AHC: Worst possible First World War

So, we can all agree that the First World War was bad. Seventeen Million people were killed, and Twenty Million were left wounded. The world was introduced to new forms of killing with the advent of industrialized war, and the worlds map was radically altered forever. Atop this, Spanish Flu came in and started killing people in their millions.

Your challenge, if you accept, with a PoD range from 1914-1919, is how, realistically, could the First World War have gone worse?

What, the real First World War wasn't bad enough? :eek:
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
What, the real First World War wasn't bad enough? :eek:

It was bad, I mean I can just look outside and see a monument to the War Dead as a reminder of this, but my main point is for all the misery and horror that came from it, it could have been worse. So much worse.

And, so far, that seems to hold true, be it gassing the Rhine or descending into mass anarchy. I should comment that I'm only looking for things that happen in the war or the immediate aftermath.
 

ThePest179

Banned
Maybe more genocide?:eek:

I'll put more detail into this one: have the Ottomans go all out and try to kill any non-Islamic faiths (admittedly unlikely), have the British/French partake in retaliatory massacres in response to the Armenian genocide, have the Balkans try to kill each other during the war, etc.

Now can someone more knowledgeable than myself asses the probability of these?
 

JAG88

Banned
Including the the post-war effects, like nazis, holocaust, WWII and the general loss of belief in the future in the West, I really find it difficult to see how WWI could be worse...

Bingo! People just dont realize we got quite possibly the worst outcome, but...

Allied victory, in a couple years Germany and everyone east turns communist forming a nice little alliance, "the International Peoples Pact", its mission is to advance self determination and spread communism so in 10 years they comeback asking for A&L back and the independence of the the African Peoples... France folds amidst internal division and utterly outnumbered.

The IPP understands that the only way to bring freedom and equality overseas is, well, over the sea, so they start a massive naval program...

In the meantime, they invade Turkey, they disliked their ethnic cleansing policies so they have to go and their minorities given freedom forming Kurd, and Armenian countries. Greece gets some bits.

Spain revolts and breaks down of its own accord, Basque and Catalunyan countries emerge.

When the war with Britain starts Iran folds quickly, Kurd lands are added to Kurdistan but that is about it. The Egyptians cheer the IPP troops as liberators as they move further inland to crush the rest of the decadent British Empire...

Under naval and submarine blockade Britain surrenders, Ireland is unified, Scotland and Wales gain their independence.
 
In 1919 the vast stores of British & American produced poison gases are used in indiscriminate bombing of the Rhineland to support the Allied advance. Tens of thousands die of gas, whilst those who survive are weakened and millions more succumb to the Influenza epidemic.

I had a very similar idea - August 1918 - The Germans decide that they will use mustard gas, dropped from Zeppelins in night raids over England. The targets are supposed to be the various military camps around Surrey, however due to a mix of unpredicted winds and a colossal navigational mess-up, the Zeppelin finds itself over London. After preparing to return to Germany, it is realised that some of the cannisters have begun to leak, so the decision is made to dump the cannisters overboard thinking they are in relatively unpopulated Surrey.

As the chemicals hit the London streets, basement windows are open where people take shelter, and the heavier than air chemicals seep down, ever downwards and in one case, to the entrance of a tube station sheltering hundreds of families.
As the gas entered the tube station, the initial injuries from the gas were comparatively minor, however ten times that number were injured in the ensuing panic while 17 died of electrocution after being pushed onto the rail.

The response from London is immediate, the following evening, bombers from the newly formed Royal Air Force, Launched from France drop mustard gas bombs on Stuttgart in a deliberate reprisal raid, the death toll is barely over a hundred, but the casualties rate in the thousands.
This sets the standard for the remains of the war, London is hit three more times, however the installations of gas curtains in tube stations lessens the impact to negligible by the third raid. Dover is hit 4 times, along with Paris 8 times. In retaliation, German cities are also hit time and time again until the eventual armistice in November 1918. With the general health of the population as low as it was, the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 decimated the population of Western Europe and America, with literally % of the population dying as a direct result of the outbreak, with famine stalking Germany, Belgium and France, with refugees flooding into neutral Netherlands, the total deaths arising directly from the war and the effects of it was 24.6 Million people, nearly 10% of Europe's prewar population.
 
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