under water, even if there is a massive pumping programme.

Also it would destroy the Netherlands who is a maritime country.

All these massive draining projects would obliterate coastal economies, bar none. 

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 14:54:17 GMT spanishspy said:

Jul 11, 2017 2:48:00 GMT lordroel said:

Also it would destroy the Netherlands who is a maritime country.

All these massive draining projects would obliterate coastal economies, bar none. 

Know of two i posted here, what is number three.

[spanishspy]

Jul 11, 2017 14:58:36 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 11, 2017 14:54:17 GMT spanishspy said:

All these massive draining projects would obliterate coastal economies, bar none. 

Know of two i posted here, what is number three.

None in particular; it's just a general consequence of this sort of thing. 

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 15:02:19 GMT spanishspy said:

Jul 11, 2017 14:58:36 GMT lordroel said:

Know of two i posted here, what is number three.

None in particular; it's just a general consequence of this sort of thing. 

The only winners as steve has mention would be the Germans in 1940.

[spanishspy]

Jul 11, 2017 15:03:09 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:02:19 GMT spanishspy said:

None in particular; it's just a general consequence of this sort of thing. 

The only winners as steve has mention would be the Germans in 1940.

Even they'll be affected by the environmental impact in some way. 

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 15:03:44 GMT spanishspy said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:03:09 GMT lordroel said:

The only winners as steve has mention would be the Germans in 1940.

Even they'll be affected by the environmental impact in some way. 

I do not hope the United Kingdom claims all of DOGGERLAND but shares it with the Netherlands, Belgium, France and of course Germany.

[spanishspy]

Jul 11, 2017 15:05:18 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:03:44 GMT spanishspy said:

Even they'll be affected by the environmental impact in some way. 

I do not hope the United Kingdom claims all of DOGGERLAND but shares it with the Netherlands, Belgium, France and of course Germany.

Depends who gets their first and who has the biggest guns. 

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 15:16:45 GMT spanishspy said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:05:18 GMT lordroel said:

I do not hope the United Kingdom claims all of DOGGERLAND but shares it with the Netherlands, Belgium, France and of course Germany.

Depends who gets their first and who has the biggest guns. 

The North Sea Drainage Project has to be a joint project, the British can not do it alone nor would other countries be happy if the British started to create a 450 miles long dam towards Denmark.

[spanishspy]

Jul 11, 2017 15:30:06 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:16:45 GMT spanishspy said:

Depends who gets their first and who has the biggest guns. 

The North Sea Drainage Project has to be a joint project, the British can not do it alone nor would other countries be happy if the British started to create a 450 miles long dam towards Denmark.

But could Denmark do anything about it? 

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 16:57:40 GMT spanishspy said:

Jul 11, 2017 15:30:06 GMT lordroel said:

The North Sea Drainage Project has to be a joint project, the British can not do it alone nor would other countries be happy if the British started to create a 450 miles long dam towards Denmark.

But could Denmark do anything about it? 

If it was a international North Sea Drainage Project it might, do not think the United Kingdom would do this mega project alone.

[stevep]

Guys

As I see it the project would be international. Apart from the sheer costs there would be intense legal questions, especially when your going to totally destroy the coastal activities and interntional trade of entire regions. Or even how does one power, Britain say, persuade/force Belgium and Denmark to host one end of those massive dams.

If we assumed that the project was completed and the region drained I wouldn't like to be in any army trying to invade Britain over the drained lands. Although that could risk a lot of lives depending on how well the territory was settled, which could be millions.

[lordroel]

Jul 11, 2017 20:02:15 GMT stevep said:

Guys

As I see it the project would be international. Apart from the sheer costs there would be intense legal questions, especially when your going to totally destroy the coastal activities and interntional trade of entire regions. Or even how does one power, Britain say, persuade/force Belgium and Denmark to host one end of those massive dams.
(

I agree, this project would among others destroy the Netherlands as a maritime nation.