"Counterfactual History and the Outbreak of WW1" Topic

"was an undergraduate student the first time I heard about counterfactual history, and it was in connection with the crisis that led to the outbreak of the Great War, or World War I. I remember a history professor of mine referring with intellectual disdain to the question "What would have happened if Gavrilo Princip had failed to kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand?" World War I would have erupted in any event, sooner or later, he went on to say. My conclusion, after hearing his comment, was that counterfactual history was intellectually irrelevant if not wholly unacceptable.

Many of my own students today express their dismay when I resort to counterfactual history in my classes. They have been taught that what counts is what actually happened and not what might have happened. They ask, "Isn't the query ‘What would have happened if X or Y had not taken place?' beyond the academic domain of the serious historian?"…"

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Armand

(smile)

Armand

History classes should teach us what happened, and why it happened. Counter factual history is not history, it is speculation. There is enough history to keep you busy in school without speculating on what would have happened if things worked out differently.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

Been a professor of history for about 40 years. I always found counterfactual history to be a waste of time.

I find it very interesting but as a conjecture rather than a teaching tool. You are right that there is enough history, much untaught,to till the time available.

Every assessment of a historical situation has a counterfactual history in its heart. If you say, the Sowjet Union wouldn't have won against the Germans without the military aid of the USA, you could also have said: if the USA hadn't joined the war, the Sowjet Union would have list the war.

One of the most interesting bits of Avalon Hill's "1914" is the sheer range of options and contingencies the designer built into the game, giving players an opportunity to test alternative strategies and deployments- including war plans dating as far back as 1879.

Wargaming is, in essence, one giant attempt to posit how history might have turned out differently.

Agree…

Armand

I think that the point of debating counterfactuals is to sharpen the ability to formulate a coherent argument and defend that argument; in other words, to encourage critical thinking.

The value is in the process and not the result.

I know I should not be contributing to raising the dead, but….

History at the upper level isn't simply the study of what happened. It is also the study of why it happened and what were the consequences of it happening the way it did. Counterfactuals play an important role here in testing the Historian's hypothesis. It also isn't just history buffs that do it. "Monday morning quarterbacking" was an important part of my field.