CHALLENGE! Convince England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to become American states! Think of what London would be like as an American city! Think of Irishmen in solidarity with their brothers in the U.S.A.!
Now, if this sounds preposterous, please allow me to point out that Hawaii was a "united kingdom" ruled by a king and queen, yet it became a U.S. state.
Exciting, or what?
Here’s a silly idea.
It’s been four years since the Great War began, and since then the once eager European powers have been reduced to demoralized shells of their former selves. With Russia now embroiled in socialist revolution, Britain, France, and Italy are now running on fumes, their soldiers demoralized and their peoples starving.
Britain and France, on the breaking point, pray for America to jump in on their side and turn the tide of the war. However, the American people, who had eagerly supported the imperialist Spanish-American War only 20 years ago, now want no part in the European bloodshed. With no hope of outside help in sight, the Entente begins to fall apart.
First Italy signs a treaty with Austria-Hungary after workers revolt in Milan, losing no territory but knocking it out of the war.
Then France, her army and people having suffered the most, breaks out into civil war, her government forced to sign a treaty with Germany ceding land in the north so that it can focus on containing the rebels who have raised the red flags of the old Commune in Paris.
Finally Great Britain. Inspired by their comrades in Paris and Milan and Petrograd, the proletariat of Britain rise up, joined by Irish nationalists, to end the corrupt government that got them into this destructive war in the first place. With chaos reigning in Britain and the Royal family forced to flee from London the British government agrees to peace, ending the Great War in 1919.
Eventually the Entente rebellions are crushed, killed by their own disorganization. Throughout the 1920s Britain, France, and Italy start to normalize as their economies stabilize.
Russia also returns to an authoritarian republic after Denikin takes Moscow with help from the Germans. The Entente tries to ease itself into this new
Pax Germanica, but tensions are still high as they hold deep grudges against the Germans.
America remains unperturbed by this. Content in their isolation, the American people enjoy the fruits of war as European nations buy their goods and food.
Then in 1929 the American and German stock exchanges crash, sending the world into the Great Depression. The nationalistic tendencies bubbling under the surfaces of the former Entente break out as Britain, France, Italy, and Russia all veer to the far right. Dictators emerge. Churchill in Britain. Petain in France. Mussolini in Italy. Russia returns to the monarchy with the Romanovs taking back the throne. Genocides occur, with Jews, Socialists, and dissidents being the primary targets. In Ireland, British troops lead killings against the Irish.
The work of social democrats in Germany and the New Deal in America prevent those nations from falling too, but the damage has been down, and the road to another war has begun.
1939: the former Entente team up once more to strike down the German eagle once and for all. Now much stronger and more militarized than ever, they push the Germans all the way past the Rhine, while the Russians threaten Berlin after their massive armies flood Eastern Europe.
1941: Britain, fearing America’s strength, conducts a pre-emptive attack along America’s coasts. President Roosevelt declares war on the Entente, jointing the Germans. Canada is quickly seized, and the naval Battle of the Atlantic begins between America and Germany, and Britain. The allies (America, Germany) is formed.
1944-1945: The War is almost over. With American help Germany has pushed the western Entente back across the Rhine, while Russia’s advance in the east has stalled, and been pushed back. Finally, Paris falls, and Americans and Germans march triumphantly into the city. The British, however, refuse to give up. Despite the destruction of His Magesty’s Royal Navy and the blockade of the island, as well as the American invasion of Ireland, the British government still won’t give up, with Supreme Lord Churchill declaring that the British will “Never surrender”. The British force the American hand. On June 6th, 1944, the Americans invade Britain from the west, while Germany invades from the south. After some gains the invasion stalls from massive British resistance, products of ideological brainwashing from the ruling parties. King Edward commands all able British citizens, whether they be English, Welsh, or Scottish, child or elderly, to defend their island to the death. All while King Edward and his family prepare to evacuate themselves to loyal South Africa. Faced with the possibility of further destruction and death for their own soldiers and for the remaining civilians of Britain, America and Germany decide to end the war quickly with a new bomb. In August of 1945, atom bombs developed by the Germans are dropped on Portsmouth and Devonport. With the threat of further attacks from the Americans, as well as the Germans surrounding London, Supreme Lord Churchill surrenders to the Allies. America occupies the destroyed islands of Ireland and Great Britain.
With millions of British dead, and with almost no infrastructure left, the islands were left as husks. America would hold onto the islands to redevelop them. As more and more American soldiers and British women married, the culture of Britain become more and more Americanized. Eventually, the islands would be annexed into the United States, becoming the states of Ireland, Scotland, Northumbria, Wales, Midlands, Wessex and London.
This is a very inaccurate scenario, but it could be possible in another world.