World Wars in Your TLs

Yes, how many of you out there who have an industrial-era global conflicts? Can you describe them about the PODs, the participants, the causes, the aftermaths, anything?

Thanks in advance!
 
Chaos TL:

POD: 1200, Genghis Khan dies.

Situation in early 20th century: There are three German states (one in Europe, one in North Atlantis/America, one in Argentine/south Brazil) plus their colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, the New Roman Empire (Italy, Iberia, most of France, North Africa, India, most of Latin America, southern US) and two Russian states (one in Siberia, Alaska and north Russia, the other one in South Russia, Ukraine with influence in the Balcans and the Middle East). Germany's allies are the smaller eastern European states, Canada with its colonies in the Pacific, China, Nippon, Thailand, Persia, the Seljuk republic, and Braseal; New Rome and the Russias only have Judea as an ally. Thanks to their new weapon, the walzen ("steamrollers" = tanks), the Germans win after five hard years.

As IOTL, the losers thirst for revenge. New Rome was broken up, only Greater Italy survives (having lands and people in Europe, North Africa, North and South Atlantis), but the Russias still stand strong. About twenty years after the last war, they attack the German technocracy. This time the fight is even harder, the Italians and Russians even manage to occupy European Germany, but at the end, the Germans win because they were the first to invent nukes.

In both cases BTW, the Socialist Block (originally in Britain, later in western Europe) uses the opportunity to expand after the war, when the other powers can't prevent it.

And then there's also a WW3 between Germany+Canada and China... it doesn't take very long, less than one day, but the world will never be again as it was before.
 
In Up With the Star World War I lasts from 1916-1918 and pits the Central Powers against the Triple Entente. The Central Powers are the British Empire, the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Belgium, the Kingdom of Italy, Imperial Japan, and the United States. The Triple Entente is Imperial Russia, Greece, Serbia, Napoleon IV's Second Empire, and Austria. The Central Powers have overall the better economic position relative to their opponents, the Entente have numbers and are able to surround the primary Continental Central Power with three fronts to fight on.

World War I's ultimate cause is the same as IOTL, a growing rivalry between Germany and Russia and France that leads those two countries to form an alliance with each other in the 1890s. The alliance blocs differ because liberal Austria tilts toward the Second Empire more than it does toward Germany, reflecting the Francophilia of Archduke Maximilian, who lives as long as Francis Joseph did. Britain is alienated not by a German naval arms race, but instead by a Russian one.

The war itself comes in 1916 with the assassination of Crown Prince Rupprecht by the pro-Russian Dashnaks on a state visit to Istanbul, as the Ottoman victory in 1877 butterflies away recognizable circumstances to OTL WWI starting. Russia, Austria, and France simultaneously invade Germany, whose numbers throw back the French invasion, and enable it to reach the Marne along with the BEF where logistical reality prevents a short end to the war. The immediate Austrian invasion of south Germany also fails because while Austrian troops fight hard, Germany is organizationally superior same as Prussia was. Russia, whose army has on the whole become much more formidable by 1916 than OTL Russia was, invades East Prussia and wins initial battles but its logistical weakness limits its ability for a sustained set of offensives.

In 1916 the Ottomans also enter the war, defeating Greece and Serbia in initial rapid campaigns, and beginning a bloody stalemate with the Russians in the Caucasus. The USA adopts a rather more cautious pattern before entering the war as it risks defeat if it backs the losing side. In 1916 the war in France turns into an OTL-style stalemate, with both sides entering the escalating arms race, Germany begins to throw Austria back and by the end of 1916 is on Austrian soil.

In 1917 the Ottomans make successive attempts to take the Suez Canal and remain mired in a stalemate with Russia, both sides are stronger because both are fighting on fewer fronts. Russia continues to fight a war in East Prussia and defeats the one major German offensive aimed at German soil, the Germans and British remain mired in the stalemate in France. Japan, however, defeats the isolated French troops in Indochina and the African War is far larger than IOTL. By 1917 the sheer weight of Central Powers financial and economic superiority begins to tell and as they start winning the war of production Austria, which halts Italy on the Isonzo (it also has fewer fronts to fight on) starts to crumble while Japan and the Ottomans plan their final chapters toward winning this war.

In 1918 Japan lands near Vladivostok where it faces trench warfare against Russia, while the Russians and Ottomans remain in stalemate. An amphibious joint operation between the Ottomans and the British secures the Suez Canal for the Central Powers, while improved technology and tactics, plus US numbers that are themselves larger leads to a proto-blitzkrieg in the West, Austria signs an armistice when the Germans are near Vienna, while the growing privation in Russia starts to shift to starvation as Russia faces war alone and decides that when it has minimal enemy troops on its territory and is still in an overall position of strength, discretion is the greater part of valor.

The peace treaties that follow are harsh, and the French one pretty much removes France as a military factor for Round II. Russia derives from its WWI experience that the ticket to full hegemony in Europe is to build up its army more, and it develops following the Western Front's combined-arms tactics the concept of Deep Operations, embarking on the same militarized industrialization Stalinism did, though already-existing and accelerating industrialization (plus a dickish means of getting out of paying back its loans to France that sours relations between the two fora while) means it has more to do this with.

The Germans and Japanese face continual rivalry between military and civilian forces, though the interwar German army is the largest in Europe behind the Russian. The Ottomans, busy shifting to a more constitutional monarchy try for peace and happiness. Britain and the USA have other focuses. As WWI was payable in this ATL and the circumstances creating the OTL Great Depression never happen, the global economy is also overall rather stronger.

World War II happens as a result of the ROC's Consolidation War and the firming up of ties between the new Nationalist Chinese state and Imperial Russia, as the Chinese and the USA (in what becomes ultimately rather controversial) are backing the Viet Minh under Ho Chih Minh, who is OTL's Vo Nyguen Giap. By 1942 China's backing them is proven by Japan, which sees it as a casus belli. The ROC's large, mechanized armies attack Germany, Britain, and Japan simultaneously and inflict one of the most rapid and decisive curbstomps in the ATL's history of warfare.

The Central Powers are focused on China to the point that Russia's Operations Narva and Nevsky take them by surprise. Russia has a fully mechanized force (i.e. no horses whatsoever), one equipped with T-34s as it works on K-V1s and KV-2s and ultimately as well the T-35. Its troops ride to battle equipped with selective-fire Kalashkinovs, and have mobility beyond that of their Central Powers rivals. Sweden is attacked not near Stockholm where the bulk of Central Powers strength is concentrated and the assault is expected but instead in the more marshy terrain to the north, permitting the Russians to defeat Central Powers forces in detail.

Operation Nevsky sees immediate Russian gains but the larger and more well-led Imperial German forces are able to slow down its initial gains, moreso than the more chaotic Nazi German forces would have. Even so Russia's making very clear gains in East Prussia and also knocks Korea out of the Japanese Empire as it seeks to use Korea to bomb Japan to rubble and thereby force it to surrender.

Russian troops take fewer casualties in this Imperial Russia than their Soviet counterparts take, but are also less willing to die to the tune of tens of millions, though this Russia if it came to that could afford the losses. The Russian gains see various local setbacks as one of the New Men generals, Georgi Zhukov defeats British troops in Persia in Operation Lenkaren, aided by the Russian invasion of the Raj.

In 1943 the USA enters the war, and the two sides begin a phase of the war that sees large-scale offensives that are pushing the Russians steadily and inexorably through Europe, as the Russian weight of numbers and firepower and psychological edge is telling. The Chinese provide key aid to the campaigns in the Raj, while a Russian spoiling invasion of Alaska keeps the Central Powers out of Russia for the duration of this year. Russian troops overrun most of Central Europe in conjunction with Fascist Italian troops, and invade southern Germany as both sides, with Russian troops 43 miles from Berlin gear up for what's expected to be the decisive battle of the war.

The Central Powers armies gain jets and firepower equal to their Russian counterparts, both sides gain the atomic bomb. The Battle of the Oder is a strategic Russian defeat but more of a tactical stalemate, the high costs destroying the bulk of Russia's best troops, as does the fighting of Russians without jets against Central Powers troops with them. Both tactical and strategic nuclear war follows but neither side can bring the war to a decisive advantage over the other. The last punches, so to speak, in early 1945 leads Russia again to decide to ask for peace terms in a position of strength.

Whereupon it yields all the territory it occupied.....which not coincidentally was all the heavily fought over and most of the nuked territory. Russia is too strong for the Central Powers to defeat, but they are overall too strong for Russia and China to defeat, neither side has the "we must win at all costs" mentality that pervades in WWII IOTL.
 
In the world of Isaac's Empire, we have a Great War, and a Hundred Days War, both of which are fairly major, global affairs.

The Great War breaks out in September, 1718- and its immediate cause is the assassination of the Holy German Emperor by a Norwegian nationalist (in the world of IE, medieval Germany centralised and conquered Scandinavia, due to religious differences). The war takes place mostly along a Uniate Christian vs. a Catholic Christian split, with Uniate Portugal and Vinland initially facing off against Catholic Britain and the Reich. Other powers are quickly pulled in.

The war initially begins with an attack on Vinland by German colonial militias from New Germany and Barbarenland, which is an area that stretches from OTL New England to Ohio. Portugal declares war on Germany to protect Vinland, Britain supports Germany, and, to complete the opening phase, Spain (a radically republican and heretical country) opportunistically attacks Portugal. Portugal, a naval superpower with a relatively weak land army, is caught by surprise and quickly loses a lot of territory.

The Germans, meanwhile, fearing an intervention in the war by the powerful Roman Empire, launch a pre-emptive attack on Hungary, so that they can install a friendly Government in Budapest, and establish garrisons on the Roman frontier to dissuade Constantinople from entry into the war. Unfortunately for the Germans, Hungarian resistance proves tougher than expected, and Hungary's Polish allies choose to attack an overstretched Germany, which quickly brings the whole Eastern Front to a standstill.

The British, seeking to complete knock out Portugal, attempt to launch an attack on the coastal city of Porto Novo, which is located near to OTL New Orleans. Unfortunately for the British, their naval expedition ends in an unmitigated disaster, and the Portuguese and their allies retain total naval supremacy.

In 1719, a massive uprising in Scandinavia forces the Germans to draw troops away from the Eastern Front, ending hopes of a grand offensive to knock Poland and Hungary out of the war. In Africa, the two powerful Sultanates of Ifriqiya and Timbuktu enter the war, on the Portuguese and German sides, respectively. An attempted Ifriqiyan invasion of Spain is defeated, but Timbuktu is able to almost totally overrun the Basque colonies of North Africa. Meanwhile, the Aztecs of Mexica enter the war on the German side, and attack Portuguese colonies in the New World. Nonetheless, the war remains essentially a stalemate in its most crucial theatres.

Stalemate is broken at the very end of the year, when Russia joins the German side, and invades Poland, placing the Eastern Front in a very different situation. 1720 thus is a very different year. The small, elite state of Lombardy declares war on the so called "League of Empires", invading German Helvetia with a great degree of success. The Khanate of Persia also attacks Russia from the south, creating a pocket of breathing space for Poland. Poland is ultimately liberated by China, though, which provides the Polish with the secret of the "Dragon", IE world's first aeroplane. These innovations, plus skilled leadership, allow the Polish and Hungarians to cling to existence.

A major German defeat in Poland in the summer of 1721 prompts a coup within the Reich, which quickly becomes something of a civil war, with the Helvetians adopting the deposed Emperor, Hans II, as their true ruler. The Germans in Hamburg, decide to carry out a bloody genocide of the Helvetian rebels over the winter of 1721/22, which is responsible for the deaths of well over a million people.

The latter part 1721 generally sees the League of Empires appearing triumphant. The Germans decisively defeat the Vinlander-Iroquois alliance, and expel them from their New World colonies. Meanwhile, a Portuguese attempt to seize the British fortress-city of Williamstown on the OTL Isthmus of Panama ends in a crushing defeat at the hands of the British and Aztecs, jeopardising Portuguese control of the seas. Rhomania, meanwhile, inches closer to entering the war, under heavy provocation from her rivals in Russia and Bahrain.

Finally, in 1722, Constantinople enters the war, and the balance of power tips decisively away from the League of Empires. Poland, Hungary and Lombardy are all reinforced, and the Eastern Front begins to move westward steadily, closer and closer to German territory. The British Indian Ocean fleet is destroyed, and the British are expelled from their denuded and restive African colonies.

Desperate, now, for victory, the Germans and Spanish gamble on one last great offensive, and totally occupy the important Uniate power of Navarre-Toulouse, hoping, by doing so, to bring the war to an end with an approximate status quo. Unfortunately for them, Germany is unexpectedly backstabbed by the British at the beginning of October 1723. This reverse prompts yet another coup in Hamburg, and causes Germany's main remaining allies, Russia and the Aztecs, to sue for peace. Revolutionary Spain collapses into a civil war. Germany battles on alone for another few weeks, but finally surrenders on December 4th, 1723.

The Treaty of Prague then ensues. Which does not end well.
 
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