/r/HistoricalWhatIf

Photograph via snooOG

For your historical what if needs!

Have you ever had a question about what would have happened if history had gone a different way? Ever wonder if a historical event had gone differently? Here's the place to ask!

Subreddit Rules

  1. Be nice!
    Personal attacks, abusive language, trolling or bigotry in any form is not allowed and will be removed. No hate material, be it submissions or comments, are accepted.

  2. No current politics or soapboxing.
    Political topics are only acceptable if discussed in a historical context. Comments should discuss a historical topic, not advocate an agenda. This is entirely at the moderators' discretion.

  3. No historical negationism or denialism.
    We do not allow posts and comments about fringe hypotheses, false narratives, misunderstood or misrepresented history, genocide denial, and other disingenuous revisionism. They have proven to be magnets for those wanting to push a distortion of historic consensus. Engaging in historical negationism or denialism will result in a permanent ban. Notable examples of negationism include Holocaust denial, Armenian Genocide denial, Japanese war crime denial, and the denial of Soviet crimes.

  4. Please keep posts to only things that are possible.
    This sub is called HistoricalWhatIf for a reason. Questions like "What if Hitler used firebreathing dragons in Battle of Britain?" don't belong here. This includes time travel questions.

  5. Provide some context for your post.
    To increase both the quality of posts and the quality of responses, we ask that all posts provide at least a sentence or two of context. Describe your POD, or lay out your own hypothesis. We don't need an essay, but we do need some effort. "Title only" posts will be removed, and repeat offenders will be banned. Again, we ask this in order to raise the overall quality level of the sub, posts and responses alike.

  6. No discussion about the past 10 years.
    Self explanatory. Posts about recent, current, or future events will be removed.

  7. Read questions charitably.
    A modicum of effort is required to participate. Debating the premise of a post is allowed. Dismissing the subject entirely without explanation is not.

Related Subs:

/r/History

/r/HistoryWhatIf

/r/alternatehistory

/r/HistoricalWhatIf

92,222 Subscribers

0

What if the Spanish Empire never fell?

Spain used to be a great power owning all of the americas besides Brazil And some pf the north even having the philipinesse ecuatorial guinea north morroco and western sahara Now Spain isn’t reocnased as a great power anymore. BTW: forgot to say that the spanish also owned the benelux and south italy

What if Spain never fell?

1 Comment
2024/04/27
06:27 UTC

4

What if Italy controlled its colonies until 1960s/1970s?

if fascist Italy had not participated in the Second World War, Italy would obviously have kept its African colonies. Probably a Fascist Italy would have governed Italy for decades and would have governed also a vast colonial empire . Italy's African colonies were Italy, southern Somalia with Mogadishu as its capital, Ethiopia occupied since 1936, Libya.

Italy would have controlled these colonies until the time of decolonization, that is, until 1960 to 1970. Some possible questions:

1.ECONOMY would Italy have become richer and would have developed an industry, thanks to the cheap economical raw materials from these colonies?

Well, i have read a statistics regarding the trade of Italy with its colonies in africa in 1922/1939.

Italy imported from Lybia and the Horn of Africa products such as fish, coffee, wheat, tomatoes, pineapples, bananas, dried fruit, wines, vermouth, tobacco, oil seeds, vegetable oils, hemp, flax, cotton, wool, copper, mother-of-pearl, tagua nuts, natural rubber, hides, sponges, and rags. These raw materials were quite useless for the development of Italian industry and economy... In these colonies there werent metals, fossil fuels, gum, chocolate, preciuous metals.

Italian state would have had to spend a lot of Money to build roads, establish forts and garrisons tò control the natives, pay salaries to local tribal Leaders and local auxiliaries and Italians burocrate and officers and soldiers to control the territory ...

The natives didn't have any kind of instructures and were still living with a subsidence agriculture. The confiscation of their land (that was their only mean to survive) to give It to italian farmers settlers would have easily caused native rebellions.

An economical colonization of Eritrea, Somalia and Northern Ethiopia would have been totally useless economically and would have been a great expense for Italians taxpayers. Only some rich Italian planters would have gained Money thanks tò the state subsidies and the confiscation of Land of the natives . the only exception would have been Libya, where oil had been discovered at the end of the 1930s and which perhaps could have been exploited from the 1940s or 1950s onwards.

  1. SOCIETY

What would the indigenous societies have been like if these countries had been colonized for decades by Italians?

the Italians only gained full control of these columns in the 1930s, at the time of Mussolini, bloodily repressing the indigenous revolts.

the Italian fascist government wanted to implement a colonialism of population: the Italian government would have taken steps to confiscate the most fertile land from the indigenous people, which would have been given to be cultivated by Italian farmers who would have colonized the colonies, while the indigenous people would have been locked up in reserves for natives and would have been exploited as cheap labor.

this Italian colonialism of population was successful only in Libya, where towards the end of the 1930s the Italian population was a good part of the local population. one could hypothesize that the Italian colonist population could even have exceeded the number of the indigenous people within a few decades. the Italian settlers in the Horn of Africa, however, numbered only a few thousand.

  1. WAR OF DECOLONIZATION

between 1960 and 1975, most African colonies became independent. in this period Italy would have had to face wars of decolonization, sending troops of young Italian conscripts led by professional colonial officers to defeat bands of independent indigenous warriors. Italy could have found itself faced with wars such as the Algerian war faced by the French, the Mau Mau war in Kenya or the colonial wars of the Portuguese.

What would these wars have been like and what might they have looked like? would Italy have been led to adopt the English, French or Portuguese counter-insurgency model? the war in Libya would have been longer and more violent, given that there would have been more Italian settlers there and the oil, so this could have pushed the Italian government to implement very violent measures to repress the indigenous rebellion?

2 Comments
2024/04/27
03:55 UTC

2

What if the Bering Land Bridge never disappeared?

I'm outlining an alternate history novel that uses the above premise to enable cross-cultural contact between Asia and the Americas into historical times. The main consequence that this change is meant to enable in my story is that, by the time Europeans arrive, indigenous American civilizations have long had access to domesticated horses for transport and warfare. Thus, I really have two questions:

  1. What other effects would making Eurasia and the Americas into a single, continuous landmass have on cross-cultural exchange and the development of the Americas?
  2. How would indigenous Americans having domesticated horses since prehistory, in particular, effect the development of their societies up to around the 1500s CE?
7 Comments
2024/04/26
17:33 UTC

1

What would today's world (or the course of history) look like if the Roman empire had not converted to Christianity?

0 Comments
2024/04/26
16:02 UTC

11

What if Napoleon never invaded russia

Napoleon invaded russia wich made Prussia and Austria declare war on Napoleon even though they promised to never do it again since Napoleon was starting to get weaker also he now had troops everywhere in Spain In the east also on sea do figth the brits so what if napoleon appeased russia by not making them really mad

3 Comments
2024/04/26
15:43 UTC

2

Could the Kronstadt rebellion have turned into a third russian revolution?

In 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rebelled against the newly established soviet government, a government which they themselves had helped to set up. They advanced a series of demands, in which they asked for the formation of free soviets, the reintroduction of civil rights, freedom of the press and economic freedom for the paesants. The revolt was ultimately crushed, but could it have turned into a "third" russian revolution?

1 Comment
2024/04/26
15:00 UTC

47

What if Russia never sells alaska?

After the Crimean war russia had economical problems and the russians saw alaska as a wasteland since it was only snow there it was even called siberea’s siberia and they feared there rival britan would invade them. So they sold alaska to the US so they would not give the advantage to the brits. Now the russians regret their decision since the americans found gold and other useful resources so what if russia never sold alaska?

20 Comments
2024/04/26
11:04 UTC

4

What if the Austronesians never reached and Migrated to Madagascar?

How would the overall history, cultures, politics, borders, linguistics, international relations/conflicts, technological advancement, and demographics of Madagascar be like? e.g. what if the Malagasy Peoples never existed?

Malagasy peoples - Wikipedia

2 Comments
2024/04/26
10:41 UTC

0

What if Japan and Italy swapped locations in early 1936?

As mentioned not only swap locations : including the navy, military, manpower, technology, manpower, culture, leadership, generals, colonies, puppet governments, etc...; move Japan to European Italy's location, and move Italy to Asian Japan's location.

Keep their name unchanged, now the "Japan" in Europe is still called Italy, and the "Italy" in Asia is still called Japan.

With this dramatic theater, what would the outcome of the coming world war be?

3 Comments
2024/04/26
09:15 UTC

3

If the war of attrition (in 1970) hadn't happened, would the arabs have been more or less successful in the yom kippur war?

I know that the effects of the war of attrition must have been very multi-faceted on the later Yom kippur war, as both sides lost a lot of soldiers & gained experience etc. But idk which side's army/ies it benefited [or damaged] more in the long term. So, you guys tell me

7 Comments
2024/04/25
10:44 UTC

9

What if Putin had enacted "Decommunization" policies in Russia during the 2000s?

More or less what if Putin had made an effort to distance Russia from its Soviet history, by replacing all hammer and sickles on buildings and statues in the country with Russian double headed eagles, renaming the Leningrad oblast to the Petrograd Oblast, burying Lenin, etc

5 Comments
2024/04/24
23:26 UTC

1

What if the Six-Day War ended in a draw?

Would Islamism still have replaced leftist pan-Arabism?

4 Comments
2024/04/24
21:02 UTC

4

If Bulgaria never joined the axis?

Idk i just like little scenarios

3 Comments
2024/04/24
20:09 UTC

6

How would italy get punished if they joined the central powers?

The title

4 Comments
2024/04/24
18:54 UTC

5

What if Emperor Justinian focused on conquering the Sassanids instead of the western mediterranean? (why he would do this is, is below)

the Germanic tribes almost completely wipe out christianity (including arianism) west of sardinia, the Persians have converted from Zoroastrianism to nestorian Christianity, but their empire has a large number of Eastern Orthodox christians, especially the Assyrians. Then, theodora dies before the visigothic queen does, and Justinian re-marries her, unifying the Byzantine empire with Italy. All this makes the Sassanid empire more subjugatable and the west, less, this all motivates him to go east, instead of west.

0 Comments
2024/04/24
17:20 UTC

5

What if Bulgaria joined the Entente? How will this affect the war?

In the OTL timeline Bulgaria joined the Central Powers during World War 1 in order to expand their domain, but after the Central Powers lost they had to forfeit territories to Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece and pay harsh reparations.

But what if Bulgaria joined the Entente on the promise that they will restore the territories they lost to Serbia and the Ottoman Empire during the Second Balkan War? How will this affect WW1?

0 Comments
2024/04/24
12:57 UTC

2

What If The Federalists Never Fell?

What If The Federalists survived and the DR party fell. How would America change?

0 Comments
2024/04/24
04:12 UTC

2

What if the Italians won the Battle of Adowa and conquered Ethiopia in 1896?

What if the Italians conquered Ethiopia in 1896 and won the Battle of Adowa?

ITALY ACCIDENTALLY CONQUERS ERITREA

In the 1880s, Eritrea and its ports on the Red Sea were important ports. The Suez Canal had been built in Egypt in 1869 and so the Red Sea and the Suez Canal saw a large flow of commercial ships, connecting the Mediterranean, Italy, and England with the Far East. Whoever controlled Eritrea would control the commercial flow through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean! The Eritrean ports of Massawa, Assab, and Suakim until 1883 were theoretically under the sovereignty of Egypt, which had conquered Sudan and Eritrea in the 1820s. In 1882, Egypt became a British protectorate. In 1885, Sudanese rebels led by the Mahdi rebelled and drove out the Egyptian and even English army from Sudan and Eritrea.

England decided to prevent Eritrea from falling into the hands of the Sudanese rebels and got in touch with Italy, an ally of England! The Italian army landed in Eritrea in 1882, conquering Suakim, Assab, and in 1885 Massawa. The Italians garrisoned Eritrea with Italian garrisons and defeated in some field battles the Sudanese rebels of the Mahdi who tried to assault the Italian forts. Italy decided to also conquer Ethiopia, or to transform Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate. The Italian generals in Eritrea had thought several times of sending an Italian army to conquer the Ethiopian region of Tigray, near Eritrea, but they did not have enough troops to do so and were defeated in some battles by the Ethiopians (in 1885 at Dogali 500 Italian soldiers were killed in an Ethiopian ambush!).

The Italians obviously mistreated the indigenous Eritreans. The Italian newspapers discovered a scandal when it was discovered that an Italian officer named Livraghi had hired Eritrean bandits, with whom he killed the richest Eritrean chiefs, then stole their goods and resold their wives as sexual slaves to other Italian officers. The Italian soldiers shot as spies every Eritrean chief who rebelled against the Italian plans to confiscate the land of the Eritreans, to give it to Italian settlers. The Italians were not very loved in Eritrea and there was always the risk that the natives would rebel against the Italian soldiers!

ITALY TRIES TO CONQUER ETHIOPIA

IN 1896 In the 1890s, the Italian government had given weapons to an Ethiopian nobleman, called Menelik, who had conquered Addis Ababa thanks to Italian help. Menelik therefore became Emperor of Ethiopia. Italy expected that in return Menelik would recognize the Italian protectorate over Ethiopia and that Menelik would cede the region of Tigray to Ethiopia. But Menelik was a brave African emperor and refused to make these concessions to Italy!

THE ITALIAN PLAN TO DEFEAT THE ETHIOPIANS IN THE BATTLE OF ADWA

In 1896, an Italian army of 15,000 Italian and Eritrean soldiers left the bases in Eritrea, to invade Ethiopia. The Italian soldiers moved through the mountains, dragging cannons and many weapons with horses and mules. The food and supplies came from Italy and passed through the Suez Canal, until they arrived in the Eritrean ports and then were transported by mule back on the mountains to reach the Italians in Eritrea. The Italian army advanced slowly and with difficulty, due to few supplies, unclear maps of the area, a mountainous and arid territory. The Italian general Baratieri decided to advance with his army in Tigray, a region with many mountains and difficult to move in. Baratieri had learned that Menelik’s Ethiopian army in 1896 was camped at Adua, in a basin between the mountains. Baratieri decided to divide the Italian army into three columns, which would have to make a night march in the middle of the mountains, and then arrive in the morning on the mountains overlooking the Ethiopian camp. If the Italian move had succeeded, the Italian army would have taken the Ethiopian camp by surprise and opened fire with the cannons on the Ethiopian camp: the Ethiopians would have been decimated by the Italian artillery and would have retreated. But the Italian generals had unclear maps of the Adua area and got lost in the mountains.

ITALIAN DEFEAT IN ADWA

At night, the Ethiopians had noticed the Italian presence and 100,000 Ethiopians armed with spears and modern rifles launched themselves against the three Italian columns that had gotten lost in the mountains, were slow to move and could not help each other. The Ethiopians assaulted the Italian columns, which ran out of ammunition and were defeated. 6,000 Italian soldiers died, thousands of Eritrean soldiers were captured by the Ethiopians and mutilated as traitors, 1,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner. Baratieri escaped death or capture by a miracle and managed to lead the defeated Italian army towards Eritrea. However, Menelik was unable to definitively drive the Italians out of Africa, taking advantage of the Ethiopian victory at Adua. Menelik’s army had had 7,000 Ethiopian dead and his army did not have artillery and means to pursue the Italians. Even if the Ethiopians had arrived up to the Eritrean coast in the hands of the Italians, Menelik would have had to besiege the forts defended by the Italians with cannons and more motivated soldiers. Also, the Italian fleet could have bombarded the Ethiopians from the sea, near the coast. The Ethiopians did not have artillery and such a military organization to organize the siege of these fortified cities and throw the Italians into the sea. After the Ethiopian victory at Adua, the war stopped with a return to the borders before 1896. The kingdom of Ethiopia remained independent and the Italians only maintained control of Eritrea: Italian colonialism remained firm in the Horn of Africa until 1935. Ethiopia became the only African state to have defeated and stopped European colonialism in Africa and a symbol of resistance for all Africans who had been conquered by the British and the French.

ALTERNATIVE OUTCOMES OF THE BATTLE OF ADUA

What would have happened if the Italian generals at Adua had had better maps, coordinating well and bombarding the Ethiopian camp with artillery?

If the Ethiopians had been defeated at Adua by the Italians, how could the Italians have continued the campaign and what would have happened to Menelik after a defeat?

If instead Menelik had decided to continue the war after Adua, assaulting the Italian forts in Eritrea, how could the war have ended?

6 Comments
2024/04/23
17:35 UTC

42

What modern thing would be the most interesting to study as a historian 500 years from now?

According to the rules, we're not talking about the recent 10 years, so let's imagine it's 2014 now

22 Comments
2024/04/23
16:52 UTC

3

Scenario for nuclear ww2 based off of post about Allied nuke in 1942

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalWhatIf/comments/1cal3ve/what_if_the_us_developed_nukes_in_1942/ The nukes would cause a lot of damage but the Germans may activate the chemical weapons or intensify the nuclear weapons programs. Most of the German forces are intact as is the industry and the Strategic bombing later in the war was not enough alone to take out Germany. However the damage to German industry would be like the damage from the 1944-5 city bombings but in isolated pockets going on every month. The Nukes would only grow more advanced as time went on forming a foundation for more advanced postwar nukes. Germans in 1942 would be screaming and crying at the US for nuking them in a way not seen with the strategic bombings and would clamor for revenge. The nukes would not cause German surrender but would be a new weapon that changed the course of the war. While the psychological aspect of being nuked would be important it would be in the context of ww2 the strategic bombing campaign taken to the next level.

Operational nuclear weapons may come into existence with D-Day accompanied by a nuclear explosion for example but many of the Soviet adaptations for fighting a ground war with tactical nuclear weapons would be invented by the Germans decades earlier we would find out how effective those soviet plans may have been. Goebbels would call the bomb an "evil Jewish atrocity weapon for destroying the German people" the impact of radiation poisoning would be publicized and massacres of Jews may be organized after each German City wiped off the map. These massacres may have the aim of using the remaining Jews as hostages in response to the atomic bombing campaign but it would not work and the bombings would continue.

The German leadership would also build much sturdier bunkers and a massive effort would be made in continuity of government operations including Hitler's whereabouts being secret. To take out the German leadership the Allies would have to have good intelligence or strike before Hitler's whereabouts become elusive. Large amounts of anti-aircraft weapons would be concentrated wherever Hitler did a speech at the expense of other places and a large unit of Luftwaffe planes would be formed for the protection of Hitler to shot down any allied decapitation strike.

Hundreds of nukes may be produced by the allies and dropped on Germany in the course of ww2. An interesting aspect would be the distinguishing of nuclear bombers from regular bombers. hard to distinguish from nuclear bombers and regular bombers any slight difference from the nuclear warheads would be noted as soon as it could be registered with large alarms and evacuation protocols if it could be found. Allied nuclear planes may very well need to be built differently as nuclear bombers got more advanced and nuclear weapons operational role shaped the design of allied aircraft. Design modifications for preventing the nukes from exploding enroute, increased security for the plane in its design due to a German city being saved by the nuclear bomber being shot down, as well aiming differences reflecting nuclear sized explosions.

Another design modification would reflect the allies mortal fear of the Nazis getting their own atomic bomb, the Germans would do everything in their power to infiltrate the Manhattan project, capture a nuke intact for the purpose as Goebbels or whoever succeeded him if he is blasted by a nuke would declare to nuke London. Fear of this would influence allied civil defense in both the US and Britain.

Desperate and futile German counter-force plans may also be cooked up and with German warplanes launched at suspected nuclear bombers in Britain. However, Nukes would only grow more deadly over time, Edward Teller's hydrogen bomb would receive a lot more funding in ww2 then otl.

Would this be enough to force Germany to surrender? it is unclear but defeat in Bagration and D-day may trigger a collapse in German morale due to the presence of both defeat and more German cities being wiped out. There may be large population movements of Germans fleeing the cities during the drowning of the 3rd Reich in nuclear fire. Towards the end of the war the allies when they encounter a German City in 1944-5 putting up resistance, may give that city 48 hours to surrender or be wiped out.

0 Comments
2024/04/23
03:14 UTC

9

What if the Mossad shot dead Eichmann in Argentina and there wasnt the Eichmann trial?

let's Imagine that the Israeli secret service and the Mossad Agents aren't able to capture Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. In Buenos Aires, the Mossad Agents track Eichmann... but a Mossad agent shoots him dead , because Eichmann tries to resist and escape during the kidnapping.

So there Isn't the kidnapping of Eichmann in Argentina, he isnt sent in Israel, he isnt tried publicly and executed by the Israeli government. The crimes of Eichmann won't be discussed publicly. There won't be any deep examination of the psychology of the burecrats that organised the genocide of Jews, ordered by the higher echelons of the nazi party . The Israeli journalist Hannah Arendt won't write his essay on the banality of evil.

Obviusly a Nazi criminal who ordered the genocide of the jews would have been eliminated! But the killing of Eichmann would be a secret killing, without a trial. The Israeli government won't be able to announce publicly the execution of Eichmann, in order to not break the International relationships with argentina .

Jewish victims of the nazi genocide, living in Israel, won't see the symbolical victory of the confession of the crimes of Eichmann and his hanging.

What could the consequences of the failed kidnapping of Eichmann be for the history of Israel, jews and the study of the genocides ?

0 Comments
2024/04/23
03:05 UTC

3

If WW2 never happened how long do you think dictatorships of Päts Ulmanis and Smetona would have lasted?

Would Baltics experience the similar Revolution like Portuguese Carnation Revolution?

0 Comments
2024/04/22
21:53 UTC

118

What if the US developed nukes in 1942?

The manhattan project is faster and the first nukes are developed in 1942, how would this impact WW2?

91 Comments
2024/04/22
20:19 UTC

4

Cromwell dies at Gainsborough: Enough to swing the English Civil War?

In OTL, Oliver Cromwell defeated Charles Cavendish's Royalists at the Battle of Gainsborough, where Cavendish himself lost his life in what is now Candish Bog.

In this timeline, two extra troops of Royalist horse make it to the battle. Fighting is fierce enough to cover a feigned retreat from Cavendish. Cromwell is outmanoeuvred and dies in Olver Bog.

Could Cromwell's death and a decisive early Royalist victory result in a different outcome to the English Civil Wars, and the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms? Marston Moor is either indecisive or a Royal victory, giving Charles access to more northern manpower. Prince Rupert proves himself the superior tactician at Naseby; Fairfax is captured.

Charles still negotiates in secret with the Scottish, but this time to switch sides and crush the Parliamentarians in exchange for church reform. Edward Montagu is arrested and executed in 1649, bringing the war to an end.

What happens next?

0 Comments
2024/04/22
19:53 UTC

0

What if the January 6th coup was a success?

Let's say that congress security is overwhelmed by the mob of Trump supporters, what would happen if the January 6th coup was a success?

18 Comments
2024/04/22
03:57 UTC

3

What if a Pan-Spanish American Coalition of Countries was formed after the Spanish-American Independence Wars as a Supranational Political and Economic Bloc?

And what if it also had a binding mutual security agreement? This is very unrealistic (if not alien space bats) but it's fun as a thought experiment I think. So how could history, socioeconomic development, politics, cultures, etc be altered in this alternate timeline?

Unión de Naciones Latinoamericanas (UNLA) alternate history scenario

0 Comments
2024/04/22
01:06 UTC

53

What if France fled to Algeria during ww2?

What if the French government instead of signing an armistice, flee to Algeria and set up their government there, keeping their African colonies. Why didn’t the French government do this? This is different from the Franco-British Union proposed in our timeline.

Would this change the European, African, and Asian fronts? Would Western Allies liberate more of Europe and be prepared for the Asian invasion?

13 Comments
2024/04/22
00:36 UTC

11

What if the Spanish Monarchy fled to the Spanish-American Colonies during the Napoleonic Wars?

How could this have affected history, the geopolitical situation in Europe & the Americas, cultures, demographics, socioeconomic development, etc?

like when the Portuguese King John VI fled to Brazil in wake of Portugal's war with Napoleonic France

0 Comments
2024/04/21
23:10 UTC

2

What if India became majority Christian

In this scenario, at least more than 50% or more of the population is Christian. With this in mind, how would it affect the history of the subcontinent and the world as whole?

5 Comments
2024/04/21
23:03 UTC

0

Historical Secrets: Baldwin IV and Saladin's Clash #unknownhistory #his...

0 Comments
2024/04/21
21:38 UTC

Back To Top