More on alternate history

[kierthos]

Holy balls. I've been reading up on World War I, and I think I know why I've never seen anyone do a alternate history of it.

It would be fucking difficult to do well.

I mean, okay, let's face it... there's a lot of alt-history about WWII. Most of it is "What if the Nazis had won?", although Harry Turtledove takes a somewhat different route and has aliens invade during the war. And, while it's not necessarily much easier to write alt-history of WWII (or for that matter, any fiction), it's easier to determine who the antagonists are. (Here's a hint. They're Nazis.)

But World War I? It saw the end of the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian Empires. Hell, the causes of WWII can be traced to the end of WWI. Not to mention the rise of Communism, the partitioning of the Middle East (although that had started before the Ottoman Empire jumped into WWI), and a number of other things that people are still dealing with to this day.

I mean, okay, let's say, for shits and giggles, that the Triple Alliance managed to not lose. Not that necessarily won, but that they managed to bring it to a draw. You wouldn't have the rise to power of Adolf Hitler if the Hollenzollerns hadn't been forced to abdicate. You wouldn't necessarily have all the Middle Eastern countries set up the way they are if the Ottoman Empire hadn't been cut up into chunks.

Heck, with a strong Germany and Austro-Hungary after WWI, you probably wouldn't see the same expansion of Communism out of Russia.

I really need to do more research into this.

Comments

[mierandra.livejournal.com]

Kim Newman, Anno Dracula. Fairly well done WWI alt history.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

*whine* but that has vampires in it.

heh... might see if I can find the first book in the series.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Unrest in Russia was already widespread before the war. Even a victory would not have stemmed the tide, I think. The study of the decay and fall of the Russian Empire is like unwrapping a huge onion.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

*nod* Oh, I realize that. But without the need to coddle Stalin because of the threat of Adolf Hitler, how would Soviet expansion go? I mean, a strong(er) Germany to Russia's west would probably check their expansion into what we knew as the Eastern Bloc.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

True, but they would have run into a facist or socialist controlled revolution-born Austrian empire, assuming that the communist fervor didn't fail to take hold in eastern Europe as well. The revolution against the imperialist governments of old were fomenting in all of those countries, which helped tip off the war to begin with. I can see Hitler rising to power easily through that morass no matter how it came, as he was a very skilled orator and politically minded. But would the landscape of the war be so changed as to provide a strong 'what if' hook? I don't know.

Pull a string and change a thing worked in WWII, but WWI was a web of alliances, revolutions, and desperate last-ditch attempts by monarchies to remain in power. An alternative story would take decades worth of setup if we were to avoid it or try to change the outcome with all the players as they are. There are very few 'pivotal' points where you can say 'this could have gone differently' quite easily, save the US' timing of involvement.

One of the best resources for 'alternatives' I can find come from video games, particularly Iron Storm, Enigma: Rising Tide, and in extreme, Resistance: Fall of Man

Enigma is interesting because it postulates a way that the United States was not enticed into the war. While I don't believe this would have stopped, considering the actions in New Jersey and the Zimmerman telegram inviting Mexico into the war against the US, I do believe a later entry of the US would have further weakened Britain and the other allies.

Iron Storm's thoughts of an unending war is also possible, yet somewhat more unlikely, in my opinion, given the incredible toll the war had on the involved economies, and the revolutions that were occuring. The game's thoughts of 'selling' the war on the open market would have strained the US economy, though it may have helped avoid the Great Depression.

Resistance was a cute idea with a poor execution, I think. The Tunguska Event being an alien invasion and giving rise to a slow tide of alien infiltration and outright invasion would have played out better as a novel than an action shooter, I think, but it would definitely have weakened the Russian region.