AHC: A 20th century Thirty Years War

Can anyone think of a scenario whereby there would be an almost continuous war between the periods of 1914 to 1945. Mirroring the 30 Years War of the 17th century.

Like that original conflict there could be gaps but much lesser than the 20 year gap in fighting between World Wars.
 
edit: nevermind. Globally OTL history comes pretty close, though, if you look at China and the territories of the former Russian and Ottoman Empires.
 
Does the Cold War count? Its biggest hot conflict, in Vietnam, did last 30 years, from 1945 to 1975.
 
Can anyone think of a scenario whereby there would be an almost continuous war between the periods of 1914 to 1945. Mirroring the 30 Years War of the 17th century.

Like that original conflict there could be gaps but much lesser than the 20 year gap in fighting between World Wars.

1914-1990 the 80 year war
 
What about Russia? Fighting within its borders lasted from 1914 to the 50s when the last anti Communist partisans got eliminated.
 
Germany managed to find better ways of feeding its people in the great war.

Getting some food from Russia after an earlier Peace treaty.

maybe Italy flipped?
 
I'm sure the OP means a war on the scale of World Wars I and II, fought between many industrial nations. What made the Thirty Years War more horrendous than even wars with titles of bigger number, like the Eighty Years War and the Hundred Years War, is that it was effectively fought nonstop, as the seasons allowed, with no major breaks in fighting lasting multiple years. The 20th Century equivalent would be rather like a decades-long war beginning with what looks like World War I and ending with what looks like World War II, with fighting also filling the '20s and '30s. Not just wars of intentionally limited scope, like Vietnam or Korea, but Total War, fully involving the civilian population.

It's a bit of a dilemma, as it has to have both a good, set-in-stone ideological reasoning to continue, something to motivate an entire generation to spend its time killing eachother (the Thirty Years War had the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism.), and it has to be before the widespread development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems (A 'hot' war between 1960 and 1990 is almost certainly impossible, almost all the land worth fighting over would be radioactive ash long before then). World War I is early enough to avoid the Bomb putting a quick end to the fighting, but was ended IOTL by one side getting exhausted and calling it off, and that was 'only' four years of fighting. World War II involved differences in ideology and threats to physical existence, especially on the Eastern Front, which would be worth fighting over for so long, but would've ended in nuclear exchange before 1969.

You would likely need to have an earlier rough equivalent to World War I, or a wave of revolutionary thinking, to encourage a shift to the ideological extremes within the Great Powers, who would then have the drive and the internal control to wage a war for so long.

I would think that America would need to have another civil war, maybe backed by the opposing sides of the wider conflict, as it would be very likely that they would eventually get dragged into the conflict and tip the scale 'prematurely' with their industry and manpower. Hard, very hard, but it may be possible, if this same theoretical wave of revolution reaches America.
 
You would likely need to have an earlier rough equivalent to World War I, or a wave of revolutionary thinking, to encourage a shift to the ideological extremes within the Great Powers, who would then have the drive and the internal control to wage a war for so long.
And the economics to be able to do so. Britain's blockade of Germany gradually strangled her. Without the blockade Germany could have done what the Entente did, namely tap the USA for money and munitions.

Apart from Sweden, no country involved in the Thirty Years War could blockaded to anywhere the same extent.

Assuming Britain is on one side and a group of continental powers are on the other, you need the latter sufficinently strong enough to balance the British alliance. On OTL Germany and Austria-Hungary had 19.2% of the world manufacturing production, France and Russia 14.3% and Britain 13.6% (Kennedy The Rise and Fall of Great Powers). This gives the Entente an advantage of 27.9% to 19.2% and that is them not tapping the USA. In reality they did, which offset the loss of French heavy industry in the north east.

Against that you have a coalition war in which if any country looks like collapsing, the other members bail them out. This is why there were British troops in Italy and Germany troops just about everywhere.

You still have to balance the economis though. A TL 191 type timeline where the USA break the British blockade may do this. Still need to get the ideologial extremes from somewhere though.
 
Try looking at warfare from the bottom up: specifically from the perspective of a farmer who has just watched the third army ruin his cabbage patch.

To last 30 years, a war would need to be of lower intensity than WW1 or WW2. Consider that the original 30 years war pitted major empires and they were soon bankrupt, so told their soldiers and mercenaries to "forage" across Germany. It only takes one army "foraging" to force a farmer to starve over the winter. Starving farmers need a decade or more to recover.

Your long-running war would also need to be lower-tech than WW1 or WW2, because both wars ended when Germany ran out of industrial resources (oil, metals, explosive chemicals, etc.).

Also consider how WW1 depleted a generation of young men. Empires needed 20 years to replenish reserves of cannon-fodder.

May be your 30 Years War involves lower-tech armies romping over the ruins of Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, etc.) "foraging" to feed themselves and continue the fight for some mythical ideology. Maybe Bolsheviks are not quite strong enough to "win" the Rusian Revolution, so squabble for decades over the ruins of the Tzarist, Ottoman, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. After the third campaign strips their grain silos, farmers cease to care about ideologies and learn to fear all soldiers equally. Farmers lynch any lonely soldier (e.g. sentry). This leads to reprisals, rapes, looting and massacres by passing armies .... Then armies wonder why "foraging" is so lean the next year.
The viscious cycle repeats .....
 

libbrit

Banned
Well, we could say we are in one which began more or else at the end of the 20th century, when we talk about the `war on terror`.
 
And the economics to be able to do so. Britain's blockade of Germany gradually strangled her. Without the blockade Germany could have done what the Entente did, namely tap the USA for money and munitions.

I was going to make a point that Germany and Russia would likely have to be on the same side, or that Germany at least has some way of getting Russian resources either by bargain or force, so that Germany has a source of fuel to match Britain and France and their overseas empires.

By the way, I have started a Map Game on this premise, since it fascinates me so much: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=11861784#post11861784
 
I was going to make a point that Germany and Russia would likely have to be on the same side, or that Germany at least has some way of getting Russian resources either by bargain or force, so that Germany has a source of fuel to match Britain and France and their overseas empires.
Germany could certainly use the food, but Baku oil would be less important because the Ottoman Empire would/could be on her side. In terms of fronts, Russia could open one up in Persia, which would not only threaten British oil supplies (and thus the Royal Navy's ability to wage war), but also India. It is also worth noting that the British and Russians were not natural allies.

This still leave the issue who's side America would be on. This is important as just about everyone in Europe who was anyone (and a few who weren't) was a player in the Thirty Year's War. This includes the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
 
Can anyone think of a scenario whereby there would be an almost continuous war between the periods of 1914 to 1945. Mirroring the 30 Years War of the 17th century.

Like that original conflict there could be gaps but much lesser than the 20 year gap in fighting between World Wars.

Have Britain as a Financier (and increasingly as arms supplier) to the Entente rather than a direct combatant in WW1 and Germany in an effort to placate the UK and keep them on the side lines does not invade Belgium nor does it build a fleet that vainly attempts to challenge the UK's dominance of the seas.

Fighting over a frontage of half the original size as OTL Western front (Just the French / Germany Boarder) - both France and Germany struggle to gain any real advantage and by 1917 both side are exhausted by the struggle and with Russia bowing out to fight the 'Reds' (whome they defeat) the Rest of teh Entente and the CPs agree to a Armistice

From here its anyone's guess but I would suspect that the whole thing kicks off again in the 1920s - perhaps as a result of an earlier depression triggering this new war.....
 
Some German historians proposed in 2008 to term WW1 WW2 as "Thirty Years War"
Others goes so far to label the Period of 1914 to 1991 as "septuagenarian war"
because the WW1 let to WW2 what let to Cold War.

It's not so weird concept, if compare to old Thirty Years War, (from 1618 to 1648.)
It was not constant non-stop War, but interrupted by time of recuperation and fragile peace
Like Spanisch Empire that went several time bankrupt stoping there Military campaign for while.
 
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