Apologies for the double post. Another associated counter-factual is what if Charles Haley didn’t suffer from bipolar disorder? He wouldn’t have given San Francisco any reason to trade him to to Dallas before the ‘92 season. I think San Francisco wins it all in ‘92 and ‘93. But Dallas, in this scenario probably still with Jimmy Johnson as head coach, still wins in ‘95. Even against a San Francisco team whose defense is anchored by Haley.
*misapprehension
The counter-argument to that is that the Niners routed Dallas easily, 38-20, at Texas Stadium, without Steve Young, and had already beaten Dallas three times in a row by that point. I think they were very much inside the Cowboys’ heads at that point.
If Young connects with Rice in that Falcons game on that deep pass near game’s end, the Niners take the No. 1 seed and hold homefield advantage again. Now we’re talking an NFC title game at Candlestick, with Young, and having already beaten Dallas 38-20? I think it gets ugly for the Cowboys, just like a repeat of the 1994 title game.
So a couple more obscure counter factuals I was going to include in the OP:
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What if Simon De Montfort had won the Battle Evesham by ensuring his son brought his reinforcements up quickly before they were overtaken by Prince Edward, or making sure he was not cut off from the safety of Kenilworth Castle. The second Baron’s War (and the de facto reign on Simon De Montfort that ended at Evesham) did involve, or at least involve talking about, actual representative government and protection of rights in the sense we would understand today (albeit with a dose of extremism and antisemitism unfortunately
). Unlike the more famous First Baron’s which led to the Magna Carta, which was really about the rights of few Barons to do what they like. It would be interesting to see what English government looked like if those kind of concepts had been allowed to flourish centuries before they actually did. -
What if instead of deposing Toussaint Louverture (by tricking him into capture and sending him to his death in a French prison), attempting to reimpose slavery, and begin a genocidal war of occupation, he Napoleon had cooperated with him to further his colonial ambitions in the Americas. As the French were to discover he had thousands of well trained troops (who had more immunity to tropical diseases that wiped out European armies). As well changing Haitian history it could have changed the History of the Americas.
I kinda wish the U.S. would have found some way, or even some pretense, to take Cuba. I mean, a long long time ago so that by now it would be a cool state and any impropriety in its seizure would just be hand waved away.
There was one expedition in 1608 which showed that the area had real potential and a second, more ambitious one was ready to sail off, with settlers this time.
Hey, we might have had Bossa Nova sung in Italian, how cool would that have been ?
A new favourite for me from a series of books by author Malcolm Mackay. In the cage where your saviours hide is set in an alternate 21st century Scotland and you gradually discover the point of departure from our reality:
What if the Darien scheme succeeded?
FYI the Darien scheme was Scotland’s attempt at the end of the 17th century to get in on this colonialism action that seemed to offer so much potential. It was a madcap scheme that somehow was backed by c. 20% of all the money circulating in Scotland. It’s aim was to found a colony in Central America. It was badly planned and came to a swift and miserable end through a combination of disease, economic interference by England and a vigorous and hostile defense of their interests by the Spanish. The collapse of the scheme devastated the home economy and was a major factor in bringing about Union with England 11 years later.
So what if it - implausibly - worked? Scotland stays independent and becomes a colonial power in its own right, with all that that entails. The books don’t shy away from the modern world implications - an immigrant underclass, an unpleasant legacy, etc. But because they’re set in the modern day they gloss over what would have been the next big thing - Jacobitism in the context of an independent Scotland. Do the Lowland Presbyterians go Hanoverian along with England? Do the Catholic Highlanders fight a civil war?
This is a really interesting one!
But ultimately they won across Europe, after all:
France and Italy saw off serious Communist pressure in 1947/8, Greece, Portugal, Spain in the 70s, and then the Soviet satellites in 1989.
That’s not a coincidence or due to some inherent love of freedom in Europe. That’s a direct result of the relative levels of inequality in Europe vs Latin America. It’s really hard to develop a successful democracy in a society based on a tiny rich elite and huge poor underclass (looks at latest income equality figures for US )
And it’s not completely hypothetical, there is apparently a letter Napoleon had written which laid out this plan but it was never sent, and he went with the genocidal war of occupation instead.
I agree! Though given the fears of American slave holders re the Haitian Revolution, a U.S. invasion or at least interference (blockades, cutting of trade and credit, etc.) would have to be countered.
Though with the combined forces of Haiti (who had just successfully fought off a British invasion force 100k strong) and France the other way round was more likely. A major reinforcement and expansion of French Louisiana would have been the first order of business.
Definitely a candidate for “if you had a time machine” then.
That I think is what makes it interesting. I know the British also got incredibly nervous about a “domino theory” style expansion of liberation movements/rebellions across the Caribbean. So no shortage of opposition but the prospect of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie working in unison while playing slave-holding powers off against each other is too intriguing for words.
I always wonder if the US and history would have been different if President Garfield’s assassin had not succeeded. Maybe it misfires, maybe the doctors decide that Lister fellow had the right idea…
On a much smaller scale-what if Houdini had been ready for the surprise punch that killed him?
Unfortunately the timelines don’t work on this. By the time of the invasion of Haiti Dumas was in an Austrian prison after being captured returning from Egypt, and was in Napoleon’s bad graces for (quite rightly) protesting the Egyptian invasion as completely unjustified and running against the Republican virtues Napoleon allegedly stood for.
Yes, but I’m being incredibly generous to myself and Napoleon and suggesting Boney realises there is no better person for the job - a guy with local credibility and revolutionary fervour - and sends him to lead the campaign or at least be liaison with L’Ouverture. I may also have to assume that Napoleon has recently had a severe blow to the head to account for this much of a personality/perspective change but dammit if that’s what it takes.
Or - and I am extrapolating wildly and irresponsibly from your original excellent idea - what if Dumas had not merely protested Napoleon’s fall from Republican virtues but had in fact led a palace coup against him? Welcomes the Haitian Revolution with open arms, throttles back on Europe as a theatre of war and focuses France’s energies on dismantling slavery/colonialism.
Greece, Portugal and Spain were all under right-wing dictatorships until reform gradually and eventually kicked in- once it became clear that allowing elections and opposition wouldn’t be cynically exploited by Marxists in an attempt at a takeover. The Soviet satellites had their pre-1949 governments overthrown by naked Soviet military power, and had zero success in becoming democratic until that external power was removed when the Soviet Union collapsed. None of which is at all hope-inspiring for would-be democratic minutemen.
One way to write an alternate history where the Confederacy wins the Civil War is to have the Union fail to obtain a copy of Special Order 191 and end up losing at Antietam. I’d kind of like to go in the opposite direction. What if McClellan, instead of largely wasting the advantage of having the other guy’s playbook in his hands, had really made the most of it and just shattered Lee right then and there? (I don’t know how one would explain McClellan becoming such a decisive and aggressive officer, but we’re just having fun here.) Does this shorten the war? Does McClellan, not Grant, become the former general who turns his success on the battlefield into a successful campaign for the White House?
What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?