Alternate History - How It Would Effect The Present

[The Bman]

Alternate history is a debatable subject. We never know what would really happen since these events didn't happen. However, some historians are trying to figure out the closest outcomes of alternative history - for example - the Aztecs defeating Cortez and his conquistadors, an Axis victory in WWII, and a Russian invasion of the USA during the Cold War.

This thread is to discuss likely outcomes of alternative history and how it would effect the world today...

 

[Tesla]

Well, the Conquistadors originally discovered chocolate, so if they failed there then we would have no chocolate until much later than it actually happened.

 

[niky]

The Axis would never have won the Second World War. It was a war of production, and the three Axis powers put together did not have the industrial capacity to outdo the US and Russia combined.

At the very least, they could have dragged it on another few years if they'd conquered Moscow and London... but by then, they would have been drastically over-extended. The Red Army would have been able to retake Moscow after a while, and the US was, at the time, almost completely unreachable.

 

[astrosdude91]

I'd imagine that if the Russians invaded the US, it would have played out just like in Red Dawn.

WOLVERINES!!!

If you're interested in alternate history stuff, check out the mockumentary CSA: The Confederate States of America. It's an account of the events after the American Civil War as if the South had won the war. Very interesting perspective. It's actually available for instant streaming on Netflix if you're a member.

 

[Robin]

Reminds me of this

 

[W3H5]

If you think about it, the title should be 'an alternate present' as if history were to be different to what it is then the present would be affected.

History is the way it happened and this shapes our present, if it happened differently the present we live in would be different from this one maybe as this present would not be in existence.

This topic could turn into a big time space conundrum filled with flaws in it's time line.

If you was in the UK, for example, and set up this topic 7 hours prior to my post, I would still be posting ahead of you in time because where I am is 8 hours ahead of GMT.

I'm going to stop now because my head hurts and yet again I've managed to confuse myself.

 

[Tesla]

You've confused me as well...

EDIT: Wait, no, I sort of get where you're coming from from, but it doesn't work like that. I can't explain it though. Faminite, help please.

 

[Mike Rotch]

If you think about it, the title should be 'an alternate present' as if history were to be different to what it is then the present would be affected.

History is the way it happened and this shapes our present, if it happened differently the present we live in would be different from this one maybe as this present would not be in existence.

Well thats one of the questions the quantum theory of 'many worlds' proposes if I remember correctly. It proposes that for every alternate decision that can be made in the world at any one time (down the molecular level), a new slice of multiverse is created. But that's an awful lot of multiverse going on...

But the simplified concept is an interesting one. Lets say the assassination of Hilter was successful. How would WWII have played out? Would Germany have been divided into east and west? Would the Communist influence have been smaller, resulting in no effective Cold War? Would that have meant that the space race would never have taken place?

 

[Tesla]

^But you can't imagine humans never going into space, can you? Most events of significant importance (like the space race, or invention of the aeroplane, etc) would have probably happened anyway, although at a later date.

 

[Mike Rotch]

^But you can't imagine humans never going into space, can you? Most events of significant importance (like the space race, or invention of the aeroplane, etc) would have probably happened anyway, although at a later date.

Well the technology that gave the moon landings and then later on skylab and the shuttle program was created because there was an imperative to beat the Russian's once Sputnik and Gagarin initially trumped the US.

Remove Sputnik and Gagarin and the US doesnt have the drive to develop it all. Would it have happened on its own accord. Well, the latter half of the 70's was under an oil crisis, so one could assume government spending priorities might not have been on space programs.

At either rate, Voyager would not have been done and the entire space exploration program would be 20+ years behind where we are today (remembering that if Voyager didnt happen when it did, it wouldnt have at all - due to the required planetary alignment being a once in a few hundred year event).

 

[lbsf1]

And who says that nothing good comes out of war.

 

[Mike Rotch]

And who says that nothing good comes out of war.

I'm not so sure the 20-30 mil people who died as a result of WWII (including Stalin's purging) would agree with you.

 

[PeterJB]

Actually closer to 60 million.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Actually closer to 60 million.

👍

Also who is to say that if WWII hadnt happened, the space race wouldn't have been won by the now peace loving Germans? After all Werner von Braun, the father of rocketry, designed the V2!

 

[niky]

Unfortunate, but true.

There is only one way in which the Axis would have been triumphant. If they'd managed to recruit Stalin to their cause completely. Russia would get its pick of parts of Europe and the Middle East... Which would, by the way, also ensure a steady supply of petroleum for the European theater operations, even if Britain succeeds on the African front.

Imagine, thousands of Russian-made Panzer replicas rolling like a wave across Europe... Yakolevs with German engines.... The world wouldn't stand a chance. The Americas would be somewhat safe for a while, as it's hard to invade another continent, but the USA would be on the defensive, pestered by Japanese and German air raids on its coasts from carriers and an Axis controlled Latin America. In the fifties, America will get its first glimpse of a Saturn V sized rocket... Carrying a nuclear warhead down upon Washington...

But, like the Beatles, the Fab Four would eventually break up. Japan and Russia would never be able to stay under a truce for so long... And Hitler's lieutenants, fearful that their megalomaniacal leader would declare war on Stalin, anyway, would finally kill the old man off... But the Russians will attack, anyway.

By the fifties, Europe and Asia will be in armed revolt, with guerillas supplied with Soviet and US made munitions. The power balance after the war will be very interesting to see...

 

[crooky369]

No idea if it's any good because I haven't got round to buying yet but there's a book called "The Man in the High Castle" which makes an attempt to see what the world would have been like had the Axis won WW2.

 

[Jawsers]

If Russia and Germany had formed an alliance of some sort, it is more likely that German command would let Russia take Finland, Baltic States, Asia, which includes China and Japan.

Since Germany can focus on Africa and Britain, it makes for more dire straits for Britain. Whether or not Germany could come up with proper beach landing tactics is up for debate. Up to 1942 they had no heavy bombers, the Blitz was a waste of resources, no specialized landing craft, and weak surface support.

Russia and Japan always had strained relations at the time. Russia did not trust the expanding Imperial Japan. Even though the Japanese had a strong air force and navy, the army was lacking. US would seek an alliance with Japan if it saw that Russia would crush both China and Japan. Japan would act as a sort of buffer zone against Russian expansion into the Pacific, which probably isn't likely in an alternate history in the same time period.

In reality, Germany and Russia were on collision course. Mainly of Hitler's paranoia that Stalin would eventually attack, eventually being the keyword as the Russian army was a long ways away from massing the army for a preemptive strike on Germany.

 

[Joey D]

Well, the Conquistadors originally discovered chocolate, so if they failed there then we would have no chocolate until much later than it actually happened.

The Conquistadors did not discover chocolate, the Mesoamerican cultures did as far back as 2000BCE, it was probably the Olmec or whoever pre-dated them. The Europeans didn't get their first taste of chocolate till the 16th century.

 

[Tesla]

The Conquistadors did not discover chocolate, the Mesoamerican cultures did as far back as 2000BCE, it was probably the Olmec or whoever pre-dated them. The Europeans didn't get their first taste of chocolate till the 16th century.

Ah, let me rephrase that. They were the first Europeans to discover cacao beans.

 

[The Bman]

I wonder what would happen if Rome never fell.

 

[Rykon Zero]

Now that's one I like to think about. If Rome didn't fall, it likely would have kept growing. I envision Rome getting too big for one person to rule, so they'd split it up into states, then keep growing... Perhaps we'd all be speaking Latin, because Rome conquered the world.

 

[Grand Prix]

Here's an even bigger question: What would the world be like if Germany and Austria-Hungary won the 1st World War? (Assuming they ever had the means to do so)

 

[gogatrs]

Here's an even bigger question: What would the world be like if Germany and Austria-Hungary won the 1st World War? (Assuming they ever had the means to do so)

I don't know much about the world wars.
As a matter of fact, I don't know much about any wars that are after the beginning of the 20th Century.
The history curriculum in my school sucks.

So something I know a little but about:
What if the Colonists had lost the American Revolution?

 

[TheCracker]

👍

Also who is to say that if WWII hadnt happened, the space race wouldn't have been won by the now peace loving Germans? After all Werner von Braun, the father of rocketry, designed the V2!

The space race probably wouldn't have happened fullstop. It was German scientists who had the rocket skills and technology, who following the war moved or defected or were captured to/by either 'Cold War' side, that fueled the space race in the first place. Had the Germans won the war, they'd have had such a head start and may not have even had any interest in going to the moon.

 

[The Bman]

Now that I think about it, one of the most ignored subjects in history (nowadays) is Hannibal's retreat from Rome.

He had them - If Carthage wasn't counter-attacked then Rome would have been a footnote. This is Rome we are talking about, not Japan or Spain - falling.

If Hannibal succeeded, we would probably be living on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

 

[Grand Prix]

Here's an even bigger question: What would the world be like if Germany and Austria-Hungary won the 1st World War? (Assuming they ever had the means to do so)

Right. I'll have a go then.


What if Germany had succeeded in marching across France and into Paris, instead of failing the attack and digging themselves in with trenches? Trench warfare was unique to WW1, and had it never been invented, the invention of battle tanks might have been severely delayed. Planes played a big role in trench warfare also.

And there's the question of the outcome itself, if Germany succeeded what would they have done afterwards? Don't forget that the previous couple of centuries were filled with wars previous to this. Two countries would fight and the loser would lose some part of their land. The question is would this trend have continued after the Great War if Germany won? Or would they have attempted to take over Europe?

Also, if Germany won we wouldn't have a 2nd World War, because Germany wouldn't have suffered financially afterwards to create conditions for the Nazis to come to power.

Even more fascinating is that if Germany completed the war quickly enough, the Bolsheviks might not have ever come into power in Russia, possibly preventing the Cold War and the world-wide Communist revolutions as well.

 

[niky]

Germany was somewhat successful in World War I because they played a good defensive game against the British and French in the trenches. Some of their greatest victories were defensive ones.

Without the advantage of good tanks and bombers like they had in World War II, where the Blitzkrieg showed how outdated trench warfare had become in just two decades, the Germans would have always had a hard time conquering their stronger foes. At the very least, they would never have been able to finish off the Brits and the Russians.

 

[Keef]

If the US never would have enacted Lend-Lease and would never have gotten involved in WW2, Germany may very well have exhaust England's defenses, though conquering all the allies over there may have been too ambitious. With the supplies the US provided, the allies probably would have exhausted Germany's military eventually, though it would have taken much longer than it did.

 

[niky]

Even with just Russia and Britain to contend with, Germany would have always had a hard time of it.

Still, there were tipping points there... things that, if Germany had done them differently, may have altered the outcome of the war.

One of the most famous of these was Stalingrad... If Germany had had a quick and decisive victory there, they would have had access to the oil they needed to fuel the war machine... yet... the outcome of the Russian invasion was never in doubt. Russia's greatest asset has always been the Russian winter. With the German army spread out trying to defend a wide front across Russia, dealing with partisan raids and the Red Army, they would have eventually lost, as long as they were dealing with the rest of Europe at the same time.

Another was the Battle of Britain. British radar and superior fighter tactics won the day there...

And last... Africa. Losing the war there really, really, really hurt.

On the other hand, I don't really see any realistic way of having the Japanese win the Pacific war once they'd attacked the US. They could have conquered the Pacific up to Hawaii if they'd caught the carrier fleet at Pearl Harbor, but their supply chain would eventually be spread so thin that the US would have easily broken it once they'd replaced the ships and planes lost to Japanese bombers.

There are a lot of territories that the US could conquer, close to Japan, to serve as the springboard for attacks. The closest possible forward base Japan could conquer for a US invasion, on the other hand, was Hawaii. Or some place in Latin America, maybe...

 

[BobK]

I'm pretty sure that if things had been different in the past, they'd be different today.

What if Ugg hadn't missed when he threw that rock at Throgg fifty thousand years ago?

On WWI/WWII:
Trench warfare was first used (to my knowledge) in the American Civil War. It became a hallmark of WWI of course.

If Germany had defeated Britain (and they could have, I'm convinced. The Luftwaffe had the RAF on the ropes before Hitler switched targets to London. etc...) they would still not have defeated Russia.

One reason as mentioned previously is the Russian winter although it should be noted that the 1941-2 winter was much more severe than usual, and the German high command didn't think the campaign would last into the winter anyway and failed to issue sufficient cold weather gear to the troops.

Another factor is the sheer size of Russia. The reason for the failure of Stalingrad was logistics, the supply lines were just too long (yes there were others but that was the big one).

Still another is the fact that the Russian industry could out-produce the Germans by a wide margin, and their tanks were generally on a par with the Germans as opposed to the British and American armor which was generally much inferior to the German.

Could better planning have defeated Russia? I don't know.