AHC: Have a World War that lasts for more then 20 years

What comes to mind is a longer, more drawn out Napoleonic conflict. Barring that, your best bet is an extended set of colonial wars all over the world, with only minor skirmishes in Europe.
 
A true "world war" with the combatants/alliances global lasting 20 years is almost ASB. Several issues deal with this - look at the manpower issues in WWI, where only fresh American manpower allowed anything but mutual exhaustion. Look at WWII where b y 1945 the USSR was essentially drained dry, and the UK was also close to the edge. Economics also plays a part in financing the war, and an economy too heavily subordinated to military needs causes secondary effects - no new tractors (or not enough) because factories are producing military vehicles, will mean agricultural production will slowly but surely go down.

The "conflict" could go on, if there was some sort of extremely strong motivation, like the 100 Years War with religion, but over time the level of conflict would inevitably become less and less all encompassing, although actions when they occurred would be brutal.
 
The Seven Years' War was arguably the First World War, but it paled in comparison to the 1914-19 WWI because it was not an industrial war. The US Civil War lasted 4 crushing years as a much more industrialized war and was a major wake up call to what War would now be like.
 
Given the sheer carnage that industrialized warfare is capable of, most nations can't handle that kind of fighting for that length of time. Armies are much larger than pre-industrialized so logistics are much more important. Nations won't tolerate having foreign armies operating on their home soil since nationalism is much more prevalent than it was prior to the Napoleonic Wars (and by that I include the French Revolution). IIRC wars like the Hundred Years War and the Thirty Years War were on-and-off again conflicts rather than almost nonstop combat like the world wars were.
 
While the POD is pre-1900, what about Gurkani Alam's Long War? It lasted for about 45 years (granted, towards the end, it was only the Russkies and satelites fighting against the Indians, the Sarajevo Pact, and Ling China).
 
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Calbear's AANW TL Almost went that long if you count the semi-truce between the Wallies and the Nazi's as still the war.(The naval war was still fought IIRC)
 
Easy.

Cold War (which was anything but cold)
Too easy,
Here is another, US not involved in WW1, French defeat in 1919, Britain stays in and attack Norway to cut off iron in 1920 while fighting defensivelyv from Italy. US becomes gradually more sympathetic and the new USSR comes back in in 1921. Following the brest litovsk the USSR is formed quickly and Can use the tsarist regimes weapons and Industry. After 4 years of recovery they are ready for another go to regain the Ukraine and belarussia.
Germany is in the meantime restocked with ukrainian grain and hangs in there, Germany now attempts to knock out Britain with unrestricted submarine warfare drawing in the us fully. Building up for new offenses takes years and involves a Balkan detour gradually Breaking AH and an invasion in France occurs in 1924. Unfortunately, while making a strong normandy bridgehead, the USSR now collapses leading to a gradual overwhelming of the bridgehead which is evacuated in 1925. Germany mops op the Balkan with AH in 1926-7 eventually, trying to Strange Italy in 1927-28. Peace conference follows.
14 years. Add some more stalemates and we are getting somewhere
 
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CalBear

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Too easy,
Here is another, US not involved in WW1, French defeat in 1919, Britain stays in and attack Norway to cut off iron in 1920 while fighting defensivelyv from Italy. US becomes gradually more sympathetic and the new USSR comes back in in 1921 with us supplies.
Germany is restocked with ukrainian grain and hangs in there, Germany now attempts to knock out Britain with unrestricted submarine warfare drawing in the us fully. Building up for new offenses takes years and involves a Balkan detour gradually Breaking AH and an invasion in France occurs in 1924. Unfortunately, while making a strong normandy bridgehead, the USSR now collapses leading to a gradual overwhelming of the bridgehead which is evacuated in 1925. Germany mops op the Balkan with AH in 1926-7 eventually, trying to Strange Italy in 1927-28. Peace conference follows.
14 years. Add some more stalemates and we are getting somewhere
An interesting idea, but the chances of the U.S. supporting a communist regime, especially in the early 20's are close enough to zero to approach unity.

Here a riff off the basic idea - The Entente starts the same intervention in support of the Whites as IOTL. In this case the intervention manages to carve out a couple White enclaves (maybe a perimeter around Petrograd/Saint Petersburg and another around Vladivostok) that receive on-going support, including limited troops, British in the Baltic, Japanese in the Pacific sufficient to keep the Civil War as an on-going element of the "Great War" into the 1930s. At that point the Japanese get involved in a war with the Chinese, a Right Wing German government (maybe Nazi, maybe just reactionary) repudiates the Treaty of Versailles. This time the Entente, including the U.S., doesn't wait for things to get too far out of hand, and rolls up the "New Reich" as soon as it starts to rearm in 1935.

Japan get a global trade embargo dropped on it over China, using the simple expedient of having Norway, France, Holland, the UK and U.S. making it illegal for any shipping registered in their countries to dock in a Japanese port and banning any vessel from another state that docks in Japan from any port in the embargoing countries for five years. From there it can either go like OTL or the Japanese decide that their area of control in Siberia is of more value than the adventure in China.
 
An interesting idea, but the chances of the U.S. supporting a communist regime, especially in the early 20's are close enough to zero to approach unity.
Editing now, wait 5 mins. USSR recovery faster ITTL without the whites and civil war shorter
 
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