History That Never Happened

I was reminded of the book, History That Never Happened: A Treatise on the Question, What Would Have Happened If.....?  It was written by Alexander DeMandt, a German historian.  I have often said I would like to teach a course on historiography.  (But there are two roadblocks.  I don't want to do the paperwork and I'm pretty sure I couldn't get any students to take such a course.)  The book is quite pedantic, but I would still require it for reading in my historiography course.  It offers a number of ideas well worth pondering.

I'm not talking about "fake history."  (Ha Ha Ha!)  That's stuff that everyone is taught, but never really occurred.  I'm thinking about Washington and chopping down the cherry tree, the apple falling on Newton's head, Paul Revere's "ride," Nero fiddling while Rome burned, and the like.

I (and DeMandt) don't mean things like these.  Rather, I mean, as DeMandt's title suggests, things that could have happened if......   Here are some examples.  The possibilities are not unrealistic, but with a little tweak here or there could very well have come to pass.

Someone today told me of a new book out about a failed (obviously) assassination plot against George Washington. This led me to thinking about DeMandt's book.  What if Washington had been assassinated during the Revolution?  Where would that have left us, left the US?  I am pretty sure there wouldn't have been a US, although I don't have a crystal ball.  Of the three or four major factors in the Americans winning their independence, Washington was certainly one of them.  Yet, had he been killed......

Perhaps not so dramatic, what if Abraham Lincoln had won the US Senate seat from Stephen Douglas in 1858?  It was a tight race.  In fact, a historian later surmised that had US Senators been elected by voters instead of chosen by state legislatures (The 17th Amendment was not added until 1913.) in 1858, it is likely Lincoln would have been the winner.  Would Lincoln have been satisfied with a seat in the US Senate, so much so that he'd not have considered running for the Presidency two years later?  Would he, in learning the ropes in the Senate, not have had enough time to prepare to be a Presidential candidate?  After all, the Cooper Union Address won him the Republican nomination and, hence, the election.  If he was in the US Senate, it was probable he wouldn't have come to Cooper Union.  So then, imagine the Civil War, the institution of slavery, and more without Abraham Lincoln.

How different history would have been had the piece of shrapnel that hit Hitler's thigh had hit a foot two higher or the mustard gas attack to which he was subjected had taken far worse than it did.  What if, at the Battle of Marathon, the "favored" Persians had defeated the Greeks?  Think of the consequences if Charles "the Hammer" Martel had not defeated the Muslim Umayyad armies at the Battle of Tours/Poitiers in 732.

There are many, many other examples we can find.  Of course, getting students to read such a book might be problematic.  It's hard enough to get them to read history that did happen!  But the lesson is this.  Our choices have consequences, some far more significant that others.  The outcomes of events have consequences, too.  We need to be careful in what we decide.  We need, perhaps, to try to imagine the results of a decision.  What will possibly happen if we do this?  What will likely happen if we do that?  It's yet another reason why we should study history.

I'm in a rush this weekend, so please forgive any typos or other mistakes.