I agree that seriously considering a counterfactual takes a great deal of understanding of an event. It’s useful to look at the details of a decision made by a historical actor (or many actors) to see why it was made as it was. A good example related to the OP is Shattered Sword’s discussion of Nagumo’s decisions on the morning of 4 June.
I think what gives counterfactuals a bad name is the degree of extrapolation they usually generate, particularly when mixed with motivated reasoning. I remember on another forum a writer who was trying to justify Executive Order 9066 as being a measured response to the threat posed by Japan. In doing so, he claimed that the Japanese were in Alaska, “only three hours flight away from the Boeing plant in Seattle.”
Well, yes, if you flew from Seattle to the closest part of Alaska, you would get there in three hours. Of course, the Japanese were nowhere near the closest part of Alaska, and were indeed nowhere near to being able to mount an air raid on the lower 48 from Attu or Kiska given the distances (not to mention the climate) involved.
I think a good counterfactual has to look very carefully at the capabilities of actors involved in the historical event and really needs to restrict itself to immediate consequences. Perhaps a small nod to those factors that tend to constrict the possible outcomes of a counterfactual versus those that would make outcomes less and less predictable over time would be in order.
In the book I linked to above they certainly go beyond immediate consequences such as wondering what might have become of the US had general Washington been captured early in the Revolutionary War or if he had been killed (as he very nearly) a little further into the war. Such knock-on effects are hard to ignore.
I’m reminded of “Crossroads of Destiny” by H. Beam Piper, where Washington dies at the Battle of Germantown, and Benedict Arnold, as the best general of the Revolution, becomes President..
I guess (to clarify my previous post), I don’t have too much trouble with exploring the possible consequences of a divergence. It’s when someone says it must end up in a certain way that gets my hackles up. Pretty much anything like that should probably be shelved in the alt-history fiction section.
Specific to this thread question, the only counterfactual that matters is a scenario where a decision by the Japanese to invade and occupy the Island after losing four carriers turns out to be a smart one. I’ve yet to find one in this thread.
My personal opinion is that counterfactuals(or rather attempts to answer and engage with them) too often lack respect for the preceding events that would also have had to be different in order for that “one fact” to change. And sometimes the necessary information to tackle those preceding events—to determine how/why they might have changed or if they even could have—is unknowable.
There are good counterfactuals and bad counterfactuals. Just as there are good histories and bad histories. I’m certainly not going to argue that all counterfactuals are good. My point was I feel the argument that all counterfactuals are bad (and I have seen people make this argument) is wrong.
Let’s use an example; what would have been the outcome of the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 if Joe Johnston hadn’t been wounded on May 31? I don’t see how anyone can argue this was an implausible possibility. So Johnston remains in command of the Confederate forces. What decisions would have have made that would have been different than those Lee made? Answering that question requires somebody to not only know what Johnston historically did but also to have an understanding of why he did what he did so you can project him into a situation where he had not been historically. This is the deeper understanding of history that I feel counterfactuals can lead you to. If you can’t say what Johnston might have done on June 1, then you don’t really understand what he did on May 30. You might be able to say what he did on May 30 but you don’t understand it.
I simply have no idea how someone would answer such a broad question. Because the second Johnston and the Confederate Army do something differently, the Union Army does something differently too. And at some point, very soon, the historical record becomes useless as a basis to draw assumptions off of.
Johnston wasn’t born on May 31. He was fifty-five years old. He was a West Point graduate and a Mexican War veteran. He had been commanding an army for over a year. He had been fighting in the Peninsula for two months.
None of that was going to disappear. The experience that had made Johnston who he was in May would still have been there in June.
The same is true for McClellan. And Heintzelman, Hill, Keyes, Longstreet, Magruder, and Sumner. And the troops they were leading. And Lincoln and Davis. These are not unknown or unknowable quantities. Somebody who knows their history can make reasonable surmises about what they were capable of doing.
Different historians will draw different conclusions about why particular historical personages did the things they did (I’ll assume for the sake of simplicity that we actually know what was done - that’s not always true); therefore, these historians will form different ideas of what those figures would have done under different circumstances. Therefore, an historian’s “what if” illuminates that historian’s model of the mentality of those historical figures - which is a fine thing to do* as long as the historian - and the people who read what he or she wrote remember that that’s what it is.
*I don’t think an historian can simply report what various people did without having some mental model of why they did it.
The problem is that counterfactual has been shown to be not a good idea. In fact, it seems pretty much impossible and it’s certainly impossible for them to hold on to them.
Not at all. Again from the book I linked above they relate a time when a British sniper had an American general in his sights. IIRC the sniper chose not to shoot because the general’s back was to him and the sniper felt it wrong to shoot someone in the back. That general was George Washington.
The only thing you need to change there was having that sniper shoot and kill general Washington.
Other essays wonder about the Spanish armada in 1588 where a vagary of the weather may have been all it would have taken to reverse Spain’s fortunes and the Spanish invade London.
No need to rewrite history when, sometimes, it can hinge on a moment or a chance event.
It is reasonable to conclude that had McClellan been commanding U.S. forces at the Battle of Midway, the Japanese would not only have captured the island, but gone on to take Hawaii as well.
Although not relating to the OP it is not hard to think of counterfactuals for the Battle of Midway. The whole outcome came down to American dive bombers finding the Japanese carriers at the exact best moment to attack (and the American planes almost didn’t find the Japanese). Have that one air group turn another direction and it would not have happened. Had Japanese reconnaissance not been such a dramatic failure things would have played out differently.
All things that very reasonably could have gone differently without changing anything but happenstance (in one case a Japanese scout plane flew right past the American carriers and missed seeing them…what if he had?..quite reasonable to assume the American dive bombers would not have found the Japanese carriers in the same, extremely vulnerable state).
One important counterfactual possibility was the delay in launching that scout plane. There was a mechanical problem with the catapult and one scout plane was delayed from launching for an hour. It was coincidentally the plane that had been assigned to cover the area where the American fleet was.
If the plane had launched when it was scheduled to, it presumably would have spotted the American fleet earlier than it historically did and given the Japanese more warning that the Americans were in the area. (The Japanese plans were based on the assumption that Americans were at least a full day away. But the breaking of Japanese codes let the Americans arrive at virtually the same time as the Japanese.) At the very least it would have prevented the confusion of the changing ordnance loads on the Japanese carrier decks.
The Japanese had already invaded China and much of Asia and had successfully occupied much of it, but that wasn’t without challenges. Invading the US would have been the equivalent of Germany invading Russia, and as it turned out, Pearl Harbor was pretty much the same thing.
The plane that missed the carriers launched on time.
The delayed scout plane only searched the area where the other plane missed spotting the American carriers on its return trip (so much, much delayed).
Japanese reconnaissance was truly an utter, disastrous failure that day. I’d go so far as to say the Japanese commanders were outright negligent in this regard.
I agree with this. I think outside of a few historians, people don’t have the depth of knowledge to really understand what would truly happen.
It’s not easy.
Absolutely, especially when it’s not knowable or that because circumstances have changed, that possibility become even less certain.
Parshall talks about Midway being a magnet for counterfactuals in the latest video interview linked above. For one thing, it was a dramatic turning point in the war the a clear result.
However, there is a good argument on combinedfleet.com as to why even if the tables were completely reversed and the Japanese won, it wouldn’t have changed the overall outcome of the war, it would would have taken longer.
America was just too strong, and had too many ships being built.
No. Invading America was simply impossible for Japanese logistics. They simply didn’t have enough resources to supply an invaded Midway, let alone Hawaii, let alone the Mainland. The US would have blockaded Midway had it fallen and it was too far away for the Japanese to maintain a fleet close enough to contest the blockade. Both the US and Japan were limited by the number of oilers and other supply ships. They didn’t have enough to keep a fleet around Midway in order to protect the shipping lanes to it.
Japan started off with a large deficit in merchant marine capacity. Both the IJA and IJN took from the pool for their own needs, which severely affect the civilian population for supplying necessary food as well as war manufacturing. They didn’t have enough ships for Japan to successfully invade Hawaii, and the mainland would have simply been impossible. There is a reason that the US didn’t attempt to invade Japan directly. These things were impossible.
I absolutely agree Japan was doomed to lose before they even started the war unless the US lost the motivation to continue which was very unlikely (but what the Japanese kept hoping for). Hell, Japanese admiral Yamamoto was of the same opinion.
Whatever happened at Midway would not have changed that. But extending the war was no small thing to be ignored either (would it have changed how the US pursued the war in Europe?..I dunno…if the Japanese prevailed at Midway more resources need to go to the Pacific war).
Which all impacts how the post-war world looks and evolves.