Catherine Gallagher

5 War, Counterfactual History, and Alternate-History Novels Catherine Gallagher ‘What if Grant had been drinking at Appomattox?’ asked James Thurber in the New Yorker in 1930. That might have changed the history of the entire nation, he excitedly opined, and then went on to outline a ludicrous scenario in which the blotto Grant rises unsteadily and hands over his own sword to Lee when that general comes to surrender. Oops! 1 Mike Resnick, ed., Thurber was satirizing a little spattering of bullets. Although many newspapers dropped Alternate Kennedys lately published counterfactual historical this feature after the fortieth anniversary (New York, 199) essays reversing the outcome of the Civil of the assassination in 003, you can still Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee (London, 1981 War, the most notable of which was Winston indulge your counterhistorical appetite for [195]), all quotations Churchill’s playful ‘If Lee had not Won them in a volume entitled, simply, Alternate are from this edition; the Battle of Gettysburg’. In 1930 such Kennedys.1 Philip K. Dick, The Man suppositions were rarely seen in reputable in the High Castle (New York, 1974 [196]), all publications, and so they were an obvious In this essay, the nature and history of quotations are from this target of ridicule. allo-histories will be examined, as well as edition. their kinship with a form of fiction — the Today, though, counterfactuals (that is, alternate-history novel — that began to hypothetical propositions that are contrary appear in the US in the 1950s and has to the known facts of the historical record) grown by increasing magnitudes in each are frequently used to initiate exercises in decade since. Three questions will be put historical speculation, which are sometimes to these two forms. First, why do most of called ‘what if’ histories. Counterfactuals, we them postulate a counterfactual outcome are told by historians who use them, must be to a war? Second, why has their bulk and plausible and should appear as real options prestige grown with such rapidity in the in the historical record, and even when they sixty years following the Second World are used to launch elaborate narratives, War? And, third, why do so many of which are sometimes called ‘alternate them conjecture that the US lost wars it histories’ or, more grammatically, ‘alternative quite decisively won? The novels under histories,’ or (neo-logistically) ‘allo-histories’, examination are Ward Moore’s Bring the plausibility should be maintained. We have Jubilee (195) and Philip K. Dick’s The all encountered these allo-histories, in which Man in the High Castle (196), and it will a slight change in circumstances sets off a be the refrain of my argument that the chain reaction that takes the course of history novels tell us more about the reasons for Ulysses S. Grant on the fifty in a direction dramatically different from that our counterhistorical imaginings than do the dollar bill, seen through the of actual events. Think, for example, of the allo-histories themselves. viewfinder of a television annual November speculations in American camera, 8 September 004. Photograph: Mark Wilson/ newspapers about how United States history In an attempt to explain why most Getty Images. might have been if JFK had survived Oswald’s counterfactuals tell alternate stories of FIELD DAY REVIEW 3 2007 53 FIELD DAY REVIEW WAR, COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY, AND ALTERNATE-HISTORY NOVELS wars, it is necessary first of all to look more Muslims, and Jews. D’Israeli, in other 3 Isaac D’Israeli, ‘Of a closely at counterfactuals in history. The words, suggests that the ability to think History of Events which have not Happened’, history of allo-history certainly bears out counterfactually and to construct alternate in A Second Series this generalization. Isaac D’Israeli, the histories of important wars measures the of Curiosities of nineteenth-century English writer and father extent to which a nation’s historians have Literature: Consisting of the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, is joined secular discipline and have truly of Researches in Literary, Biographical, normally said to have inaugurated the genre broken with the concept that divinely and Political History; of alternate history, and he was the first to decreed necessity shaped the national past. of Critical and call attention to it in an 1823 essay titled He thus places counterfactualism at the Philosophical Inquiries; ‘Of a History of Events which have not heart of the modern historical enterprise, and of Secret History (London, 1823), 253– Happened’. His first and most prominent in which secular contingency replaces 68 3 examples are military. The Roman providential necessity. 4 Livy, Historiae historian Livy, he points out, indulged in Romanae with an a lengthy speculation beginning with the D’Israeli suggested yet another reason for the English Translation, 14 vols. trans. B. O. counterfactual that Alexander the Great mutual attraction between alternate history Foster (Cambridge, might have invaded Italy. And in Book IX and military history. In describing Livy’s Mass., 1919–67), vol. 4, of Livy’s Roman History, we probably do counterfactual digression, D’Israeli describes 227–41 find the first self-conscious and detailed the historian’s behaviour in terms appropriate use of alternate history.4 Disdaining the to a general: Livy ‘arranges the Macedonian Greek supposition that Alexander could Army’, has a ‘momentary panic’ when have interrupted the growth of the Roman Alexander first comes into Italy, ‘cautiously Empire, Livy shows where the Macedonian counts the allies’, ‘descends’ to inspect the army would have invaded and ranged itself, weapons, and finally ‘terminates his fears’ by where the Roman armies would have been ‘triumphantly’ ‘bringing forth’ the Roman at that moment and how many allies they generals. D’Israeli thus playfully indicates could call upon. He even compares the two a special congruence in military history forces’ weapons and modes of warfare, between historical actors and historians. and, of course, he compares Alexander’s In 1823 he could point only to the ancient generalship with that of the contemporary example of Livy’s digression, but ten years Roman generals he would have encountered later the first detailed, book-length allo- as he tried to make his way to Rome. The history appeared in France: Napoléon et la point of the exercise was not only to praise conquête du monde by Louis Geoffroy, which the superiority of Roman armies, but also opens with Napoleon’s decision not to retreat to bring into comprehensive view the full after the burning of Moscow but instead might of dispersed Roman forces in the time to march on St. Petersburg. This improved of Alexander. strategy allows the emperor to proceed, through several hundred pages of crafty D’Israeli recommended the use of such negotiations and imaginary campaigns, to counterfactuals in military history precisely the subjugation of all the world’s peoples to a for their ability to present new perspectives universal, but nevertheless French, monarchy. on the facts, but he had a second motive The delight of applying Napoleonic tactics for proposing their development into better than Napoleon himself had done is longer alternate histories. He thought such conspicuous in Geoffroy’s exuberant style exercises, by stressing the contingencies of and his unwillingness to miss any of the events and teaching analytical methods, apocryphal Napoleon’s brilliant military and would wean people from believing that the diplomatic manoeuvres. fortunes of war are decided by supernatural powers, be they interfering classical gods Although the first allo-historians, Livy or the special providences of Christians, and Geoffroy, gave themselves unusual 54 FIELD DAY REVIEW WAR, COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY, AND ALTERNATE-HISTORY NOVELS Leesburg, Virginia: The Confederate Army 1st Louisiana Tiger Rifles march to camp during the First Manassas Civil War Re- enactment, 3 August 2001. Approximately 20,000 people participated in the re- enactment of First Manassas, known as Bull Run to the Northern Union States, the first major battle of the US Civil War on 21 July 1861. Photograph: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images. latitude in imitating military planners, their account of how Germany’s 1940 invasion behaviour was not greatly different from of Britain would have played out, based normal military historians. The general on both the German battle plans and the looking forward and the historian looking British defence preparations. The education backward both assess the dangers, the of military leaders, moreover, encourages the options and their consequences, and both alternate-historical imagination, stressing must have plenty of contingency plans as it does exercises from which students in in mind. Military historians routinely military schools (and now in some public reproduce the calculations and decision- schools) learn both strategy and the history of making of commanders, entering deeply into warfare. Working with computer models and their modes of speculation, in addition to simulations of past battles and campaigns, describing the course of events. Moreover, students now subtly transform particulars since the archives of modern wars, especially, to see what might be learned from modified bulge with unused plans, even normal chains of events. Eventually these students historians are drawn into numerous ‘virtual’ will be able to produce some of the thousands battles and campaigns that were thoroughly of military scenarios, the imaginary wars, conceived and in some cases (such as that that fill the drawers and the hard drives of the of the invasion of Japan’s home islands to Pentagon. In short, no enterprise in Western end the Second World War) meticulously culture puts the question ‘What if?’ to both prepared for, but never actualized, and these the future and the past more insistently than potential battles not only fill out regular the military. military histories but also inspire the alternate historian.

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