tomscott.com - @tomscott - There were lots of Victorian engineering plans that never got off the drawing board - but one attempt at a Channel Tunnel remarkably did.
Actually, they didn't start the invasion of Russia in Winter, they started in June 22 1941, but they could not finish before the winter arrived... they were not prepared for it at all! Exactly like Napoleon 130 years earlier, stoped by the winter!
@@Jokerthief7 russia's a big country though, thinking they could take it all before a winter would set in, while heading north shows EXACTLY how naive and ill prepared the germans were.
I would think having the tunnel would have no impact on defense and if anything make defense more manageable if anyone would be dumb enough to try and invade you through the tunnel.
Or simply setup a gunnery position with good cover and shoot the very exposed people as they leave the exit. You could even go all computer game and put a big pit of acid in front of it
You wouldn't invade through it, but if you could capture both exits you could reinforce any invading force very easily. It would have to be preemptively destroyed at the beginning of a war.
The tunnel they started building in the late 19th century was actually too close the the surface and there was an unmanageable amount of water making its way in there, so they stopped diggin after 2km.
@@ano_nym Not enough rock between the tunnel and the sea bed. The rock that was there was too porous, and let too much water in. The current tunnel is designed to leak, and has pumping stations at the low points, to remove the seepage. The French half of the tunnel is waterproof, as the rock on their side was too porous, and the water quantities would have been too large. We have the technology today, they didn't back then.
@@sarkybugger5009 I didn't mean to sound like I doubted you, just that the theory behind it is intuitive. That's neat, didn't expect to run into a tunnel builder here. Although I guess it's the perfect video for it.
I never understood the British fear of invasion through a tunnel. Attempting It would be a catastrophic military blunder. However, Dunkirk would have been a lot less significant if a tunnel had existed. Many lives would have been saved, and a lot of military hardware wouldn't have been lost. It may have been enough to shorten the war.
while a full invasion would likely have been a huge blunder, a tunnel would allow a specialist strike force to infiltrate the country and do severe damage to infrastructure required for the war.
@@shawnpitman876 As if there wouldnt be a specialist british force guarding the tunnel at each mile interval near its entrance. There would be no lack of survaillance. Nobody would get through.
You don't invade through the tunnel. You land marines and paratroopers by the entrance to secure the tunnel, and then use it to resupply your invasion force without having to deal with the navy. Getting troops to Britain was never the hard part; getting ammo, food and fuel to those troops was the problem.
It's hard to estimate exactly what 8000 years of being separated by sea from the mainland did to our attitude, but I'll bet it's part of why connecting to the mainland seems like such a big deal for us.
Would have been badass if Britain had secretly completed the tunnel during WWII... the Nazis would be scanning the coastline, intercepting D-Day rumours, and then BAM!, Allied soldiers start springing up from under manhole covers in Paris yelling "Surprise, bitches!!!"
+JeeperCreeperMC Not really. The allies had set up a near-perfect deception that there would be a maritime attack happening in Calais, and a huge numer of nazi forces was backing out of Soviet lands at that time, while Brits and Americans had two full, freshly-formed armies ready to invade with a third one waiting. Even if the nazis somehow managed to shut down either a surprise "boarding from beneath the ground" or a totally unexpected landing in Normandy, they wouldn't have enough of anything to actually perform a counterattack.
Not really, trying to invade through that kind of tunnel would have been an absolute waste of manpower, the German troops would have been marching into a meatgrinder.
I think a secret tunnel like that would have been useless right after it was revealed, which probably would have happened right after Britain marched their troops through it. I think that it would have been cool to see them use it to send spies to aid French resistance or infiltrate German ranks, though even then it might have been hard to keep secret.
Regarding WW2 I would say, that it probably would've been an advantage for the french and british to have that tunnel. Invading the british isles via that tunnel is ridiculously stupid when you can just blow it up on half of the way through and drown all opposing soldiers and their equipment in it. (Not mentioning the better supply lines for the D-Day invasion aswell as a possible strategic point to deploy more units, after germany circumvented the british and french forces in the BeNeLux states.) The only real disadvantage I see would've been the german supply lines, once the germans actually succeeded in landing. But Hitler and Göring were too dumb to pull that off. (It's ridiculous what happened between those two, if you do a bit of research. :P Everytime Hitler asked for the progress, Göring basically answered "Next month we will be in London!" and Hitler believed that almost every time until the very end, when the counter-invasion suddenly happened... Two idiots at work, while Dönitz was all like "GIMME MORE SUB-MARINES!" and didn't even bother working out proper invasion plans.)
The thought of Hitler trying to invade Britain through a tunnel is quite funny... not only it would be the perfect defensive spot for the Britain army (Germany can only arrive in low quantities at the same time), it would also have been VERY easy to cut this connection at any time, just by making a tiny hole into it. I imagine the the people in Britain would have been very amused if Hitler pushed a large army into the tunnel only to have them killed when water rushes in. Fun fact: There was a tunnel built below the Thames between 1825 and 1843 in London.
Well i doubt anybody would invade through the tunnel, but the main reason germany didnt really make a solid effort to invade Britain was the logistical nightmare of supporting the invasion. Tunnel would have significantly helped in that sense.
I think the only use the tunnel might have would be to invade the area around the tunnel via amphibious landings and only once both ends were secured and thoroughly cleared out would supplies be brought through. But I think the Germans would be far more worried about continental Europe being re-taken by the allies in an invasion (D-Day) and such a tunnel being used to supply such a large army. People are right that such a tunnel would have been blown up and flooded very quickly, and I think it would have been blown up by the Germans.
I agree with this. I'd wager the Nazi's would've blown it up as soon as they reached so the British would've had no chance to supply France through it.
In 1930, the Detroit-Windsor tunnel was constructed. It's not as long as the Chunnel, but it is an example of an early international tunnel. It goes from Detroit, Michigan, USA to Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
@@shawnpitman876, the nearest land crossing is close to 2000 km away near Thunder Bay. There are bridges, but that river goes through several Great Lakes out to the Atlantic ocean.
Invading through a tunnel has an issue of course. Not that "they will collapse it on us!" because that would be such a huge cost for stomping one assault (not like that would win the war, just halt one battle but at the cost of billions lost between the cost to build the tunnel and economic damages in perpetuity) but...lack of oxygen. You could start a fire that doesn't do much damage to the tunnel, but asphyxiates everyone in that tunnel. The only real cost would be waiting for oxygen exchange to make it habitable again, then clearing out all those corpses (but plus side, you get all their vehicles, weapons, and ammunition they were hauling). Would have made more sense for germany to just destroy the tunnel to waste all that funding of the allies that built it
The Victorians had some great ideas. The logistics of a Victorian-era tunnel that long would have been interesting. The logistics of building the tunnel that's there now was complicated and fascinating, I can't imagine how the Victorians would have coped with those problems.
I was headed to London in '05 but England didn't accept the EURail pass so I was going to ferry from Callais. We'll I zonked out and woke up in London. Saved me a half day or more of travel and likely £40. Had a great nap, but slept through the Chunnel experience.
Knowing the difficulty of digging two tunnels and having them actually meet in the middle, I highly doubt 19th century technology would have been able to accomplish that over such a long distance. even with modern TBM's and computer guidance they still didn't meet perfectly.
Since the plan included ventilator shafts that came to the surface, it wouldn't be that hard to determine the course of a pilot tunnel that could then be enlarged to full size once they had breached.
I'm sure they would have. They had just dug over 1000 miles of sewers under London - I remember seeing a video about them digging from both ends and only being a few millimetres out.
There were Ancient Greeks who measured the circumference of the Earth with only a few hundred kms in error... Which is because the Earth has different results depending which direction you measure, since the planet is not a perfect sphere. I'm sure they could have used smart brains and maths to accurately build tunnels a hundred years ago
@@liamwalton4183 Correct. Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland, 1882, 9 miles long. Simplon Tunnel, 12 miles, 1906. Lotschberg Tunnel, 9 miles, 1912, and they had to put in an S-bend to avoid bad ground (a buried glacier moraine) that they encountered. Precise surveying was absolutely possible, just a lot more laborious in those days.
Once the Channel Tunnel malfunctioned while I was in a coach on one of the trains and I sat there baking for half an hour until it started moving again. That was fun. I take the ferries now.
There are plenty of people saying, in one piece or another, that the Channel Tunnel in WW2 would be dangerous to move through if there was a risk the other side could interfere (whether by setting up defenses on the other side or possibly blowing it up from the channel). So unless one side had control of the Channel _and_ both ends of the proto-Chunnel, it probably wouldn't do much; _maybe_ the occasional spy or deserter. But if one side _did_ have that control, it would be a big strategic advantage for whoever was already winning.
Probably not the occasional spy or deserter. Having to walk through 25 miles of tunnel and then somehow avoid the guards at the end who only need to watch a 15-foot-wide tunnel mouth? - how's that going to go? It would be a big advantage to whichever side controlled both ends of it - that is, if the side that was about to lose control of its end hadn't comprehensively destroyed a mile of tunnel before retreating...
As a Floridian who's never seen it and barely sees any working passenger rail, the Channel Tunnel still wigs me out. How did you guys do that? A train going almost 400 feet bellow sea level? That's literally science fiction.
the part about the 2nd worldd war, and invasion through the tunnel.. i heard somewhere (not sure who from) that the channel tunnel is lined with explosive charges, in case war breaks out in europe again, or some other event, the tunnel can be sealed by either side.
Have a look at a video made by IKS Exploration - they go as far as they can along the original bore until it gets too flooded to proceed further. It's a cool video.
+Daan Willemsen You're not gonna get a train going from anywhere near the British Isles to anywhere near Argentina mate, that's just completely infeasible! 😉 Falling asleep on the train could prove deadly!
I don't really see the invasion risk with tunnels and bridges. Yes, they provide easy access, but the are also a very narrow point of attack wich puts the defenders in a fvorable position. Besides that they are easaly destryable.
Tom speaking about the Brits being paranoid of losing their sovereignty if they are connected to the EU back in the 1800s. Me watching this video in 2021 realising that nothing has changed.
Why not? The Quabbin Aquaduct in Massachusetts is 39 kilometers long and it was built in 1897. Of course and aquaduct it a lot smaller but I'm not sure if that's even a downside.
I heard about a tunnel built under a river near ... St Louis, I wanna say? The way it worked was they had a bulkhead up front composed of horizontal wooden boards. A worker would remove a board, scrape away four inches of mud, and replace the board before moving on to the next one. The mud was hauled out, and a brick lining was laid behind. They had bricks and wood pre-1940s, but then again that leaves the issue of ventilation and lighting.
I'm no expert on invading a country, but sending a bunch of troops through a tunnel that can easily be destroyed and ends in a choke point and probably doesn't have room for tanks (ignoring the fuel expended from the journey) doesn't exactly sound like the best invasion plan.
having it for a while, and having the tunnel rigged to blow would deter it from being used as an invasion route, and if they decided to do so *anyways* would allow from a rather easy removal of a fair amount of troops, it being ridiculously easy to hold a tunnel with only a dozen or two people unless you are being horrendously outnumbered, and if you are so outnumbered blowing the tunnel will get rid of all of them but maybe one or two of them that get really lucky
I feel like the Axis wouldn't have been able to conquer France had the tunnel been built, since that way the French would've an easy way for reinforcement
***** who said they used GPS? Connecting the tunnels was one of the biggest challenges. They used lasers to keep the tunnels on track. Technology that was cleary not around into the 19th century.. Think about it, the tunnel is 30mile long. If they were out by even a fraction of a degree, they would have completely missed each other.
Invading though a tunnel would be quite stupid...Buut, if Germans actualy land in Britan and secure foothold on mainland, tunnel would provide handy supply road.
And of course the tunnel would be pointless if the Germans had dropped their nuclear bombs on London with their flying saucers. Which is of course as fictional as the land invasion was.
@@joachimschoder Oh, preparation for operation sea lion were *very* real. Thankfully for brits ( and possibly for germans as well ), luftwaffe never managed to fufill key reqierement - aerial dominance over britan, and invasion as postponed forever.
If they did could Hitler truly have invaded though it. I would have a feeling it would be destroyed quickly or locked down with provisions to collapse it in the case it was used in that way and that would be on both sides.
Lots and lots of posts about "Germans invading through the tunnel", all failing to notice something: if there had been a tunnel in, say, the 1930s, it would have changed European history considerably.
@Wind Rose Going by train is more comfortable. No marching required. Just riding the eurostar right into london and there storming Buckingham Palace and getting her majesty to surrender.
Invade though a tunnel? under water? That sounds like a genius idea, what could possibly go wrong?
I know, right? Another genius idea is invading Russia in the Winter. What could go wrong?
Actually, they didn't start the invasion of Russia in Winter, they started in June 22 1941, but they could not finish before the winter arrived... they were not prepared for it at all! Exactly like Napoleon 130 years earlier, stoped by the winter!
swimmer's ear
@@Jokerthief7 russia's a big country though, thinking they could take it all before a winter would set in, while heading north shows EXACTLY how naive and ill prepared the germans were.
If anything it would have been super great if there was a tunnel to tempt and bottleneck the Axis powers in
I would think having the tunnel would have no impact on defense and if anything make defense more manageable if anyone would be dumb enough to try and invade you through the tunnel.
Or simply setup a gunnery position with good cover and shoot the very exposed people as they leave the exit. You could even go all computer game and put a big pit of acid in front of it
Crushermach3 And either flooding the tunnel or collapsing it....... great plan
Pfft. Learn from ancients. They would simply fill them will smoke and bellow it through.
@@LudvigIndestrucable Flooding would be perhaps best idea, as it would be maybe easier to put it back to the service lately.
You wouldn't invade through it, but if you could capture both exits you could reinforce any invading force very easily. It would have to be preemptively destroyed at the beginning of a war.
It would have been trivial to demolish the tunnel in WW2, so don't worry about that.
I was worried for Tom for a sec - thought the owner of that leopard print suitcase would overhear.
The tunnel they started building in the late 19th century was actually too close the the surface and there was an unmanageable amount of water making its way in there, so they stopped diggin after 2km.
Explain what the closeness to the surface have to do with that?
@@ano_nym Not enough rock between the tunnel and the sea bed. The rock that was there was too porous, and let too much water in. The current tunnel is designed to leak, and has pumping stations at the low points, to remove the seepage. The French half of the tunnel is waterproof, as the rock on their side was too porous, and the water quantities would have been too large. We have the technology today, they didn't back then.
@@sarkybugger5009 Seems reasonable, I assumed they made everything waterproof.
@@ano_nym Not only reasonable, but true. I helped build it. I still have my tallys, and my souvenir "Breakthrough" medal.
@@sarkybugger5009 I didn't mean to sound like I doubted you, just that the theory behind it is intuitive.
That's neat, didn't expect to run into a tunnel builder here. Although I guess it's the perfect video for it.
I never understood the British fear of invasion through a tunnel. Attempting It would be a catastrophic military blunder. However, Dunkirk would have been a lot less significant if a tunnel had existed. Many lives would have been saved, and a lot of military hardware wouldn't have been lost. It may have been enough to shorten the war.
while a full invasion would likely have been a huge blunder, a tunnel would allow a specialist strike force to infiltrate the country and do severe damage to infrastructure required for the war.
@@shawnpitman876 As if there wouldnt be a specialist british force guarding the tunnel at each mile interval near its entrance. There would be no lack of survaillance. Nobody would get through.
You don't invade through the tunnel. You land marines and paratroopers by the entrance to secure the tunnel, and then use it to resupply your invasion force without having to deal with the navy. Getting troops to Britain was never the hard part; getting ammo, food and fuel to those troops was the problem.
That's exactly the answer I was looking for.
It's hard to estimate exactly what 8000 years of being separated by sea from the mainland did to our attitude, but I'll bet it's part of why connecting to the mainland seems like such a big deal for us.
Would have been badass if Britain had secretly completed the tunnel during WWII... the Nazis would be scanning the coastline, intercepting D-Day rumours, and then BAM!, Allied soldiers start springing up from under manhole covers in Paris yelling "Surprise, bitches!!!"
wow...
+JeeperCreeperMC Not really. The allies had set up a near-perfect deception that there would be a maritime attack happening in Calais, and a huge numer of nazi forces was backing out of Soviet lands at that time, while Brits and Americans had two full, freshly-formed armies ready to invade with a third one waiting. Even if the nazis somehow managed to shut down either a surprise "boarding from beneath the ground" or a totally unexpected landing in Normandy, they wouldn't have enough of anything to actually perform a counterattack.
Not really, trying to invade through that kind of tunnel would have been an absolute waste of manpower, the German troops would have been marching into a meatgrinder.
I think a secret tunnel like that would have been useless right after it was revealed, which probably would have happened right after Britain marched their troops through it. I think that it would have been cool to see them use it to send spies to aid French resistance or infiltrate German ranks, though even then it might have been hard to keep secret.
Best battle cry I've ever heard! "Surprise, bitches!!!"
I don't know much about this but it seems like a pretty bad position to be in while invading...
Regarding WW2 I would say, that it probably would've been an advantage for the french and british to have that tunnel.
Invading the british isles via that tunnel is ridiculously stupid when you can just blow it up on half of the way through and drown all opposing soldiers and their equipment in it.
(Not mentioning the better supply lines for the D-Day invasion aswell as a possible strategic point to deploy more units, after germany circumvented the british and french forces in the BeNeLux states.)
The only real disadvantage I see would've been the german supply lines, once the germans actually succeeded in landing. But Hitler and Göring were too dumb to pull that off. (It's ridiculous what happened between those two, if you do a bit of research. :P Everytime Hitler asked for the progress, Göring basically answered "Next month we will be in London!" and Hitler believed that almost every time until the very end, when the counter-invasion suddenly happened... Two idiots at work, while Dönitz was all like "GIMME MORE SUB-MARINES!" and didn't even bother working out proper invasion plans.)
Invading through a tunnel? Bad idea.
Transporting supplies and troops through a tunnel? Now *there's* a thought...
The thought of Hitler trying to invade Britain through a tunnel is quite funny... not only it would be the perfect defensive spot for the Britain army (Germany can only arrive in low quantities at the same time), it would also have been VERY easy to cut this connection at any time, just by making a tiny hole into it.
I imagine the the people in Britain would have been very amused if Hitler pushed a large army into the tunnel only to have them killed when water rushes in.
Fun fact: There was a tunnel built below the Thames between 1825 and 1843 in London.
+Henning Rogge The story of the Thames tunnel is quite fascinating.
With the ideas the Nazis had they may have even tried it.
Well i doubt anybody would invade through the tunnel, but the main reason germany didnt really make a solid effort to invade Britain was the logistical nightmare of supporting the invasion. Tunnel would have significantly helped in that sense.
Getting troops to a certain point isn't that difficult, but being able to support them however is tricky.
I think the only use the tunnel might have would be to invade the area around the tunnel via amphibious landings and only once both ends were secured and thoroughly cleared out would supplies be brought through. But I think the Germans would be far more worried about continental Europe being re-taken by the allies in an invasion (D-Day) and such a tunnel being used to supply such a large army.
People are right that such a tunnel would have been blown up and flooded very quickly, and I think it would have been blown up by the Germans.
I agree with this. I'd wager the Nazi's would've blown it up as soon as they reached so the British would've had no chance to supply France through it.
In 1930, the Detroit-Windsor tunnel was constructed.
It's not as long as the Chunnel, but it is an example of an early international tunnel. It goes from Detroit, Michigan, USA to Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
and is 100% not needed, as we have a land crossing between those two.
I've never heard the word chunnel but I'm glad I have now
@@shawnpitman876, the nearest land crossing is close to 2000 km away near Thunder Bay. There are bridges, but that river goes through several Great Lakes out to the Atlantic ocean.
To be fair, the US and Canada get along about as well as two countries can get along.
Invading through a tunnel has an issue of course. Not that "they will collapse it on us!" because that would be such a huge cost for stomping one assault (not like that would win the war, just halt one battle but at the cost of billions lost between the cost to build the tunnel and economic damages in perpetuity) but...lack of oxygen. You could start a fire that doesn't do much damage to the tunnel, but asphyxiates everyone in that tunnel. The only real cost would be waiting for oxygen exchange to make it habitable again, then clearing out all those corpses (but plus side, you get all their vehicles, weapons, and ammunition they were hauling). Would have made more sense for germany to just destroy the tunnel to waste all that funding of the allies that built it
"Invasion through a narrow passage" that'll always work :/
pretty silly fear imho
Just do it like Switzerland. They have all strategical tunnels stuffed with explosives to collapse them in case of invasion.
The Victorians had some great ideas.
The logistics of a Victorian-era tunnel that long would have been interesting. The logistics of building the tunnel that's there now was complicated and fascinating, I can't imagine how the Victorians would have coped with those problems.
If the Channel Tunnel had been built in the Victorian Era, and then with the World Wars, wouldn't the UK have simply blown the tunnel?
Tom would never be caught dead with leopard-print luggage...for him it's zebra stripes all the way.
I might not have known that. And now I might do. Thanks, Tom!!
Not as easy soon i suppose, since you'll need a passport with that ticket.
I was headed to London in '05 but England didn't accept the EURail pass so I was going to ferry from Callais.
We'll I zonked out and woke up in London. Saved me a half day or more of travel and likely £40.
Had a great nap, but slept through the Chunnel experience.
Knowing the difficulty of digging two tunnels and having them actually meet in the middle, I highly doubt 19th century technology would have been able to accomplish that over such a long distance. even with modern TBM's and computer guidance they still didn't meet perfectly.
Since the plan included ventilator shafts that came to the surface, it wouldn't be that hard to determine the course of a pilot tunnel that could then be enlarged to full size once they had breached.
I'm sure they would have. They had just dug over 1000 miles of sewers under London - I remember seeing a video about them digging from both ends and only being a few millimetres out.
There were Ancient Greeks who measured the circumference of the Earth with only a few hundred kms in error... Which is because the Earth has different results depending which direction you measure, since the planet is not a perfect sphere.
I'm sure they could have used smart brains and maths to accurately build tunnels a hundred years ago
@@liamwalton4183 Correct. Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland, 1882, 9 miles long. Simplon Tunnel, 12 miles, 1906. Lotschberg Tunnel, 9 miles, 1912, and they had to put in an S-bend to avoid bad ground (a buried glacier moraine) that they encountered. Precise surveying was absolutely possible, just a lot more laborious in those days.
Once the Channel Tunnel malfunctioned while I was in a coach on one of the trains and I sat there baking for half an hour until it started moving again. That was fun.
I take the ferries now.
There are plenty of people saying, in one piece or another, that the Channel Tunnel in WW2 would be dangerous to move through if there was a risk the other side could interfere (whether by setting up defenses on the other side or possibly blowing it up from the channel). So unless one side had control of the Channel _and_ both ends of the proto-Chunnel, it probably wouldn't do much; _maybe_ the occasional spy or deserter. But if one side _did_ have that control, it would be a big strategic advantage for whoever was already winning.
Probably not the occasional spy or deserter. Having to walk through 25 miles of tunnel and then somehow avoid the guards at the end who only need to watch a 15-foot-wide tunnel mouth? - how's that going to go?
It would be a big advantage to whichever side controlled both ends of it - that is, if the side that was about to lose control of its end hadn't comprehensively destroyed a mile of tunnel before retreating...
Can't believe Tom made the rookie error, of having his suitcase in the background.
Yay! Missed this! And you're right, I didn't know that!
Yay things you might not know is back!
As a Floridian who's never seen it and barely sees any working passenger rail, the Channel Tunnel still wigs me out. How did you guys do that? A train going almost 400 feet bellow sea level? That's literally science fiction.
Now there's an idea for Alternate history, WWII: The Battle of the Chunnel
Which would probably end in Britain collapsing the Chunnel.
the part about the 2nd worldd war, and invasion through the tunnel.. i heard somewhere (not sure who from) that the channel tunnel is lined with explosive charges, in case war breaks out in europe again, or some other event, the tunnel can be sealed by either side.
Thanks for inventing a plot synopsis for the new James Bond movie!
I've always been amazed by this tunnel. It's certainly a wonder! Also, and invasion through the tunnel would be scary!
it was about time mr Tom
Have a look at a video made by IKS Exploration - they go as far as they can along the original bore until it gets too flooded to proceed further. It's a cool video.
Can you link it here
Tom didn't change much in the last couple of years just gotten a bit more mature.
I'm Still waiting for a Eurostar Amsterdam-London connection. That would be awesome...
How uninspired! I'm waiting for the Inverness // Marrakesh line when they build the straight of Gibraltar tunnel, HS2, HS3 and a few more lines!
+Bigbigcheese What about a HST Dublin - Bureos Aires? Via the Bering Strait and Panama, thats a long trip!
+Daan Willemsen You're not gonna get a train going from anywhere near the British Isles to anywhere near Argentina mate, that's just completely infeasible! 😉 Falling asleep on the train could prove deadly!
For potheads with little time to travel?
+Bigbigcheese Do you think that HS2 will get any further than Birmingham, or is it a sham? As for Amsterdam, I'd vote for Utrecht instead.
I don't really see the invasion risk with tunnels and bridges. Yes, they provide easy access, but the are also a very narrow point of attack wich puts the defenders in a fvorable position. Besides that they are easaly destryable.
Should have made note that either side can flood the tunnel very fast if they feel the need
Oh boy, now that, now that is a good idea for an alt-history WW2 level. I'd like to do a Company of Heroes defend the tunnel scenario now.
Tom speaking about the Brits being paranoid of losing their sovereignty if they are connected to the EU back in the 1800s. Me watching this video in 2021 realising that nothing has changed.
I was on the same train as Tom Scott
Wow really?
Believe so, not that i talked to him or anything like that.
The more interesting question is: Could this have been done with pre-1940s engineering technology?
Why not? The Quabbin Aquaduct in Massachusetts is 39 kilometers long and it was built in 1897. Of course and aquaduct it a lot smaller but I'm not sure if that's even a downside.
I heard about a tunnel built under a river near ... St Louis, I wanna say? The way it worked was they had a bulkhead up front composed of horizontal wooden boards. A worker would remove a board, scrape away four inches of mud, and replace the board before moving on to the next one. The mud was hauled out, and a brick lining was laid behind. They had bricks and wood pre-1940s, but then again that leaves the issue of ventilation and lighting.
Perhaps collapsing the tunnel on the germans would have been a nice party trick.
did someone say "use a tunnel during war time"? i hope not, even thinking about is crazy
Dang, Britain should think about investing in some socks for their politicians
I do not say, my Lords, that they cannot come, I merely say they cannot come by sea. -John Jervis, Lord St Vincent.
we cant go over it, we cant go under it.....oh wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did Shia LaBeouf inspire them? Don't let your dreams be dreams, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!
That tunnel is about as old as I am.
Real engineering did an excellent vid on this :)
Channel Tunnel? Bad idea
I'm no expert on invading a country, but sending a bunch of troops through a tunnel that can easily be destroyed and ends in a choke point and probably doesn't have room for tanks (ignoring the fuel expended from the journey) doesn't exactly sound like the best invasion plan.
Can the channel be damned?
couldn't the bits just rigg the channel with dynamite after germany pointed to france?
than it would be one boom away from failing
Then what exactly would have been the point in building it?
having it for a while, and having the tunnel rigged to blow would deter it from being used as an invasion route, and if they decided to do so *anyways* would allow from a rather easy removal of a fair amount of troops, it being ridiculously easy to hold a tunnel with only a dozen or two people unless you are being horrendously outnumbered, and if you are so outnumbered blowing the tunnel will get rid of all of them but maybe one or two of them that get really lucky
I imagine Hitler's tanks suddenly come out in England and wreak havoc
Was it suggested to unify the SE&CR and GCR?
I feel like the Axis wouldn't have been able to conquer France had the tunnel been built, since that way the French would've an easy way for reinforcement
And zombies may come through from Britain to France too.
Adam Malik not possible, all issues begin in continental Europe.
How would they have ensured the tunnels lines up correctly?
They would have totally missed each other.
***** who said they used GPS?
Connecting the tunnels was one of the biggest challenges.
They used lasers to keep the tunnels on track. Technology that was cleary not around into the 19th century.. Think about it, the tunnel is 30mile long. If they were out by even a fraction of a degree, they would have completely missed each other.
I'd say they would dig out from one end and then sort out the exit when they get there
I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT THIS TUNNEL EXISTED, I'M SO SURPRISED
you must be very young to not even know about this tunnel.
+mundotaku I'm 18, all my other friends knew about it and I didn't : o
***** where did you learn it from?
Rafael57YT It's just common knowledge if you live in the UK, at least from my perspective.
+Exodus Music I live in Italy, but my friends still knew about it
Not sure how effective a tunnel invasion would have been, though.
That part about sovereignty did not age well in the age of Brexit...
The wiwe of my uncle workt on the tunnel
Dunkirk might never been famous if the tunnel were built
The argument could be made that there wouldn't be a WW2 with a tunnel. Heck Germany as we know it may not exist.
Blowing a tunnel is easy.
Invading though a tunnel would be quite stupid...Buut, if Germans actualy land in Britan and secure foothold on mainland, tunnel would provide handy supply road.
And of course the tunnel would be pointless if the Germans had dropped their nuclear bombs on London with their flying saucers. Which is of course as fictional as the land invasion was.
@@joachimschoder Oh, preparation for operation sea lion were *very* real. Thankfully for brits ( and possibly for germans as well ), luftwaffe never managed to fufill key reqierement - aerial dominance over britan, and invasion as postponed forever.
You cannot use such a tunnel for invasion. If that would have happened, just flood it.
oh hey sovereignty, sounds similar i wonder where that term came from
If they did could Hitler truly have invaded though it. I would have a feeling it would be destroyed quickly or locked down with provisions to collapse it in the case it was used in that way and that would be on both sides.
It'd probably moreso be used as a resupply route for the Germans *after* starting an invasion of Britain, but even that's an easy issue to deal with.
so you could say... it wasnt just a pipe dream?
Does anyone ever call it the "Chunnel"
Watching in 240p
.... The war of the Channel Tunnel sounds better then the Blitz. Just saying.
1880 not 1881 ive been in it
Lots and lots of posts about "Germans invading through the tunnel", all failing to notice something: if there had been a tunnel in, say, the 1930s, it would have changed European history considerably.
Oh yes!
Funny how now the tunnel is complete, and Britain is still going crazy worrying about its sovereignty.
2014. Before Brexit!
They would have just collapsed the tunnel if they needed to defend themselves.
or better yet, flood it, just as significant forces have entered it
666Tomato666 or even better yet, 10 minutes before lead elements reached the exit.
666Tomato666 YES!! The old Passover trick! It worked on the Egyptian army!
national security is a very important thing to be concerned about
it's still a threat, should never have been dug.
Why?
Paistin Lasta because France might march an entire army down that tiny tunnel of course!
Oh of course, I was so unthinking. It would be a stroke of genious to march an army through a tiny tunnel underwater.
@Wind Rose Going by train is more comfortable. No marching required. Just riding the eurostar right into london and there storming Buckingham Palace and getting her majesty to surrender.
If there was a tunnel during WWII and the Nazis tried to use it, it would have most likely had the same biblical ending as Moses and the Pharaoh. :-)
Well I think it would have been the worst idea in history to try to invade a country through an endless tunnel, right?
Hmm, hearing a lot of leftward leaning remarks in your videos........ shame
You are wrong