Too many what-if questions if you ask me.

Quite frankly: I do not care about a seemingly imaginary place that has been submerged for many many many years. There is a special interest group whose sole purpose in life is to meet the universe's quota of lifeforms that find an interest in these type of things. That, and they also reduce my odds of being abducted by aliens via mathematical probability. Anyhow, these people are known to play the whole, "Good evening, ladies, gentlemen. We cordially invite you to play with our dicks; a well-deserved treat for us as we are self-entitled experts with DEGREES AND SHIT that prove just how fucking serious we are about studying an ancient civilization that doesn't-have-any-real-importance-to-the-modern-world, the-only-time-anyone-would-give-a-second-thought-to-this-plot-of-land-that-has-been-under-the-ocean-before-recorded-human-history-is-when-we-say-shit-like: 'if-it-were-not-for-this-land-mass-becoming-submerged-a-modern-nation-would-be-completely-different-however-the-same-can-be-said-about-meteors.-if-meteors-hit-the-earth-then-ground-zero-would-have-changed-for-the-worse-or-for-the-better." but that's fucking okay because they went to college to do that. I don't want to be mean, but I honestly find these type of pipple very useless. Except for Indiana Jones. But he is imaginary. Just like Doggerland.

What the fuck is Doggerland? Does anything I own come from Doggerland? Oh no, those little jello cups with the chunks of fruit aren't from Doggerland, are they? Oh, they aren't? Then it's settled. I definitely don't give a flying fuck about Doggerland.

so sophistacated

That comic strip was very much enjoyable.

Yeah I love how Sweden is kind of like

just

standing there

Lol, "Mother Nature".

Great Britain is not a great colonial country because it has no overland way to Europe. Here are colonial countries: Spain, Portugal, Britain, the Netherlands and France. For example, Spain was major sea-power with many colonies - during its colonial times Spain claimed pretty much the whole world. And France rivaled Britain's military power at sea. So, it's not that big of a deal.

Spain was pretty much secure thanks to the Pyrenees while Portugal was secure thanks to Spain (and England). However, as soon as the Napoleonic wars happened, Spain started to lose ALL their colonies. Portugal fared a bit better until 1822 when their only colony that mattered, Brazil, declared independence and left them with their African colonies in Angola and Mozambique as well as scattered bits of trading posts around the World.

Also, one point in history also saw The Netherlands being part of the Spanish Empire. When they rebelled, Portugal also happened to be in a personal union with Spain. And so, the Dutch used this opportunity to seize all the Portuguese colonies in Indonesia. Afterwards, they didn't expand to the whole archipelago until the 1800s.

France never expanded their colonies until the 1800s as well. Before that, they did hold 'colonies' in North America but they lost Quebec to Britain, Louisiana to the USA, and Haiti to SLAVES. This goes to show that they didn't have the capacity to hold any of their 'colonies' thanks in part to the constant wars they were having in Europe. However, once the 1800s rolled along, the Concert of Europe began thus allowing the French to finally focus on colonization.

Also, do remember that many more countries also had colonies:

-Sweden established a colony in North America called 'New Sweden', which they would later lose it to the Dutch. They also had Finland as a colony for 5 centuries.

-Germany had possessions in the Caribbean and in Africa as Prussia. Once the Empire was declared in the 1800s, they acquired more territories thanks to the 'Concert of Europe'.

-Scotland also established some colonies in North America. Their colonies would later be integrated to the UK

-Denmark managed to acquire some colonies in Iceland, Greenland, and the Americas thanks mostly to the fact that they were unified with Norway. In fact, one could debate that Norway itself was a Danish colony since they would later turn Norway over to Sweden as a 'possession' to 'compensate' Sweden's loss of Finland to Russia.

-Norway colonized Iceland, Greenland, and some parts of Scotland (which at the time, was half of Scotland). They almost acquired England but their cousins in Normandy got it instead. Unfortunately, they'd lose everything to Denmark later.

-Russia established colonies in Siberia, Central Asia, Manchuria, as well as Alaska. In fact, most of modern day Russia was acquired from colonization.

-Italy colonized parts of Africa in the 1800s in which they infamously lost to the Ethiopians in the process. Before that, Republic of Genoa and Republic of Venice had possessions in Greece, Anatolia, as well as Crimea.

-Debatable, but some parts of the Ottoman Empire enjoyed a lot of freedom and wasn't even directly ruled by the Ottomans. In fact, when Egypt rebelled, they almost took the whole Syria (as in the historical Syria which included the whole Levant) with them (they succeeded in taking Sudan though). Also in effect, Tunisia got isolated from the rest of the empire thus making it a colony. And of course, their territories in the Balkans also fit the colony definition.

-China colonized Taiwan while Japan colonized Ezo, Ryukyu, the southern part of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands (or at least half of it). Japan would later gain Taiwan from China, but most of their colonial expansion would happen as late as the interwar period.

-In regards to China, China ITSELF got colonized by the Manchus in the 17th century. The Manchus would then went on and conquered Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and even Korea (as a puppet). Thanks to them, China today is a whole lot bigger than the historical borders that they had had for a millenia and a half.

-Austria colonized the Nicobar Islands but they were too busy fighting wars and pleasing the Hungarians that they forgot to send them supplies.

-Duchy of Courland also established colonies in Africa and Tobago probably just so they would end up in a Trivia book in the future.

-Lastly, the Boers established three republics in Africa: Transvaal, Oranje, and Natal. Since Britain considered the Boers to be their citizens, when they declared independence from Great Britain, war ensued, and they won. Unfortunately, they lost the second war.

Oh, and with Britain being "impregnable"... you should realize that it worked the other way around too. It may be quite possible that during WW2 (or during other wars you mentioned) British army would do better if they would have direct land route to all the action. Let's not forget: the WW2 was won on land - Germany vs USSR route.

Germany lost mostly due to attrition and lack of manpower. Let's not forget that Britain did fight a battle with Germany on land wayyy before Germany was conquering Europe left and right. The result was the Fall of France and Britain only survived thanks to the English Channel which spared their ENTIRE army from getting wiped out off the face of the Earth.

Oh, and about Scotland. Scotland was added to Britain late enough not because they had the same king for a while already. Actually, with Scotland there is the actual geographical fact in work - they lived on the high lands. They were (I hope @Dec would forgive me :) ) actual highlanders. And highlanders do live on a land that is 1) hard to access and 2) doesn't really worth enough to capture. People living on high lands have their own mentality and are independent even if some other motherfuckers think that they are part of their country.

You capture highlands only if it is a matter of national pride - because if will cost you a lot but won't give you much. I can give you an example - Chechnya. It had Soviet army in it, it has USA army in it. Remove any occupying army from there - and in 6 months they would forget that you ever was there. If you conquer those people and then remove your army because you won and you don't need it there anymore - they will honestly think that you retreated and they won.

Even Roman Empire, while already having a shitload of conquered lands still had some small nations of highlander motherfuckers unconquered. Where were they? Just 40 miles outside of Rome.

Is this just you trying to debunk everything for the sake of debunking? Scotland wasn't integrated because it was hard to capture (See Norway's possessions in Scotland above), It was because the political system didn't simply allow countries to conquer left and right. This and coupled with the factors you mentioned, means that no one without the right claim to the Scottish throne would even attempt to conquer Scotland.

Even when they have MORE than a claim (as in the throne itself), it was still a very hard process to integrate a country into another country. It was so hard that the UK was established as an union instead of an annexation into England. Also, remember that the UK was established by a Scottish house and yet the UK is almost equal to England these days.

As for the second part, it's true that many Highlanders in the World had been never fully integrated into the countries they're included in the map. This doesn't mean that their self-governing is always legal however and as such, they aren't allowed to participate in international politics. I can even give you more examples: Many Circassian kingdoms weren't fully integrated to Russia, Armenia pretty much flipped the bird to whomever was claiming their lands, the whole Patagonia etc.

But you must also consider that recognition is also required for sovereignty. Scotland back then, was internationally recognized as independent while Chechnya is considered part of Russia and those Highland enclaves in the Roman Empire was considered barbarians. The sad historical side effect of this, was that the American Indian nations were infamously not considered countries just so that every European country could pretty much took whatever they please (The Aztecs, Maya, and Incas were recognized though),

And yes. All this thing about some landmass - pure conjecture. What ifs. Alternative history is good for movies. We get to deal with what we got to deal with. You can't be sure if you re wrong in your assumptions or right - it could easily go in exactly the other way.

Alternate history is surprisingly more useful than what you might think. What-if scenarios have shaped the World that we live in today. If you read history, then you'll know about Pan-whatever movements looking to establish cultural, regional, or religious unions. While most attempts have failed, some had succeeded (Yugoslavia, Italy, Germany, etc.) although some of them would fail later (such as Yugoslavia).

What-Ifs have also given us some theoretical nations such as Israel and Belgium. Before WWII, it was impossible to think that a fully independent Jewish state could be established in Palestine, in the middle of all the Arabs, but it happened anyway. Belgium was impossible for the longest time because it was part of the Austrian Empire and there was no such thing as a 'Belgium'. It was after Napoleon fucked up everything in Europe that Belgian nationalism even took hold which enabled them to rebel against the Dutch later on.

Yes, sometimes What-Ifs aren't just assumptions. Sometimes it also means ''What if we do this?".