Help Wanted To Extend WWI

What I'd like as a setting for an upcoming project of mine (kinda STALKER meets Frankenstein, not exactly rock-hard sci-fi, but hopefully historically hard if you disregard the unexplained phenomena) is a hellish wasteland slowly being reclaimed by nature, populated by a small number of survivors. I figured that a good way to get this was to expand the duration and death toll of my favourite war, World War One.
I want it to have as much widespread destruction and long-term depopulation as (at least somewhat realistically) possible.

Thoughts?

PS: Bonus points if the Soviet Union still forms ;)
PPS: Thought about tanks, whether the Germans had them, or no-one at all did, but I suck at catching butterflies, as it were...
 
That'd certainly help the death toll, but I'm afraid I don't follow how it drags out the war or ruins the environment.
 
That'd certainly help the death toll, but I'm afraid I don't follow how it drags out the war or ruins the environment.

Somehow have each nation believe the other released the Flu on the population and have them go balls to the wall on chemical warfare
 
Spanish Flu is a good plan, but how about the war itself? (The meat-grinder-y murder-parts, for instance)
 
I figured that a good way to get this was to expand the duration and death toll of my favourite war, World War One.

Of the ways to turn Earth, or even Europe, into a "hellish wasteland", extending WWI would be nowhere near the top of my list -- extending the war would have other cool effects, sure, but likely not that.
 
Just prolonging the war probably means significantly more people starve to death in Germany due to the blockade. Which is a hard limit on the war, really; much longer and Germany will be physically unable to continue fighting.

But yeah, having the war turn Europe into a wasteland is hard to do. Easier with World War II, and with a World War III the problem becomes keeping it from becoming a wasteland.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
Instead of Spanish flu, how about a massive horse epidemic? Have Europe lose 80% of its horses in the winter of 1917-18 in a one month period when there's heavy snow and no fighting.

That would be hell in Europe at the time as everything would grind to a halt
 
General Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the BEF, and General Henry Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army, have been criticised ever since, for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916 Winston Churchill criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since.

However in ATL Churchill comes up with defensive strategy where the allied forces separate them themself from attack from the Germans by flooding some areas, large scale use of landmines and creating large earthern barriers in others. The idea being the Germans will have to bring the fight to them fighting through the various barriers and the allies would have the advantage.
The germans follow suit with the western front becomes a long string of parallel fortifications.
 
I think the problem with WWI turning Europe into a "vast wasteland" is that trench warfare took place over a relatively small area, unlike WWII blitzkrieg.

What might work is to have the front move slowly across either Central or Entente territory, with enough pauses to allow as much land as possible to take it's turn as no man's land between the lines. Then, to finish the job, it must push its way back again through the other side's lands, until everything has been fought over at least once. I think you're looking at a WWI that wouldn't conclude until after OTL's WWII.


(That is, unless you can construct some sort of merry-go-round where France pushes through all of Italy, while Italy forces its way across all of A-H, the Austrians battle through European Russia, as the Russians march across Germany while the Germans push across France.)

I think that, long before this, everyone may just drag themselves to a meeting table and decide, officially, "Let's just say that the Archduke got better", and call it a wrap.
 

SinghKing

Banned
Take chemical and biological warfare into high gear; make these warheads the primary bombs carried by early strategic bombers (with the use of WMD warheads from the earliest stage required to make these bombers combat-effective, in spite of their extremely low bomb-loads and bombing accuracy) in strategic bombing raids against enemy cities. In this way, you would get "as much widespread destruction and long-term depopulation as (at least somewhat realistically) possible."

Extending the duration of the conflict, though; you'd probably have to look further afield for that, beyond the European Theatre, making it into a proper 'World War' by opening up other theatres of WW1, because Europe on its own wouldn't be able to sustain their war efforts for much longer than they did IOTL (even with the added jingoism and mass outrage provoked by the bio-chemical strategic bombings of their cities). Perhaps China could be brought into WW1, by the Entente and Central Powers being more forthright and open in their allegiances after the death of Yuan Shikai- effectively turning OTL's Chinese Warlord Era into TTL's Chinese Theatre of WW1 instead (with the Japanese-supported Anhui clique joining WW1 on the side of the Entente, and the Zhili clique gaining enough support from the Germans and Austro-Hungarians to join WW1 on the side of the Central Powers).
 
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