"That "Unavoidable, predestined final aftermath."" Topic

Take a major battle, preferably one of the juicier ones where "history is at stake". Now reverse the actual result and ask people about the aftermath and usually it's "Oh it would have been completely different, Napoleon would control the whole of Europe, the Confederacy would probably outlast the Union and Nazi Germany would outlast a thousand years."

Yet post-Napoleon France was in a terrible shape. But give Napoleon a victory at Waterloo and he suddenly becomes invincible, while Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria etc would have thrown in the towel permanently and never, ever try to challenge Napoleon again.

What makes this idea that if the Confederacy somehow wins absolutely nothing would happen to challenge this issue somewhere down the road ?

What if we reverse the game ? Say Germany actually won WWI, would we be dare suggest an alternative world where Germany loses the war ? And why would we be so certain Germany is permanently defeated ? Someone else taking Germany on the warpath ? Ludicrous !!!

Is it because we are predisposed to prefer the thought of something having a finality ? A lack of imagination ?

Actually both Paul Schroeder and Charles Esdaile (emminent historians of the period) pointed out the doomed character of the 100 days campaign for Napoleon. Even if he wins he still has to deal with the massive Russian and Austrian armies massing on French borders. By 1815 the Allies had decided he has to go. This is why they declared war on him personally.

People assuming that the Confederacy if it won would become a super power mistake what essentially would be a northern version of Brazil for a Confederate version of the US.

This attitude you speak off may be prevalent among us wargamers because we mostly consume military history, and a lot of us with a pop attitude I dare say. Most of the history we read is campaign or battle or specific- general oriented and to sell you have to make the case that this was the important or special case. That a different outcome here would change everything. Sometimes it is true , but most of the time it is not (ALERT ALTER POLITICAL SCIENTIST BIAS), as many more factors go into war let alone regime survival.

The more Diplomatic, Economic and Social History and Political Science you read the more you see how many times no amount of battlefield victory would change the outcome mid or long term.

But frankly most of us are engaged in a hobby of wargaming, not a scholarly research (though many are scholars). If you just want to fight Waterloo it does not make much sense to read a MA's worth of studies. A couple of battle histories will suffice.

This comes up in threads were people are explicitly seeking a political fight I dare say, and most of us wade into those not out of any erudition, but out of emotion and anger (I know I have).

The mistake we all make is to assume emotion, or reading a couple of biased sources = 5-7 years of obsessive scholarly or social scientific study of a topic (which by the way is not enough, no as I am finding, not nearly enough).

That is my thought on this for all it is worth (which is nothing).

Although there are a few who come up with fantastic changes to history in the wargames community it is no more or less than in the general public (of the ones who know such and such battle to begin with that is).

Most people I have actually mentioned it too said that Napoleon's victory at Waterloo would have meant another fight, then another, etc.. till he lost.

The South, may have won independence but lost the peace and been something of a Banana nation afterword.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I'd given some thought to this one. Assume something like Mohammed being killed during the siege. Several of his top advisers were against the attack, so without him, the army would probably have gone home and fought a civil war of some sort to decide who would replace him.
Long term, would it have mattered? Probably not. The Empire was still too weak to recover barring a total fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, and in 20 years or so, an energetic successor to Mohammed would have popped up and taken the city.

Grelber

if the confederacy had prevailed, eventually the brittish banks would have called in their loans or the cotton crops would have failed. Either results in England taking possession of the South.

It is unlikely that the CSA would have survived victory. Slavery was not the only tension between the various states in 1860, and the regional split on most of them was East-West, not North-South. For example, the Atlantic states (especially the Southern ones) tended to oppose central government spending for internal improvements (such as canals, harbors, and roads), while the Western states favored them.

Then there were the matters of tariffs, Indian policy, relations with Mexico, etc. Secession having been blessed as a response to unwelcome central government action, it is likely that the Confederate house of cards would have collapsed within a decade.

"if the confederacy had prevailed, eventually the brittish banks would have called in their loans or the cotton crops would have failed. Either results in England taking possession of the South.'

Never would have happened. There would have been no better way to have reunited the country than for the British to invade the confederacy.

Even if the Confederacy somehow managed a peace treaty, the US would have started a second war soon enough. It did it with Mexico, Spain etc until it got what it wanted, so the CSA would hardly be different.

And it would have taken a lot more than a mere victory at Gettysburg to win the (First) Civil War. For the start they had won lots of "victories" previously which were bleeding them dry, so it's not like winning at Gettysburg would change things that substantially. A few more square miles of territory doesn't win a war. They needed a series of stunning knock-out blows, not a few more wins, and where would they come from?

Not sure about Waterloo or the ACW. But WW2 is a no-brainer.

You don't go to war with both the USA and Russia at the same time. Period. And once the USA has the atomic bomb in 1945, endgame.

> And once the USA has the atomic bomb in 1945, endgame.

One of the Command Magazine games on the Battle of the Bulge had the highest victory condition for the Germans being that they end up with Berlin the first recipient of an atomic bomb.

The idea that a Confederate victory at Gettysburg would have resulted in anything more than a momentary tactical advantage is Lost Cause pipe dream. Lee showed no more ability to follow up a victory than McClellan or Meade, so the mauled Army of the Potomac simply withdraws to the next defensive position (which is where Meade had planned to fight in the first place). Lee would still have been trapped, with a Union Army larger than his between him and Virginia, burdened with a large number of his own wounded.

Even if he somehow got past Meade, the garrison of Washington was nearly equal in size to the Army of Northern Virginia and entrenched in strong fortifications. Lee could have done no more there in 1863 than Early did in 1864, to wit, stare at the forts in disbelief, then retreat.

There is also the finality of "If only that German superweapon had been available sooner …" Always implies the allies would be permanently befuddled by it and never find a way to match it and it would somehow always trump that massive advantage the Allies had in terms of mass production, logistics, manpower and resources.