Alternative history is a genre of science fiction, dedicated to the depiction of such a reality that could arise if history, at one of its turning points for some reason, took a different path … And although, as you know, the history of the subjunctive mood does not know, today there are tens of thousands people around the world are passionate about constructing their own unique worlds. What is this, an attempt to escape from reality or a kind of way to know the "world now" through the study of the world "if only"?
Mind game
The first known alternative was none other than the ancient Roman historian Titus Livy, who suggested a hypothetical campaign of Alexander the Great against Rome in 323 BC. In his opinion, this campaign should have ended with the complete collapse of the hitherto invincible commander, and this statement, no doubt, was very pleasant to the Romans.
In the 19th century, the term "alternative history" was first used by the English writer Isaac Disraeli in his work "Curiosities of Literature", and a little later, namely in 1849, he also wrote a book "On the history of events that never happened." In 1907, George Trevelyan wrote the book "If Napoleon Won the Battle of Waterloo", but they were all eclipsed by Arnold Toynbee, who wrote his famous article about what our whole world could have become if Alexander the Great had not died in Babylon, and more a number of others, similar. His colleagues regarded the article as a prank of a genius, but this only led to the fact that such "pranks" continued, although serious science did not recognize such games of the mind.
The heyday of alternative history came after the Second World War, when many books appeared, such as "If Hitler Won the Second World War" by W. Shearer (1961). However, the real breakthrough occurred in 1964 with the appearance of the first work of R. Vogel - in it he built a model of the future of the United States without railways. And the second, written in 1974, in which he proved that slavery in the southern states would be quite profitable until the 1950s, when cotton harvesters appeared. That is, the abolition of slavery in the United States was caused only by ideology, and by no means economic reasons, as was previously thought. For these works, Vogel received the Nobel Prize.
By the way, as it turned out, although the construction of railways was useful for the country, it brought the main benefit to the American steel companies, and was simply lobbied by them. In the USSR, we can talk about the project of turning Siberian rivers into Central Asia, which also had many influential supporters. And also about the unrestrained construction of nuclear submarines with missiles on board, of which we have built exactly twice as many as the USA, England and France put together!
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The point that decides everything
Of course, we all well understand that there are more than enough reasons for this or that event and it is almost impossible to change all of them. And nevertheless, it can be considered proven that there are moments of instability (or bifurcation points) in history, when only a small push is enough for the whole further course of events to go completely differently.
It is known, for example, that Emperor Frederick Barbarossa drowned while crossing a river (and quite shallow), since he was dressed in heavy metal armor. After that, his army turned back, but what would have happened if he had not put them on that day, and this could very well have happened?
Fork options
Of course, there are much more amateurs in this area than professionals, which is also, in general, an absolutely normal phenomenon. Look on the Internet, and you can easily find there a real abundance of sites on alternative history, which present almost any of its variants, and not only in the field of social, but also scientific and technical. Therefore, those who like to dream up have plenty to choose from: someone prefers to invent situations, and someone prefers the appropriate technique.
Many sites have forums where a huge number of people are discussing: what would have happened if it had not been for the Entente, but Germany and Austria-Hungary, won the First World War, or, say, the Tsushima battle would have been won not by the Japanese, but by the Russians. Or, for example, this scenario: the Japanese in Pearl Harbor are not bombing ships, but warehouses with fuel, the reserves of which the Americans have been building there for more than ten years, after which they land an infantry landing on Oahu and capture the island itself and those in his harbor ships. Of course, in the end the war will still have to be won by the Americans, but there are a great many possible scenarios in this case!
Armies that never existed
Why the events of military operations are mainly modeled and not peacetime, I hope, is clear to everyone. Because any war is more fraught with surprises than peacetime, and if one foresees what would have happened in the United States without railways, only the Nobel laureate could do it, then with regard to the outcome of mythical wars we have a lot with specialists. Invented, say, "The World of the Great Dictator", where the fascist dictatorship is established not in Germany, but in France, which, together with England, is losing the First World War and is now again forced to fight against Germany and Russia, which is now ruled by Emperor Michael.
Accordingly, for this very world, for example, a whole series of tanks from different countries was developed, and many of their designs are trying to substantiate very convincingly. However, it also happens that the authors of all these developments simply lose contact with reality, wandering in their fictional worlds. And that is why they confuse quite real Czech Skoda tanks, sold to Afghanistan in the 30s of the last century, with mythical ones, which, in their opinion, could not really be delivered there. That's just how it was actually delivered!
The situation is about the same with ships … Well, what to do if you really want to outplay Tsushima, and now a man takes and draws two more main-caliber towers on the battleship Borodino and thus doubles its firepower. Moreover, some craftsmen process even old photographs on a computer and thus get pictures of ships that are practically indistinguishable from real ones!
“Interesting newspaper. Mysteries of Civilization №20. A. Prassitsky
