If IT Had Happened Otherwise - Essays

Essays

The original edition included the following essays:

• "If Drouet's Cart Had Stuck" by Hilaire Belloc: In this alternate history, Louis XVI regains the French throne as a puppet of Great Britain, leading to disastrous results during the later World War I, which ends with the victory of the Holy Roman Empire.

• "If Don John of Austria Had Married Mary Queen of Scots" by G. K. Chesterton

• "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg" by Winston Churchill: This essay is written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world where the Confederacy won the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War. Although the Confederate States of America achieves independence, the British Empire becomes a broker between the USA and CSA, resulting in an eventual unification of all three as the "English Speaking Association", which prevents World War I.

• "If Napoleon Had Escaped to America" by H. A. L. Fisher: Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from his exile in St. Helena and liberates most of Central America and South America from Spanish and Portuguese rule.

• "If the Moors in Spain Had Won" by Philip Guedalla: Islamic Granada survives as a separate political entity, weakening Spain from the late fifteenth century onward, but resulting in a liberal humanist brand of Islam, the adoption of constitutional monarchy, and Spanish participation on the Central Powers' side during World War I against Granada and the Allies.

• "If the General Strike Had Succeeded" by Ronald Knox: This essay is in the form of an article from the Times of 1931, which discloses the outcome as Great Britain under communist rule.

• "If the Emperor Frederick Had Not Had Cancer" by Emil Ludwig: German Emperor Frederick III survives, and with his wife, Princess Victoria, rules a liberal humanist Germany where their son never succumbs to militarism, due to the long-term benign effects of this scenario. Therefore, World War I never happens in this world.

• "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness" by André Maurois: As with Hillaire Belloc's essay above, this posits Louis XVI as retaining the French throne and averting the French Revolution. However, in this version of French history, he makes necessary financial and constitutional reforms beforehand that prevent the circumstances that led to the revolution, and result in the survival of France as a constitutional monarchy into the twentieth century.

• "If Byron Had Become King of Greece" by Harold Nicolson.

• "If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare" by J. C. Squire.

• "If Booth Had Missed Lincoln" by Milton Waldman: In this world, Lincoln is charged with mismanaging the recently concluded Civil War, and there is repeated friction between Lincoln and a hostile US federal Congress. Before Congress can impeach him in 1867, however, Lincoln dies, discredited and castigated as a spendthrift warmonger.