Hyper destructive war in western europe

With a pod after 1900, have the most destructive possible war take place in western europe. Now, this seems like a dumb question, because plenty of those have happened otl right?

But nothing in western europe has ever matched the carnage that was the Eastern Front of ww2. Would be it be possible to have a post 1900 war in western europe with levels of brutality and carnage seen in the ww2 eastern front?

Maybe an integralist France vs fascist (not nessecarily Nazi) Germany?

What effects would this have in the region, Europe and the world? How would it affect the colonies? How much would it affect the involved countries' positions on the world stage?
 
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Look, lets just ignore the clear death fantasy scenario you want to visualize here(which is not allowed here).

The brutal fighting and high casualties on the eastern front are cause by multiple things that are simply impossible for western europe. One of them being the huge swath of land that was covered during the campaign. Western europe, doesn't have that. Another one is the huge amount of manpower used and available during the campaign which western europe also doesn't have. So though luck.

Even if you would go for percentages there is no way that percentage(13 percent of the population dead) can be used before the territory is either conquered or armies have dug-in. You won't see them redo WWI only worse. I mean you are talking about 4 million dead French people, civilan and military. Don't.
 

nbcman

Donor
With a pod after 1900, have the most destructive possible war take place in western europe. Now, this seems like a dumb question, because plenty of those have happened otl right?

But nothing in western europe has ever matched the carnage that was the Eastern Front of ww2. Would be it be possible to have a post 1900 war in western europe with levels of brutality and carnage seen in the ww2 eastern front?

Maybe an integralist France vs fascist (not nessecarily Nazi) Germany?

What effects would this have in the region, Europe and the world? How would it affect the colonies? How much would it affect the involved countries' positions on the world stage?
WWIII going nuclear/thermonuclear along with the liberal application of chemical and biological agents would do it. But that would devastate large portions of the rest of the world creating a mega-dystopia just short of an extinction event.
 

Deleted member 1487

I supposed it things bogged down in May 1940 instead of the sickle cut succeeding then things could get pretty nasty. Hard to see it getting to the level of WW1, but perhaps. Hitler thought it would cost 1 million German lives to conquer France before the success of OTL.
 
Look, lets just ignore the clear death fantasy scenario you want to visualize here(which is not allowed here).

The brutal fighting and high casualties on the eastern front are cause by multiple things that are simply impossible for western europe. One of them being the huge swath of land that was covered during the campaign. Western europe, doesn't have that. Another one is the huge amount of manpower used and available during the campaign which western europe also doesn't have. So though luck.

Even if you would go for percentages there is no way that percentage(13 percent of the population dead) can be used before the territory is either conquered or armies have dug-in. You won't see them redo WWI only worse. I mean you are talking about 4 million dead French people, civilan and military. Don't.
You may find the scenario distasteful, but having just reread the forum rules, this thread does not break them.
 
Look, lets just ignore the clear death fantasy scenario you want to visualize here(which is not allowed here).
I am not creating a death fantasy scenario, goodness no.

It's just that eastern europe sustained insanely high damage in ww2 that left scars still felt today. I am merely wondering what if something similar happened in western europe.
 
Look, if the Western Front of the First World War, which produced literally millions of human corpses in a series of charnel pits stretching from Ypres to the Somme, cannot be considered destructive... well, then what can?
 
Look, if the Western Front of the First World War, which produced literally millions of human corpses in a series of charnel pits stretching from Ypres to the Somme, cannot be considered destructive... well, then what can?
It is destructive, clearly. But not as much as the eastern front of ww2.

Are the ww1 trenches the maximum possible for western Europe or something?
 
It's just that eastern europe sustained insanely high damage in ww2 that left scars still felt today. I am merely wondering what if something similar happened in western europe.
And there are still plenty of scars from WW1 left in Western Europe.
I believe that the issue is just how densely packed things are in Western Europe, post 1900 it’s hard to see the same vast scale of see-sawing back and forth. Either things stalemate in place, or one side collapses.
Prior to 1900 you get some crazy things happening OTL like the thirty years war but it’s hard to see that sort of thing happening with modern transport, industry etc.
Your best bet is likely to have some sort of mass civil war type thing with France, UK and Germany all having various coups/revolutions and then it degenerates into a mad max apocalypse of assorted revolutionaries, reactionaries, hyper-nationalists and what not battling each other in a very disorganised fashion with no regard for borders.
 
With a pod after 1900, have the most destructive possible war take place in western europe. Now, this seems like a dumb question, because plenty of those have happened otl right?

But nothing in western europe has ever matched the carnage that was the Eastern Front of ww2. Would be it be possible to have a post 1900 war in western europe with levels of brutality and carnage seen in the ww2 eastern front?

Maybe an integralist France vs fascist (not nessecarily Nazi) Germany?

What effects would this have in the region, Europe and the world? How would it affect the colonies? How much would it affect the involved countries' positions on the world stage?
Maybe an hot Cold War in the years directly after WW2 ?
 
Another Timeline here is Blunted Sickle (which is currently on thread #2). The Germans take Paris and then get cut off. (They also fail to take within the Waterline for the Netherlands Warfare in Northern France, Benelux and the Ruhr is at higher levels than OTL. (May not be violent enough for you).
 
And there are still plenty of scars from WW1 left in Western Europe.
Are there? I did not think there was much left.

In eastern europe now, the political climate is very tense, and many countries still hate or mistrust each other. By comparison, western Europe is all buddy buddy with each other. France and Benelux, despite being at war with Germany not too long ago, entered a close political and economic union with it very soon. It took quite a while before anti German feelings in eastern europe cooled down enough (which would slowly be replaced by anti russian/soviet freelings) or them to do the same.

I was thinking that if some utterly massive war took place in western europe, and no greater threat like the ussr came about afterward, there would be a lot more lingering resentment between France and Germany.
 
The Germans retreat from Normandy and fight a long defensive battle through France using scorched-earth tactics. Having the SS death squads go around and execute anyone with a college degree or who might be useful in rebuilding France would make things even worse long-term/
 
I supposed it things bogged down in May 1940 instead of the sickle cut succeeding then things could get pretty nasty. Hard to see it getting to the level of WW1, but perhaps. Hitler thought it would cost 1 million German lives to conquer France before the success of OTL.

Might that trigger a renewed wave of German atrocities against the civilian population on the grounds of ‘francs tireurs’?
 

Deleted member 1487

Might that trigger a renewed wave of German atrocities against the civilian population on the grounds of ‘francs tireurs’?
If things got long and bloody in conquering France I could see that happening.
 
Are there? I did not think there was much left.

In eastern europe now, the political climate is very tense, and many countries still hate or mistrust each other. By comparison, western Europe is all buddy buddy with each other. France and Benelux, despite being at war with Germany not too long ago, entered a close political and economic union with it very soon. It took quite a while before anti German feelings in eastern europe cooled down enough (which would slowly be replaced by anti russian/soviet freelings) or them to do the same.

I was thinking that if some utterly massive war took place in western europe, and no greater threat like the ussr came about afterward, there would be a lot more lingering resentment between France and Germany.

Eastern Europe could have seen the relations between nations and peoples heal a lot more after WWII (even if not to the extent Western Europe has seen) had the Soviets not proceeded to hold several countries hostage for over four decades after the war. For the Soviets (or at least most of them), the USSR's postwar domination of Eastern Europe probably was a reassuring and healing state of affairs after the massive losses caused by the war, but in most other nations in the WarPac the situation was felt as a continuing string of insults added to wartime injuries. The political climate in Eastern Europe today is as much a product of the USSR's treatment of the neighbouring nations and peoples in between 1939-45 and 1990 (and Russia's attempts to recreate some of the same dynamic in the last couple of decades) as it is about the events of WWII.
 
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