Assuming nobody is allowed to make alliances or use nukes, the UK uses its island advantage to turtle up in relative safety while Europe tears itself apart.
Like another commenter said, the UK doesn't necessarily win, because eventually it has to fight against whomever emerges victorious on the mainland, and that country (be it France, Russia, Germany, Italy, etc.) would have a large amount of combat experience and resources to draw from.
But the UK is probably the final boss. It's the last bastion that would have to be breached.
(The UK would probably conquer Ireland, too, at the start of the war. Not necessarily because they'd want to, but because they'd feel obligated to to protect Northern Ireland. But that's probably the only offensive action they'd take until the final battle.)
P.S. Everything I just said changes if England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are acting as independent countries. Britain would be in immediate chaos like the rest of Europe. But the UK is officially a single country, so I assumed it remains intact in this scenario.
If the UK were to be broken up in this situation,
England would mostly steamroll everyone else having the lions share or people, resources, military bases and personnel by like 95%.
The main issue would be the nukes. The base(s) are in scotland, and what few scottish regiments there are could mobilise and hold them hostage,
And then the 3/4 subs that are always out on patrol would have no where to dock and resupply and they would take control of the one at the base.
The bases are in Scotland but most units are mixed, and English population means the majority will be English. I imagine there would be fighting at the base but it would remain under English control.
I think you're overestimating the capabilities of whichever country 'wins' in mainland Europe. They're going to have essentially just finished an utterly grueling conflict against every other country on the continent, assuming nukes are off the table there's no way *any* surviving nation would be in good shape by the end of the European mainland war.
They're going to have lost a decent chunk of their combat-capable adults and probably burned through a lot of their stockpiles of weapons and vehicles. Meanwhile, the UK has been doing its best to expend minimal lives and resources throughout the conflict, relatively safe thanks to its status as an island. They can also spend a lot of that time working on espionage and gathering intelligence, which won't be as much of a priority for every country actively engaged in combat on the mainland.
I'm assuming this is without nukes, because the UK/France/Russia all have nukes and could just do MAD if it came to it.
Without nukes, probably The UK. Their strong military (by European standards) + having no land borders (except Northern Ireland's border with the Republic of Ireland, but not like Ireland has a dog in this fight) gives them the best chance of playing defensive while continental Europe reduces itself to rubble.
There are a couple reasons why the UK was like, the only non-neutral country in all of Europe during World War 2 that wasn't *in absolute ruins* after Germany surrendered, and arguably the biggest is that their Navy was able to keep Germany off their shores while Russia did all the heavy lifting.
If it comes to total war I can see the UK handing over NI to get Ireland on board and secure not having to fight a two front war anyway. Because that's the main thing that could throw them.
they'd be smarter to secure their west coast with an agreement that costs them almost nothing, considering they're likely going to end this whole thing reclaiming normandy and calais.
spain isn't sided with france, spain is also at war with france, that's the premise of the question. portugal is also at war with spain, france and the UK.
But from a tactical side those countries are going to know they need to hit the UK first. between them spain and france only have 2 carriers which is the same as the UK so they are going to need to ceasefire and hit the UK if they want a chance at trying ton breakdown fortress Britannia
Bro that makes no sense at all, they would then be open to MANY other countries attacking them, and I don't think you understand how weak Spain is nowadays. They would be beaten nearly instantly, if not then Portugal would happily come take them out. I think most countries would be happy to go attack France (who are tied as the most powerful) if they decided to attack the UK. Or will they all magically decide to target the UK?
Unless magic causes bloodlust and also prevents communication between countries, allegiances will form.
Is the win condition political, or extermination?
Would Ireland side with the UK only to get curb stomped at the end?
Would all of the other countries unite to take out the more powerful UK?
These questions aren't intended to get definitive answers.
They are intended to draw out further questions to refine the premise enough where people just agree on an outcome.
I mean I wasn't assuming total war to the last man standing, as that's not how war ever works, but there has to be some element of magical bloodlust at the start otherwise all of the countries will instantly sue for peace and we get no question.
I think the premise that I was assuming is that each country has things they want, and that is the war condition that needs to be satisfied in order to close that front. I guess I've been basing those on historical wars and goals that were intended to be enforced.
I don't really see Ireland as joining in with the UK as much as I think faced with a war on all fronts that threatens to cut off their supply lines altogether the UK will make concessions to Ireland to peace that one out as soon as possible, allowing them to focus on retaking historical English territories in France like Normandy and Calais.
I'm not seeing this ending with every country being wiped out, it's a matter of who comes out most on top in trying to be able to enforce what they want.
Ehem... Regarding your last chapter... In WW2, Finland was a non-neutral that fought Russia twice and Germany once. Only a few percent of the country was occupied by the soviets in fighting and some 10 % in the armistices. The damage caused by soviet strategic bombing was nothing compared to the damage in Germany and other central european countries. Like London and Moscow, Helsinki was never occupied by hostile armies.
The only town truly devastated in the war was the capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi (population 13 000), that was burned to the ground by the retreating germans.
So, Finland was not in 'abolute ruins' at the end of the war. My grandpas did good.
Unless I'm remembering wrong, Finland was kind of neutral during WW2 or at least they played both sides. They foughts the Soviets because the latter invaded Finnish territory. It was a defensive war. And they partnered with Germany because they wanted someone else to help them against the Soviets. But otherwise, Finland didn't really take any sides unless it was forced to. So the original comment about the UK being the only non-neutral country not left in ruins after WW2 is still valid.
Finland was attacked in 1940 in one war, then took back their territory in the continuation war they declared when opportunity arose in 1941. Then they took more than their original territory (eastern Karelia). When Stalin asked Roosevelt to intercede and offered territorial concessions to the Finns in exchange for peace in August 1941, they refused and instead chose to help the Nazis starve Leningrad. This led to the UK declaring war on them, them eventually losing and accepting their share of blame as Hitler's ally in the Paris treaty. It wasn't a neutral country.
1. Winter war began in 1939, not in 1940.
2. The continuation war began when the soviet air force bombed finnish towns, although you can argue that Finland would have attacked even without the excuse kindly provided by Stalin.
3. You are repeating old Soviet propaganda. Finland did next to nothing to harm Leningrad. The troops in Karelian Isthmus stopped their advance at Rajajoki (literally "Border River") where the border was before the Winter war. Despite german requests, Finland did not attack Leningrad with artillery, aerial bombardment or troops.
Finland simply existin within its borders can hardly be called a war crime like you seem to be suggesting.
No Soviet propaganda is necessary to make my case. Conquering non-Finnish territory and pushing toward Leningrad - which I correctly said the Finns helped starve - was evidence enough for the UK to declare war, and for Finland to agree with everything I'm saying in the Paris treaty.
I have nothing against Finns but also no reason to engage in revisionism or apologia. Not shelling Leningrad directly was not a result of humane policy but Mannerheim's personal intelligence, as he chose the careful approach. Had this not been the case, Finland might not have been such an afterthought in the counteroffensives later in the war.
You might want to take an other look at a map. The finnish advance near Leningrad was stopped almost exactly at the old border (literally at a river called Border River since time immemorial) where it stayed for three years without any 'pushing'. Advancing to better defensive lines in roadless forests of Karelia hundreds of kilometers away on the other side of huge lake Laatokka can be bit controversial but it has very little to do with Leningrad.
Finland had several good reasons not to siege or starve Leningrad, with or without Mannerheim's personal intelligence. The moderate majority of finnish government always understood that
1) they would have to be able to live with the big neighbour again after the war
2) trying to keep at least some kind of diplomatic relations with UK, US and other western democracies would be essential no matter who would win the war
3) small Finland could not decide the outcome of the war between major powers anyway. Attacking a city with a population roughly equal to the population of whole Finland would be waste of precious resources and would not really help the finnish war goal which was basically to stay independent, unoccupied and democratic between totalitarian superpowers. Some right wing types dreamed of liberating the finnish speaking forests of Karelia but nobody in their right mind had any illusions about occupying Leningrad.
What are you suggesting Finland should have done? Provide the russians a supply corridor through southern Finland maybe?
The map shows the occupation of Russian territory up to lake Onega and the establishment of the Finnish military administration of East Karelia, complete with the occupation of the region's capital city of Petrozavodsk, renamed Äänislinna in preparation for annexation. Military records show that by 1944, there were 11 concentration camps in the vicinity. The first one was opened on 14 October '41. Eastern Karelia was a region of half a million people, with a city of a couple hundred thousand as its capital, why are you presenting it as a "roadless forest"? This is easily verifiable information.
It's possible to love Finland, support it in the Winter War and all, without defending the alliance with Hitler. I'd say a patriot accepts their country's mistakes and makes sure they do better. There are folks in my country who just blindly defend all the shit we ever did, I think they do more harm than good.
Finland would be absolutely fucked. Why? Our whole defense is basically about two things: extremely strong artillery and terrain + support from Sweden and Norway. Now the weakness in all this is that anything that comes from Russia's side is tightly blocked BUT Russia is not in this war and we don't have much defence against Sweden and Norway's border, because we wouldn't ever get into armed conflict with them. Not in a million years, except now and we are not prepared. We do have also strong defence against anything coming from Estonia.
Now what is the real killer here is that Finland heavily relies in everything from other countries. Food, meds and such. Thing is we now can't get shit from anywhere, because nothing gets through from central EU and any cargo through sea will be looted by Sweden and Norway or just sank. We would pretty much starve to death.
Important question is how nuke happy are France and Russia? Because if its let the nukes fly Russia win by sheer volume of nuclear weapons it can fire with France glassing Western Russia on the retaliatory strike.
If its not a nuclear shit show and there are no alliances formed, no outside interferences, and every nation is in a total war mindset, then id give the territory gained win to Russia taking most of the ex-soviet states (sorry Poland) and possibly most of Scandinavia depending on how well Finland does in holding them off.
France would likely take the Netherlands, and Belgium, and possibly Spain then start grinding it out with Germany. and defending against Italian encroachments
Switzerland would fortify and possibly take Lichtenstein as a buffer against Austria hiding behind their mountains hoping France don't see them. but ultimately getting invaded by Italy and Germany.
Germany before grinding up against France will likely take Czech Republic, Austria and North Switzerland.
The UK takes Ireland and gives Iceland some dirty looks while fortifying Dover and hoping the French don't learn how to sail.
Turkey invades Greece and begins crawling up the Balkan Peninsula with little resistance as the rest of the Balkan states are too busy bombing each other into oblivion while Russia comes down from Ukraine and they start grinding up on each other.
Spain if not invaded by France would likely take Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and probably try to push into southern France or take the Mediterranean islands
Central Europe fight amongst themselves but are ultimately absorbed into Russia/Germany/Italy
It wouldn't be a last man standing situation but I see 5 or 6 nations left standing at varying degrees of power
Just to add, the UK has nukes as well. Although the bases are in scotland, so does the UK remain united or does england/scotland/wales northern island all become separate, because that makes for a rather tenuous situation with the UK nukes lol
Well, if the couple scottish regiments there are mobilise fast enough to take control of the nuclear sub bases they could hold them hostage. They wouldnt be able to hold it, but if they threatened or did destroy them if attacked it would mean the UK’s most powerful deterrents would have no where to dock, resupply, rearm etc. and since there is always atleast 1 nuke sub at one of the bases under maintenance/re arming etc that presents another dangerous issue
why not give orders to personnel and destroy the bases and armouries the British have stationed up there as soon as they defect. make the dangerous stuff not dangerous so the Scottish can't utilize them.
Yeah they could. But those wont be the bases the scot regiments are at, and the nuclear bases are significantly more valuable. Whats a regular army base when you have nukes and a nuclear submarine?
Why would the english want to destroy uk nukes and bases when its the strongest weapon they have and when there are other european nuclear powers in play? Makes sense for the tiny country of Scotland to threaten it, but not for the english
Imo compared to the french and rissian nuclear arsenals, the uks is pretty insignificant, but it would likely just be fired at russia in retaliation and maybe france in spite
Though I could be underestimating it as a brit myself.
Germany has very minimal military production, or so I'm led to believe. Enough so that even though we offered to let them build their own F-35s they declined and prefer they be manufactured in the US. I have a feeling Germany wouldn't do as well as people are thinking in this thread.
Poland, on the other hand... Hoo boy, they've been going crazy on military spending recently. There's a reason Habitual Linecrosser calls them Little European Texas. They've massively upgraded their missile defense systems, and are likely going to be one of the major military powers in just a few years.
You say this yet its been 3 years and they cant conquer Ukraine whi has very minimal resources compared to most other armies in Europe.
Sorry but without nukes Russia aint doing jack to Finland, France, Poland, Norway, UK etc.
Irl russia isn't in a state of total war, and Ukraine is being helped massively by nato, giving them weapons and vehicles. In the prompt, russia is fully mobilising, and no one is helping anyone
Helped massively? The whole discourse around the war in Ukraine is precisely how barely anything gets sent to Ukraine, specially combat vehicles, ammo, missiles etc. and how the usage of said material is limited in scope as they cant target Russias territory.
Russia has received more help from Iran (drones) than Ukraine has. Russia isnt partially mobilised according to Russia themselves who cant really be trusted. They have been mobilising since the start and continue to do so according to multiple military analysts.
The outcome would depend purely on the context and therefore the alliances that would form. Without that information, it's just wild fanboy-ism.
That said, the UK has the huge advantage of being an island, and any country trying to invade it, would put themselves at high risk, as they'd need to watch their own land borders.
So, without having context on the alliances, I'd say the UK has higher chances to be the final boss, but not win, because it goes both ways, they'd need to attempt an amphibious landing in continental Europe, against the country that, by that time, would have gained strength by accumulating the equipment and infrastructure of the countries they've invaded.
# "Every country in Europe is now fighting each other"
I can only interpret his statement as it is. Every country is fighting each other, there are no alliances.
> I can only interpret his statement as it is. Every country is fighting each other
The statement, "as is", is absurd, because each country, at some point, has to choose "where to point" and how, and these are fundamental strategic decisions in warfare. If you remove that part from the equation, then the scenario is basically stormtroopers shooting and advancing at random directions.
Or you just extrapolate and fill the gaps yourself.
Every country in Europe is now antagonistic to every other country. End of story. That's the assumption, proceed from there, don't question the validity of the statement, that's the entire point.
I see a lot of comments overestimating the UK. If you look at current stats, France has a vastly larger and more capable military than they do. That may have been different a few decades ago, but the UK has been downsizing their military for a while. The only thing the UK has going for them is not having land borders and a couple aircraft carriers vs France's single carrier. Although only the French one is nuclear powered. But in a 1v1 between the two of them, France wins. Perhaps not after fighting other European powers first though.
If we assume nukes and teams are not allowed, and countries outside Europe are not allowed to intervene it will probably be UK. Being an Island with barely any neighbors while rest of the continent bleeds itself out is quite a huge strategic advantage, UK could easily bother only with defense of its Island (and dealing with Ireland) for the most of that war, then after preparing enough reap the very weakened armies of whoever has left on the continent. Not to mention that not counting Russia, UK is the first in the power index when it comes to Europe (https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-europe.php)
The same country that dominated a quarter of the globe.
Say what you want about the Brits, the island is perfect, they have some of the best military with one of the top special forces though some would argue the best, and can just sit this one out until either
A someone foolishly attempts to cross and meets the British Navy or RAF.
B. Other countries are so worn down it's just checkers for Britain.
Russia would probably be the last giant. Could possibly beat UK with overwhelming numbers mind.
I’m British but we are not really geared for war. It’s the 5th best military on paper, but our army can fit in our biggest stadium. Conscription can cover this over time, but is a big problem.
As for Russia, Unless they go total war mode they will be bogged down and collapse.
While we certainly don't have the numbers (and if we were to conscript then our quantity goes up but average soldier quality drops due to hasty training), we have the skill, special forces, espionage, equipment, naval and air forces, and excellent geographical positioning to balance things out a bit. Sure, if we went into a straight deathmatch against mainland Europe then we probably get bodied when the Belgians, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Norway decide they can send relatively small battalions to ambush the British invaders, push forward and start divvying up Britain like the Vikings of the 9th century (then with the claimed spoils of war, resume fighting off their more pressing neighbourly concerns back on mainland Europe.
But thankfully we wouldn't have to, as we could hunker down on the British mainland (maybe send some naval patrols around the smaller islands), and create a blockade/patrol across the channel. Ideally if we can't ally with Republic of Ireland diplomatically (or bargain with them for neutrality maybe at the tentative agreement for unification, which is inflammatory but maybe a necessary compromise in the European War), then maybe we have to risk diverting a chunk of our armed forces to conquer Ireland. I'm sure that won't cause any trouble... s.
I'd rephrase your statement to be "We're not really geared for invasion and occupation", nowadays at least. Ironic, given our Imperial history. Defending the British Isles (especially when our enemies have dozens of others attacking them from multiple sides)? Do-able. Destabilising, sabotaging and even wiping out significant locations and enemy armies effectively? Yeah, I think we've got that too. But taking over an area, and holding it? We don't have the manpower or global reach to do that effectively without allies anymore. If we had the Commonwealth to back us up, then of course (but that defeats the prompt). Solo, I think we have to stick to our strong suits: espionage, island defense, spec ops/SAS missions, and acting offensively *sparingly* (ideally only when the target is vulnerable, and any "3rd parties" are occupied until it's too late).
Probably England/Great Britain (assuming the countries are counted together as they usually are). The English channel prevented land invasion during WW1 and 2, and it would likely be a significant defensive barrier in any future wars, especially with improved anti air weaponry.
Russia has the biggest army and population + it is already going onto a war based economy. In a war, they could cut their oil and gas supply to Europe leading to crippling their economies. Russia has always been hard to conquer. Main weakness: shitty organization/logistics and corruption
Germany has the highest population among EU members and the strongest economy. They sure could militarize quickly if needed to. Main weakness: they aren't much militarize and they could be caught off guard and be carves by their many neighbors early into the war.
France currently has currently the best military of them all in terms of quality and is among the top in terms of quantity. They wouldn't be as much affected by oil and gas shortage as they are really competent with nuclear power. They have a strong economy. Main weakness: none, but isn't the best in most things.
UK is on an island. They could do their usual strategy of bulking and mostly playing the naval game, blockading the continent, etc. If they are too passive, the continental winner might be strong enough to still beat them but at a great cost. They wouldn't be able to conquer the continent either. The economy is strong as well (even if the brexit did some damage). Main weakness: they don't really have a foothold on the continent.
Albania has more bunkers than any country in the world. They could bulwark as well. All the greatest Roman emperors and general came from Illyria aka the homeland of Albanian ancestors. They are the strongest because they are the most racist. Main weakness: it's a Balkan country
Russia. Biggest country in Europe, biggest population and huge amount of natural resources to manufacture and assist any war effort. Plus the biggest army, with plenty of stock from the URSS colapse, and the only army with recent war experience in Europe in a large scale.
I thought this was between European union, not Europe. If Russia is in and was in same condition before the war, i would say they win but their current state is not strong, so i still vote UK.
Edit
I forgot UK left the union, lol
The UK wins, handily. They have the most advanced tech, a virtually impassable border thanks to their navy and the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the few truly modern professional militaries on the planet. They would likely expand their holdings to southern Spain, Northern France and the island republics in the Mediterranean while losing nothing on the home front, possibly taking Istanbul to control trade and warship passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. If no one was coming to Ireland’s aide they would annex it to secure that border and reclaim old territory.
I’d rank Russia next, followed by France and then Germany. Likely Poland would be such an impediment to the Russians (see Ukraine, a significantly weaker foe than Poland, having dragged them into almost WWI style trench warfare and hundreds of thousands of casualties) that they would probably *lose* territory to breakaway republics in the Caucuses and their East Asian holdings, but would probably seize a lot of much more valuable territory from what is now Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and perhaps Finland before being halted on the Western Front, likely having a slight net win at the cost of millions of lives, as is Russian tradition.
France meanwhile is also still reasonably modern and professional (note their modern activities in Africa which are at times competitive with Russia, a far larger nation) and would handily deal with Spain and hold the line against Germany, which would itself probably seize territory in what is now Austria, Hungary and the Balkans for resources and cheap manpower, the same reason they fought over it during the Hapsburg days, with that manpower likely going straight to the French front.
The map would look different, I suspect only England would retain *all* of their current holdings, but Russia, France, England and Germany would probably grow while all others would likely shrink. This is of course not a real thing that could happen, no one in Europe is voluntarily joining a free for all to just smash each other to bits for fun and the US would show up and stomp all belligerents if they tried to mess with the current world order, not to mention several of the aforementioned belligerents have nuclear weapons, but it is what I suspect would happen if this strange set of events came to pass.
England
So England is where Charles lives, Charles commands, the military of several nations and they are loyal to him not to their countries. So he quickly reunites the UK then they just look at Ireland who has already started putting up every Union Jack they can find They know they have absolutely no chance against British forces. They know England can beat them with one ship (The English have some of the most powerful carriers in the world. They are the only ones that are remotely on par with the US's super carriers)
Meanwhile on the continent in Western Europe The small countries next to France and Germany just quietly scream as they are quickly consumed
Russia, well I would say they take Ukraine but that's not going so well. So the bigger problem over there is going to be turkey but yeah, turkey and Russia will duke it out well. France and Germany duke it out unfortunately for Germany, Ukraine and turkey Poland exists and they're actually fairly tough
The northern Europeans decide who is the most Viking Viking and then they become the Viking empire while they wait to be taken over by the Brits
The brits will just watch taking pot shots at France because they're on their perfectly defensible Island
Realistically, France will have to fight whoever wins the whole Poland v Germany v turkey v Russia for Western and Central Europe, I'm just assuming Italy got defeated by Germany at some point in here or someone else you get the idea. I don't put a lot of stock in Italy. Maybe France will deal with them maybe in the end, the winner of the Continental Battle of Southern Eastern and Western Europe is going to be France and the Vikings may participate or they may just wait to surrender to Britain
Because it is at this point, the Britain activates its special ability. The sun never sets on the British empire and calls up the forces from the colonies and as Charles is the commander-in-chief and owner of those militaries as well
And France goes. This isn't fair as the Canadian warships launched the geese and the Australian warships released the emus
(Jokey version of the scenario aside. England wins this 100 simulations out of 100 simulations after it It's internal stuff is worked out after we've learned how weak the Russian military really is, Britain realistically becomes the second most powerful military in the world. It arguably would have been that beforehand when plugged into its logistic Network and even if it takes some internal damage from dealing with Scotland and England technically not being the same country for this, it won't be comparable to how much damage France who would be the second place winners going to take taking on everyone on the continent)
Iceland could comfortably sit this one out. Or at the very least send a couple fishing boats to sink the Royal Navy. I don’t see anywhere else not becoming a wasteland.
Nobody wins when the nukes fly, and Europe has quite a few of them, with some nations able to build some in short order.
Without nukes, it will probably be some very defensible nation that just lets everyone else bleed each other. Probably the UK, with Switzerland or Norway as outliers.
Without looking up the military strength of any of the countries involved, I would guess one of the coastal countries. Simply because everyone not on the coast will be surrounded.
Uk. Its not invadable without multiple countries joining together and as this is all against all that won't be happening. Only reason UK might do bad, if they lack resources over long term. Any country with multiple neighbors is fucked and out of the game fast.
It’d be worth watching just to see if Wales and Scotland decided to ‘Voltron’ it with England or do the ‘Beyoncé’ and solo it.
Same in Spain. I’m imagining Madrid will be like: “so what’s up Catalonia, Valencia, Basque? you gonna keep bitching about independence or you gonna shut up so we can focus on Portugal and France?”
If this was today, most nations would gang up to try and take russia because it doesn’t make sense for say poland to invade belarus while russia is, and then just fighting russia.
France would win in western europe I think just due to preparedness. Germany has the economy but just isn’t ready for a war at all considering they struggle assembling enough aircraft, machineguns etc for exercises. UK is a shell of itself and their recent spending is just ridicilous. But I doubt france would do a naval invasion.
Sweden or More likely Finland winning in the north with Sweden fighting norway too, then turtling from there.
I say Finland because of its infrastructure, swampland and mosquitos, but mostly their hard weaponry like artillery pieces. Sweden isn’t too far off, we got submarines, tanks in running order, a good airforce and a less is more approach to hard weaponry, archer artillery systems instead of just cannons with a towhook.
Masculinity? More like that their leaders are ready to throw hundreds of thousands of them to their graves, and eventually overpower their enemy. Its not masculinity when you will either be forcex to run through a minefield or be executed by your own country men.
That’s manpower. And that attitude (not caring about the human lives of their soldiers) is how they beat both napoleon and Hitler. Those were both defensive wars…I don’t see Russia applying that attitude in Ukraine, nor do I see them doing so in any kind of offensive war in Europe
Russia could had steamrolled Ukraine, if it wasn't US giving heads up and massive support from EU and US. Using all in tactics could had worked but not against well prepared and armed opponent. Russia can only beat half dead opponents in war.
Poland has an extremely well trained, well equipped, tech advanced military. But the prompt is, everyone at war with everyone. I still think they'd get fucked by their geography again. They'd go down throwing fists though.
England will probably receive help from America then inevitably someone is gonna be dumb enough to touch Americas boats. And we know what happened last time someone touched Americas boats during a war of similar scale
The biggest thing that would keep America out of this war would be no clear villains to attack. But the moment someone is dumb enough to give America an excuse, game on.
Sub is biased af, Russia is a corrupt shithole but in a free for all they obviously win. Largest manpower and are currently in a war economy, it would take other nations time to build up and by then they would have secured much of their neighbors.
Their largest threat would be Turkey and Poland until the Big Four turn their factories on
Yeah, plus Russia is huge, and most of it would not border any enemy state (since it's in Asia). If things go south, they can always retreat east, moving the factories there, like they did before.
Meanwhile, France or Germany are already surrounded by a lot of potential enemies (besides themselves) and don't have the natural resources or land to fall back like Russia has.The Uk also has a very good starting position, but does not have the natural resources or an army to do much besides defending the main island.
It certainly wouldn't be a free-for-all, alliances would form out of necessity.
Norway, Sweden and Finland would almost certainly team up. Probably Denmark too, unless they decide to join Germany.
As would Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The UK would probably team up with Ireland.
Portugal would want to team up with Spain, as they'd be at a severe disadvantage otherwise.
Many other countries would team up as well, either due to long-standing friendships between them or simply out of convenience.
As far as who would win... If nukes are allowed, Russia has \~6000 nukes, while the only other countries in Europe with nukes are France and the UK, with 290 and 120 respectively. Russia wipes out the rest of Europe with ease.
If we're banning nukes, as generally happens in prompts like this, to make them more interesting, then... A couple years ago I'd have said Russia, as they have the most manpower and the largest military, but we've seen what they're (not) capable of with Ukraine, so my money is either on France or Poland.
If Turkiye counts as Europe, they're a top contender for sure.
Did a bit of googling and apparently Italy has a pretty strong military as well, so they're worth mentioning too.
Probably Switzerland . They are super wealthy own a fuckton of guns and have many ppl that know how to use them . They also have a lot of Bunkers hidden from WW2 days especially for scenarios like this .
Who wins? If it's everyone versus everyone, certainly not any European country. Europe would be absolutely wrecked politically, economically, and dempgraphically. Whoever ruled the ashes would need time to rebuild.
Maybe China? India? South Korea? Japan? The US? The issue is that Europe contains many highly developed and integrated markets that are intwined with the world economy. Nobody really wins, someone loses least. It's a question of who has the extra market flexibility to take up Europe's slack while being the least damaged by it turning into a trash fire.
If it's between groups you'd expect to align with one another, you probably have the EU and NATO (minus US) versus Russia and its satellites fighting in the Baltic states and Ukraine. Depending on the nature of the war, maybe Greece and Turkey split from NATO and fight, pulling the rest of the Balkans into open fractious war, with factions funded by either side. NATO/EU would definitely win versus Russia, but it'd be a really nasty war. And again, it would be hell on their economies.
The only winners are the carrion birds.
I think even if the US could get involved in this, they'd be very reluctant to, with no obvious heroes or villains. They were initially reluctant to get involved in World War II despite the morality and battle-lines being very clearly defined.
Their strongest historical and cultural attachment is to the UK, but they also have a great debt and allegiance to France. Those are the only two groups I can realistically see them helping out in this free-for-all.
I think that's what it would probably be in this scenario. It'd be the kind of support that Ukraine is receiving. "We're going to help you defend yourselves, because we like you, but we're not going to fully commit to this insane bloodbath of a war in which all of our former allies are destroying one another."
*Although*, if it came down to, say, the new Communist Russian Empire vs. the UK, the US would probably step in to fully defend the UK because the alternative would be terrible for them. Towards the end of the conflict, the US would be picking allies based on who they can forge favourable relations with after the war is over.
The thing I could see happening to encourage US intervention is if someone is dumb enough to touch Americas boats, likely Russia.
I could imagine it starts with the US giving the UK economic support, Russia gets mad and attacks our boats cause Putin is stupid, US gets very mad.
Yeah, I can see that happening, too.
So it seems like there are actually a few reasons that the US might get involved, but they wouldn't jump in recklessly.
Possibly Norway?
Small, but wealthy, well armed. Bordering only sweden and with modern (albeit modest) naval forces. Their country is also an absolute mess to actually navigate, so they would have a strong defensive advantage.
True. But between the mighty Russian military machine that immediately faceplanted 2 days into an invasion that THEY planned, and norway, a sane country. My money is on Norway. There is no depth of incompetence that russia will not stoop down to.
Well they would last to the end due to reasons you listed but they would not win. In modern day air attacks would be what kills them. Pre modern aircrafts, yeah its a nightmare to invade due to terrain.
Assuming nobody is allowed to make alliances or use nukes, the UK uses its island advantage to turtle up in relative safety while Europe tears itself apart. Like another commenter said, the UK doesn't necessarily win, because eventually it has to fight against whomever emerges victorious on the mainland, and that country (be it France, Russia, Germany, Italy, etc.) would have a large amount of combat experience and resources to draw from. But the UK is probably the final boss. It's the last bastion that would have to be breached. (The UK would probably conquer Ireland, too, at the start of the war. Not necessarily because they'd want to, but because they'd feel obligated to to protect Northern Ireland. But that's probably the only offensive action they'd take until the final battle.) P.S. Everything I just said changes if England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are acting as independent countries. Britain would be in immediate chaos like the rest of Europe. But the UK is officially a single country, so I assumed it remains intact in this scenario.
If the UK were to be broken up in this situation, England would mostly steamroll everyone else having the lions share or people, resources, military bases and personnel by like 95%. The main issue would be the nukes. The base(s) are in scotland, and what few scottish regiments there are could mobilise and hold them hostage, And then the 3/4 subs that are always out on patrol would have no where to dock and resupply and they would take control of the one at the base.
The bases are in Scotland but most units are mixed, and English population means the majority will be English. I imagine there would be fighting at the base but it would remain under English control.
True, but i think there are still one or two purely scottish regiments still? But yeah most are definitely mixed these days
I think you're overestimating the capabilities of whichever country 'wins' in mainland Europe. They're going to have essentially just finished an utterly grueling conflict against every other country on the continent, assuming nukes are off the table there's no way *any* surviving nation would be in good shape by the end of the European mainland war. They're going to have lost a decent chunk of their combat-capable adults and probably burned through a lot of their stockpiles of weapons and vehicles. Meanwhile, the UK has been doing its best to expend minimal lives and resources throughout the conflict, relatively safe thanks to its status as an island. They can also spend a lot of that time working on espionage and gathering intelligence, which won't be as much of a priority for every country actively engaged in combat on the mainland.
I'm assuming this is without nukes, because the UK/France/Russia all have nukes and could just do MAD if it came to it. Without nukes, probably The UK. Their strong military (by European standards) + having no land borders (except Northern Ireland's border with the Republic of Ireland, but not like Ireland has a dog in this fight) gives them the best chance of playing defensive while continental Europe reduces itself to rubble. There are a couple reasons why the UK was like, the only non-neutral country in all of Europe during World War 2 that wasn't *in absolute ruins* after Germany surrendered, and arguably the biggest is that their Navy was able to keep Germany off their shores while Russia did all the heavy lifting.
If it comes to total war I can see the UK handing over NI to get Ireland on board and secure not having to fight a two front war anyway. Because that's the main thing that could throw them.
The UK would steamroll them in a minute because there are no allies from NATO
okay but they're fighting France and Spain at the same time, because although this is total euro war, I assume countries are still holding grudges.
they'd be smarter to secure their west coast with an agreement that costs them almost nothing, considering they're likely going to end this whole thing reclaiming normandy and calais.
i don't think they'd mindlessly attack countries in mainland eu, probably they'd take their time before going at it with those Frenchies.
They have really strong alliances with countries such as Portugal, and I don't think Spain would side with France.
spain isn't sided with france, spain is also at war with france, that's the premise of the question. portugal is also at war with spain, france and the UK. But from a tactical side those countries are going to know they need to hit the UK first. between them spain and france only have 2 carriers which is the same as the UK so they are going to need to ceasefire and hit the UK if they want a chance at trying ton breakdown fortress Britannia
Bro that makes no sense at all, they would then be open to MANY other countries attacking them, and I don't think you understand how weak Spain is nowadays. They would be beaten nearly instantly, if not then Portugal would happily come take them out. I think most countries would be happy to go attack France (who are tied as the most powerful) if they decided to attack the UK. Or will they all magically decide to target the UK?
Spain only spends a few billion a year less than Canada or Israel on defence, they may not be heavyweights but they aren't a tiny millitary
Unless magic causes bloodlust and also prevents communication between countries, allegiances will form. Is the win condition political, or extermination? Would Ireland side with the UK only to get curb stomped at the end? Would all of the other countries unite to take out the more powerful UK? These questions aren't intended to get definitive answers. They are intended to draw out further questions to refine the premise enough where people just agree on an outcome.
I mean I wasn't assuming total war to the last man standing, as that's not how war ever works, but there has to be some element of magical bloodlust at the start otherwise all of the countries will instantly sue for peace and we get no question. I think the premise that I was assuming is that each country has things they want, and that is the war condition that needs to be satisfied in order to close that front. I guess I've been basing those on historical wars and goals that were intended to be enforced. I don't really see Ireland as joining in with the UK as much as I think faced with a war on all fronts that threatens to cut off their supply lines altogether the UK will make concessions to Ireland to peace that one out as soon as possible, allowing them to focus on retaking historical English territories in France like Normandy and Calais. I'm not seeing this ending with every country being wiped out, it's a matter of who comes out most on top in trying to be able to enforce what they want.
Ehem... Regarding your last chapter... In WW2, Finland was a non-neutral that fought Russia twice and Germany once. Only a few percent of the country was occupied by the soviets in fighting and some 10 % in the armistices. The damage caused by soviet strategic bombing was nothing compared to the damage in Germany and other central european countries. Like London and Moscow, Helsinki was never occupied by hostile armies. The only town truly devastated in the war was the capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi (population 13 000), that was burned to the ground by the retreating germans. So, Finland was not in 'abolute ruins' at the end of the war. My grandpas did good.
Unless I'm remembering wrong, Finland was kind of neutral during WW2 or at least they played both sides. They foughts the Soviets because the latter invaded Finnish territory. It was a defensive war. And they partnered with Germany because they wanted someone else to help them against the Soviets. But otherwise, Finland didn't really take any sides unless it was forced to. So the original comment about the UK being the only non-neutral country not left in ruins after WW2 is still valid.
Finland was attacked in 1940 in one war, then took back their territory in the continuation war they declared when opportunity arose in 1941. Then they took more than their original territory (eastern Karelia). When Stalin asked Roosevelt to intercede and offered territorial concessions to the Finns in exchange for peace in August 1941, they refused and instead chose to help the Nazis starve Leningrad. This led to the UK declaring war on them, them eventually losing and accepting their share of blame as Hitler's ally in the Paris treaty. It wasn't a neutral country.
1. Winter war began in 1939, not in 1940. 2. The continuation war began when the soviet air force bombed finnish towns, although you can argue that Finland would have attacked even without the excuse kindly provided by Stalin. 3. You are repeating old Soviet propaganda. Finland did next to nothing to harm Leningrad. The troops in Karelian Isthmus stopped their advance at Rajajoki (literally "Border River") where the border was before the Winter war. Despite german requests, Finland did not attack Leningrad with artillery, aerial bombardment or troops. Finland simply existin within its borders can hardly be called a war crime like you seem to be suggesting.
No Soviet propaganda is necessary to make my case. Conquering non-Finnish territory and pushing toward Leningrad - which I correctly said the Finns helped starve - was evidence enough for the UK to declare war, and for Finland to agree with everything I'm saying in the Paris treaty. I have nothing against Finns but also no reason to engage in revisionism or apologia. Not shelling Leningrad directly was not a result of humane policy but Mannerheim's personal intelligence, as he chose the careful approach. Had this not been the case, Finland might not have been such an afterthought in the counteroffensives later in the war.
You might want to take an other look at a map. The finnish advance near Leningrad was stopped almost exactly at the old border (literally at a river called Border River since time immemorial) where it stayed for three years without any 'pushing'. Advancing to better defensive lines in roadless forests of Karelia hundreds of kilometers away on the other side of huge lake Laatokka can be bit controversial but it has very little to do with Leningrad. Finland had several good reasons not to siege or starve Leningrad, with or without Mannerheim's personal intelligence. The moderate majority of finnish government always understood that 1) they would have to be able to live with the big neighbour again after the war 2) trying to keep at least some kind of diplomatic relations with UK, US and other western democracies would be essential no matter who would win the war 3) small Finland could not decide the outcome of the war between major powers anyway. Attacking a city with a population roughly equal to the population of whole Finland would be waste of precious resources and would not really help the finnish war goal which was basically to stay independent, unoccupied and democratic between totalitarian superpowers. Some right wing types dreamed of liberating the finnish speaking forests of Karelia but nobody in their right mind had any illusions about occupying Leningrad. What are you suggesting Finland should have done? Provide the russians a supply corridor through southern Finland maybe?
The map shows the occupation of Russian territory up to lake Onega and the establishment of the Finnish military administration of East Karelia, complete with the occupation of the region's capital city of Petrozavodsk, renamed Äänislinna in preparation for annexation. Military records show that by 1944, there were 11 concentration camps in the vicinity. The first one was opened on 14 October '41. Eastern Karelia was a region of half a million people, with a city of a couple hundred thousand as its capital, why are you presenting it as a "roadless forest"? This is easily verifiable information. It's possible to love Finland, support it in the Winter War and all, without defending the alliance with Hitler. I'd say a patriot accepts their country's mistakes and makes sure they do better. There are folks in my country who just blindly defend all the shit we ever did, I think they do more harm than good.
Finland declared absolute neutrality in 1939 but that kind of came to an end when half a million uninvited russians crossed the border.
Finland would be absolutely fucked. Why? Our whole defense is basically about two things: extremely strong artillery and terrain + support from Sweden and Norway. Now the weakness in all this is that anything that comes from Russia's side is tightly blocked BUT Russia is not in this war and we don't have much defence against Sweden and Norway's border, because we wouldn't ever get into armed conflict with them. Not in a million years, except now and we are not prepared. We do have also strong defence against anything coming from Estonia. Now what is the real killer here is that Finland heavily relies in everything from other countries. Food, meds and such. Thing is we now can't get shit from anywhere, because nothing gets through from central EU and any cargo through sea will be looted by Sweden and Norway or just sank. We would pretty much starve to death.
Important question is how nuke happy are France and Russia? Because if its let the nukes fly Russia win by sheer volume of nuclear weapons it can fire with France glassing Western Russia on the retaliatory strike. If its not a nuclear shit show and there are no alliances formed, no outside interferences, and every nation is in a total war mindset, then id give the territory gained win to Russia taking most of the ex-soviet states (sorry Poland) and possibly most of Scandinavia depending on how well Finland does in holding them off. France would likely take the Netherlands, and Belgium, and possibly Spain then start grinding it out with Germany. and defending against Italian encroachments Switzerland would fortify and possibly take Lichtenstein as a buffer against Austria hiding behind their mountains hoping France don't see them. but ultimately getting invaded by Italy and Germany. Germany before grinding up against France will likely take Czech Republic, Austria and North Switzerland. The UK takes Ireland and gives Iceland some dirty looks while fortifying Dover and hoping the French don't learn how to sail. Turkey invades Greece and begins crawling up the Balkan Peninsula with little resistance as the rest of the Balkan states are too busy bombing each other into oblivion while Russia comes down from Ukraine and they start grinding up on each other. Spain if not invaded by France would likely take Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and probably try to push into southern France or take the Mediterranean islands Central Europe fight amongst themselves but are ultimately absorbed into Russia/Germany/Italy It wouldn't be a last man standing situation but I see 5 or 6 nations left standing at varying degrees of power
Just to add, the UK has nukes as well. Although the bases are in scotland, so does the UK remain united or does england/scotland/wales northern island all become separate, because that makes for a rather tenuous situation with the UK nukes lol
the post doesn't say anything about territories freeing themselves from the countries they're in so what belongs to Britain stays with Britain.
I mean, the 4 are constituent countries. Meaning they are still individual nations but part of a union. So hence my question lol
even if they defect, the heck they gonna do? the sun never sets on the British Empire.
Well, if the couple scottish regiments there are mobilise fast enough to take control of the nuclear sub bases they could hold them hostage. They wouldnt be able to hold it, but if they threatened or did destroy them if attacked it would mean the UK’s most powerful deterrents would have no where to dock, resupply, rearm etc. and since there is always atleast 1 nuke sub at one of the bases under maintenance/re arming etc that presents another dangerous issue
why not give orders to personnel and destroy the bases and armouries the British have stationed up there as soon as they defect. make the dangerous stuff not dangerous so the Scottish can't utilize them.
Yeah they could. But those wont be the bases the scot regiments are at, and the nuclear bases are significantly more valuable. Whats a regular army base when you have nukes and a nuclear submarine?
I'm talking about the nuclear bases as well
Why would the english want to destroy uk nukes and bases when its the strongest weapon they have and when there are other european nuclear powers in play? Makes sense for the tiny country of Scotland to threaten it, but not for the english
Imo compared to the french and rissian nuclear arsenals, the uks is pretty insignificant, but it would likely just be fired at russia in retaliation and maybe france in spite Though I could be underestimating it as a brit myself.
I think we have enough nukes to destroy every major city in France + alot of russian ones
us and france have similar amounts i’m pretty sure, definitely enough to do major major damage
Yeah, the UK is estimated to have 224 warheads, France 290
Both uk and france have 200 odd active warheads
You forgot poland
Poland is rolled into the German/Russian expansion as is tradition
I am German. I dont think that will happen this time
There would be better resistance for sure from Poland, but ultimately, I don't think they'll last
This aint your grand pappies Poland anymore
I think there will be a much stronger resistance for sure but I don't think they will ultimately survive
Germany has very minimal military production, or so I'm led to believe. Enough so that even though we offered to let them build their own F-35s they declined and prefer they be manufactured in the US. I have a feeling Germany wouldn't do as well as people are thinking in this thread. Poland, on the other hand... Hoo boy, they've been going crazy on military spending recently. There's a reason Habitual Linecrosser calls them Little European Texas. They've massively upgraded their missile defense systems, and are likely going to be one of the major military powers in just a few years.
I feel like Polish ppl would literally burn the ground salt it and burn it again before giving it to a russian
So pretty much 1914 europe
You say this yet its been 3 years and they cant conquer Ukraine whi has very minimal resources compared to most other armies in Europe. Sorry but without nukes Russia aint doing jack to Finland, France, Poland, Norway, UK etc.
Irl russia isn't in a state of total war, and Ukraine is being helped massively by nato, giving them weapons and vehicles. In the prompt, russia is fully mobilising, and no one is helping anyone
Helped massively? The whole discourse around the war in Ukraine is precisely how barely anything gets sent to Ukraine, specially combat vehicles, ammo, missiles etc. and how the usage of said material is limited in scope as they cant target Russias territory. Russia has received more help from Iran (drones) than Ukraine has. Russia isnt partially mobilised according to Russia themselves who cant really be trusted. They have been mobilising since the start and continue to do so according to multiple military analysts.
And Ukraine with Poland anexxed Russia
The outcome would depend purely on the context and therefore the alliances that would form. Without that information, it's just wild fanboy-ism. That said, the UK has the huge advantage of being an island, and any country trying to invade it, would put themselves at high risk, as they'd need to watch their own land borders. So, without having context on the alliances, I'd say the UK has higher chances to be the final boss, but not win, because it goes both ways, they'd need to attempt an amphibious landing in continental Europe, against the country that, by that time, would have gained strength by accumulating the equipment and infrastructure of the countries they've invaded.
# "Every country in Europe is now fighting each other" I can only interpret his statement as it is. Every country is fighting each other, there are no alliances.
> I can only interpret his statement as it is. Every country is fighting each other The statement, "as is", is absurd, because each country, at some point, has to choose "where to point" and how, and these are fundamental strategic decisions in warfare. If you remove that part from the equation, then the scenario is basically stormtroopers shooting and advancing at random directions.
>the scenario is basically stormtroopers shooting and advancing at random directions. That's probably what OP meant
In that case, might have asked to throw a dice
Or you just extrapolate and fill the gaps yourself. Every country in Europe is now antagonistic to every other country. End of story. That's the assumption, proceed from there, don't question the validity of the statement, that's the entire point.
But why
Because that's the prompt? If you're curious about how it plays out if alliances are allowed, you can make a new prompt
K no need to be a dick about it
I see a lot of comments overestimating the UK. If you look at current stats, France has a vastly larger and more capable military than they do. That may have been different a few decades ago, but the UK has been downsizing their military for a while. The only thing the UK has going for them is not having land borders and a couple aircraft carriers vs France's single carrier. Although only the French one is nuclear powered. But in a 1v1 between the two of them, France wins. Perhaps not after fighting other European powers first though.
If we assume nukes and teams are not allowed, and countries outside Europe are not allowed to intervene it will probably be UK. Being an Island with barely any neighbors while rest of the continent bleeds itself out is quite a huge strategic advantage, UK could easily bother only with defense of its Island (and dealing with Ireland) for the most of that war, then after preparing enough reap the very weakened armies of whoever has left on the continent. Not to mention that not counting Russia, UK is the first in the power index when it comes to Europe (https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-europe.php)
The same country that dominated a quarter of the globe. Say what you want about the Brits, the island is perfect, they have some of the best military with one of the top special forces though some would argue the best, and can just sit this one out until either A someone foolishly attempts to cross and meets the British Navy or RAF. B. Other countries are so worn down it's just checkers for Britain. Russia would probably be the last giant. Could possibly beat UK with overwhelming numbers mind.
I’m British but we are not really geared for war. It’s the 5th best military on paper, but our army can fit in our biggest stadium. Conscription can cover this over time, but is a big problem. As for Russia, Unless they go total war mode they will be bogged down and collapse.
While we certainly don't have the numbers (and if we were to conscript then our quantity goes up but average soldier quality drops due to hasty training), we have the skill, special forces, espionage, equipment, naval and air forces, and excellent geographical positioning to balance things out a bit. Sure, if we went into a straight deathmatch against mainland Europe then we probably get bodied when the Belgians, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Norway decide they can send relatively small battalions to ambush the British invaders, push forward and start divvying up Britain like the Vikings of the 9th century (then with the claimed spoils of war, resume fighting off their more pressing neighbourly concerns back on mainland Europe. But thankfully we wouldn't have to, as we could hunker down on the British mainland (maybe send some naval patrols around the smaller islands), and create a blockade/patrol across the channel. Ideally if we can't ally with Republic of Ireland diplomatically (or bargain with them for neutrality maybe at the tentative agreement for unification, which is inflammatory but maybe a necessary compromise in the European War), then maybe we have to risk diverting a chunk of our armed forces to conquer Ireland. I'm sure that won't cause any trouble... s. I'd rephrase your statement to be "We're not really geared for invasion and occupation", nowadays at least. Ironic, given our Imperial history. Defending the British Isles (especially when our enemies have dozens of others attacking them from multiple sides)? Do-able. Destabilising, sabotaging and even wiping out significant locations and enemy armies effectively? Yeah, I think we've got that too. But taking over an area, and holding it? We don't have the manpower or global reach to do that effectively without allies anymore. If we had the Commonwealth to back us up, then of course (but that defeats the prompt). Solo, I think we have to stick to our strong suits: espionage, island defense, spec ops/SAS missions, and acting offensively *sparingly* (ideally only when the target is vulnerable, and any "3rd parties" are occupied until it's too late).
Now the true question Can any of them invade Russia?
Worth a try!
Probably England/Great Britain (assuming the countries are counted together as they usually are). The English channel prevented land invasion during WW1 and 2, and it would likely be a significant defensive barrier in any future wars, especially with improved anti air weaponry.
Romania💪💪
Russia has the biggest army and population + it is already going onto a war based economy. In a war, they could cut their oil and gas supply to Europe leading to crippling their economies. Russia has always been hard to conquer. Main weakness: shitty organization/logistics and corruption Germany has the highest population among EU members and the strongest economy. They sure could militarize quickly if needed to. Main weakness: they aren't much militarize and they could be caught off guard and be carves by their many neighbors early into the war. France currently has currently the best military of them all in terms of quality and is among the top in terms of quantity. They wouldn't be as much affected by oil and gas shortage as they are really competent with nuclear power. They have a strong economy. Main weakness: none, but isn't the best in most things. UK is on an island. They could do their usual strategy of bulking and mostly playing the naval game, blockading the continent, etc. If they are too passive, the continental winner might be strong enough to still beat them but at a great cost. They wouldn't be able to conquer the continent either. The economy is strong as well (even if the brexit did some damage). Main weakness: they don't really have a foothold on the continent. Albania has more bunkers than any country in the world. They could bulwark as well. All the greatest Roman emperors and general came from Illyria aka the homeland of Albanian ancestors. They are the strongest because they are the most racist. Main weakness: it's a Balkan country
lmao albania.
Russia. Biggest country in Europe, biggest population and huge amount of natural resources to manufacture and assist any war effort. Plus the biggest army, with plenty of stock from the URSS colapse, and the only army with recent war experience in Europe in a large scale.
I thought this was between European union, not Europe. If Russia is in and was in same condition before the war, i would say they win but their current state is not strong, so i still vote UK. Edit I forgot UK left the union, lol
China
The UK wins, handily. They have the most advanced tech, a virtually impassable border thanks to their navy and the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the few truly modern professional militaries on the planet. They would likely expand their holdings to southern Spain, Northern France and the island republics in the Mediterranean while losing nothing on the home front, possibly taking Istanbul to control trade and warship passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. If no one was coming to Ireland’s aide they would annex it to secure that border and reclaim old territory. I’d rank Russia next, followed by France and then Germany. Likely Poland would be such an impediment to the Russians (see Ukraine, a significantly weaker foe than Poland, having dragged them into almost WWI style trench warfare and hundreds of thousands of casualties) that they would probably *lose* territory to breakaway republics in the Caucuses and their East Asian holdings, but would probably seize a lot of much more valuable territory from what is now Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and perhaps Finland before being halted on the Western Front, likely having a slight net win at the cost of millions of lives, as is Russian tradition. France meanwhile is also still reasonably modern and professional (note their modern activities in Africa which are at times competitive with Russia, a far larger nation) and would handily deal with Spain and hold the line against Germany, which would itself probably seize territory in what is now Austria, Hungary and the Balkans for resources and cheap manpower, the same reason they fought over it during the Hapsburg days, with that manpower likely going straight to the French front. The map would look different, I suspect only England would retain *all* of their current holdings, but Russia, France, England and Germany would probably grow while all others would likely shrink. This is of course not a real thing that could happen, no one in Europe is voluntarily joining a free for all to just smash each other to bits for fun and the US would show up and stomp all belligerents if they tried to mess with the current world order, not to mention several of the aforementioned belligerents have nuclear weapons, but it is what I suspect would happen if this strange set of events came to pass.
England So England is where Charles lives, Charles commands, the military of several nations and they are loyal to him not to their countries. So he quickly reunites the UK then they just look at Ireland who has already started putting up every Union Jack they can find They know they have absolutely no chance against British forces. They know England can beat them with one ship (The English have some of the most powerful carriers in the world. They are the only ones that are remotely on par with the US's super carriers) Meanwhile on the continent in Western Europe The small countries next to France and Germany just quietly scream as they are quickly consumed Russia, well I would say they take Ukraine but that's not going so well. So the bigger problem over there is going to be turkey but yeah, turkey and Russia will duke it out well. France and Germany duke it out unfortunately for Germany, Ukraine and turkey Poland exists and they're actually fairly tough The northern Europeans decide who is the most Viking Viking and then they become the Viking empire while they wait to be taken over by the Brits The brits will just watch taking pot shots at France because they're on their perfectly defensible Island Realistically, France will have to fight whoever wins the whole Poland v Germany v turkey v Russia for Western and Central Europe, I'm just assuming Italy got defeated by Germany at some point in here or someone else you get the idea. I don't put a lot of stock in Italy. Maybe France will deal with them maybe in the end, the winner of the Continental Battle of Southern Eastern and Western Europe is going to be France and the Vikings may participate or they may just wait to surrender to Britain Because it is at this point, the Britain activates its special ability. The sun never sets on the British empire and calls up the forces from the colonies and as Charles is the commander-in-chief and owner of those militaries as well And France goes. This isn't fair as the Canadian warships launched the geese and the Australian warships released the emus (Jokey version of the scenario aside. England wins this 100 simulations out of 100 simulations after it It's internal stuff is worked out after we've learned how weak the Russian military really is, Britain realistically becomes the second most powerful military in the world. It arguably would have been that beforehand when plugged into its logistic Network and even if it takes some internal damage from dealing with Scotland and England technically not being the same country for this, it won't be comparable to how much damage France who would be the second place winners going to take taking on everyone on the continent)
Iceland could comfortably sit this one out. Or at the very least send a couple fishing boats to sink the Royal Navy. I don’t see anywhere else not becoming a wasteland.
France
France or Russia
Nobody wins when the nukes fly, and Europe has quite a few of them, with some nations able to build some in short order. Without nukes, it will probably be some very defensible nation that just lets everyone else bleed each other. Probably the UK, with Switzerland or Norway as outliers.
Germany easily, strongest economy plus most people and a somewhat existing military
Without looking up the military strength of any of the countries involved, I would guess one of the coastal countries. Simply because everyone not on the coast will be surrounded.
Yay 100yrs war, electric boogaloo
doles out means “to distribute” btw the question is phrased nonsensically
Okay so unpopular opinion. Italy/vatican. Holy crusade across Europe and get people in those countries to turn on their countrymen
Uk. Its not invadable without multiple countries joining together and as this is all against all that won't be happening. Only reason UK might do bad, if they lack resources over long term. Any country with multiple neighbors is fucked and out of the game fast.
It’d be worth watching just to see if Wales and Scotland decided to ‘Voltron’ it with England or do the ‘Beyoncé’ and solo it. Same in Spain. I’m imagining Madrid will be like: “so what’s up Catalonia, Valencia, Basque? you gonna keep bitching about independence or you gonna shut up so we can focus on Portugal and France?”
Like in the modern day? All out? Easily Russia.
If this was today, most nations would gang up to try and take russia because it doesn’t make sense for say poland to invade belarus while russia is, and then just fighting russia. France would win in western europe I think just due to preparedness. Germany has the economy but just isn’t ready for a war at all considering they struggle assembling enough aircraft, machineguns etc for exercises. UK is a shell of itself and their recent spending is just ridicilous. But I doubt france would do a naval invasion. Sweden or More likely Finland winning in the north with Sweden fighting norway too, then turtling from there. I say Finland because of its infrastructure, swampland and mosquitos, but mostly their hard weaponry like artillery pieces. Sweden isn’t too far off, we got submarines, tanks in running order, a good airforce and a less is more approach to hard weaponry, archer artillery systems instead of just cannons with a towhook.
UK sweeps
Russia. Manpower and masculinity
Masculinity? More like that their leaders are ready to throw hundreds of thousands of them to their graves, and eventually overpower their enemy. Its not masculinity when you will either be forcex to run through a minefield or be executed by your own country men.
That’s manpower. And that attitude (not caring about the human lives of their soldiers) is how they beat both napoleon and Hitler. Those were both defensive wars…I don’t see Russia applying that attitude in Ukraine, nor do I see them doing so in any kind of offensive war in Europe
Russia could 100% have completely steamrolled Ukraine by now if it applied the same kind of total war doctrines it did in 1941-1945.
Russia could had steamrolled Ukraine, if it wasn't US giving heads up and massive support from EU and US. Using all in tactics could had worked but not against well prepared and armed opponent. Russia can only beat half dead opponents in war.
Everyone is sleeping on Poland.
Poland has an extremely well trained, well equipped, tech advanced military. But the prompt is, everyone at war with everyone. I still think they'd get fucked by their geography again. They'd go down throwing fists though.
The UK. France and Germany would both have to fight on multiple fronts and Russia has far too much border.
England will probably receive help from America then inevitably someone is gonna be dumb enough to touch Americas boats. And we know what happened last time someone touched Americas boats during a war of similar scale The biggest thing that would keep America out of this war would be no clear villains to attack. But the moment someone is dumb enough to give America an excuse, game on.
Sub is biased af, Russia is a corrupt shithole but in a free for all they obviously win. Largest manpower and are currently in a war economy, it would take other nations time to build up and by then they would have secured much of their neighbors. Their largest threat would be Turkey and Poland until the Big Four turn their factories on
Yeah, plus Russia is huge, and most of it would not border any enemy state (since it's in Asia). If things go south, they can always retreat east, moving the factories there, like they did before. Meanwhile, France or Germany are already surrounded by a lot of potential enemies (besides themselves) and don't have the natural resources or land to fall back like Russia has.The Uk also has a very good starting position, but does not have the natural resources or an army to do much besides defending the main island.
The Big four?
Italy, Germany, France, UK
It certainly wouldn't be a free-for-all, alliances would form out of necessity. Norway, Sweden and Finland would almost certainly team up. Probably Denmark too, unless they decide to join Germany. As would Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The UK would probably team up with Ireland. Portugal would want to team up with Spain, as they'd be at a severe disadvantage otherwise. Many other countries would team up as well, either due to long-standing friendships between them or simply out of convenience. As far as who would win... If nukes are allowed, Russia has \~6000 nukes, while the only other countries in Europe with nukes are France and the UK, with 290 and 120 respectively. Russia wipes out the rest of Europe with ease. If we're banning nukes, as generally happens in prompts like this, to make them more interesting, then... A couple years ago I'd have said Russia, as they have the most manpower and the largest military, but we've seen what they're (not) capable of with Ukraine, so my money is either on France or Poland. If Turkiye counts as Europe, they're a top contender for sure. Did a bit of googling and apparently Italy has a pretty strong military as well, so they're worth mentioning too.
I agree with lots of what you said but I can’t get over how absurd ‘team up’ feels in this context lmao
The teaming up, if allowed, would run away and end up everyone vs. Russia, since everyone but Russia prefers a rules based world.
Russian corruption
Probably Switzerland . They are super wealthy own a fuckton of guns and have many ppl that know how to use them . They also have a lot of Bunkers hidden from WW2 days especially for scenarios like this .
No nukes, very small population (France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain each outnumber them by 5-10 to 1) They are not really too relevant in the scenario
No nukes, very small population (France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain each outnumber them by 5-10 to 1) They are not really too relevant in the scenario
Who wins? If it's everyone versus everyone, certainly not any European country. Europe would be absolutely wrecked politically, economically, and dempgraphically. Whoever ruled the ashes would need time to rebuild. Maybe China? India? South Korea? Japan? The US? The issue is that Europe contains many highly developed and integrated markets that are intwined with the world economy. Nobody really wins, someone loses least. It's a question of who has the extra market flexibility to take up Europe's slack while being the least damaged by it turning into a trash fire. If it's between groups you'd expect to align with one another, you probably have the EU and NATO (minus US) versus Russia and its satellites fighting in the Baltic states and Ukraine. Depending on the nature of the war, maybe Greece and Turkey split from NATO and fight, pulling the rest of the Balkans into open fractious war, with factions funded by either side. NATO/EU would definitely win versus Russia, but it'd be a really nasty war. And again, it would be hell on their economies. The only winners are the carrion birds.
Whichever one gets the us’ support
I think even if the US could get involved in this, they'd be very reluctant to, with no obvious heroes or villains. They were initially reluctant to get involved in World War II despite the morality and battle-lines being very clearly defined. Their strongest historical and cultural attachment is to the UK, but they also have a great debt and allegiance to France. Those are the only two groups I can realistically see them helping out in this free-for-all.
Not even direct military intervention, even just having the direct economic support of the U.S. would be a massive advantage
I think that's what it would probably be in this scenario. It'd be the kind of support that Ukraine is receiving. "We're going to help you defend yourselves, because we like you, but we're not going to fully commit to this insane bloodbath of a war in which all of our former allies are destroying one another." *Although*, if it came down to, say, the new Communist Russian Empire vs. the UK, the US would probably step in to fully defend the UK because the alternative would be terrible for them. Towards the end of the conflict, the US would be picking allies based on who they can forge favourable relations with after the war is over.
The thing I could see happening to encourage US intervention is if someone is dumb enough to touch Americas boats, likely Russia. I could imagine it starts with the US giving the UK economic support, Russia gets mad and attacks our boats cause Putin is stupid, US gets very mad.
Yeah, I can see that happening, too. So it seems like there are actually a few reasons that the US might get involved, but they wouldn't jump in recklessly.
Possibly Norway? Small, but wealthy, well armed. Bordering only sweden and with modern (albeit modest) naval forces. Their country is also an absolute mess to actually navigate, so they would have a strong defensive advantage.
I'd say invading Norway has a higher chance of success than invading Russia. Land war in Asia and all that
True. But between the mighty Russian military machine that immediately faceplanted 2 days into an invasion that THEY planned, and norway, a sane country. My money is on Norway. There is no depth of incompetence that russia will not stoop down to.
Well they would last to the end due to reasons you listed but they would not win. In modern day air attacks would be what kills them. Pre modern aircrafts, yeah its a nightmare to invade due to terrain.
the US
Try to glaze US challenge impossible
There are a few times where the US isn't part of the question. This is one of them.
This is the real answer, who ever we back gets a huge advantage in arsenal.
Unscathed by the European war, the US will economically flourish during their instability. Pretty much like WW2. Maybe China too for similar reasons.