DBWI: Global War?

Maybe in the first few battles. But after the initial outslaught the waring parties will start to learn from the mistakes and try to reduce casualty.

See my comment above. The European commanders weren't stupid. After their initial advances get bogged down, the warring parties will soon start to fortify their positions and to wait for the other party to attack first, and this may lead to a sort of "phony war", when no one wants to attack.

I suspect long-ranged artillery will become the name of the game in this case. Victory will be decided by who can out-range who. Railway canon might actually find their use on the battlefield, instead of being prestige projects.

Military application of aircraft will probably skyrocket (no pun intended), whith warring sides trying to find a way to punch holes through the enemy battleline without actually having to send their troops to attack.
 
I bet it would have resulted in a lot of mixing.

You know, it would have been inevitable for a group of brown soldiers (from some military caste in Africa or Asia) to grapple with a group of white soldiers. Can you imagine the whites surrendering to the dark-skinned soldiers? How would that have worked out?

With the kinds of awkward situations like that becoming a regular occurrence and having goodness-knows-what effects on group-to-group relationships, heh, I bet a global war might have been followed by a bunch of civil wars!

OOC: :confused: This post makes little sense. Colonial wars had been fought long before WWI was ever an option.


OOC:
Colonial wars, overall, consist of Europeans smashing the "natives" with superior firepower/technology.

The "hypothetical" world war would, according to my IC post, consist perhaps of non-European soldiers bearing the banner of European "great powers" onto the battlefield. Thus, my IC wondered, how would it go if X European soldiers got captured by X "martial caste" draftees from such and such's empire? Oh the potential indignity of it, thought my IC pov, of European soldiers compelled to surrender to non-European soldiers and relate to them as peers, etc. I am heavily hinting that racism is in much more vigorous shape in this timeline than in our timeline.

In essence, I am saying that colonial wars are a different set of circumstances from a "Global War" where an empire's non-white soldiers could end up fighting white soldiers as equals or if victorious as superiors and then demanding respect from their prisoners at gunpoint.

For an example of what happens when "modern" racism intersects with non-colonial warfare, look at the American Civil War. Look how Confederates handled those they took custody of: white Union soldiers were taken prisoner, black Union soldiers would be shot. I wonder how many black soldiers, if presented with Confederate prisoners, had that information in mind and considered some kind of retaliation.
 
OOC:
Colonial wars, overall, consist of Europeans smashing the "natives" with superior firepower/technology.

OOC: True, but there are some exceptions. See below.

The "hypothetical" world war would, according to my IC post, consist perhaps of non-European soldiers bearing the banner of European "great powers" onto the battlefield. Thus, my IC wondered, how would it go if X European soldiers got captured by X "martial caste" draftees from such and such's empire? Oh the potential indignity of it, thought my IC pov, of European soldiers compelled to surrender to non-European soldiers and relate to them as peers, etc. I am heavily hinting that racism is in much more vigorous shape in this timeline than in our timeline.

In essence, I am saying that colonial wars are a different set of circumstances from a "Global War" where an empire's non-white soldiers could end up fighting white soldiers as equals or if victorious as superiors and then demanding respect from their prisoners at gunpoint.

OOC: Ever heard of the First Italo-Ethiopian War? That pretty much makes your IC post, regardless of how racist your IC character might be, a bit nonsensical.
 
Yes, this is plausible, but you ignored the development of defence technologies. Do you remember the Marginot Fortresses? The French bunkers which neutralized so many native rebels in Asia and Africa? Have entire European armies safely sitting behind such fortified positions, firing at each other daily, and cause single-digit casualty: that's how a European War might look like.

Very true. So battlefields would have some kind of binary transition: either you are very safe, in the fortifications, or you are instantly dead, if you go outside. And the 20s was still too early for significant air support, paradropping or the use of armored vehicles to bypass/crush the fortifications.
 
It would be interesting in an abstract way, to see how such a war would have worked at the time. As people have pointed out it would be in between two types of warfare. The classic Nepolionic warfare and the lighting fast armored warfare of the modern age. Kind of a fun thought experiment to think how they would try to fight it.
 
It would be interesting in an abstract way, to see how such a war would have worked at the time. As people have pointed out it would be in between two types of warfare. The classic Nepolionic warfare and the lighting fast armored warfare of the modern age. Kind of a fun thought experiment to think how they would try to fight it.

Nobody would be insane enough to frontally charge machine gun emplacements (at least, not more than once), so I guess armies would try to break through the weakest point of the enemy line and pour troops through to force a tactical envelopment. Though how well this would work without armored vehicles is up to debate.
 
Well, we came really close to a global war during the Serbian-Austrian War of 1914. It was a good thing that nations did not hold by their alliances and they were suddenly dissolved. Sure it was a curb stomp and Serbia was annexed, but I think in the long run many lives were saved.
 
Well, we came really close to a global war during the Serbian-Austrian War of 1914. It was a good thing that nations did not hold by their alliances .

The Asian/Pacific War proves how potientially bloody a global war might have been. Over one million dead in combat between the four principle nations and several million civilian casualties.

I have to wonder at this point how the US Army would have developed if involved in such a global grand conflict. The eventual US involvement in the Asian/Pacific War of 1937-1944 was about it for major operations, and only the counter invasion of the Phillipines was larger than a corps. In terms of ground operations the US was smallest player in this war.

Probablly participation in a global or world war before 1940 would have benefited the US Army in experience at operations larger than a light brigade. Army staff work in the various Pacific island battle, the Phillipines, Formosa ect... had a lot of holes. Various reforms and improvements to the officer schools from 1900 gave a solid theoretical foundation, but there was not much practical experience. Unlike the Japanese who had conducted large scale manuvers for decades and then refined their staff skills in several years of combat experience in China. While the French also lacked army scale combat experience their large conscript army allowed at least field exercises for the corps & army staff officers. Colonial operations had their role in refining the French operational staff skills as well.

Both the US and French soldiers suffered at the hands of the Japanese until experience accumulated. As one observer put it "These Americans learn amazingly fast. They are turning the Japanese strengths into liabilities." That is perhaps a exaggeration, and the French under Tassigny showed a great deal of innovation in the invasion of Formosa & their smaller operations along the China coast. Still the Allied Republics soldiers were much better led and capable in 1943-44 vs 1941 or 42.

After the Pacific/Asian War there was some debate in the US as to creating a large reserve and active service army. In 1946 the Army CoS Arnold proposed a active service Army of 500,000 a reserve of 100,000 trained officers for war time call up and a "State Guard" trained to Regular Army standards of 600,000 - 700,000 men & officers. It is clear Congress never would have funded half that but President Taft simply tossed the proposal in the waste basket. Since then the US Army has never grown larger than 250,000 & averaged closer to 200,000, with a reserve of trained officers & NCOs varying between 40,000 & 60,000. The states militias have been so poorly trained & administered it has never been clear what their real or effective strength has been. The moblization during the Fourth Mexican Revolution in 1978 turned out about 150,000 state militia after 180 days of chaos and wasted motion. How capable any of them were at modern combat is highly questionable. There have been efforts at reform in the thirty five years since but the political and social club aspect of the militias inevitablly interfere. Even today some state miltia regiments have nothing resembling a modern field uniform. They turn out in parade dress dating back to the Civil War.

Since the Pacific War the US Army did take the lesson of up to date training to heart. While small the NCO & officer training has been greatly improved and the various small actions since show a reasonable capability. Unfortunatly the small size and lack of a ready reserve of any significance has hampered the US in enforcing its best interests in a number of international crisis through the latter 20th Century. The US navy can show up anywhere we need it in a hurry, but there is no depth or staying power behind in in the Army Ground or Air Forces.

One effect of the small size of the US Army was the USN creating its own army out of its Marine companies. This went back to the base defense battalions & expeditionary battalions of 1910 - 1925. Those were expanded in the 1920s into the inovative combined arms "Expeditionary" Brigades, which proved their worth in the Asian Pacific War. Tho the Taft administration ordered those dissolved post 1946 they were reprieved as essential to the USN bases and operations in the Pacific, and globally, to the present day. The 60,000 man USMC with its three combined arms brigades or air, ground, & support forces (plus a fourth made up of ready reservists) have proved useful & several other nations naval forces have developed similar 'afloat' expeditionary forces.

How the US Army or Navy might have developed given some other larger war during the 20th Century is impossible to say. Perhaps something like the Arnold board proposal would have become accepted as necessary. That propoal projected a large portion of the regular army and ready reserve officers/NCO forming a cadre for some four million recruits. By 1946 standards that was a army of some fifty plus divisions and a similar number of airwings of 200+ aircraft each. A army of that size boggles the mind. I've seen OB for the old European 'reservist' armies of the first third of the 20th Century that in theory could field a even larger force of up to 100 divisions on full mobilization, and those were large robust formations, not the anemic four or five thousand man divisions China fielded against Japan. The European conscripted reservist infantry division of 1910 or 1930 was a massive thing of 20,000 to 25,000 infantry & artillerymen. So in theory the US could have fielded something of that size. Certainly the number of aircraft built for the Asian/Pacifc War & the number of bomber wings deployed was impressive.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Well, we came really close to a global war during the Serbian-Austrian War of 1914. It was a good thing that nations did not hold by their alliances and they were suddenly dissolved. Sure it was a curb stomp and Serbia was annexed, but I think in the long run many lives were saved.

Not a curb stomp, by any stretch. The Serbs killed over a hundred thousand Hapsburg troops and held out for more than a year.
 
It would be interesting in an abstract way, to see how such a war would have worked at the time. As people have pointed out it would be in between two types of warfare. The classic Nepolionic warfare and the lighting fast armored warfare of the modern age. Kind of a fun thought experiment to think how they would try to fight it.

Depends on the year. Motorization & aircraft did not start to become operationally important until the 1930s. Even in 1944 the battlefield in China was mostly swarms of infantry being swatted down by horse drawn artillery. Through the 1920s any large scale war would not be much different from the pre 1914 Balkan Wars or the Austrian-Serbian war of 1914-1915. The Rif War in Morroco in the 1920s is a example as is the Chaco War in South America. The French mechanized corps deployed to force the Japanese out of the Red River basin & similar mechanized units with armored vehicles, operating like a petrol fueled cavalry on Formosa & the Phillipines or in China heralded a wafare different from the slower infantry/artillery operations seen through the early 1940s.
 
We nearly had a global war in 1912 with Turkey invading the Balkans, I think that was even closer than the Austria/Serbia incident.

The Balkan Wars hardly count as "Turkey invading the Balkans", for one reason because "Turkey" didn`t exist until the Arab revolutions detroyed the Ottoman Empire and for second because the Ottomans lost almost all of their possesions in Europe. This is the reason why Hadrianopolis is not named Edirne these days, you know.
 
Have wars ever really that expansive? History seems to inflate the size of conflicts in the past but until Napoleon most wars wern't that big in scale just really long compaired to what became more of the norm later. It seems like Napoleon's wars and the Pacific conflict are more exceptions to the rule.
 
Have wars ever really that expansive? History seems to inflate the size of conflicts in the past but until Napoleon most wars wern't that big in scale just really long compaired to what became more of the norm later. It seems like Napoleon's wars and the Pacific conflict are more exceptions to the rule.

I guess it depends on what one defines as 'Global War'. The Seven Years War, or the Napoleonic Wars were global, and the Napoleonic Wars were large. Conversely the Seven Years War was sedate, and more limited in terms of resources mobilized, but it was still fought across five of the seven continents.

The Asian/Pacific War was the largest since 1815, Japan and China expended enourmous treasure over seven years, and the Allied Republics of the US and France spent a fair bit of coin as well. All four principal opponents built up large military forces, even the unwarlike US eventually having over one million men in uniform. ..and of course over one million soldiers and several million civilians died. However that war was never global the way the Seven Years war was, with fighting confined to China and some Pacific islands like the Phillipines, Formosa or the atolls of the central Pacifc.

Some folks have the argument the independance revolts against the European empires represent a late 20th Century 'global war'. Perhaps, but these have not been any sort of unified military event, but intermittent and dispersed conflicts with only the political goal of independance in common.
 
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It seems like Napoleon's wars and the Pacific conflict are more exceptions to the rule.

You do have something of a point there. The only other war remotely of the scale of those two was the 19th Century Taiping revolt in China. Huge armies mobilized, lasted for several years, lots of dead. Since medieval times it seems large scale wars with lots of bloodshed have become rarer.
 
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