Aftermath of a theoretical War of the Worlds?

[willyvereb]

War of the Worlds is a story where in the late 19th century (somewhere between 1894 and 1900) the Martians attack the heart of the British Empire. Their rapid campaign was centered around London. Many cities including the capital itself were ruined, those who failed to evacuate are dead. The surrounding area was covered in red alien weed. Yet after just 2 weeks the Martians suddenly die to bacterial infection they've never prepared for and the world is saved.
Or is it?
What would be the geopolitical consequences of such an attack?

Damage to the British Empire:

• London ruined
• Multiple surrounding cities ravaged
• Land is covered in worthless Red Weed, might have also affected farmlands
• Many thousands if not over a million British citizens died and many millions were rendered homeless
• Local military forces were routed if not mostly annihilated
• Potential deaths of important personnel (albeit the political leadership were sure evacuated in time)
• General loss of confidence in the British Government to protect their people
• Rumors of divine judgment for the Empire's arrogance.

I don't really care the ramifications about the confirmed existence of aliens or whatever technology they can salvage. What I care the most about in this thread is the geopolitical consequences. Few key points:

• How much this would hurt the British Empire? Can they remain a major power after this?
• How much would the weakening of British effect the actions of other major powers?
• Can the British Empire keep their colonies? If not all, which ones are the most likely to declare independence before the 1910s?
• How would this perhaps effect WW1 in the future? Would it even happen?

 

[Eliar]

Lets see...

The British Empire was dealt a harsh but non-lethal blow but her fleet is still intact and the colonial forces as well. There may be some uprisings but they probably get crushed with extreme prejudice by said fleet and colonial troops.

Now the British Empire is the sole owner of a whole bunch of alien tech, the world knows that there are aliens around and apparently are eyeing Earth the same way the Western Nations eyed Asia and Africa in those days. I predict an accord among the Great Powers, both in invastigating the alien tech and preparing for any future alien incursions.

Steampunk X-Com!

 

[mulazer]

Lets see...

The British Empire was dealt a harsh but non-lethal blow but her fleet is still intact and the colonial forces as well. There may be some uprisings but they probably get crushed with extreme prejudice by said fleet and colonial troops.

Now the British Empire is the sole owner of a whole bunch of alien tech, the world knows that there are aliens around and apparently are eyeing Earth the same way the Western Nations eyed Asia and Africa in those days. I predict an accord among the Great Powers, both in invastigating the alien tech and preparing for any future alien incursions.

Steampunk X-Com!

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in other words
Edison's Conquest of Mars

only probably spread out over a span of a century or more

 

[willyvereb]

Most of the technology left behind by the Martians are so alien it'd be worthless for decades until technology and industry develops enough to make some sense to these. So outside fiction the benefit in Martian tech would be minimal for the Brits.
Also like I said there's absolutely no interest for me about the tech here. If I were, I would perhaps host this on the Creative Writing section, not here.

The question is what kind of national and geopolitical consequences would be after the Martian attack? While I agree that the navy and colonial armies would remain practically intact the fact remains that millions of British died, many millions became homeless, cities in ruins and the image of Britain's invincibility is in shambles. This would certainly have quite an effect on their actions in the future.

 

[Axiomatic]

Haven't you gutted the British industrial capacity? Yes, all their colonial posessions are intact, as are the vast majority of their armed forces, but almost all their factories and hell, factory workers are dead.

That's not shit you recover from before France, Germany and the US overtake you. So now you have no way to produce new stuff (none of your colonies are industrialized after all, and you don't have the money anymore to industrialize them) and WW1 is 15 years away.

 

[Eliar]

Most of the technology left behind by the Martians are so alien it'd be worthless for decades until technology and industry develops enough to make some sense to these. So outside fiction the benefit in Martian tech would be minimal for the Brits.
Also like I said there's absolutely no interest for me about the tech here. If I were, I would perhaps host this on the Creative Writing section, not here.

The question is what kind of national and geopolitical consequences would be after the Martian attack? While I agree that the navy and colonial armies would remain practically intact the fact remains that millions of British died, many millions became homeless, cities in ruins and the image of Britain's invincibility is in shambles. This would certainly have quite an effect on their actions in the future.

Click to shrink...

It all depends on how the rest of the world responds and their actions.

I would like to believe they all draw together and prepare to go to space but given how wierd some of the theories and how retarded some of the people in power were?

There is a not insignificant probability they decide it was all caused by the international Jewish Illuminaty conspiracy, go on a feeding frenzy on the British possessions and probably throw in a couple of pogroms and genocides for good measure

 

[Space Jawa]

Was Britain really the only country that came under attack in the original book? I don't think I've ever actually read the original version (I've read adaptations and 'youth versions' before), but did the rest of the world explicitly dodge a bullet by not being attacked or are we simply assuming that they only attacked Britain because the rest of the world isn't mentioned at all?

 

[willyvereb]

Was Britain really the only country that came under attack in the original book? I don't think I've ever actually read the original version (I've read adaptations and 'youth versions' before), but did the rest of the world explicitly dodge a bullet by not being attacked or are we simply assuming that they only attacked Britain because the rest of the world isn't mentioned at all?

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Nope, in the original story the Martians only hit Southern Britain with their aims focused towards London the most.
Remember that around this time London was the center of the world and capital for the largest empire known. That and the Martians likely planned to establish a bridgehead on Earth and what's better than an island-country cut off from the rest of the world? So they would've hit two birds with one stone.
Again, keep in mind that there are less than a hundred Martian invaders so they had to use their manpower alienpower pretty wisely.

 

[zhaktronz]

Nope, in the original story the Martians only hit Southern Britain with their aims focused towards London the most.
Remember that around this time London was the center of the world and capital for the largest empire known. That and the Martians likely planned to establish a bridgehead on Earth and what's better than an island-country cut off from the rest of the world? So they would've hit two birds with one stone.
Again, keep in mind that there are less than a hundred Martian invaders so they had to use their manpower alienpower pretty wisely.

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Even then it was a close run thing for the Martians - the very first Martian out of the cylinder falls down in the dirt immobilised by the gravity for some hours and period artillery was shown to be capable of defeating Tripods. It was only via mass indiscriminate deployment of chemical weapons that the Martians were able to defeat British resistance.

It's one of the elements of WotW I really enjoy - that even with HG Wells imagining the most incredible magitech he could the Martians would have been rolled up by the military technology of a mere 15 years later (at least until they deployed flying machines maybe)

The War of the World Game plays with this idea - the invasion comes a few years later, the British get a bit luckier, and the first cylinder is destroyed, so the rest of the cylinders divert and land in Scotland, giving time for a proper defence to be mobilised.

 

[willyvereb]

Even then it was a close run thing for the Martians - the very first Martian out of the cylinder falls down in the dirt immobilised by the gravity for some hours and period artillery was shown to be capable of defeating Tripods. It was only via mass indiscriminate deployment of chemical weapons that the Martians were able to defeat British resistance.

It's one of the elements of WotW I really enjoy - that even with HG Wells imagining the most incredible magitech he could the Martians would have been rolled up by the military technology of a mere 15 years later (at least until they deployed flying machines maybe)

The War of the World Game plays with this idea - the invasion comes a few years later, the British get a bit luckier, and the first cylinder is destroyed, so the rest of the cylinders divert and land in Scotland, giving time for a proper defence to be mobilised.

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Actually, no. As Martians were portrayed they wouldn't have a much tougher time against WW1 or arguably not even against WW2 if they actually get the information. The reason Martians even struggled is threefold:
1.) They lacked sufficient information about Earth
2.) Traveling in space required tons of resources thus they had only a small force to work with
3.) They did underestimate their enemies or failed to recognize for example that X weird human construct is a weapon they must wary of.

Anyways, that's not the point. Also I did like that the Martians were shown to have the problems of their own. This and in the end them falling to illness was a good reflection of the problems colonial powers had when they tried to subjugate others.

 

[zhaktronz]

Actually, no. As Martians were portrayed they wouldn't have a much tougher time against WW1 or arguably not even against WW2 if they actually get the information. The reason Martians even struggled is threefold:
1.) They lacked sufficient information about Earth
2.) Traveling in space required tons of resources thus they had only a small force to work with
3.) They did underestimate their enemies or failed to recognize for example that X weird human construct is a weapon they must wary of.

Anyways, that's not the point. Also I did like that the Martians were shown to have the problems of their own. This and in the end them falling to illness was a good reflection of the problems colonial powers had when they tried to subjugate others.

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That's what I said?

 

[willyvereb]

That's what I said?

Click to shrink...

"I also did like that the Martians were shown to have problems of their own."

 

[zhaktronz]

"I also did like that the Martians were shown to have problems of their own."

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Oh wait I misread.

And I disagree - the Tripods are very mobile, and have extreme firepower, but if all your soldiers are packing a gas mask - which they were by WW1, then they're limited to engaging with their savage unearthly heat rays that instantly melted the thunderchilds valiant heart.

The book described Tripods as resistant to Maxim fire (IIRC they were literally made out of aluminium), but the six guns we had seen earlier fired simultaneously, decapitating a fighting machine (quoting from the musical because I can remember it off my head lol), from context it'd be something like a 12pounder. So we are hardly talking about impenetrable armoured tanks - by the time of WW1, let alone WW2 dug in artillery, and heavy howitzers firing from defilade will make mincemeat of tripods.

But you know - that might not matter if gas masks don't work and flying machines destroy London.

 

[willyvereb]

Oh wait I misread.

And I disagree - the Tripods are very mobile, and have extreme firepower, but if all your soldiers are packing a gas mask - which they were by WW1, then they're limited to engaging with their savage unearthly heat rays that instantly melted the thunderchilds valiant heart.

The book described Tripods as resistant to Maxim fire (IIRC they were literally made out of aluminium), but the six guns we had seen earlier fired simultaneously, decapitating a fighting machine (quoting from the musical because I can remember it off my head lol), from context it'd be something like a 12pounder. So we are hardly talking about impenetrable armoured tanks - by the time of WW1, let alone WW2 dug in artillery, and heavy howitzers firing from defilade will make mincemeat of tripods.

But you know - that might not matter if gas masks don't work and flying machines destroy London.

Click to shrink...

1.) The way artillery crews were hitting rapidly moving Martians was surreal in the books and example of humanity fuck yeah.
2.) Horse cannons were used and they can only harm the tripod in the articulations (which could regen) and the transparent canopy (no evidence of anything less capable of punching through).
3.) Maxim guns were not used nor they are relevant. Aluminum construction was suggested by the narrator but not proven.
4.) The main body again can fall on a giant reinforced building with enough force to crush it yet not harm the Tripod itself. It's arguable that even modern tank rounds would harm the main body or artillery.
5.) Gas masks can help you to not due from the black smoke, but you can't really fight in that gear either.
6.) Martians can also lob explosive shells and the body of the mech is a scary weapon already.
7.) Though in effects heat rays are all they need and you seriously underestimate those.
8.) Howitzers can't hit shit if it's a moving target. Even in modern times artillery hitting tanks with a regular shell is considered bad luck than something you can reliably do. And modern tanks don't speed at multi-hundred kilometres per hour.

Anyways, I ask you to put this argument elsewhere. It doesn't matter in this thread how powerful Martians are. Nor whatever people may do with their tech.
British were hit badly by the attack and this thread exists to explore the consequences of this.

 

[zhaktronz]

1.) The way artillery crews were hitting rapidly moving Martians was surreal in the books and example of humanity fuck yeah.
2.) Horse cannons were used and they can only harm the tripod in the articulations (which could regen) and the transparent canopy (no evidence of anything less capable of punching through).
3.) Maxim guns were not used nor they are relevant. Aluminum construction was suggested by the narrator but not proven.
4.) The main body again can fall on a giant reinforced building with enough force to crush it yet not harm the Tripod itself. It's arguable that even modern tank rounds would harm the main body or artillery.
5.) Gas masks can help you to not due from the black smoke, but you can't really fight in that gear either.
6.) Martians can also lob explosive shells and the body of the mech is a scary weapon already.
7.) Though in effects heat rays are all they need and you seriously underestimate those.
8.) Howitzers can't hit shit if it's a moving target. Even in modern times artillery hitting tanks with a regular shell is considered bad luck than something you can reliably do. And modern tanks don't speed at multi-hundred kilometres per hour.

Anyways, I ask you to put this argument elsewhere. It doesn't matter in this thread how powerful Martians are. Nor whatever people may do with their tech.
British were hit badly by the attack and this thread exists to explore the consequences of this.

Click to shrink...

The strength of the Martians is pretty relevant to how things play out post war - if everyone is terrified of them then it's going to effect continental planning and mobilisation pretty hard.

Frankly mate your interpretation of the Martians is full of shit so I'm going to call you on it.

The tripods are fast - but they're fast by the standards of the unreliable narrator - 1897 HG Wells.

As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the thunder--"Aloo! Aloo!"--and in another minute it was with its companion, half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt this Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had fired at us from Mars.

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Half a mile a minute. Nobody could ever target that with artillery. Oh wait.

About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were certainly alive to the seriousness of the busi- ness. About eleven, the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot.

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Maxims which were presumably ineffective against the "crawling out in a thing like a dish cover" that the Martians used to move out from their cylinder. "one heard the whirr of a machine-gun"

At that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second cylinder under cover of a metal shield.
Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to com- mand the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipi- tated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred dead men and dead horses.

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So the Tripod are immune to Maxim fire, and no opportunity was had to fire at them with field artillery during the initial conflict at Maybury.

Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussion, the last close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already raising the case generating the Heat-Ray as the first shell burst six yards above the hood.
I gave a cry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other four Martian monsters; my attention was riveted upon the nearer incident. Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell.
The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered frag- ments of red flesh and glittering metal.

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Period arty - firing shell, not HE or AP (all British field arty fired shell during this time) destroys a Tripod. We already established that Tripods don't move at hundreds of km an hour, so its a perfectly reasonable shot -- a shot from ambush, so its not as if the crews didn't have time to take careful aim. It blatantly wasn't a shot to the joints as you claimed.

 

[willyvereb]

@zhaktronz
I would seriously advise you to read the excerpts you quote but whatever. This has nothing to do with this thread. If you really wish to push this make a VS debate thread for it or something, don't derail my thread any longer.

 

[zhaktronz]

@zhaktronz
I would seriously advise you to read the excerpts you quote but whatever. This has nothing to do with this thread. If you really wish to push this make a VS debate thread for it or something, don't derail my thread any longer.

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I literally posted excerpts contradicting your ridiculous claims and you tell me to read them?

You want to claim Tripods can go 300k+km an hours? How about you show me some evidence.

They landed at Woking! That's only 30km from London city! Its only 10km from Woking to Weybridge where the tripod was downed - but the narrator and the artilleryman had time to WALK there and hundreds of troops (hussars and grenadiers) and dozens of guns had time to get there and dig in.

But tripods can move at 300km an hour

 

[Generic_Generica]

official staff communication Gentlemen. This is neither the time nor the place for discussing the Martians' capabilities because in this scenario the Martians have kind of died off. @zhaktronz if you really want to discuss this then I'd advise you to make a new thread in Fiction Discussion or VS.

 

[Parsely]

Britain has powerful allies at this time, they're not going to be invaded just because they suffered some losses at home. England's navy is also intact so good luck crossing the channel.

Unlike France post-WW2, their government is also intact, so no reorganization concerns. England smoothly enters a period of recovery as the armies are rallied and London and the surrounding cities are repaired. Really nothing significant changes unless the red weed does something or the alien tech is exploited. The British were being constantly bombed in WW2 and life managed to go on. At the most maybe someone considers poaching England's colonies, since their forces at home aren't in a condition to go respond to such an attack.

Unfortunately without political leaders being killed on a mass scale, I don't see this changing a whole lot on a global political scale.

 

[Avernus]

As far as reverse engineering Martian technology goes, the original book had a few lines on the issue:

The matter he printed was emotional; the news organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the "Secret of Flying," was discovered.

Click to shrink...

Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter.

Click to shrink...

 

[the atom]

The British Empire would would probably remain in a diminished form for a few decades, but at this point it's basically a husk of it's former self.

The navy is still technically there, but between the cost of recovery and the loss of able-bodied manpower, Britain's participation in the dreadnought race is out of the question and its ability to defend its colonial holdings or keeping the more troublesome ones from immediately breaking away is severely reduced.

Britain's various rivals will likely be too paralyzed with terror for a short time to immediately capitalize on Britain's misfortune, but when they snap out of it I'd expect Britain and France to suffer dearly.

The sort of German brinkmanship against France we saw in 1905 will instead likely escalate into a short and humiliating war that sees Morocco, a few African holdings and probably a few French border regions stripped from it. Likewise, the Ottomans will probably find some pretext to take both Syria and Egypt

As far as breakaway colonies goes, the Boer War is basically over before it starts, and Canada and Australia would likely become independent a lot quicker than they did OTL.

Britain itself would likely be rebuilt on the American dollar within a couple decades, but by the 30s Germany will be too far ahead to catch up.

 

[Eliar]

The British Empire would would probably remain in a diminished form for a few decades, but at this point it's basically a husk of it's former self.

The navy is still technically there, but between the cost of recovery and the loss of able-bodied manpower, Britain's participation in the dreadnought race is out of the question and it's ability to defend it's colonial holdings or keeping the more troublesome ones from immediately breaking away is severely reduced.

Britain's various rivals will likely be too paralyzed with terror for a short time to immediately capitalize on Britain's misfortune, but when they snap out of it I'd expect Britain and France to suffer dearly.

The sort of German brinkmanship against France we saw in 1905 will instead likely escalate into a short and humiliating war that sees Morocco, a few African holdings and probably a few French border regions stripped from it. Likewise, the Ottomans will probably find some pretext to take both Syria and Egypt

As far as breakaway colonies goes, the Boer War is basically over before it starts, and Canada and Australia would likely become independent a lot quicker than they did OTL.

Britain itself would likely be rebuilt on the American dollar within a couple decades, but by the 30s Germany will be too far ahead to catch up.

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Why will it be a short and humiliating war? Admitedly the Germans had a pretty solid plan and advantage in numbers but whyy would it not be a redux of WW1? Machineguns and artillery were not that far behind.

 

[zhaktronz]

Why will it be a short and humiliating war? Admitedly the Germans had a pretty solid plan and advantage in numbers but whyy would it not be a redux of WW1? Machineguns and artillery were not that far behind.

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I'd suggest the British may do better than historically when a continental war does occur because they'll have institutional experience of being on the receiving end of industrial warfare

 

[the atom]

Why will it be a short and humiliating war? Admitedly the Germans had a pretty solid plan and advantage in numbers but whyy would it not be a redux of WW1? Machineguns and artillery were not that far behind.

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Had it not been for the aid of Britain, Germany would have flattened France in WW1, and had it not been for Britain's presence Germany probably would have gone to war over Morocco in 1905.

I'd suggest the British may do better than historically when a continental war does occur because they'll have institutional experience of being on the receiving end of industrial warfare

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Nothing about the Martian Invasion was especially instructive. It wasn't 'industrial warfare' in any sense, and the lessons learned don't really apply to early 20th century warfare. The British combated the Martians with ambush tactics using small, concealed artillery detachments and met with, at best, mixed success. At most they might come away with the impression that small concentrations of artillery are more effective than they actually are (which is...sort of what the British incorrectly assumed OTL anyways).

In any case, it's unlikely that they'd be able to participate. If the Morocco Crisis happens somewhat on-schedule their manpower will be too depleted to for them to consider aiding France, and if the war gets pushed to around 1912 or 1914 the Royal Navy will be bringing a bunch of pre-dreads to a Dreadnought fight.

 

[Eliar]

Had it not been for the aid of Britain, Germany would have flattened France in WW1, and had it not been for Britain's presence Germany probably would have gone to war over Morocco in 1905.

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As I recall France getting roflestomped in the opening months of ww1 was due to their moronic adherence to a fully offensive, bayonet charge ideal that had hundreds of thousands slaughtered. Would it be the same in 1905?