A couple of years ago, CH ran my article on the "what if" genre of historical fiction. That critique discussed the origins of the form as we know it and also the related field of "future history" or, rather, more narrowly, future war literature. I had remarked that alternate history seems to have been enjoying a renaissance, particularly tales involving changes in the outcomes of crucial campaigns or battles. Since that time, there has been such an upsurge in this intellectually challenging literary vogue that some publishers are forthrightly labeling the works as "alternate historical fiction".
This is a real departure, because up to this time nobody seemed sure whether alternate history was historical fiction, science fiction, or even fiction at all in many cases. It has at last found its own niche, although bookstores and libraries still fluctuate as to where to shelve alternate history books. It seems like a good time to update and elaborate a bit.
Defining Alternate History
First, I should point out that the "future war" species —for example, Tom Clancy's 1987 Red Storm Rising or the more "documentary" styled The Third World War (1978) by Sir John Hackett, et. al – has essentially been eclipsed by unmitigated alternate history works that do not feature a forecast of possible future events. Oh, to be sure, there are still some "future war" novels appearing but most take place centuries from now and in galaxies far, far away; hardly the environment contemplated in traditional "future war" fiction.
A rare exception is Todd Stone's 1993 extended wargame, appropriately titled Kriegspiel, which tries to update the Hackett tour de force to reflect post Cold War contingencies. For the most part, writers of techno-thriller fiction have shied away from the full-blown scenario for a threatening conflict in the near future in the manner of George Chesney, Hector Bywater and the Hackett team. One could pedantically maintain that future war literature eventually becomes alternate history when its projected date passes by in our time frame.
The sysop of the premier alternate history website, Uchronia, advises browsers that he has been asked time and again to enter The Third World War in his annotated bibliography. He has declined, considering that taking this well-done future war tale into the canon would open up the survey to countless more examples and he wants to keep it relatively concise and on point. So if a work was a forecast of things to come when it was written, it will not be included in the list. It is the manipulation of known or experienced time lines that concern us here.
Alternate history fiction should not be confused with "secret history". The latter form employs a belated disclosure in which something about the past is revealed to be incorrect. In many cases the divulged event is hidden by a conspiracy. The important thing is that in secret history, the present is still our familiar present wherein the headlines of today's newspaper would be the same as in our world. In an allohistorical world, they probably would not. For example, in D.C. Poyer's Vengeance 10 the Nazis built and launched a moon rocket, but that event had no effect on history, as we know it, because this event isn't "discovered" until the 21st century.
To an extent, the generic historical novel is a form of alternate history. The novel may present some alternative version of events, typically one in which a fictional character is present at or active in some great event. Classic examples of this are Dumas' The Three Musketeers and its sequels, in which four dashing heroes play important roles in the history of 17th century France. Nevertheless, within the context of this bibliography, these novels would be considered secret history. Whatever their roles, for one reason or another they did not leave a record for posterity and nothing was changed by the "insertion" of this elite fighting unit into the 17th century world. E. L. Doctorow did something similar in his Ragtime, in which J.P. Morgan, Sanford White, and other early 20th century financial and political figures interact with the author's invented characters in highly dramatic events — principally the terrorist incident involving a black musician taking hostages in the J. P. Morgan Library.
None of these heretofore-unknown happenings are shown to have had any effects on the course of history, as we now know it. There is also what is commonly called the "alternate world" story. To be accurate, an alternate world story does not suggest anything about a possible historical connection between that world and ours. For example, many works by Guy Gavriel Kay might be cited as an example of alternate worlds which are not alternate history, as his novels frequently draw from the history and cultures of places on Earth to create entirely new lands and worlds which sound hauntingly familiar.
One could, of course, describe any historical fiction as alternate history, in that the fictional elements never actually occurred. What distinguishes true Alternate History is its exploration of the consequences of the author's design. Is it "science fiction"? The initial change — often, but not always, centered on a crucial turning point in history—can be achieved by science-fictional means – a deus ex machina — such as time travel.
Ginger-loving Aliens Invade
Harry Turtledove, the acknowledged modern maestro of customary alternate history, has also used science-fictional deliverance to advance his alternate histories.
Captured Union Tent displayed at CSA Capitol Building
The twist in his The Guns of the South (1992) hinges upon the meddling of time travelers, white supremacist Afrikaaners striving to revoke the emancipation of blacks resulting from the Union victory. It's this mutation that effects the triumph of the South in the Civil War, thanks to the introduction of modified AK-47s into Confederate arsenals.
In Turtledove's Worldwar series (1994-1996), an alien invasion of Earth right in the middle of World War II forces mortal foes, such as the Nazis and the Polish Jews, to unite in a common cause, thus drastically changing the course of history from that point on. Personally, I was a bit bothered by the time-travelling Afrikaaners in Guns and didn't take to the lizardlike aliens in Worldwar. But, inasmuch as Turtledove is so good at fleshing out his alternate world with meticulously researched and authentic sounding settings, it went down well anyhow. However, his more conventional works are more to my liking as they work through the fabric of historical fact. They examine causation independently of any miraculous shortcuts.
Turtledove's How Few Remain (1997) is considered the prequel to his The Great War series. HFR postulates a Civil War in which the famed Confederate cigar-wrapped orders at Antietam were not lost, resulting in a clear Confederate victory there. This, in turn, brought about life-saving foreign assistance to the South so that the USA. and the CSA. would have to learn to live alongside each other—albeit very unhappily. . Twenty years after Antietam, the Confederate purchase of Chihuahua and Sonora from Mexico provokes a second War Between the States. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln tours the country speaking on labor and promoting socialism, Samuel Clemens publishes a newspaper in San Francisco, and Teddy Roosevelt is a Montana rancher. HFR was the winner of the 1997 Sidewise Award for best long-form alternate history. It was also a nominee for the 1998 Nebula for best Sci Fi novel.
Next in the series, and first volume of the series proper, is 1999's The Great War: American Front. Still angered by events of the 1860s and 1880s, the US has allied with Germany against Britain and France, which in turn remain allied with the CSA. So when war breaks out in 1914 Europe over the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, it also means conflict across North America. Meanwhile, the working class — including former slaves — begins to heat toward a boil in both the USA and CSA.
The second book of the series will be The Great War: Walk in Hell. It will be published later this year. The war passes through 1916, beginning with the USA and CSA both putting down rebellions — one religious, one labor — and followed by the introduction of new military technology by the USA, and by the CSA taking an irrevocable step in white-black relations. It was originally announced as The Great War: Stroke on Stroke. The third volume to the series proper of The Great War will be The Great War: Breakthroughs, due in 2000. The fourth and final volume will be The Great War: Settling Accounts, expected in 2001.
I have heard one science fiction fan, who liked the Worldwar series, complain about the piling on of superfluous asides and vignettes in the Great War books merely to illustrate the author's expertise in the history behind the fiction. He felt that these displays of "authentic detail" distracted the reader from the storyline. I don't see it that way at all, but I can understand how some might. It's similar to the historicity versus playability debate among hobby wargamers.
One of my favorite alternate histories is Floyd Gibbons' The Red Napoleon. Gibbons wrote the classic biography of von Richtofen — The Red Baron. TRN was written in 1929 and projects the next few years. An assassin kills Stalin in 1932. A Red Army leader takes over and starts a massive military buildup. In 1933 the Red Army invades Poland.
As noted, in 1932 Stalin has been assassinated. The Red Army has taken over and launched a massive military buildup. In late 1932, the Red Napoleon manages a deceptive mobilization that makes the Russian Army temporarily the largest in the world. On January 2, 1933, the Red Army moves west. It smashes Poland and its Little Entente allies, then destroys a right-wing German militia that tries to stop it on the Poland/German border. The rest of Germany goes Communist. The rest of the European nations cower within their borders, except for one. Mussolini leads fascist Italy's army out to do battle. He dies an honorable death, then Italy falls apart. The other European countries fall one-by-one, with France putting up a major fight, but losing. The Red Napoleon controls all of Europe and masses his forces against England and Japan. Both countries fall from within, with local socialists siding with the Communists and opening their countries up to invasions. That leaves the United States, and with all of the resources of continental Europe, England, and Japan at his command, the Red Napoleon invades the United States. Very interesting offshore naval and amphibious actions ensue. .
The book is very well written. It reflects the anxieties of its day. It drastically overestimates the Soviet army of the early 1930's. It also exaggerates the strength of ties between Soviet communists and Japanese and English socialists, as well as the power of those socialists. The fascists come off as good guys, which dates the book a bit. The Red Napoleon himself is a very good villain, very human and very well drawn.
L. Sprague DeCamp's Lest Darkness Fall (originally 1939) is a seminal alternate history and one of the most influential. There is a kind of time-travel mechanism, although a thunderstorm rather than time warp technology is the transfiguring agent. Mysteriously transported to Rome in the time of Justinian, a modern man decides to start up a few modern industries and avert the Dark Ages. In fact, Harry Turtledove mentions in his preface to the 1996 reprint that he had been a college student majoring in the hard sciences when he discovered LDF. It literally changed his life. He changed his major to history and later pursued an academic career as a Byzantinist…shown to good effect in his Videssos series. Finally, HT found his own niche in alternate history, tapping into both his historical and literary expertise.
Robert Sobel's For Want of a Nail, originally published in 1973, had become a much sought-after scarce classic of the genre. It represents one end of the verisimilitude/entertainment spectrum. The author has purported to write a history textbook from an alternate America, evolving from the divergence that the British won at Saratoga. It is a tour de force, never dropping it's pretense to be a scholarly work of history, replete with preface, dissenting appendix, bibliography and footnotes referencing other bogus texts, and and index.
Stylized portrait of the former Nazi leader hunted down and tried in 1986
Philippe Van Rjndt's Trial of Adolf Hitler, 1986, is a fascinating "what-if" on the theme popularized in the ancient Police Gazette, that der Fuehrer had been hiding out in South America after all and was smoked out Mossad-style and remanded to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, charged with crimes against humanity. Hitler in his 90s may be a bit of a stretch but once you accept that he could have lived that long and have stayed hidden, you get caught up in the Trial of the Century.
Pamela Sargent's Climb the Wind: A Novel of Another America; NY: Harper-Prism, 1999, advances an unusual proposition. Indian nations attack "… a weakened America, still reeling from the devastation of the Civil War". It is one of the few alternate history novels to consider a role for Native Americans.
Ward Moore's Bring The Jubilee is an early alternate history novel of the South after the Confederacy wins the Civil War. Confederates occupied the Round Tops during the first day of Gettysburg, leading to victory in the battle and Confederate independence. An historian in a fifth-rate 1952 US, overshadowed by the CSA and the Germanic Union, obtains a position at an
academic commune near Gettysburg, and one day is offered the chance to travel back in time to July 1, 1863. Originally published in 1953 it was reissued several times, most recently in 1998.
For a more recent ACW alternate, Peter Tsouras tackles a familiar theme in his 1997 Gettysburg: An Alternate History. It asks what if JEB Stuart arrived at Gettysburg late on July 1, 1863, in time to affect Robert E. Lee's plans for the battle. With Stuart at hand to provide battlefield reconnaissance, Lee was more willing to accept Longstreet's proposal of a flanking attack on July 2, but when that failed was convinced that a massive frontal assault was ever more necessary on July 3. But with that final decision came greater risk in case of a failed attack, and Gettysburg could well have been a greater Union victory.
Winston Churchill was the first to second-guess the Civil War in his If Lee Had Not Won The Battle Of Gettysburg. An interesting twist, turning alternate history inside out. It presumes that the South HAD prevailed in the 1863 offensive and then posits a what-if. The well-told tale asks what if Jeb Stuart had reached the battlefield in time to support Pickett's charge and carry the battle. Later, Lee unilaterally freed the slaves and Britain recognized the CSA. Typically, Winnie engages in musings on how a Confederate defeat at Gettysburg might have prevented the formation of the English-speaking union. Originally published in 1931 in the alternate history anthology edited by J.C.. Squire, If It Had Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History. Dick Harrison's "If Not..." – A Journey In the Realm of Fallen Alternatives" (in Swedish) looks at various scenarios (e.g., the Battle of Tours, the Black Death) and considers the difference between counterfactual and "ordinary" historical analysis. Harrison argues, in effect, that counterfactuals illustrate that individual choices shape history. It was published in the Swedish alternate history anthology Tänk om... Nio kontrafaktiska essär edited by Lars M. Andersson and Ulf Zander.
The Big One
World War II, along with the ACW, continues to dominate the field. In Harold, Deutsch and Dennis Showalter's (eds.). What If: Alternate Strategies of World War II (1997), we have a fine example of the counterfactual essay .Historians consider such questions as what if World War II had begun in September 1938, if Britain had sued for peace in 1940, if the Japanese had launched another strike against Pearl Harbor, if Hitler had stayed out of military decision making, and if there had been no atomic bomb.
The efforts of thousands of "Rosies" like these stalled the Nazi plans for invading America long enough for a negotiated peace to be reached.
These are straightforward "as if" historical essays, quite well done. Another excellent survey in this same vein is The Hitler Options: Alternate Decisions of World War II, edited by Kenneth Macksey. It includes ten articles on alternative World War II developments including J.H. Gill's "Operation Greenbier: Defusing the German Bomb", S. Howarth's "Germany and the Atlantic Sea-War: 1939-1943", W. Underbelly: January 1942-December 1945", T.K. Jones's "Bloody Normandy: The German Controversy", J. Lucas's "Operation Wotan: The Panzer Thrust to Capture Moscow, October-November 1941", K. Macksey's "Operation Sea Lion: Germany Invades Britain, 1940", C. Messenger's "Operation Armageddon: Devastation of the Cities, 1943", B. Perrett's "Operation Sphinx: Raeder's Mediterranean Strategy", A. Price's "The Jet Fighter Menace", and P.G. Tsouras's "Operation Orient: Joint Axis Strategy". It was published by Greenhill/Stackpole in 1995 and as a Greenhill softcover in 1998.
Another is Adrian Gilbert's Britain Invaded: Hitler's Plans for Britain, a Documentary Reconstruction. This pseudo-documentary divergences from our time line in 1940. It asks what if Hitler's orders delaying von Rundstedt's panzers were revoked earlier, and 150 thousand British troops were captured as Dunkirk fell to the Nazis on May 29, 1940. Two months later, Operation Sealion commenced. A Time-Life style volume describing the fall of France and the invasion and occupation of England. But with the invasion of southern France by the US and Free British forces coupled with Soviet advances into East Prussia in 1945, capped by atomic weapons dropped on Hamburg and Nuremberg, the war still ends in an Allied victory in 1945. Oddly, the copyright page states that the title of the book is actually The Last Days of Britain: An Illustrated History.
Also, knowledgeable alternate history readers will find the bibliography amusing. Published by Century in 1990, this ranks with Kenneth Macksey's Invasion: The German Invasion of England, July 1940 (1982, reprinted 1998), an extended version of his essay in the anthology he edited (see above) differing only with respect to changes in German naval forces.
Finally, as an excellent cross-section of "non-fictional counterfactuals" – an oxymoron – concentrating largely on the 17th through 20th Centuries, I highly recommend Niall Ferguson's (ed.). Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. The counterfactual essays from historians, include Niall Ferguson's excellent overview "Introduction: Virtual History". J. Adamson's "England without Cromwell", J.C.D. Clark's "British America", A. Jackson's "British Ireland", Niall Ferguson's "The Kaiser's European Union", A. Roberts' "Hitler's England", M. Burleigh's "Nazi Europe", J. Haslam's "Stalin's War or Peace", D. Kunz's "Camelot Revisited", M. Almond's "1989 without Gorbachev", and Niall Ferguson's "Afterword: A Virtual History, 1646-1996". Of these items, only the "Afterword" makes any effort to construct a timeline. The anthology is published by Picador 1997and Papermac/Trans-Atlantic 1998. The original is in English.
There is also a German translation by Raul Niemann as Virtuelle Geschichte: historische Alternativen im 20. Jahrhundert, Wisseschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1999. The essays concentrate on financial and economic matters in keeping with Fergusson's forte. The editor has also written a controversial revisionist history of the First World war which argues, among other things, that things might have turned out better for the UK had Germany accomplished its swift victory contemplated in the Schlieffen Plan.
This is just a sampling… somewhat eclectic and unabashedly reflecting my own tastes. As a footnote, it is encouraging to see that alternate or counterfactual history seems to be gaining some respectability – hard-won—in colleges and university history departments as well as US armed forces service academies. This new status is reflected in the sophistication of some of the output both from historians, writing as historians, and novelists.
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© Copyright 1999 by David W. Tschanz.
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