World War 2 without America

Certainly.

Without acknowledging the fact of the butterfly effect, conquering the United States is a tremendous undertaking, physically impossible with the troops Britain had there in OTL. So the Brits are diverting large scale forces from Europe to the New World, which will affect the fighting in Spain and Portugal. Given that subduing some backwoods parts of the States would take years, even with a miraculous series of victories, this military commitment will still be very much ongoing when Napoleon busts out of Elba. The British will not be in nearly as good a position to contribute to defeating him, which means it's the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians that put him down at last. Already that will alter the final peace settlement. You could even argue that Monsieur Bonaparte had a shot of fending everyone off, though I doubt it.

A Britain that annexes the US has by necessity a vastly different foreign policy than any we'd know in our timeline. That starts affecting Europe from the Concert of Vienna, but will be blatantly obvious once events like the Belgian secession and Crimean War arrive.

Not that they would arrive. The butterfly effect stands in their way.

To be brief, the effect states that a very small event can trigger very large events in a chaotic system, like the weather. So any change means that weather, among other things, across the globe diverges from OTL almost immediately.

What does weather matter? Well, weather has a very real effect on the outcome of battles, from medieval times into World War II. It's not just a matter of ambushes and escapes in the fog. Rain effects gunpowder weapons until breachloaders. Cloud cover determines the role of air power and reconnaissance. Mud traps knights and tanks. Even more than that, the weather decides where and when battles occur, something that alone can determine who wins. And battles do tend to have a role in wars, dontcha know.

Cloud cover influences whether or not you get cancer. Heavy snows keep everyone inside, where many of them get pregnant and a few get murdered by their drunk spouses. Ships are lost at sea, some with admirals, scientists, philosophers. Revolutions are very often triggered (not "caused" mind) by food shortages. Usually bread. The availability of enough bread to feed everyone is determined by the weather.

Change anything and you change the weather. Change the weather and everything starts to change. May Ashton Kutcher be devoured by ants.
 
The British winning ARW is most likely to increase the chance of a French revolution, unless it is a very early and decisive victory.
I find that the most interesting thing about this. A Brit victory isn't usually considered in that light, from anything I've seen. (Not to say I've seen a great deal...)

As a question: was it possible for the appearance of a legion of infantry with Ferguson rifles to win at King's Mountain & give the Brits a victory in ARW? (S. M. Stirling proposes it in Marching Through Georgia.)
if they defeated in a bleeding contest on the battlefield we have a TL very much like the OTL WWI, although it will probably be over a year or two earlier (the American resources can be utilised from the start and will have to wait until April 1917).

Without Wilson or other American "moderators" the Versailles treaty is likley to be at least as harsh as in OTL - so we have WWII starting all over again.
Actually, not. Wilson succeeded in splitting the difference. It's been said either of the 2 other options, a war of exhaustion & a "reboot" peace where everybody goes back to their prewar borders & shuts up, or a crushing treaty, on the model of the Partition of Poland, would have been better for subsequent history than what arose OTL, which only postponed the issue & directly led to WW2.
 
*sighs*

British win American Revolution -> No French economic crash & example of anti-royalist revolutionaries -> No French Revolution -> No Napoleonic Wars -> No Congress of Vienna -> No German nationalism -> No Franco-Prussian War -> No WW1 -> No WW2.

I'm not a butterfly fundamentalist like some here, but please :rolleyes:

Pictures of what a world without an ARW, or a British victory in it, would look like include Turtledove&Dreyfuss' The Two Georges and Chris Carrier Wars. Without the French Revolution disrupting the world system there most probably wouldn't be ANY world wars as we understand the term, not total wars based on ideology.

So a British USA will only cause peace and happiness, how unrealistic is that? Go anglophiles!

I still think that any way the MAIN (militarism-allies-industrialism-nationalism) reasons for WWI will somehow develop albeit in different ways and the winner will still most likely be harsh against the winner. So we may even see another Versailles situation. Where the loser's economy collapses. The question is what measures the country will go to to get out of the depression.

However, facism is unlikely. So I feel that there will only be a first world war but not a second.
 
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