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Historical Roads Not Taken
I’ve never been a big fan of the “alternative history” genre of fiction, but I do sometimes find myself fascinated by moments in history when things could very easily have gone differently. I’m not talking here about big questions like “what if the South had won the Civil War?” I’m talking about those moments when some small, even trivial, event has disproportionately enormous repercussions that no one could have predicted. Where it’s quite easy to imagine that things might have been otherwise.
Of course, such moments happen all the time; most of them we will never know about. We’ll never know about the what-ifs that didn’t happen. But there are a few cases I can think of where we can see — in retrospect — how big things can be traced back to these coin-flip moments.
My favorite example is an obvious one: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which very nearly didn’t happen. Dan Carlin, in his excellent Hardcore History podcast, talks about how this is one of those moments where it almost seems as if Fate intervened to make sure history went a certain way. The initial attempt to assassinate the archduke failed, and his plans for the day were then unpredictably changed; it was only by chance that his motorcade made a wrong turn and passed the spot where Gavrilo Princip was waiting. And of course Princip might have missed, or his shot might have proved nonlethal. But that single .380-caliber bullet struck the archduke’s jugular vein and defined the history of the rest of the Twentieth Century (and beyond).
Here’s another one, more speculative but fun to think about. You’ve probably heard the story of Grace Bedell, a little girl who in 1860 wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln encouraging him to grow a beard. “All the ladies like whiskers,” she wrote, “and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.” Now, it’s likely that matters more important than facial hair dictated the outcome of that election, but marketing does make a difference. Is it possible that Lincoln’s beard really did induce women to “tease their husbands” to vote for him? Could it be that Grace Bedell gave Lincoln advice that won the election for him, triggering the secession crisis and dictating the course of the Civil War? (Probably not, but it’s fun to think about.)
So here’s the part where I inevitably ask: what are your favorite what-if moments in history? Again, I’m not talking about the big what-ifs; I’m talking about the tiny butterfly-effect moments that turned out to change history in big ways.
“DC-1914-27-d-Sarajevo-cropped” by Achille Beltrame – Cropped version of File:Beltrame Sarajevo.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Published in History
Now that is a thought-provoking scenario. As much as I am against Hillary Clinton now … if I could go back in time and hand her the Democratic nomination in 2008, I think I’d do it. Hillary Clinton would be a terrible president. But she would have been better for the last eight years than what we’ve had.
Better the devil you know–and Hilary’s goals have always been fairly overt.
Eve rejects serpent’s advice, does not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity remains in Eden. Major implications for present day.
A Tiny Spark
In May of 1754 an ambitious 22-year old Virginian, anxious to prove himself officer material for the British army, led 150 colonial militia and a few Indian allies across the Appalachians to reinforce 40 ill-provisioned colonials encamped at the juncture where the Allegheny and Monogahela met to form the Ohio River. Unfortunatley, 500 French soldiers and their own Indian allies, recently fortifying the Ohio Valley, got there first, dispatched the colonials, and built a real fort – Fort Duquesne. 500 against 150 were not great enough odds to dissuade our young Virginian, or convince him to wait for reinforcements of his own. He pressed on. The French commander, Captian Contrecoeur, sent a 35-man negotiating team, led by Ensign Jumonville, to search out out this Colonel George Washington.
Tanaghrisson, a Seneca “half-chief” with an agenda of his own (fomenting war between the French and British) fed Washington false information about the French group and convinced Washington to ambush it. He did, but was no match for the experienced Tanaghrisson and lost contol of the engagement, which turned into a slaughter; Tanaghrisson washing his hands in the brains of the young ensign after smashing open his skull. Captain Contrecoeur subsequently destroyed Washington’s little army and negotiated a signed settlement in which the Americans admitted to their atrocities. They likely didn’t know what they were signing. Their French was iffy at best. But they really had no choice.
They straggled back to Virginia where their encounter was successfully spun as a great battle.
Our courageous, but raw and inexperienced, young officer had blundered into an engagement – quite insignificant in itself – that would tip strategic dominoes to embroil much of four continents and countless nations in the Seven Years War, much like “some damn fool thing in the Balkans” would do 160 years later. But the war which had started in the deep forests of Virginia, not the one in the Balkans, would be the real first world war. And its enormous expense would lead directly to taxes on colonials, which led to the American Revolution and the ascendency of George Washington to become one of the most important figures in world history.
The young officer was a fast learner. His many mistakes in his first two battles would never be repeated, and he would go on to show true heroism and, not to mince words, maniacal and foolish courage in later battles of the French and Indian War.
I did not see a reference to Ricochet on Mark Steyn’s web page.
The world ends.
That’s what really happened. But how would you change it?