"Britain reached its peak around the mid-1910s. It's peak was at about the same time that that Austrian Prince Franz something got shot, which started a civil war in the Austria-Hungary and tore that once great empire apart. The aftermath of that conflict is that it unwound the Alliance systems that divided Europe and threatened total war. At least, they unwound them for a bit. The British Empire's peak was when they granted Ireland Home Rule in 1915, narrowly avoiding civil war through a mess of compromises that lasts to today. But that's when the Empire became unsustainable: they had to make concessions.
The great European Empires became less affordable as the world's economies collapsed in the late twenties, a collapse that finally ousted Russia's Tsars (in favour of more competent despots), killed dying the Ottoman Empire and set back liberal democracy in many other places. It put in place Nationalist governments in France and Britain, both determined to make their countries Great Again after a decade of concessions and perceived decline against Germany, The alliance systems were rewound, over the 20s and early thirties, and an international incident in the Baltic region was enough to send half the world into total war."
"The Germans won. The Allies could have, but they squandered their advantages very effectively. The war finally ended when the British Establishment realised that their nation was starving and most of the Empire was lost; so they axed the Prime Minister and told the King that his position was untenable. The French, now isolated, capitulated shortly afterwards. Both nations lost much of their Empires. In the turmoil, the discredited Royal Family abdicated and the United Kingdom became the Commonwealth, doomed to be the middling power it remains today.
The greatest winners from the war weren't the Germans, who choked on the huge prize they won in the war and lost most of their Empire by the 1970s. The greatest winners were the Americans: Presidents McAdoo and Hoover spent most of the 30s playing all the warring factions against each other and making a killing in the process. The First Great War secured America as an Economic Superpower; American aid was vital in rebuilding Europe and the Commonwealth as effectively propped up by the Americans. The disintegration of the European Empires caused new superpowers to rise, as China realised it's full potential and the remnants of the Ottoman Empire grouped together.
By the 1970s Britain, France and Germany were all now friends and were tightly allied with the Americans, an alliance more out of convenience than anything else. The Germans has by now harnessed the power of the Atom, a secret soon stolen by the Chinese, who had formed an even closer alliance, the Shanghai Pact. But the solid "Spheres of Influence" policies of the West were bound to clash with the expansionist pretensions of the East. The Clash of Civilisations rhetoric escalated, proxy wars were fought in Africa and the World Council proved itself to be useless at it's explicit role: stopping the break-out of another Great War.
This Great War more was shorter than the last one, but more deadly. The technology improved, and it was a miracle that more weapons of mass destruction weren't used. Only in 1988, when the Shanghai Pact were on the back foot, did they launch Atomkraft Weapons at the West, destroying Munich as a "warning shot". The Americans quickly retaliated by destroying Tianjin with another "warning shot", both fired from Atomkraft submarines. Only the Peking Coup, a successful plot of to oust President Chiang, stopped half the world from going up in smoke. For many of the combatant nations, their hearts weren't ever in the war, which effectively ended in a stalemate. The Peace Terms were agreed at the Geneva Conferences in November of 1988, and the Great Powers went away bruised and and full of grudges.
The Anglo-French Concorde 8 mission landed on the moon in 1994; their space programme started in the mid-seventies and was interrupted by the outbreak of war. It was a symbol of hope, and the moving on from the conflicts, and the start of an era of relative peace and prosperity. But the prosperity didn't last forever, and as the postwar economic consensus began to break down from 2010 onwards, all the old grudges resurfaced. The rules of the Geneva Conferences were broken and the Comintern Nations, neutral during the Second Great War, are finally throwing their weight around. Multilateral disarmament isn't that big. So we're here, in 2015, with a dangerous multipolar world and only hope than in the capitals of the Great Powers: Washington, Beijing, Berlin and Ankara, cooler heads will prevail."
The great European Empires became less affordable as the world's economies collapsed in the late twenties, a collapse that finally ousted Russia's Tsars (in favour of more competent despots), killed dying the Ottoman Empire and set back liberal democracy in many other places. It put in place Nationalist governments in France and Britain, both determined to make their countries Great Again after a decade of concessions and perceived decline against Germany, The alliance systems were rewound, over the 20s and early thirties, and an international incident in the Baltic region was enough to send half the world into total war."
"The Germans won. The Allies could have, but they squandered their advantages very effectively. The war finally ended when the British Establishment realised that their nation was starving and most of the Empire was lost; so they axed the Prime Minister and told the King that his position was untenable. The French, now isolated, capitulated shortly afterwards. Both nations lost much of their Empires. In the turmoil, the discredited Royal Family abdicated and the United Kingdom became the Commonwealth, doomed to be the middling power it remains today.
The greatest winners from the war weren't the Germans, who choked on the huge prize they won in the war and lost most of their Empire by the 1970s. The greatest winners were the Americans: Presidents McAdoo and Hoover spent most of the 30s playing all the warring factions against each other and making a killing in the process. The First Great War secured America as an Economic Superpower; American aid was vital in rebuilding Europe and the Commonwealth as effectively propped up by the Americans. The disintegration of the European Empires caused new superpowers to rise, as China realised it's full potential and the remnants of the Ottoman Empire grouped together.
By the 1970s Britain, France and Germany were all now friends and were tightly allied with the Americans, an alliance more out of convenience than anything else. The Germans has by now harnessed the power of the Atom, a secret soon stolen by the Chinese, who had formed an even closer alliance, the Shanghai Pact. But the solid "Spheres of Influence" policies of the West were bound to clash with the expansionist pretensions of the East. The Clash of Civilisations rhetoric escalated, proxy wars were fought in Africa and the World Council proved itself to be useless at it's explicit role: stopping the break-out of another Great War.
This Great War more was shorter than the last one, but more deadly. The technology improved, and it was a miracle that more weapons of mass destruction weren't used. Only in 1988, when the Shanghai Pact were on the back foot, did they launch Atomkraft Weapons at the West, destroying Munich as a "warning shot". The Americans quickly retaliated by destroying Tianjin with another "warning shot", both fired from Atomkraft submarines. Only the Peking Coup, a successful plot of to oust President Chiang, stopped half the world from going up in smoke. For many of the combatant nations, their hearts weren't ever in the war, which effectively ended in a stalemate. The Peace Terms were agreed at the Geneva Conferences in November of 1988, and the Great Powers went away bruised and and full of grudges.
The Anglo-French Concorde 8 mission landed on the moon in 1994; their space programme started in the mid-seventies and was interrupted by the outbreak of war. It was a symbol of hope, and the moving on from the conflicts, and the start of an era of relative peace and prosperity. But the prosperity didn't last forever, and as the postwar economic consensus began to break down from 2010 onwards, all the old grudges resurfaced. The rules of the Geneva Conferences were broken and the Comintern Nations, neutral during the Second Great War, are finally throwing their weight around. Multilateral disarmament isn't that big. So we're here, in 2015, with a dangerous multipolar world and only hope than in the capitals of the Great Powers: Washington, Beijing, Berlin and Ankara, cooler heads will prevail."
It was Thande's idea. It goes to show that Alt-Wikiboxes aren't just good for showing electoral votes going the other way in US Presidential elections, but can form the basis of an insight into another world which the 'box-maker is too lazy, or too talentless, to render in a thread of its own. 
