Counterfactuals in History – An Introduction.

In my introductory essay, I remarked that history can turn on a coin. Franz Urban could have easily avoided making his fatal mistake of June 28^th, 1914, or he could have made a completely different error altogether. Simply by going the right way, or making a wrong turn into another street, he could have saved the life of the archduke, and perhaps Europe could have been spared World War One. Or Europe could have plunged itself into flames anyway, the war beginning on a different day with a different spark and a different set of national alignments. We don’t know for sure, but the possibilities are certainly intriguing.

 

To speculate on all these possibilities is to step into the arena of counterfactual history. History is the tale of what happened; counterfactual history is the story of what could have happened – how a historical event could have taken place in another way and what repercussions this would have had. It is a relatively new, and much-maligned, area of historiography, and I intend to demonstrate here that it has considerable utility and most definitely does not deserve all the scorn poured upon it over the years.

 

Counterfactualism in history is not new. Roman historian Tacitus mused about Germanicus, Augustus’ son and the able general who picked up the pieces after the devastating Roman defeat in the Teutoburg Forest, living a full life; he actually died in AD 19, aged just thirty-four under somewhat controversial circumstances. More recently, in 1907, the renowned Whig historian G.M. Trevelyan produced an essay revolving around a Napoleonic victory at the Battle of Waterloo. Later in the century, no less a luminary than Sir Winston Churchill dabbled in the topic, wondering in one of his writings how the world would have turned out if Confederate General Robert E. Lee had beaten his Union counterpart Meade at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1862. Unfortunately, the work in which this contribution appeared, If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931), was the last significant text on counterfactual history to appear for the next six decades.

 

The revival of the medium began in 1991, when the Cambridge sociologist Geoffrey Hawthorn published Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences, which evaluated a number of counterfactual scenarios, including the Black Death and the Korean War. This work helped inspire Niall Ferguson’s Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, in 1997, and since then counterfactual history has been gaining both increased popularity and increased academic acceptance.

 

At roughly the same time, the genre of alternate history fiction saw a renaissance of its own, which no doubt aided the cause of counterfactual history. Robert Harris’ bestselling Fatherland (1992), set in a world where Nazi Germany won World War Two, is often cited today as one of the seminal works of this genre, and there is no doubt that is impact was great. Well-known American science fiction and fantasy writer Harry Turtledove was next to perpetuate the phenomenon, producing, in 1994, his Worldwar series; a sci-fi/alternate history series that postulated an alien invasion smack in the middle of the Second World War. He followed this up in 1997 with what is popularly known as the Timeline-191 series, which explored the consequences of Lee’s famous “lost orders” (Special Orders 191, hence the label) never being lost, and the Union hence losing the American Civil War. Turtledove has also produced Departures (1993) and Counting Up, Counting Down (2002), a series of short stories set in alternate history worlds – including one, intriguingly, where the Prophet Mohammed stayed a merchant and never founded Islam – along with a whole series of stand-alone alternate history novels. His most recent alternate history work is the Infamy duology, where Japan cemented its successful attack on Pearl Harbour by invading and occupying Hawaii.

 

There is no doubt that the success of these books has cast the spotlight on alternate history, and by extension, on counterfactual history as well. Yet this is a very recent trend; before the 1990s, counterfactual history spent six decades in the academic wilderness, mercilessly scorned by well-known historians such as E.H. Carr, who labeled it an “idle parlour game”, and E.P. Thompson, who derided it as “unhistorical shit.” In no way was it considered a serious part of the discipline, and one is moved to question: why?

 

We have to first consider the role of historical determinism. Simply put, determinism holds that the course of events in history has already been mapped out – as Hegel put it, “by vast impersonal forces”. In this case, there would be little point considering what could have happened instead, because all historical occurrences are pre-destined. It would be right, if this were so, to label counterfactualism an “idle parlour game”.

 

Unfortunately, a close examination shows that many of the most significant events in world history have been anything but pre-destined. Chance and luck have played an enormous role in determining the course of history; one of the best examples, of course, is the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. There are a good number more, the more significant including: a twenty-year-old Alexander the Great nearly dying at the Granicus, years before he gained the moniker, saved only by the timely intervention of a bodyguard; the especially wet summer of 1526 scuttling Suleiman the Magnificent’s advance on Vienna and a potential body blow to Western Christendom; and Mongol Khakhan Ogodai’s fortuitous passing in 1241 leading to a Mongol retreat from Europe, where previously they had swept all before them.

 

These are only some of the more famous points where history could have diverged; perhaps you could take some time and wonder at the effects, undoubtedly great, if things had gone the other way – as they so easily could have. Yet if it is this simple to show that determinism is not a viable way of examining history, why was counterfactualism spurned for so long, and is still not fully accepted in intellectual circles today?

 

This could be due to a poor reputation, gained due to much of the literature produced on the subject being sub-standard. Counterfactual texts may suffer from a couple of major failings: one, wish fulfillment; two, something known as the “Cleopatra’s Nose” phenomenon.

 

Wish fulfillment is, as the name implies, a case where the writer creates a counterfactual scenario to fulfill personal conscious or unconscious desires, or to perpetuate a personal agenda. This in itself is not exactly harmful, but it often results in the projection of an extremely far-fetched counterfactual scenario. An early example would be French author Louis Geoffroy’s 1836 work, Histoire de la Monarchie universelle: Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812-1832) (Napoleon and the Conquest of the World) – a title that is self-explanatory. Geoffroy took a reasonable premise – that Napoleon had not marched on Moscow in 1812, but instead pursued, challenged and defeated the army of Tsar Alexander – and turned it into a timeline that borders on pure fantasy. As Adam Zamoyski relates, the victory over Russia was followed by an invasion of Britain, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Asia and Africa, such that by his death in 1832, Geoffroy’s Napoleon ruled the world (Zamoyski, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow, 2004). Clearly, Geoffroy was reacting to France’s fall from European hegemony after Napoleon’s abdication in 1814 and final defeat at Waterloo in 1815; his reaction, apparently, was to retreat into a fantasy universe where France ruled a world empire. This might be an extreme example, but it does show mankind’s boundless imagination and how serious writers of counterfactual history would do well not to let their emotions rule their work. Counterfactual scenarios as the one above, or works of alternate history fiction which perpetuate such far-fetched scenarios, create a bad name for counterfactualism in general.

 

The other problem we have to examine is intriguingly named the “Cleopatra’s Nose” phenomenon, where relatively insignificant details are postulated to cause huge changes in the course of history. This way of thinking gets its name from a popular theory that had Cleopatra lacked natural beauty (i.e. for instance, had an uglier nose), Mark Antony would not have been smitten by her, would not have been distracted by his love and would have crushed Octavian in the Roman civil war – thus thoroughly changing the course of Roman, and by extension, Western history.

 

Perhaps you can already spot the way in which this scenario is problematic. It is highly possible that Cleopatra could have turned out ugly (in fact, it has been suggested from archaeological evidence that she was not the beauty she has often been said to be), but it does not then follow that without her distracting influence, Mark Antony would have won the civil war and become ruler of the Roman Empire; notice how Octavian is distinctly underrated, reduced to the status of a non-entity, in the above description? It is then a highly questionable hypothesis.

 

We can thus see, from the above laughable hypotheticals, that good counterfactual history also demands an element of logic. We can imagine with a good degree of plausibility that Napoleon had succeeded in his invasion of Russia in 1812, but to go on to say that he would take this victory as a stepping stone to world conquest is going too far. We can envisage a hypothetical Muslim victory at Tours in A.D. 732, but it would be difficult, to say the least, to see how this could have led to the “dreaming minarets of Oxford” which Edward Gibbon fantasized about. We can gaze over half-a-century’s distance and say that Hitler would have won the war had he advanced through North Africa instead of launching Operation Barbarossa, but there are problems with this scenario as well. Like any good historian, a counterfactual historian must examine the available evidence and come up with a reasonable viewpoint. If he wants to make a bold assertion, he has to back it up, even though his assertion is hypothetical. The only good counterfactuals are plausible ones.

 

It is therefore easy to see how counterfactual history can be useful. By considering a number of alternative scenarios, one can better understand the root causes of a particular historical event. For example, there are many competing theories regarding the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which ascribe it variously to divergent occurrences. By taking each major occurrence, and considering the effect (or lack thereof) if it had not occurred (or had not occurred in the manner it did), the relative importance of all these factors can be weighed. If the vast barbarian migrations had not occurred, or occurred on a much smaller scale, might Rome have survived? If the Empire had an abler hand at the helm during these dark years of invasion and internal strife, could it have weathered the storm? By considering “what if”, we will be able to gain a clearer picture of “what was”.

 

Even more importantly, counterfactualism reveals the important role of chance in history, and throws into question our assumption that certain historical events were somewhat inevitable. The simplest example is the Second World War. The Allied victory and Axis defeat is virtually taken for granted today. Yet the Axis had numerous chances, if not quite for victory, then at least for dealing crippling blows which would have made Allied recovery far more difficult. Hitler, for reasons still obscure today, ordered his panzers to halt in front of the beaten, bewildered British Expeditionary Force being taken off at Dunkirk – if he had allowed them to continue, in the flush of victory over France, Britain would have lost most of its regular army. As it was, the British had to leave behind most of their heavy equipment, but managed to rescue 300,000 soldiers to form the core of a brand new citizen army. Could Britain have recovered and remained an active partner in the rest of the war if it had lost these 300,000 combat veterans in the summer of 1940?

 

One-and-a-half years later on the other side of the world, the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers were to escape destruction at Pearl Harbour by sheer good fortune. Out to sea on the morning on December 7^th, 1941, the fleet’s most important ships (although perhaps no one realized that at the time) survived the Japanese surprise attack that killed over 2,000 Americans. In addition, the Japanese failed to strike the oil storage tanks at the waterfront; urged to launch a final wave for this purpose, the cautious Japanese commander Admiral Chuichi Nagumo hesitated. He was to decide, erroneously, that enough damage had been done to the American war effort and order his ships to turn for home. What if he had not? What if the carriers had been in port and had been lost? Without carriers or oil stocks, an American recovery in the Pacific would have been far harder.

 

Yet, astonishingly, this is not the greatest stroke of luck the Americans had in the Pacific War. That was to come in arguably its decisive battle: Midway. With three fleet carriers against Japan’s four, and no aircraft superior to the then-devastatingly effective Japanese Zeros, the odds were weighed against the US Pacific Fleet. And so it seemed for most of the battle, as American airstrikes crumbled in the face of superior Japanese fighter patrols. The Japanese had, of course, launched strikes of their own, and their aircraft needed to refuel and restock ammunition. It was during one of these lulls, at an exact fortuitous moment, that the skies cleared and American torpedo bombers happened to be overhead. Without the combat air patrols – currently being refuelled – which had performed so superbly up till then, the Japanese could only throw up flak and hope; in vain, as it turned out. Within ten minutes, three Japanese carriers were ablaze; helped by the vast quantities of munitions on their decks, ready to be loaded into waiting aircraft. The fourth carrier was caught and sunk the next day. The Japanese lost 4 fleet carriers and 228 aircraft; with the planes went some of her best pilots. It was the turning point of the Pacific War, and it was all due to chance. The Japanese had the advantage of numbers and quality – it was they who would likelier have won the battle, if not for this extraordinary turn of fortune for the Americans. A Japanese victory at Midway would have certainly meant, at the very least, a far harder climb to victory for the Americans.

 

The inevitability of history is thus a fallacy. By recognizing how much of a “close-run thing” (Wellington, after Waterloo) it can be, we will have a more accurate view of the event in question. Misleading perceptions can be gotten rid of – perceptions that often come by because history is almost always written by the victors. A more holistic, fairer picture of the event in question emerges. What is more, good knowledge of the subject at hand is need to postulate plausible counterfactuals; to prove a scenario, one needs to research on the events, personalities, trends and figures of the period, and in doing so he will gain an increased understanding of this period or event he is looking at.

 

Counterfactuals by themselves can also have the effect of triggering debate on the subject. If a scenario is found implausible, proof must be presented. In seeking this proof, new evidence could come to light which completely changes popular perceptions. The benefits of a civil discussion on the subject will accrue to all – it could turn out, eventually, to be a very useful learning experience for everyone concerned. Even implausible counterfactuals can aid in this area, albeit indirectly – by meticulously going through these fantastical scenarios, a student of history can learn how to spot fallacies and other undesirable devices of argument, and thus to avoid them in his own works.

 

Thus, in conclusion, we can see that counterfactual history is most definitely more than an “idle parlour game”. It has some very real uses, and should definitely be regarded as a respectable area of academic study. It enables one to take a far broader, fairer and less biased view of history, and clears up the many misconceptions and inaccuracies prevalent within popular history. With such benefits, there is absolutely no reason to continue to decry and overlook this vital area of the discipline.