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ALTERNATE WARS a Review of the Literature by Bruce Harper

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ALTERNATE WARS a Review of the Literature by Bruce Harper Winter 2008 Free A quarterly newsletter devoted to AWORLD AT WAR, GMT Games’ strategic simulation of World War II. To order AWAW, go to www.gmtgames.com or phone 1-800-523-6111. ALTERNATE WARS A Review of the Literature by Bruce Harper Introduction technical, institutional, political and psychological reasons, they feel the war could not have unfolded in We all play A WORLD AT WAR and hopefully enjoy any way other than the way it did. Needless to say, from the challenges and excitement of a complex and the game design point of view, this view has to be demanding game. While doing so, however, we are also rejected, as otherwise any deviation from history is generating alternate histories of World War II, with each merely a flight of fancy, rather than a realistic game following a different path. Some games are possibility which didn’t happen to materialize. From the “historical”, in the sense of roughly following the course historical point of view, of course, it is risky to argue of the real war (although with many tactical that “only what happened could have happened”, while differences), while others diverge from history early on, at the same time being unable to predict what will and result in wars which can scarcely be imagined. happen. Other forces must be at work, besides the ones The theme “what might have been” in relation to the used by historians to explain what happened after the Second World War has intrigued many authors, and has fact. generated a substantial body of literature. In this issue of Other historians accept this and are more ULTRA, for a change of pace, I will review some of this adventuresome, recognizing that the participants in the literature, which many A WORLD AT WAR players may war had choices, on the strategic, operational and find interesting. Needless to say, it’s impossible to even tactical levels. Once this is accepted, there are many try to cover all the books, essays and articles which have possibilities which can be discussed, just as in a chess been written on this subject. game there are many variations in the notes which never The writings on this subject fall into several appear on the board, except by influencing the moves categories: which were actually made. Most commonly, these take the form of opportunities missed, although it is again Military Speculations important to remember that we know more now than did At one end of the spectrum are analyses and the participants in the actual war – including what went speculations by military historians as to how the wrong. The apologetic “it seemed like a good idea at the participants in the war might have “improved their time” has some validity to it, as many actions taken play”. These cover a wide range of topics and reveal a during the war really did seem like good ideas, and are great deal about the authors. only questioned now because, for one reason or another, Some historians adopt a deterministic, almost they didn’t work. fatalistic, approach to the history of the war. For But, as every A WORLD AT WAR player knows, Alternative Wars A Review of the Literature.......................Front Cover Fiction ...................................................................15 By Bruce Harper By Bruce Harper Military Speculations............................................... 4 What About Harry?................................................16 By Bruce Harper By Bruce Harper Counterfactual Histories ........................................ 11 By Bruce Harper Next Issue: Ground Tactics 2 Winter 2008 there is another factor beside player choices which survived, some evolved into intelligent beings, and man sends the game down different paths. That factor is evolved as well (the name of the book escapes me, chance, which many feel plays an important role in which to me indicates that the concept did not history as well. necessarily result in a work of lasting value...) As mentioned, counterfactual histories depend to a Counterfactual histories considerable extent on the premise that history is The term “counterfactual” in relation to history was determined by key events. The opposing view is that coined fairly recently, and is used to refer to the analysis history is more like a broad, flowing river, which will of unrealized historical possibilities. Its premise is that overcome obstacles and go wherever it is going, the flow of events often depends on key, and sometimes regardless of specific events, or specific people. This seemingly insignificant, events which, had they not has given rise to the debate as to whether great men or occurred or had they occurred differently, would have women create history, or whether history creates them. changed everything that follows. Would there have been a Second World War without An example arises out of the generally accepted Hitler? Some argue no, but others would say that if it view that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused, hadn’t been Hitler it would have been someone else, as either entirely or largely, by an asteroid hitting the earth the explosive material awaited only a match to set it off. 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs were unable to This is certainly the view that many historians take of survive the catastrophe (bad luck for them), but the World War I. smaller mammals did (good luck for us). The term It is easy to see why historians tend to the view that “luck” is used loosely in this context – scholars use the single events are less important in shaping history than more precise term “contingencies”. But the social, economic and other larger forces. Otherwise counterfactual is easy to postulate. If the asteroid misses history becomes a series of flukes, and can scarcely be earth, the dinosaurs survive, and what then of humans? explained at all. “Counterfactuals” are therefore treated On the one hand, it is easy to dismiss such existential somewhat dismissively by many historians, and the speculations as pointless, but the possibility was no less literature in this area contains many disclaimers. The real because “things are what they are”. But there are view that “only what happened could have happened” is philosophical implications to the counterfactual addressed by the concept of “second order (including that mankind is not entitled to rule and counterfactuals”, which postulate “correcting” events destroy the earth, but instead should treasure its lucky which take history back to a more familiar path. find). And the idea is sufficiently interesting that All these concepts are found in A WORLD AT WAR, someone in fact did write a fairly lengthy novel based which provides for countless counterfactual events, on the premise that the asteroid missed, the dinosaurs while at the same time assuming historical trends (most notably the expansion of the Allied economies and force EDITOR: Bruce Harper pools) which operate as second order counterfactuals. ASSOCIATE EDITORS,ARTICLE DEVELOPMENT: Markus Kässbohrer, The development of these concepts in the game tended Ed Schoenfeld, Eric Thobaben to predate the more scholarly approaches and, as we will PROOFREADERS: Bryan Brinkman, Todd Dunnavant, Tim Schroeder BUSINESS MANAGER: Maurice Buttazoni see, often may lead to more credible results. In short, the ULTRA BOARD: Bruce Harper, Don Moody, Eric Thobaben, Markus game may be a better engine for generating Kässbohrer, Mike Crowe, Vic Hogen. counterfactual histories than are scholars. Still, it is ULTRA would like to express its gratitude to GMT Games and ULTRA Publications without whose cooperation and support this newsletter interesting to compare the two. would not be possible. ULTRA is available at no charge to all A WORLD AT WAR players either Fiction by direct e-mail or from the website www.aworldatwar.com. Fiction, or at times science fiction, might be termed a The entire contents of this issue are copyright 2007 by ULTRA Publications. All rights are reserved. No part of ULTRA may be more extreme type of “counterfactual” analysis – if any reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by analysis is involved at all. A number of fiction writers any means electronic, mechanical or otherwise without the prior written permission of ULTRA Publications, other than for non-commercial have used an Axis victory in World War II as the purposes and the promotion and play of A WORLD AT WAR. Published premise for their works. The most common theme of opinions are solely those of the authors. these books is the exploration of absolute, AWORLD AT WAR is available from GMT Games, www.gmtgames.com institutionalized evil, as a reminder to us what might Tel. 1-800-523-6111. have, and perhaps may yet, be. A more subtle theme Winter 2008 3 also emerges in some of these novels – a discussion of Will it help my play? how one can survive in the type of world which would have resulted from a German conquest of Europe or the This is an interesting question. The answer depends world. largely on whether you trust the game (and the game With topics of such weight to confront, fiction designer!) to realistically represent the possibilities that writers are usually not unduly concerned with just how were open to the various warring powers. the Axis achieve the victories necessary for the Certainly this issue of ULTRA will not directly unfolding of the plot. The Axis victory is often a matter elevate the level of your play in the same way as an of historical record, predating the events of the novel by issue devoted to, say, the intricacies of the attrition rules many years. Because of this, the alternate history and how attritions can be most effectively conducted aspects in fiction is usually fairly vague and often (which I think would be a great topic for an issue, “unrealistic” – if one can use that term in this context! incidentally).
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